Curriculum areas and subjects

The curriculum areas are the organisers for setting out the experiences and outcomes. In drawing up the experiences and outcomes, learning in each curriculum area has been reviewed and updated to emphasise the contributions it can make to developing the four capacities.

Building the Curriculum 1 outlined these contributions and also explored opportunities for connections between curriculum areas.

Curriculum areas are not structures for timetabling: establishments and partnerships have the freedom to think imaginatively about how the experiences and outcomes might be organised and planned for in creative ways which encourage deep, sustained learning and which meet the needs of their children and young people.

Subjects are an essential feature of the curriculum, particularly in secondary school. They provide an important and familiar structure for knowledge, offering a context for specialists to inspire, stretch and motivate. Throughout a young person’s learning there will be increasing specialisation and greater depth, which will lead to subjects increasingly being the principal means of structuring learning and delivering outcomes.

Experiences and outcomes

The experiences and outcomes describe the expectations for learning and progression in all areas of the curriculum.

The title ‘experiences and outcomes’ recognises the importance of the quality and nature of the learning experience in developing attributes and capabilities and in achieving active engagement, motivation and depth of learning. An outcome represents what is to be achieved.

They describe learning which has a clear purpose at levels from early to fourth in the acquiring of knowledge and the establishment of understanding. They also support the development of skills and attributes.

Important themes such as enterprise, citizenship, sustainable development, international education and creativity need to be developed in a range of contexts. Learning relating to these themes is therefore built in to the experiences and outcomes across the curriculum areas. This approach reduces the need for other layers of planning across the curriculum.