Science Curriculum Booklets: managing the process and quality control
Trackers, trackers and trackers.
To manage this enormous task in a small-time frame, it was important that we track the progress and formation of all 36 booklets. Due to Coronavirus, work on booklets began later than usual, which only gave us 5 weeks to prepare the booklets for the Autumn term.
For my first step to tracking and organising the booklets, I created a centralised document which would contain every booklet that needed to be formed. I allocated the booklets to teachers equally so that no teacher was doing any more than two booklets.
Each allocated square was hyperlinked so that it would be easy to go into the teacher’s booklet.
Resources were prepared for teachers beforehand, so they wouldn’t need to source any of the information themselves. I ensure all KO memory questions, resources for phase 3, KOs and the LTPs were easily found on a Google sheet. These vital documents were hyperlinked to the centralised document on another tab called ‘instructions’. This was an easy guide for teachers to find what they needed. This was so that we could make the process of booklet making swift and easy.
My role was to ensure the systems were incredibly organised and to constantly provide feedback to all 36 booklets simultaneously so that in 5 weeks’ time, we had a consistent final product. We had meetings every Wednesday, where we’d discuss the progress, quality and quantity of the booklets with the HoD of Science for all 3 schools. This was a vital meeting, where we’d discuss any concerns and ensure progress was being made with these booklets.
Instructions
Making these booklets was a lengthy process. On average, each booklet needed 10 lessons. I knew in the short amount of time we had, I needed to create a guide which would be very easy for teachers to gather the information they needed.
Folders were formed and templates were created for teachers with clear instruction on how the booklet should be formatted and where the information for each section could be found. Each phase had hyperlinks to help direct the teacher to the folders and trackers they’d need.
I provided an example of an exemplar lesson, so teachers could compare their work to an outlined lesson.
I ensured the template for teachers to work on, would be found on Google Docs. This was so that I could monitor the progress of each booklet and go in at any time and begin formatting. This also helped when I needed to provide ongoing feedback. If I had waited for booklets to be formed on Microsoft Word we’d only be able to see the booklets after 5 weeks. This would mean we end up with 36 very different booklets. Formatting the documents would be incredibly difficult and bringing a form of consistency would take up a lot of time.
Booklet scrutiny and ongoing discussions
After the deadline, senior leaders in the Science teams across three schools were allocated booklets to ensure subject knowledge was correct and there were no overlaps in Trilogy and Separates specification. Formatting and consistency in all 36 booklets were achieved at this point, however, to ensure the lessons contained the correct content and that the exam questions accurately reflected the lessons, needed quality assurance. This was a crucial task for the subject leads and senior leaders before booklets went out to the publishers.