Thoughts from my classroom - Subject Leadership
Last September I took over as History co-ordinator in my
school. this is a subject I have a huge passion for but was never allowed to
lead instead finding myself leading subjects I was not proficient in. the
History in school had always been a source of annoyance to me, not least the
fact that every time I moved year group so did the location of our local
history units. (4 different year group changes and 4 local history units!) I wanted
to make sure that when I took over, I did not go straight in and try and change
everything but reflected on current practice and where I wanted the subject to
get to.
My first task was to map what we currently did in terms of
History against the National Curriculum. I had thought this would throw up some
problems and I was right! It turned out there were 2 parts of the national
curriculum we didn’t cover in key stage 2. We also only did 2 units a year in
key stage 2 but 3 in key stage 1. Once I knew what we were missing in terms of
coverage my next step was to look at the aims of the primary curriculum to see
what else from our offer was missing.
This was the best starting point for me, and I would suggest
other new co-ordinators as it allowed me to see what we offered what we should
be offering and then I could begin to map out my plan for moving the subject
forward. One of my biggest challenges I faced was traditions within my school. There
was the problem of a topic always being in a given year group and a general
reluctance to change. I therefore used my first staff meeting time to outline
what we currently offered, what the national curriculum said and why we needed
to change. I felt this would be the best way to ensure that everyone understood
the changes I was making and the rationale behind them.
Even with a History background from University I wanted to
ensure that I was as prepared as possible to lead my subject. I therefore
undertook a lot of CPD around primary History and subject leadership. There are
some great sources of support out there and I highly recommend joining Twitter
as the #edutwitter community on the whole is very supportive.
Redesigning our History curriculum has been a labour of love
and one that has taken many hours of work. I by no means feel it is perfect or
the finished article and it will be another year before we have fully
transitioned over from what we previously offered to where I want us to be as
there is a need to ensure that we have coverage of the National Curriculum
before my plans to extend this.
