These readings are concerned with the ideas underlying planning and implementing a curriculum for the whole-school, preparing the schemes of work of a single class, and short-term planning and implementing particular teaching sessions. They concentrate on more than merely pragmatic concerns and thus, for example, they include the work of Woods & Jeffrey and Craft et al., who acknowledge the uniquely enriching role of the creativity and imagination of individual teachers in providing high quality, responsive curriculum experiences for the pupils in their classes. Atkinson & Claxton provide a reminder that, for the reflective teacher, intuitive responses from professionals must not be eradicated in a quest for ever-tighter planning and 'delivery' of the curriculum.
Woods, P. and Jeffrey, B. (1996) Teachable Moments: The Art of Teaching in Primary Schools, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Craft, A., Jeffrey, B. and Leibling, M. (2001) Creativity in Education, London: Continuum
Atkinson, T. and Claxton, G. (eds) (2000) The Intuitive Practitioner: On the Value of Not Always Knowing What One is Doing, Buckingham: Open University Press
There are alternative conceptions of the curriculum of which it is useful for the reflective teacher to be aware before considering those bound by national curricula. Perhaps the most important is that of early childhood educators, such as Katz, whilst Eisner and Egan present further alternatives to the school reform route that has been taken in the UK, and in America.
Egan, K. (1988) An Alternative Approach To Teaching And The Curriculum: Teaching as Storytelling, London: Routledge.
Eisner, E. (1999) Cognition and Curriculum Reconsidered: 2nd. Edition, London: Paul Chapman.
Perhaps the most robust and concise statement of key principles in curricular planning is HMI's classic (Reading 10.1), and its logic underlies Chapter 9 and 10 of Reflective Teaching in Schools.
