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Common Ground News

What is balance in curriculum design?

Author

Christopher Snyder

Updated on March 16, 2026

What is balance in curriculum design?

The Balanced Curriculum is designed so that the curriculum structure is specific enough to ensure similar implementation by district teachers while being general enough so that teachers have the freedom to use the curriculum to meet the needs of their classes.

Simply so, what is broad and balanced curriculum?

A broad curriculum offers all students a wide range of subjects for as long as possible. A balanced curriculum, meanwhile, might be regarded as one in which each subject is not only taught to all students but is afforded sufficient space on the timetable to deliver its distinct contribution.

Also, how do you create a broad and balanced curriculum? Best Practices for a Broad and Balanced Curriculum

  1. Research is important.
  2. Include principles in the curriculum.
  3. Champion numeracy and literacy.
  4. Plan for the long-term.
  5. Consider innovative timetables.
  6. Stress the status of all subjects within a curriculum.

Similarly, it is asked, what is breadth and balance?

Breadth means that children access a sufficiently diverse set of areas of learning. A balanced curriculum is responsive to learners' needs but also introduces them to new areas of knowledge. An overemphasis at any stage of education on particular topics, to the undue exclusion of others, is an imbalanced curriculum.

What does curriculum design include?

Curriculum design focuses on the creation of the overall course blueprint, mapping content to learning objectives, including how to develop a course outline and build the course. Each learning objective is met with assessment strategies, exercises, content, subject matter analysis, and interactive activities.

What are the 3 types of curriculum?

Curriculum is defined: planned learning experiences with intended outcomes while recognizing the importance of possible unintended outcomes. There are three types of curriculum: (1) explicit (stated curriculum), (2) hidden (unofficial curriculum), and (3) absent or null ( excluded curriculum).

What is the purpose of hidden curriculum?

In sum, the primary value of the concept of hidden curriculum is that it calls attention to aspects of schooling that are only occasionally acknowledged and remain largely unexamined. Messages communicated by schools' organization and culture can support or undermine their stated purposes and official curricula.

Why is a broad and balanced curriculum?

A broad and balanced curriculum provides children with the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to develop into well-rounded, informed individuals. A rich diet of learning experiences is undoubtedly the best way to develop well-rounded, happy individuals.

What is sequence in curriculum?

Interrelated concepts that refer to the overall organization of the curriculum in order to ensure its coherence and continuity. Scope refers to the breadth and depth of content and skills to be covered. Sequence refers to how these skills and content are ordered and presented to learners over time.

What is a balanced curriculum in education?

The Balanced Curriculum is a web-based tool that school districts use to create, align, assess, and manage their curriculum development and implementation. The courses are divided into time-bound units with significant tasks (or assured activities) that local district teachers develop and promise to teach.

What is the basic of the curriculum?

The Basic Curriculum Framework outlines the competencies it wants developed in learners as communication and collaboration, self-efficacy, critical and problem-solving, creativity and imagination, citizenship, digital literacy and learning to learn.

What is a curriculum end point?

These end-points, the foundational knowledge on which our curriculum is built, may be derived from the assessment objectives or learning outcomes for that subject as defined by Ofqual and awarding bodies, or may be the key concepts that the teachers of that subject deem most important.

What is a local curriculum?

Local curriculum refers to determining your priorities and foci for learning according to your own context and shared values. Local curriculum is also about being responsive to what is coming your way and what is currently important to you and your families.

What are the types of curriculum?

What Are the 8 Types of Curriculum?
  • Written Curriculum. A written curriculum is what is formally put down in writing and documented for teaching.
  • Taught Curriculum.
  • Supported Curriculum.
  • Assessed Curriculum.
  • Recommended Curriculum.
  • Hidden Curriculum.
  • Excluded Curriculum.
  • Learned Curriculum.

What is the wider curriculum?

The 'wider curriculum' refers to an experience of learning which goes beyond the limitations of the National Curriculum or the expectations of chief examiners. It is based on an understanding that a child's experience of school must involve far more than the number of qualifications they have gained.

What is null curriculum?

The null curriculum refers to what students do not have the opportunity to learn. In other words, what is absent or not included in the curriculum can actually be immensely present in what students are learning.

How do you lead learning?

12 WAYS TO LEAD LEARNING IN YOUR SCHOOL
  1. Classroom Visits. Observe less and visit more with your teachers and students.
  2. Engagement Q's. Invest time asking students questions.
  3. Unified Expectations.
  4. Story Listener.
  5. Cover Classes.
  6. Partner Planning.
  7. Lead Reader.
  8. Partner Observations.

Why do we need foundation subjects?

Foundation subjects such as history, geography, R.E, Citizenship and PHSE offer occasions for children to consider their responsibilities on issues surrounding the environment, local and global communities (Weil & McGill 1989) they also provide opportunities for children to use their creative and critical thinking

What does Ofsted say about the curriculum?

The curriculum, schemes of work, lessons and work given to pupils are sequenced and planned effectively so that pupils know more, can do more, and remember more. Teachers' pedagogical and subject content knowledge is good. Pupils' work and outcomes are good, including for specific groups.

What is the difference between curriculum and syllabus?

The curriculum contains the overall content as provided by an education board for a particular course spanning across a stipulated time period. Whereas the syllabus explains the summary of different topics covered or units that will be taught in a specific subject or discipline under that particular course.

Why is it important to teach the whole curriculum?

A broad curriculum should provide children with the opportunities to learn about themselves, their community, their values and the wider world to ensure they can make the most of it.

What are the disadvantages of broad field curriculum?

Criticisms of Broad fields Design
  • It lacks depth and cultivates shallowness.
  • It provides only bits and pieces of information from a variety of subjects.
  • It does not account for psychological organization by which learning takes place.

What do you mean by core curriculum?

The definition of core curriculum is a set of courses that are considered basic and essential for future class work and graduation. Math, science, English, history and geography are an example of core curriculum in a middle school or high school.

What is broad field curriculum?

The Broad Fields Curriculum Design.
The broad fields design combines two or more related subjects into a single broad field of study, for example, Language Arts combines the separate but related subjects of Reading, Spelling, Writing, Speaking, Listening, and Composition.

What are the areas of the national curriculum?

1.The National Curriculum includes a list of compulsory subjects that all students must be taught.
  • English.
  • Maths.
  • Science.
  • Design and technology.
  • Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
  • History.
  • Geography.
  • Art and design.

What are the three curriculum design models?

There are three models of curriculum design: subject-centered, learner-centered, and problem-centered design.

What are the five sources of curriculum design?

There are many sources of curriculum design and among them includes science, morals, learner, knowledge, and society. Some see curriculum design as a scientific process and they focus on quantifying the elements of the curriculum. This group often focus on thinking strategies and elements of cognitive psychology.

What are the three important point of curriculum design?

Curriculum design involves planning activities, readings, lessons, and assessments that achieve educational goals. Curriculum design can be segmented into three forms. These include subject-centered design, learner-centered design and problem-centered design.

What is a curriculum design model?

"According to Karen Schweitzer, is a term used to describe the purposeful, deliberate and systematic organization of curriculum (instructional blocks) within a class or course. In other words, it is a way for teachers design curriculum, they identify what will be done, who will do it, and what schedule to follow".

What is curriculum example?

The term curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course or program. An individual teacher's curriculum, for example, would be the specific learning standards, lessons, assignments, and materials used to organize and teach a particular course.

What is a good curriculum design?

A good curriculum is not rigid- it allows room for flexibility, monitoring and evaluation by administration. It should provide sufficient scope for the cultivation of unique skills, interest, attitudes and appreciations. Lastly, a Curriculum should be responsible for personality development of the learners.

What are the steps in curriculum planning?

Six-Steps in Curriculum Planning
  1. Establish a value base for the program.
  2. Develop a conceptual framework.
  3. Determine program goals.
  4. Design the program.
  5. Establish program assessment procedures.
  6. Implement the program.

What are the basic principles of curriculum development?

The process of curriculum development involves six steps such as assessment of educational needs, formulation of objectives, selection of learning experiences to attain these objectives, selection of content through which learning experiences may be offered, The organization and integration of learning experience and