If ever there was a time to be bold in education, it’s now. Over the past two years, Covid-19 has thrown us a curve ball of gargantuan dimensions. It’s been a tough time for everyone. However, alongside the havoc it wreaked, I believe the pandemic has also acted as a much-needed catalyst for change in K-12 education.
Covid-19 effectively and abruptly removed the security blanket of conventional teaching and assessment routines, forcing teachers to critically examine what works and what doesn’t, what is indispensable and what is superfluous. As a result, many of us have become more nimble, more digitally adept, and more honest perhaps, about what children do and don’t need to learn, and about the best ways to support their development as individuals.
“Covid removed the security blanket of conventional routines, forcing teachers to critically examine what works and what doesn’t.”
That is certainly the case for me and the team I work with in at Misk Schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. For us, the pandemic came at a time when we had already started working on curriculum reform. Back in 2019, our oldest cohort was in Grade 7 and in my role as senior principal responsible for innovative curriculum development, I had been tasked with an overall review of our curriculum strategy. I was also developing a new Middle Years programme for our Key Stage 4 cohort (14-16 years) who would enter Grade 9 in September 2021.
The Power of Context
The initial context for our curriculum work was Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, HRH Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s ambitious blueprint for the future of the Kingdom.
The outbreak of Covid-19 added a second, turbulent context, prompting us to review our early work. Interestingly, despite the disruptive nature of the pandemic, we concluded that it had served to underscore a number of Vision 2030’s strategic imperatives. Specifically, these are the requirement for innovative and entrepreneurial work practices and mindsets, the importance of partnership between families and schools, and the need for education systems that foster confident, adaptable future leaders, capable of navigating and shaping an unpredictably complex world.
With the powerful combination of Vison 2030 and the pandemic as our backdrop, we found ourselves in a once-in-a-lifetime position, ready and able to kickstart a transformation of our professional practices by shaping a new 14-16 curriculum which would serve as the foundation for the development of our 16-18 programme in years ahead.
Our Design Process
As a starting point, we benchmarked schools across the world that put emphasis on innovative teaching practices and personalized learning. These included Whittle Schools, School 21, African Leadership Academy, Green School and Avenues among others.
We also drew heavily on some of education’s most notable thought leaders. These included Professor Dylan William on assessment, Professor Deborah Eyre, founder and chair of High Performance Learning, the work of Priya Lakhani OBE and her team of artificial intelligence experts at CENTURY Tech, and Charles Fadel, whose Center for Curriculum Redesign focuses on how to make education more relevant in the 21st Century.
“No two people are the same, so a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach was something we knew we needed to avoid.”
Finally, we made sure we understood and were ready to embrace the lessons of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Originating in the field of architecture, UDL is based on a core belief that what is “essential for some” is almost always “good for all”, (Meyer et al, 2014). As such, it provides a platform for inclusive education, aiming to eliminate barriers through design, rather than retrofitting after the design is completed as is the case with most existing curricula.
By providing multiple ways to deliver and demonstrate learning, a UDL framework supports student agency and facilitates a personalized approach to learning, making it meaningful for each individual. No two people are the same, so a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach was something we knew we needed to avoid.
Conclusions from this multi-layered exercise underlined our belief that the traditional, prescriptive, and content-heavy pathways most 14- to 16-year-olds follow, which are measured primarily via summative assessment, no longer have a place in education.
“The key was to reduce the cognitive load, allowing time for more holistic elements in which students’ character and talents can be nurtured.”
Confident that we understood what the key curriculum changes needed to be, we set about building a new and unique framework ready for our Year 9 students to start this academic year. With the freedom and support to unfetter ourselves from the rigidity of existing curricula (rare in schools today), we were able to build a structure that embraces essential traditional elements. But – in our view – it also offers our students a significantly enhanced development pathway fit for purpose in the 21st Century.
Courage to Recalibrate
After much consideration, we agreed that the key to success was to recalibrate our focus, reducing the cognitive load to allow time for more holistic, skills-based elements in which each student’s particular character and talents can be nurtured.
Of course, a bedrock of academic knowledge remains essential, but we recognized that if we are to deliver on our vision of preparing young people to lead in a volatile world, then they need much more from school than just knowledge – which is ubiquitously available online.
“Of course, a bedrock of academic knowledge remains essential.”
The result of our thinking was our Misk Middle Years Diploma, a two-year programme built on the premise that for learning to be effective, it needs to be personalized, experiential and interdisciplinary.
The Diploma has four “cores”, each accounting for roughly 25 per cent of curriculum time. Given two of the four cores are internship and leadership, around 50 per cent of our students’ time is invested in non-academic study – a bold move away from the worldwide norm.
Academic Core: Foundation subjects promoting bi-lingual literacy as well as creative, scientific, and mathematical proficiency, giving students the building blocks they need to apply knowledge in multiple scenarios. Students study an average of five IGCSE subjects.
National Studies Core: Alongside Arabic language skills, students gain a values-based, contextualized understanding of their faith and heritage, with a focus on responsible, ethical citizenry both at home and abroad
Leadership Core: Leadership in its widest sense – of self, of others and in fields of work and study – as well as the ability to be led and work collaboratively as part of an effective team
Internship Core: Practical experience of how knowledge and skills can be applied in real world scenarios through mentored work placements and careers planning, as well as the Duke of Edinburgh International Award
Assessment includes traditional summative elements, but the emphasis is strongly on formative techniques through a 360-degree record of progress in all areas, not just in exam performance.
What’s Next?
We are now working with two of the world’s leading experts in curriculum design and pedagogy to expand this pioneering approach across the whole school. Deliverables will include teacher training tools and courses for delivery in our own Misk Academy teacher training center, student assessment and accreditation strategies as well as a new 16-18 curriculum that builds on the Middle Years Diploma and is recognized as a compelling entry qualification by admissions officers in leading schools and universities across the world.
More information on the Misk Middle Years Diploma can be found here.