Huh? is my usual response when I enter a Year 6 grammar class! But little did I know when I began working with the indefatigable Mary Myatt that Huh would prove to be the perfect title for our current curriculum project.
In February 2021 I emailed Mary with a proposal. I wanted to write a book whose working title was, “The middle leaders’ guide to the curriculum for senior leaders so that when they have a line manager meeting and they discuss the curriculum, the senior leaders know what they are talking about." Mary loved the idea. We interviewed 19 subject leaders and 2 senior leaders about how they developed their Key Stage 3 subject curriculum. We transcribed the interviews, pared them down to c.3,000 words each, and added some other helpful content. We popped the Zoom recordings of the interviews on Mary's video channel, Myatt & Co.
When the book was finished Mary insisted we needed a catchy title. I knew she was a classicist by trade. I recalled how everyone we spoke to had said that developing the curriculum was an endless process. Mary had even coined the phrase, “the never-ending story of the curriculum”. And so, one Saturday afternoon last summer I searched the internet for the god of endlessness…
It turned out that the god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration is the Egyptian god Huh. Beyond my gormless exclamation, Huh is the perfect deity for the curriculum.
Having heard about our first Huh book, Philippa Cordingley, CEO of CUREE challenged us to write a Primary version, which we did. In fact, we have written two Primary books, Primary Huh: Curriculum conversations with subject leaders in primary schools which focuses upon the individual discrete subjects and a companion volume, Primary Huh 2: Primary curriculum leadership conversations, which give a platform to practitioners who lead on the broader issues of primary curriculum design. Primary Huh 2 is published this coming week:
The whole Huh project is founded upon conversations. Our next two books in the series will focus upon the SEND curriculum and then the Alternative Provision curriculum. We are looking for a dozen or so contributors to each. If you think you have something valuable to contribute to either/both books, please click on the appropriate image(s) below and complete the Google form(s) and we will get back to you once we have planned the autumn schedule of interviews.
One of the joys of this whole Huh project has been to provide a platform for colleagues who are doing amazing things in their schools to share their brilliant work across the profession. It is deeply gratifying to see contributors begin to get the recognition and audience they deserve:
