Building the Big Landscape
The first aim of the Better Practice SIG was to define ‘better curriculum practice’, and in turn to share best or better practice guidance. The group continually sought to respond to local, national contexts, world events as well as characteristics that defined over-arching subject-specific better practice regardless of national curricula. This is how the SIG describe the process.
To read more about how the Big Landscape was built, our philosophy and principles, please visit The Big Landscape: Viewpoints and Perspectives
All quotes are from AD 37, Viewpoints and perspectives, The Better Practice SIG, 2023, pp. 05-06
The SIG on Better Practice
‘We sought characteristics that defined better practice in the subject in relation to age and across all UK regions, regardless of national curricula or current political perspectives.
‘We explored the potential threat of orthodoxies in historic curriculum guidance, asking how this has resulted in misconceptions and misinformation about how best to teach the subject.’
The SIG on Subject Orthodoxies
‘To clarify what we mean by orthodoxy, we considered previous iterations of curriculum models, schemes and guidance published across the regions (particularly in England), including examination specifications where the outcomes were considered to have led to a ‘commonality of practice.’ This can sometimes devalue curiosity and perpetuate an over-formulaic approach to project planning and curriculum priorities.
‘If there is no prescribed artist list, no commonly agreed model of skills progression, essential knowledge or techniques that, if not taught, will invalidate your curriculum, then we must ask: What are we teaching? Why are we teaching the things we teach? And how does the way we teach it result in better learning outcomes?’
The SIG on Priorities for the Big Landscape
‘The SIG concluded that what we select and include within our curriculum is driven by values, informed by school/department ethos, the context, local community and ‘next step’ needs of the learner, guided by our own professionalism and woven into a focused, coherent and sequential taught experience. We also concluded that our curriculum is more than what we generally describe as ‘art’ and far more wide-ranging than adding some craft and design experiences.
Best practice layers the learning with a richness of critical and contextual opportunity that draws on wider concepts, cross-curricula aspects, issues/themes and dimensions that build and shape the learner’s knowledge and ability to make connections, parallel-process information and experiences creatively and with increasing originality. To give just two examples; making outcomes personal, socially meaningful and expressive, or descriptive, analytical, purposeful and graphically communicative.’
