What’s New and Coming Soon
Swimming activities and water safety site launched
- QCA has published Swimming Activities and Water Safety, a website of guidance and ideas for teachers. This site supports the planning and teaching of swimming activities and water safety as part of the national curriculum for PE. It has step-by-step approaches for completing the core tasks in the QCA/DfES schemes of work for PE, including water confidence, swimming strokes, and personal survival techniques. (Please note that parts of this site are under development.)
NC in Action site launched
- QCA has published NC in Action, a website that uses pupils’ work and case study material to show what the National Curriculum looks like in practice. The examples on the site show the standard of pupils’ work at different ages and key stages and how the programmes of study translate into real activities.
Education for sustainable development guidance updated
- QCA has updated its guidance on promoting education for sustainable development in the school. New sections on teaching and school management include information on developing school policy and involving the wider community as well as links to related topics.
Guidance for teaching gifted and talented pupils published
- QCA has published guidance for teachers, coordinators and others involved in teaching gifted and talented pupils in the context of an inclusive curriculum. It provides up-to-date support and aims to help schools by giving information and advice on establishing effective policies, setting suitable learning challenges and matching teaching to pupils’ needs. The site includes specific guidance for each national curriculum subject, as well as links to useful resources. General guidance on the site includes sections on identifying gifted and talented pupils, school and subject policies, the roles and responsibilities of the various people involved, managing provision, matching teaching to pupils’ needs and transfer and transition.
Latest site developments
- Learning across the curriculum support expanded
- More about Inclusion across the curriculum
- Better searching for citizenship and PSHE aspects of other subjects
DfEE/QCA schemes of work now linked through metadata system
- The DfEE/QCA Schemes of Work are now fully linked through the keywords of the National Curriculum metadata system. This means that in science, design and technology, ICT, history, geography, modern foreign languages, art and design, music and physical education you can select any requirement in the programme of study and find related schemes of work units. You can also do keyphrase searches that will find the relevant schemes of work. Citizenship schemes of work are due to come online later this year.
Guidelines for teaching pupils with learning difficulties published
- QCA has published major guidelines for all those who work with pupils with learning difficulties. This includes pupils who are often described as having severe, profound multiple, or moderate learning difficulties. The guidelines relate to all pupils aged five to 16 who are unlikely to achieve above level 2 at key stage 4. The guidelines are also available in print and as downloadable PDF files (from the web pages).