Teacher education and the curriculum

In this chapter we analyse the development of primary teachers’ curriculum design capabilities through a case study from England. We examine how teachers, as co-researchers used the Curriculum Design Coherence (CDC) Model to gain insights into professional learning, as well as offering considerations in relation to the further development of the CDC Model itself. We explore the means of developing teachers’ relationship with knowledge and agency by cleaving open the intellectual space between lesson planning and curriculum specifications. We make the case that the approach to curriculum design currently predominate in the English context is largely transactional, limiting professionalism. We offer an alternative approach on based on developing teachers’ relationship with knowledge, foregrounding teachers as professionals with agency. Furthermore, we show how the systematic process of examining a curriculum can combat the conflation of curriculum and pedagogy, and deepen teachers’ understanding of subject knowledge.