Rethinking Curriculum - Chartered College of Teaching

What is Rethinking Curriculum?

Rethinking Curriculum is a long-term curriculum development project focused on building knowledge and skills within the English primary sector. The project aims to support and equip teachers and school leaders with the knowledge and skills to identify, plan and implement curriculum development work in a sustainable, context-specific and impactful approach. This will mean that all pupils will have access to an expansive, inspiring curriculum that connects them with local communities and enables them to lead healthy, fulfilled lives.

In the academic year 2023-24, an in-school co-design pilot was carried out with six primary schools across the country. We collaborated with expert designers to create curriculum development tools, which can be accessed below, based on areas identified by our research.

Curriculum Enrichment Toolkits

These enrichment toolkits have been developed in partnership with our pilot schools and wider curriculum experts.

Each toolkit contains resources that may help you to enrich your curriculum in the area and should be used as part of your wider curriculum implementation strategy.

These toolkits will continue to develop and additional resources will be added in response to sector developments. Should you wish to provide feedback or suggest a resource please contact jcrittenden@chartered.college

Toolkit:

Experiential learning

Toolkit:

Oracy

Toolkit:

Place-based community

Toolkit:

Nature based outdoor learning

Toolkit:

Pupil agency and voice

Toolkit:

Sustainability and climate change

Toolkit:

Play

Toolkit:

Expressive arts

Resources

Impact issue 25: A broad and varied curriculum

This issue will explore how teachers and leaders are working to develop broad and varied curricula that support all learners. Articles will cover curriculum planning and design, with a focus on the importance of inclusion and representation, the prominence of arts and the climate crisis in the curriculum, the place of sport and vocational subjects, how learners with SEND can be best supported.

Article by Emily Rankin, Alice Bradbury, Dominic Wyse and Yana Manyukhina, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy

7 minute read: The Rethinking Curriculum project provides important insights about the factors that can best support schools to implement meaningful and sustainable curriculum development. While the pilot schools all benefited from the project, an intensive programme with the levels of bespoke support that the pilot schools received may be unrealistic on a wider scale.

Read issue 18 of Impact

Impact Issue 18 is themed on curriculum is available to read online. A print copy was sent to all fee-paying members and to every school in England.

Bitesize CPD

You can now access an online micro-CPD unit for teachers and school leaders which you might find helpful to use as part of a discussion about your curriculum.

Curriculum Evaluation Framework

This curriculum evaluation tool has been developed for primary schools to bring together the principles of curriculum development. The tool is not designed to be used as a scoring card or a checklist but instead aims to focus and guide practitioners through the curriculum development process.

The Rapid Evidence Review by Helen Hamlyn

A rapid evidence assessment (REA) about experiential learning in education was undertaken to synthesise research concerning children aged 4-14. The REA investigated the effects that approaches to experiential learning had on children’s motivation, engagement, agency, wellbeing and academic achievement.

Rethinking Curriculum Partners

There will be many ways to get involved in the Rethinking Curriculum project, from attending events or signing up for learning opportunities. Please register to receive project updates by filling in the form below.

Pilot schools

We recruited schools from across the country to work with us to co-design and implement curriculum change resources, CPD and frameworks over the academic year 2023-24.

Our middle leadership co-design partners

We work with a number of middle leadership staff as partners

Expert Advisory Panel

A team of experts in the field of curriculum design are involved with this project.

Representation in middle leadership co-design partners

We have a team of Middle leaders who are involved with this project as co-designers

Find out more

The Rethinking Curriculum project is kindly funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. The Helen Hamlyn Trust is an independent grant-making Trust founded in 2001. The trust initiates medium and long term projects based upon its core ethos of developing innovative projects which aim to create sustainable change, improve quality of life and benefit the public.

The Trust’s work falls within the mission and objectives of The Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The Trust’s grant making is in the fields of medicine, arts and culture. education and welfare, healthy ageing, international humanitarian affairs and heritage conservation in India. The Trust builds relationships with leading organisations and individuals within these fields, connecting them to enable innovative projects to grow.

The Chartered College have worked on small scale projects with The Helen Hamlyn Trust before but this will be our first major project together.

Further information on The Helen Hamlyn Trust and Paul Hamlyn Foundation can be found :

https://www.phf.org.uk/

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/3978891

Read a message from our funders

Rethinking curriculum: Designing for the future

‘Education is the thread that connects every area of my Trust’s activities. In all our education work, we aim to address challenges and lack of opportunities. Encouraging children’s abilities at a young age is essential.’

Lady Hamlyn CBE

The Helen Hamlyn Trust’s core ethos is to support the development of innovative projects which aim to effect lasting change and improve quality of life. As an independent grant-making trust, its principal focus is on the initiation of medium and long-term projects linked to the shared interests of Helen Hamlyn and her late husband, Paul Hamlyn. The Trust works in the fields of medicine, arts and culture, education and welfare, heritage and conservation in India, international humanitarian affairs and healthy ageing.

The Trust is delighted to support this collaboration with the Chartered College of Teaching and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (0 – 11 years) at UCL’s Institute of Education as part of its continuing work to build on its Open Futures – askit growit cookit filmit learning programme: www.openfutures.com.

Over 12 years, Open Futures engaged 164 Primary Schools across England, benefitting over 80,000 children and enabling teachers to create meaningful, impactful learning environments and experiences. Open Futures was designed by, with and for the schools we worked with. Together, we established a flexible framework and training programme that addressed each school’s unique needs and diverse contexts. Every child matters every teacher matters, and every school leader matters.

The Trust has initiated this vital collaboration with the Chartered College of Teaching and HHCP (0-11 years) to support school leaders and teachers’ agency to have the confidence, as experts, to be ambitious in their curriculum design.

Young children have a right to an education that is meaningful to them and makes the best use of the most formative period in their development, nurturing their academic and personal, social and emotional growth in equal measure. This is what teachers go into the profession to do.

We hope this initiative will inspire teachers and school leaders nationally to do what they do best – provide meaningful learning experiences that allow young children to understand why what they are learning is important to them so that they want to learn more!

Latest announcements, blogs and updates from the project

July 10, 2025