Rikki Gould has over 20 years’ experience as a classroom teacher and subject leader of English across trusts in the Midlands and the North West. She is currently the Secondary English Curriculum Writer at United Learning.

 

A trust-wide curriculum is designed to provide consistency, equity and a shared entitlement for all students. It is built on the principle that all learners, regardless of context, should receive the same diet of knowledge. Yet no curriculum can be entirely ‘one size fits all’. Every school serves a unique community, teaches students with different starting points and operates within its own context. 

The challenge for subject leaders is therefore adapting a centralised curriculum to meet local needs while preserving its intended substantive and disciplinary knowledge and core concepts. Here are some considerations at the macro and micro level of curriculum design that aim to support subject leaders and teachers to contextualise a Trust-wide English curriculum for their context.

 

Long Term: The Curriculum Overview 

Long-term adaptations concern the sequence of learning across years and key stages. Leaders should first establish the scope for adaptation and identify any non-negotiables, such as set texts, assessment windows or core content.

Where autonomy exists, leaders may wish to consider:

• Curriculum Intent: What is the intended learning? What substantive knowledge, disciplinary practices and core concepts will students develop? Do these align with your school’s vision and departmental priorities?
• Sequencing and Progression: How is progression made explicit? How does learning build on prior key-stage knowledge and prepare students for the next stage? Is knowledge introduced and revisited in a logical sequence that reduces cognitive load? What do students already know? Does available data reveal gaps that need addressing?
• School Context: Are the topics and text choices appropriate for your cohorts? Do they reflect the local context? Is there sufficient support and challenge for different learners? Will students see themselves reflected within the curriculum? Are diverse voices meaningfully represented?

Often, the key disciplinary concepts, knowledge progression and assessment architecture of a centralised curriculum will have been intentionally planned and may not be open to adaptation. However, where possible, adaptations can include:

• Broadening intended knowledge. For example, if a department’s intention is to develop confident, articulate speakers, but the curriculum is heavily reading and writing focused, approaches to oracy may need to be embedded. Selected outcomes could be conducted and assessed through speaking and listening while retaining the curriculum’s core concepts.
• Responding to students’ starting points. Prior attainment data and baseline assessments can inform adaptation. For example, where KS2 data and baseline testing reveals significant gaps in foundational knowledge, the content or sequence of the KS3 curriculum may need to revisit key concepts before students move forward. Supplementary content, such as explicit vocabulary instruction, reading fluency approaches or sentence grammar content could be incorporated to support progress.
• Reflecting local context. English departments are particularly well placed to reflect the diversity of the student body through text choices. Where leaders choose to substitute a text, they should ensure that the same core concepts and disciplinary knowledge remain teachable and that the replacement text provides an appropriate level of challenge.

 

Medium Term: Schemes of Work 

The substantive and disciplinary knowledge within a trust-wide curriculum is mapped across a key stage, with schemes of work planned to support progression. Before adapting a scheme of work, leaders should identify the core knowledge and skills it delivers and consider how this will be preserved. Otherwise, students may develop gaps in their understanding, particularly if subsequent units remain aligned to the central curriculum.

Adaptation therefore requires a firm understanding of the overall curriculum and its progression; what has come before, what students have already secured, what comes next, and what knowledge underpins later learning. Pre-learning checks – micro-assessments that test students’ retention of prerequisite knowledge – can help identify what knowledge is secure, and what may need to be revisited.

The most effective adaptations are evidence-informed and maintain curriculum coherence. Before implementing change, consider:

• Will this adaptation strengthen or weaken curriculum coherence?
• Does it preserve the planned progression?
• Will students still be prepared for subsequent learning?
• Is the change based on evidence or preference?
• Are we responding to a genuine need?
• What evidence suggests this adaptation will improve learning?

 

Short Term – Lesson Planning

When curriculum adaptation has been carefully considered and knowledge expectations are explicit, teachers are better placed to focus on adaptive teaching. Where subject leaders identify the non-negotiable knowledge, teachers can build appropriate support around it to meet student needs.

Trust-wide resources are often produced in a standard format; teachers may therefore need to adapt elements such as:

• Sequencing: retrieval practice, pre-teaching, flipped learning and complimentary homework.
• Vocabulary support: Tier 2 vocabulary instruction, etymology and morphology work.
• Reading support: chunking texts, guided reading, fluency practise, annotation models and teacher verbal modelling.
• Writing support: writing frames, model responses, success criteria, guided practise and vocabulary or sentence structure banks.
• Oracy support: discussion rules and routines, spoken language scaffolds and structured prompts.

Ultimately, lesson adaptations should be highly responsive to student needs while remaining aligned to the curriculum intent.

 

Final reflections

Any working curriculum is always in a constant state of flux – a continual cycle of review and refinement. Regular evaluation allows departments to assess the impact of adaptations and identify future improvements. Assessment data can reveal both strengths and gaps in students’ learning and help leaders determine where further adaptation may be needed.

At the same time, student and staff voice remains valuable; we want students and staff to enjoy the curriculum and have a love of the subject. What landed well? What proved challenging? Which aspects of the curriculum engaged students most successfully, and which require further refinement?

Strong curriculum adaptation is neither blind compliance nor complete autonomy. It is the professional process of preserving ambitious curriculum intentions while making learning accessible and successful for the students in front of us.

The most effective departments continually ask:

What must remain consistent, what can be adapted, and how do we know our adaptations improve learning?

When these questions drive decision-making, adaptation strengthens rather than fragments a trust-wide curriculum.