Curriculum design: Area-based curriculum

What’s the idea? The aim of an area-based curriculum is to enhance the educational experiences of young people ‘by creating rich connections with the communities, cities and cultures that surround them and by distributing the education effort across the people, organisations and institutions of a local area.’ (RSA, 2012) What does it mean? The idea behind an area-based approach is for schools to work in partnership with their communities – such as businesses, cultural organisations, parents and voluntary groups – to build a curriculum that is localised, contextual, relevant and engaging (Facer and Thomas, 2102; RSA, 2012). An area-based curriculum explores how the history, geography, culture and people within a localised community can enrich learning experiences in schools (Evans and Savage, 2015). The purpose behind this is to increase children’s understanding of the place they live and embed schools more deeply within their communities. For example, students might l