Rainbow Curriculum Tool (2nd version currently being developed)

Others have written at length about the ‘journey’ from the release of The Donaldson Report to the realisation of curriculum for Wales. There is no intention to rehearse here the highs and lows along that journey.

Putting politics and blame aside, the fact is that some schools have progressed further along that journey than others. Regardless from September 2022, all primary schools have been required to implement their curriculum.

Whilst some schools claim to have ‘cracked it,’ we meet many staff who are lost and fearful of getting it wrong. Many criticise from the side-lines, wagging fingers and proclaiming how it mustn’t be done. Fewer share how it could be done.

Why A Rainbow?

A rainbow is made up of a number of distinct bands of light. If you were able to travel from one side of the rainbow to another you would pass from red to orange and then orange to yellow, and so on. Whilst each band is distinct, the boundary between the individual colours isn’t, with one colour slowly becoming the other.

 

 

 

 

Rainbow Curriculum Tool allows schools to set out what it expects children within a specific band colour to learn and experience. Progression is built in. For example ‘if a child working in the yellow band can do this in mathematical development, then a child working in the green band should be able to do that.’

Using this simple concept, The Rainbow Curriculum Tool provides a structure to curriculum develop, it builds in well-considered progression of knowledge, skills and understanding, from the very start making it clear to teachers what they are to plan for their learners to learn and experience. Most teachers currently plan with an eye on what is expected in a year group and then differentiate to meet the needs of more able and less able children. The Rainbow Curriculum Tool allows them to begin with what they know and understand, as in the first instance, it can relate a band colour to a year group.

There will of course be children working within different band colours within the one class.

Over time, at a pace appropriate to the individual schools, it is suggested that teachers should be encouraged to move away from thinking of year group and think more about at which band colour each child is working.

As time passes and the curriculum has its impact, schools may find that standards and progress improve to such an extent that the colour associated with each year group changes, e.g. more children in Year Two for instance are working within the blue band. The Rainbow Curriculum Tool promotes the raising of standards and the acceleration of progress.

The Rainbow Curriculum Tool ensures that teachers know what pupils at different band colours need.

What does the Rainbow Catalyst Tool do?

The Rainbow Curriculum Tool supports schools and their teachers. It keeps all curriculum development in one place. It is not a scheme of work! It helps staff focus on what is already in place and what needs to be done next.

It starts with what teachers know now and helps them move forward. It ensures that teachers are left to use their professionalism to know how best to meet the needs and interests of the learners in front of them. There are no jaded, over used topics or themes here! The tool ensures that teachers know the skills, knowledge and experiences that they need to explore with their learners and leaves them to determine how best to do this for their learners, adapting and changing themes and topics as their learners’ ability and interest grows.

The tool ensures that the descriptions of learning are mapped out and contribute to the Statements Of What Matter. It ensures that staff are reminded of the progression steps, as they plan for their learners. Where descriptions of learning are considered to be vague and are covered across a number of year groups (band colours), it allows staff to determine ‘what that looks like for our learners in our context.’

The tool facilitates the identification of cross curriculum links and makes the tracking of cross cutting themes easier.

What’s more, the tool allows a school to demonstrate the progress that its learners make! It is not a tracking tool! It allows teachers to see ‘if these learners can do x, next I need to plan for them to learn/experience y.’ It is all about the journey of the learner.

As schools populate the framework, creating an over view of  curriculum planning, the tool helps facilitate analysis such as the  identification of any gaps.

The Rainbow Curriculum Tool encourages schools to look at the learning and experiences across all six AoLEs. It is not a ladder for pupils to race up! It enables schools to be focused on the particular concepts that need to be developed, but equally importantly to be revisited and in a range of contexts. This is because revisiting, in engaging contexts, are key features of supporting retrieval practice! To that end the concept of teach and apply, becomes teach and apply and apply and apply!

The Rainbow Curriculum Tool In More Detail

The tool is made up of a number of lenses, allowing staff to focus on one aspect at a time.

Lens One

This lens facilitates the mapping of the descriptions of learning to particular colour bands (year groups).

When some descriptions of learning are assigned to more than one band colour, the tool enables the creation of a text that allows staff to add detail. For example, if ‘I can explore and experiment with a variety of creative techniques, materials, processes, resources, tools and technologies’ is assigned to red and orange bands, then teachers can add what that looks like for children working at these band colours in that school/cluster.

This stage is important because it is here that the real differences in CfW are apparent. If this stage is missed and teachers move too quickly to themes and topics for particular year groups then there is a real danger that the school simply reinvents the status quo.

 

Lens 2: Vocabulary

Here the school/cluster can highlight the key vocabulary that learners will know in each AoLE at each stage (band colour/year group). This can bring clarity to what needs to be taught/learned and ensure progression.

The following example is an extract from the Drama Lens available:

Progression Step 2

Devising strategies:

Action clip:  the teacher brings a freeze frame to life with ‘action’ for a short period of time before stopping with another freeze frame.

Extended role-play: increasing the length of time that children act out or perform the part of a person or character.

Hot seating: dialogue with a character. A character sits in an appointed chair (the hot seat) and is open to questioning by the other children. The character must answer in role.

Improvisation: to invent and create a scene. Improvised drama is work that hasn’t been scripted but is made up as you go along.

Mime: role-play without any sound.

Tableaux: a living picture or freeze frame.

Thought tracking: a character steps out of a scene to tell the audience how they’re feeling.

Genre, style and form:

Genre (the type of story being told):

Comedy: a drama that is intended to make the audience laugh. A play characterized by its humorous or satirical tone and its depiction of amusing people or incidents, in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity.

Fiction/non-fiction:

Pantomime: a pantomime will include audience participation, songs, gags, slapstick comedy, dancing and special effects. It employs gender-crossing actors and combines topical humour with a story based on a well-known fairy tale or fable.

Tragedy: a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one with the downfall of the main character.

Lens Three: Experiences.

This lens allows the school to focus on the experiences they intend to provide for their learners.

The experiences may come from the school’s learner entitlement or from those experiences that the school aims to provide all learners during their time at the school.

The tool allows schools to identify the AoLEs to which the experience is relevant and to highlight any links to specific learning.

Lens Four: Inquiry

This lens allows the school to focus on how it develops inquiry.

A school may choose to devise, possibly with learners, key questions to be explored with each AoLE.

Lens Five: Thinking Tools

This lens allows schools to focus on the tools it uses to develop learners’ thinking. Where the same tool is used in more than one band colour/year group, the school can indicate how the tool or use of the tool is being developed e.g. from two circles to three in a Venn diagram.

The document below, although from 2010, is a superb resource for schools to consider a range of thinking tools. This lens is populated with the tools listed within the document. Schools can easily add tools of their own to the lens.

The development of thinking tools is based on a simple progression of three stages:

1. The thinking tool being introduced to pupils who are taught about the tool and to use it in contexts usually determined by the teacher. (Modelled approach)

• The learners are given frequent opportunities to use and apply the thinking tools that they know. The teacher will encourage this through prompts such as “Would it be best to uses a Venn diagram or Diamond ranking?” (Scaffolded approach)

• Learners use their knowledge of a range of thinking tools and make increasingly valid choices about the types thinking tools that they will use, why they are valid, (and why they may have disregarded other thinking tools). They do this with little, or no prompting. (Independent approach).

Additional Grids.

The package comes with two empty lenses for schools to use as they choose.

The one lens has just the colour bands whilst the other has the AoLE columns.

The school may use the tool to map cross curricular links, as well as the cross cutting and integral skills.

And Finally

Once staff have worked through this process, working through a lens at a time, they will be in a much better position to deliver the local curriculum. This is what is planned to happen in their classroom. If the process has been followed then learners will experience learning and experiences that engage them fully, meeting their needs and their interests

Simply complete and return the order form below.

What do you get for your money?

Rainbow Catalyst

• Lens: Concepts
• Lens: Vocabulary
• Lens: Experiences
• Lens: Enquiry
• Lens: Thinking Tools
• One additional lens with band colours
• One additional lens with band colours and AoLE columns
• Guidance notes

When is it available?

Available to order now.

IT Requirements:

The Catalyst Rainbow Curriculum Tool has been developed to run in the modern browsers across Windows, Chromebook, Mac and Linux operating systems and should run on most browsers developed in the last 5 years. The tool has been tested on the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Functionality in Catalyst Rainbow Curriculum Tool requires that JavaScript is enabled and IT permissions allow “Local Storage” to be written to (this is default behaviour).

 

It is evolving too! Not every school has an expert in every area. This can lead to issues with regards to staff subject knowledge. An additional lens can provide the subject knowledge needed at each progression step. The lens for drama has been completed. We are in discussion to determine if other subject lenses are required. A lens for film and digital media is almost complete.

The Rainbow Curriculum Tool covers progression step one, two and three.

The Prism Curriculum Tool will cover progression steps three, four and five.