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Emma Turner outlines the unique considerations needed for designing and implementing a rich, high-quality primary curriculum which serves our youngest learners âEUR" a blend of academic thinking, educational research, the wisdom of decades of primary experience and a true love of the unique nature of primary.
About the author
Emma Turner has served in primary education for 25 years. She has been a class teacher, assistant headteacher, deputy headteacher and one half of one of the UK's first and youngest all female co-headships. She has been a consultant for the national strategies, trust research and CPD lead across 15 Leicestershire primary schools, and currently works part time as deputy director of education for a West Midlands trust across 18 primary schools.
She has previously written four books on education: Simplicitus: The Interconnected Primary Curriculum and Effective Subject Leadership, Be More Toddler, Let's Talk About Flex, and The Extended Mind In Action. She co-hosts the podcast Mind the Gap with Tom Sherrington and regularly speaks at national and international events about leadership and curriculum design.
Emma has trained thousands of colleagues in effective subject leadership and curriculum design and provides school improvement support both locally, nationally and internationally. She regularly guest lectures within ITE and ECF and has a special interest in the development of early career teachers.
Emma is also a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and Advisory board member for the Global Equality Collective. You can find her on Twitter as @Emma_Turner75.
Summary
Primary curriculum design has been in sharp focus in recent years. After leading on curriculum design and effective subject leadership for 24 years across multiple schools, Emma has written the handbook for both the complex thinking which underpins primary curriculum design and provided the practical models to make it work.
There is much advice out there for primary schools but much is often dominated by voices not trained or experienced in primary practice.
Emma outlines the unique considerations needed for designing and implementing a rich, high-quality curriculum which serves our youngest learners – a blend of academic thinking, educational research, the wisdom of decades of primary experience and a true love of the unique nature of primary.
Primary curriculum design is a unique knowledge domain of its own and Emma explains and explores how this knowledge and the thinking around it needs to be championed and implemented through both academic and child development lenses.
Rooted in experience, underpinned by successful approaches implemented in hundreds of schools – curriculum design in primary is complex and nuanced but it can also be 'Simplicitus'.
