Rationale for the conference.
- Essex has a history of promoting MoE since 1991 and has established national and international networks throughout the UK and the USA.
- Many teachers and educators have expressed an interest in the system and want to know how it works.
- In Essex the remodelling of the Primary Curriculum has been successfully attempted through MoE in a number of schools.
- Networks are already established in Essex through the PSLNs.
- Long standing networks across the eastern counties can be drawn together to evaluate current progress.
- Establishment (HMI/Ofsted/Innovations Unit/other LA’s) have recognised that the pioneering work in the eastern region needs to be disseminated more widely.
- Curriculum design for the 21st century is in its infancy and the methodology used is new and requires teachers to do things differently. We can demonstrate how this can be addressed at the conference.
- People on the national stage have signalled a growing interest in promoting the system as a direct route to the challenges set by inclusion, the ECM agenda and raising standards of achievement especially amongst WWCB’s.
- We now have a significant forum of practitioners who are at the cutting edge of curriculum innovation and the conference will provide opportunities for Essex teachers to share their practice with others in the field and to take a lead nationally in moving the work forwards.
- Leaders in the field are known to the tutors of the system and will be invited to contribute and present their current thinking including the founder of the system - Dr. Heathcote formally Reader in education at Newcastle School of Education, Newcastle upon Tyne University.
