Planning a whole-school curriculum for school leadership teams (secondary)

Program Overview

This year-long program is designed to guide a team of school leaders to develop a school-specific knowledge-rich and coherent curriculum across subject areas. The program aims to build knowledge of what a high-quality, sequenced curriculum looks like, and how teams of teachers can work together to create a curriculum specific to their context. Sessions include a mix of curriculum knowledge-building alongside personal coaching and support. Opportunity to connect and share experiences with other schools who are also committed to building coherent, knowledge rich curriculum underpinned by explicit and responsive pedagogical approaches. 

What will I learn about?

• The features of a knowledge-rich and coherent curriculum.
• How to audit an existing school curriculum.
• How to develop an ambitious, sequenced and coherent curriculum plan that supports an ambitious, knowledge-rich curriculum specific to the school, with reference to the appropriate national or state curriculum (note school teams will be working on developing and finalising their own school curriculum plans). 
• Starting to think about phased implementation of the plan, and how supporting resources could be developed over time (note that a subsequent short program is under development focused on implementation support).  

The program will be run by Ochre Education’s Reid Smith (co-CEO), with additional support from Ochre’s education team.

Who is it for?

This program is designed for school-based leadership teams (secondary-school focus) who are keen to develop their understanding of curriculum, its evaluation and implementation. Leadership teams could include middle leaders, heads of department or Principals (depending on school context). Participants can be drawn from across States and Territories and all sectors. Ideally, participating schools should have an existing pedagogical model to draw from.

Although this course will draw on Ochre resources to demonstrate key concepts, it is relevant for all schools, irrespective of whether they use Ochre materials or not.

How is it structured?

There are six 2-3 hour virtual workshops (via Zoom) (scheduled during late mornings AEST / early mornings AWST), in which school teams learn together and apply that learning in session. Alongside the webinars, schools have two opportunities to consult with curriculum experts for feedback and next-step problem-solving, conducted as a 30-minute online group coaching session assigned per school. It will require a commitment from leadership teams of approximately 75 hours of work to be undertaken across the 12 months. All workshops will also be recorded for review.

When does the program run? 

Cohort 1 will kick-off in Term 3 2025 to support planning for the 2025-26 school year. It will continue into the end of Term 1 2026. 

What is the cost?

The school course cost is $4,800 plus GST for up to 4 participants. This fee provides access to the webinars, curriculum feedback and access to additional resources, tools and templates. Note that all participants covered in the school fee must be from the participating school.

Extra participants from the same school can be added for an additional $399 plus GST per person.