Community curriculum-making: Mixing the ‘local’ with the National Curriculum

Principles of community curriculum-making Most people will be familiar with the African proverb that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Hold that thought. There are a range of pressing issues facing society in 2019. These are well represented in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which include: affordable and green energy sustainable cities and communities good health and wellbeing climate action.   While there are long-term trends upwards in GCSE and A-level results, for which schools are highly accountable and should take much credit, it is debatable whether the current curriculum is preparing young people for such challenges. Our argument is that where there are spaces to do so, there is a strong logic in using the principles of community curriculum-making (CCM). CCM is a variant of project-based learning (PBL), reflecting a number of other influences. The first of these influences is engagement. Engagement is a critical concept in ed