FINDING PURPOSE AND MEANING IN THE CURRICULUM
For Mark Beverley, we have to get beyond the mechanics of syllabus coverage if we are going to inspire students at the top end of the school.
Our research shows that as students mature in their school lives, there is a decline in notions of meaning, purpose and an associated ‘sense of wonder’. The main reasons for this, according to our students, are increasing pressure associated with taking examinations and applying to university. This seems to stifle reflective practices, engagement with deeper levels of independent thought, and creativity. How can we restore a sense of balance in the classroom?
The nature of the curriculum
The ideas of meaning and purpose – both for teachers and students, are more likely to make their presence felt when the school curriculum as a whole is reflective of an agreed set of core values and aims.
Whilst the big questions of a school’s principles of curriculum design can (and should) be addressed, it is in discussions about how individual subjects attend to these principles of design that abstract ideas can be made concrete.
Finding meaning and purpose in a subject not only emerges from exploring the ways in which it might attend to school values that sit outside its natural remit, but also in consideration of key questions about what shapes it as a way of knowing. For example:
- What is the essential nature of this discipline?
- What brings meaning to it?
- What is this discipline seeking to achieve?
- To what extent does it incorporate learning from other subjects?
- How are knowledge and skills related to each other in this discipline?
This opens doors to a range of interesting issues, intellectual, social, cultural and political. Questions can also play an important role in terms of the way we approach units of study. They can give a sense of meaning and purpose, because they characterise learning as an act of discovery and of participation, as much as something received.
The same principle can of course extend to the minutiae of day-to-day learning interactions: open questions that promote a sense of collaborative; critical dialogue, along with providing thinking time for students to consider their answers; and ‘consistently using discussion and/or interaction to help learners see the point and purpose of what they are learning about’ (Morgan et al, 2023). These are powerful metacognitive means through which student investment in learning can be achieved.
A sense of wonder
If we are being serious about the development of a meaningful curriculum that is both intended and enacted (William 2013), its defining features need to be made explicit. Discrete interventions can otherwise feel like something added on, their impact accordingly limited. Development can often be brought relatively easily to curricula in younger years, where there is a relative degree of freedom. But it can also take place in the middle and upper school years, which are inevitably more defined by externally prescribed syllabuses.
The ideal and its implementation
A curriculum is ideally conceived as something created more than it is enforced, one that meets the requirements of final exams, but is driven and/or framed more by a broader sense of purpose.
We might, for example, see the study of a collection of poems in a given GCSE English anthology, not as a series of analytical boxes to be ticked in preparation for the exam, but through a series of enquiry questions, or in terms of a larger concept, such as the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Or we might examine aspects of 20th century US race relations and Apartheid South Africa as much in terms of what they comparatively ‘say’ about the power of individuals to enact change over time, as the content particular to each. Inspiring material might also come from cross-curricular approaches. Content prescribed by examination boards can be absorbed into wider areas of exploration that aim for greater intellectual depth and a sense of value. In other words, curricula do not need to be defined by nature of the assessment tasks that come along at the end.
Creative habits of mind
Learning is perhaps most meaningful when students are cognitively and behaviourally engaged in it. This is a condition very much facilitated by the feeling of wanting to know, of being inquisitive, which can be explicitly modelled, as well as nurtured, through careful consideration of the taught curriculum.
Applying such ‘creative habits of mind’ to the nature of curricula can bring about a reimagining of educational practices that may have become formulaic, as well as elicit staff and student investment in the nature of what and how we teach and the ways in which learning is lent meaning and purpose.
If schools as a whole, groups of teachers in departments or individual practitioners in their classrooms consider the elements that make an education actually worth it, then we are more likely to generate conditions in which students are more motivated, more likely to achieve, and in the end, fundamentally happier.
Mark Beverley is Director of the Institute of Teaching and Learning at Sevenoaks School
In October, Sevenoaks School’s Institute of Teaching & Learning will host the “Educating for Meaning and Purpose” Conference. The topic is a continuation on the theme of student flourishing – the focus of our previous conference, held in 2023. This year’s one-day programme includes keynote presentations, talks and informal, practical workshops and interactive sessions designed to help students lead more fulfilling educational lives.
The “Educating for Meaning and Purpose” Conference takes place on 17 October 2025 at Sevenoaks School. Tickets are available online now and are free for state school educators or £70 for the independent sector.
References
Morgan, A., Pennington, H., & Milton, E., (2023) Key consideration to developing a curriculum that supports learners’ mental health and wellbeing, Impact, Chartered College of Teaching: Issue 18
Wiliam, Dylan. (2013). Principled curriculum design. https://webcontent.ssatuk.co.uk/wp-content/up loads/2023/12/05151905/SSAT-Redesigning-School ing-03-Principled-curriculum-design.pdf
FEATURE IMAGE: by Iliya Ryakhovskiy on Unsplash
Support Images: With kind permission from Sevenoaks School
