Primary Huh 2: Primary curriculum leadership conversations

Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted as their god of the school curriculum. Their first book in the Huh series focused upon how school practitioners design the Key Stage 3 curriculum. Its popularity prompted calls from many quarters for a similar book on the primary curriculum. Supported by their primary colleagues, Rachel Higginson, Lekha Sharma & Emma Turner, Mary and John interviewed over 30 primary practitioners about how they design the primary curriculum. Considering the diverse nature of primary schools in this country, it’s not surprising that they were soon confronted with numerous context-dependent curriculum complexities. Designing the curriculum for small primary schools, for instance, means solving the conundrum of teaching the same subject at the same time to three different year groups in one class. The conversations confirmed that shaping a primary school curriculum is a tricky business! The wisdom gleaned from the genuine experts Mary and John interviewed was limitless. The material was so important it meant that they had too much for a single volume. Twenty-one of those thirty-plus conversations comprise the book Primary Huh, which focused upon the curriculum of each individual subject from EYFS to Year 6. In this companion book, Primary Huh 2, Mary and John give a platform to practitioners who lead on the broader issues of primary curriculum design, including, amongst other things: shaping the curriculum for mixed-age classes; designing and implementing a cross-MAT curriculum; building the “cradle to career” curriculum; timetabling; assessment; transition, and diversity. Primary Huh 2 is riven through with authentic voices grappling with the endless challenge of providing our children with a rich, challenging, ambitious, beautiful curriculum.

Mary Myatt is an education adviser, writer and speaker. She trained as an RE teacher and is a former local authority adviser and inspector. She engages with pupils, teachers and leaders about learning, leadership and the curriculum.

Mary has written extensively about leadership, school improvement and the curriculum. Her current work focuses on the Huh Curriculum series for primary, secondary and SEND alongside the Huh Academy with John Tomsett.

She has established Myatt & Co, an online platform with films for ongoing professional development including the popular Primary Subject Networks and Secondary Subject Networks. Her most recent work is the development of The Teachers' Collection, underpinned by the findings from the 'Faster Read' research from the University of Sussex.

Mary is a patron of CAPE, and has been a governor in three schools and a trustee for a multi-academy trust. She maintains that there are no quick fixes and that great outcomes for pupils are not achieved through tick boxes.

www.marymyatt.com
X: @MaryMyatt

John Tomsett taught for 33 years in state schools and was a teaching secondary headteacher for 18 years. He writes a blog called This Much I Know and has written extensively about school leadership. He has published 10 books, including: Love Over Fear: Creating a Culture for Truly Great Teaching; Putting Staff First: A Blueprint for Revitalising our Schools (with Jonny Uttley); Cognitive Apprenticeship in Action (editor); Huh: Curriculum conversations between subject and senior leaders; Primary Huh: Curriculum conversations with subject leaders in primary schools; Primary Huh 2: Primary curriculum leadership conversations; SEND Huh: Curriculum conversations with SEND leaders; and Alternative Provision Huh: Curriculum conversations with AP leaders (all with Mary Myatt).

He maintains that the best thing for our students is that our teachers are happy, healthy, well-qualified, highly motivated, hard-working, well-trained experts. Consequently, he believes we should put staff first.

www.johntomsett.com
X: @johntomsett