Connection and Curriculum.

Focusing on sustainable whole-school connection can dramatically improve how curriculum is developed and delivered, leading to more relevant and engaging educational experiences for students.

This approach fosters a cohesive learning environment that enhances collaboration between staff, students, and the wider community, ensuring that the curriculum not only meets academic standards but also resonates with students' lives and interests.

When schools prioritise strong connections across all levels—teachers, students, parents, and community partners—they can create a more engaging and relevant curriculum. A recent study highlighted how community-connected learning models, which emphasise the inclusion of local contexts and student identities, lead to significant improvements in student engagement and academic performance. These models, particularly when applied in whole-school strategies, encourage experiential learning, collaborative problem-solving, and inquiry-based approaches that make education more meaningful and applicable to real-world situations.

A report from Brookings details how partnerships between schools and community organisations help students apply their learning in local contexts. These collaborations often integrate community issues into the curriculum, allowing students to see their education as relevant to their everyday lives. This boosts engagement, with students feeling more invested in their learning.

So the question is: is your curriculum truly relevant?

As an educational leader, it’s important to ask: Is the curriculum we’re offering designed to connect with students' diverse backgrounds and experiences? Traditional top-down curriculum models can feel disconnected from the realities students face, but by emphasising whole-school connection, you create opportunities for teachers to co-design the curriculum with students and the community.

A key provocation here is to challenge educators to rethink how they develop curriculum.

• Are there enough opportunities for students to influence their learning?
• Do the themes and projects reflect issues that matter to the local community?

When schools fail to make these connections, students may disengage from learning. However, a connected school fosters a curriculum that is dynamic, inclusive, and grounded in the cultural, social, and intellectual capital of the student body.

So what can you do?

1. Incorporate Inquiry-Based Learning: Inquiry-based learning empowers students to ask their own questions and explore them in a structured way. By fostering curiosity and allowing students to investigate issues that matter to them, you build deeper engagement. For example, some schools have partnered with local organisations to create problem-based learning projects that connect classroom content to real community challenges (Brookings).
2. Leverage Community Expertise: Engage local businesses, parents, and experts as part of the teaching process. Schools that adopt community-connected approaches often integrate external voices into the curriculum, allowing students to see their learning in action. This can range from community-led environmental projects to partnering with local media outlets to develop student-run initiatives. Such collaborations ensure the curriculum stays relevant while supporting students' understanding of their community's role in their education (Brookings).
3. Create Opportunities for Experiential Learning: Learning outside the classroom, whether through local field trips, partnerships with museums, or internships, provides students with hands-on experiences that bring their studies to life. Schools that prioritise whole-school connection often extend learning beyond the traditional classroom, using the local community as a resource for curriculum development (Brookings).

If you are an evidence-based and statistics lover, you'll be happy to note that the value of fostering whole-school connection to improve curriculum outcomes is most certainly backed by data.

According to a study on school-family-community partnerships, schools that embraced a whole-school connection approach saw a 21% increase in student engagement and a 15% improvement in overall academic achievement compared to those that did not adopt such practices. Moreover, 68% of teachers in connected schools reported feeling more motivated and supported in their roles, demonstrating how whole-school connection can positively impact both curriculum relevance and staff morale.

A curriculum built around sustainable whole-school connection is not just about improving academic outcomes; it’s about creating an educational experience that is deeply relevant to the students, staff, and community.

By fostering partnerships, encouraging inquiry, and integrating real-world experiences, educational leaders can ensure that their curriculum speaks to the needs and aspirations of every learner.

As we finish this issue, here is a final thought from my book:

"Within schools, the curriculum being taught, the teaching quality and policies that support those processes have a significant impact on the young person, however, students are rarely afforded the opportunity to share their views in an official capacity".

Thanks for reading.

Issues of this newsletter are published fortnightly/biweekly on Sunday mornings at 8am (GMT+11).

You can purchase my book 'The Connection Curriculum: Igniting Positive Change in Schools Through Sustainable Connection' from your favourite online retailer now or use one of the links below:

?? Amba Press: https://ambapress.com.au/collections/view-all/products/the-connection-curriculum

?? Amazon: https://lnkd.in/gE8ARrJQ