Refreshing the Leeds Curriculum
Updating our approach to the Leeds Curriculum
The Leeds Curriculum has been part of the University’s education offer for over a decade and has been widely recognised across the sector as excellence within student education. It has provided a shared institutional framework of rigour and stretch that has allowed us to embed research-based learning, disciplinary breadth and depth, plus thematic core programme threads across our undergraduate programmes.
This framework has ensured that all students undertake research supported by leading academics in their field, enabling them to co-design and produce a final-year project. The core programme threads of ethics and responsibility, global and cultural insight, employability, and discovery are weaved throughout our courses and have enabled our students to understand the link between their academic study and societal needs.
While many of the pillars of the Leeds Curriculum have ensured our students receive an excellent student experience, many students and colleagues are unable to articulate the distinctive character of the Leeds Curriculum. It is within this context, and the University’s Student Education strategy 2020–2030, that a refreshed approach to the Leeds Curriculum was required.
Building on the strategic priorities of the education strategy, and the key subordinate strategies, such as Access and Student Success, Assessment, Digital Transformation and Student Opportunities and Futures, a broad group of students, and professional and academic colleagues worked on drawing out the common Curriculum Themes and Pedagogical Principles. The aim was to try and reposition the Leeds Curriculum as student facing and interpretable by both current and prospective students, and staff.
This work led to the identification of five core Curriculum Themes: Disciplinary Strength and Identity, Discover and Explore, Global Citizenship, Inclusive, Fair and Authentic Assessment, and Student Futures. These broad thematic areas align closely with the original Leeds curriculum and summarise the ‘what’ of our education offer to all students — what a Leeds student will experience as part of their programme of study.
Alongside these thematic areas, a number of Pedagogical Principles were also drawn out, including Inclusive, Active, Global, Digitally-enhanced and Evidence-informed. These principles describe the ‘how’ — how all our newly defined programme should be delivered moving forwards.
The rearticulation of the Leeds Curriculum through these five curriculum themes and five pedagogical principles provided an opportunity to summarise the approach to curriculum delivery at Leeds as:
“The Leeds Curriculum enables our students to thrive through a sense of community with shared values, and to be partners in shaping their own dynamic and innovative educational experience. It is characterised by active and inclusive learning opportunities that are embedded within the discipline and utilise the most relevant digital technologies. Our students leave with the knowledge and understanding of major global challenges that are situated within their chosen discipline, and are equipped with the necessary skills and attributes to make a difference in ways that are meaningful to them.”
However, while this articulation provides a helpful overview of what we are trying to achieve, it requires further grounding that speaks to the identity of Schools and Programmes of study — which is one of the key draws for students wanting to come to Leeds in the first place.
This prompted a reframing of the Leeds Curriculum to allow all schools, teaching units and programme teams to express their approach to student education. Their approach linked an institutional view of the Leeds Curriculum to the tangible learning experience that all students should encounter during their time at Leeds. This reframing drew upon the themes and principles described above and refined the Leeds Curriculum into three core pillars:
Your Course
Academic focus around the discipline and/ or programme identity of the course, to provide students with exposure to our internationally recognised research and innovation. This includes maximising the benefit of collaborations and partnerships with industry, the commercial and cultural sectors and professional bodies.
Your Future
Personalised opportunities to develop the relevant literacies, skills, competencies and breadth of understanding, which are rooted within the discipline and / or programme identity, and are relevant to the needs and ambitions of the individual student.
Our World
Open and authentic exposure to real-world examples that draw on the discipline and / or programme identity through research-based learning that address global challenges through empirical and inclusive enquiry.
This approach to defining the Leeds Curriculum will hopefully enable schools and teaching teams to describe their programmes through Course Finder and Programme catalogue entries, and importantly link the local offer made to students to the principles of the University’s Student Education strategy.
How is this translated into local practice?
Our students experience their programmes in diverse ways that are based on the specific disciplinary context of their area of study and our approach to course design and delivery of the programme, its modules and co-curricular activities. So how do we translate the themes and principles of the Leeds Curriculum into tangible changes to the students’ learning experience? How do we ensure we deliver upon the ambitions of the University’s Student Education strategy?
To support colleagues in designing and reflecting on their programme, a number of ‘How Might We’ guides have been created to support programme teams in thinking through their approaches to delivery. These guides are based on the wide range of excellent teaching and learning practices already happening across the institution. From authentic assessment to sustainability and ethics, these guides are aimed at stimulating conversations, provoking debate, and providing sources for follow-up information to address a number of key student education areas that should be identifiable to all in our programmes. You can find these guides and related events in the newly established Leeds Educator Space on Microsoft Teams (University of Leeds access required) which aims to connect colleagues and discover student education related events, resources and networks in one place.
Further support and advice
As schools embark on this journey of Curriculum Redefined, the Learning Design Agency can provide all the help and advice to support the change necessary to enhance the student experience for all and prepare them for their futures.
If you are a University of Leeds colleague or student you can also find a video presentation and slides on the Refreshing the Leeds Curriculum SharePoint page.
Professor James Pickering (Academic Director, Learning Design Agency)
