Each curriculum shares one goal: help students learn.
The ideal curriculum does much more than just guide math, reading, and history lessons. It can benefit schools just as much as students, from teachers to administration. And it can help schools connect with parents and the community around them.
So, why is it essential to ensure you’re putting the best plans in place for your students and your school? Let’s dive into the seven reasons why your curriculum matters.
What can a good curriculum do?
1. It Creates and Reflects Culture and Identity
On a broad level, a curriculum reflects the national culture—different countries have different expectations of their students, even if teaching practices are similar. It can also reflect and define the culture at the school level, from the specific needs of the local community to the topics where you want to differentiate yourself.
2. It Keeps Up with a Changing World
A good curriculum is never a one-and-done initiative. Revisiting it regularly allows you to review how things are going and make room for new topics that are relevant today. In fact, the World Economic Forum recommends curriculum as a key player in helping educators keep up with the speed of changing trends, technology, and skills students will need in the future.
3. It Makes Learning (and Teaching) Consistent
Curriculum can provide consistent coverage of standards that ensures equitable instruction between classes, schools, districts, and states or provinces. With horizontal alignment, students get equal access to high-quality instruction regardless of their assigned class.
4. It Opens the Doors for Collaboration
Regular discussions about curriculum create opportunities to get everyone in the school community involved—teachers, administration, and families. Getting input from everyone will help identify where you’re strong and what gaps you need to address. It also gives teachers a platform to share best practices, knowledge, and resources.
5. It Saves Schools Money
Textbooks aren’t cheap, but they’re commonplace because they’re convenient—they provide a pre-built progression of knowledge that’s convenient for busy teachers. With a strong curriculum, schools can break away from an over-reliance on textbooks and create more dynamic opportunities for different kinds of learning.
6. It Helps Teachers Vertically Align
A good curriculum also connects teachers from across grade levels and subject areas to look at the big picture of student learning. Teachers can work together to plan a progression of topics that builds from what came before and connects across disciplines. The result? You reinforce knowledge over time and prepare students for what’s coming next.
7. It Provides Measurable Targets
Data matters. If you aren’t setting specific goals around how your students learn, how will you determine your curriculum’s success? A good curriculum sets measurable outcomes and tracks progress throughout the year. Teachers get a better view of what’s happening in the classrooms, so students know where they stand, and parents are kept up-to-date.
How do you build a good curriculum?
Ready to turn your curriculum into a good one? We recommend starting by mapping out your curriculum with—you guessed it—a curriculum map. It’s a documented overview that captures the scope of each class and how teachers will approach each topic.
It’s a great way to finalize and balance things like:
- Standards on a government level
- Sequence of standards taught in class
- Skills students should be able to perform
- Content that students will encounter
- Assessments that will gauge learning
- Timelines for lessons and units within each class
Because a curriculum map is essentially a learning plan, it helps approach it like one. Get a detailed overview of the process for creating your learning plan in our complete guide to curriculum mapping below.
A Beginner’s Guide to Curriculum Mapping
Learn how to create, implement, and sustain an adaptable curriculum that best suits your school or district.
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