Curriculum Executive Board Update
This year, the Curriculum Executive Board has continued its ambitious work to strengthen teaching and learning across Bolton through the ongoing development of the Pillars of Effective Teaching: Developing Subject Expertise, Quality of Instruction, Making Knowledge Stick, Adaptive Teaching, and Assessment & Feedback. These pillars remain the foundation of high-quality practice, but the board is now taking the next step, supporting schools to shape and articulate their own Subject DNA. Subject DNA asks an important question: What does the very best pedagogy look like within each subject domain? By working collaboratively across schools, leaders and teachers are identifying the core principles, approaches, and routines that make expert teaching within each discipline truly exceptional.
To support this, the board is refreshing and strengthening the Pillars of Effective Teaching by producing a suite of short, practical video clips showcasing what expert strategies look like in real Bolton classrooms. This “For us… by us” guidance will act as a blueprint for all teachers, simple, accessible, and grounded in local expertise.
Running alongside this is an ambitious cross-Bolton commitment to further improve outcomes in Maths GCSE for the 19k learners. To achieve this, schools will:
- Deploy expert practitioners from across Bolton to design and deliver a programme of high-impact intervention sessions, both face-to-face and remotely, in March 2026.
- Enable targeted groups of students to be taught essential knowledge by subject specialists at central locations.
Following these sessions, schools will receive a package of resources capturing the essential knowledge and strategies used, enabling continued impact back in their own classrooms.
This ambitious collaboration represents the very best of Bolton’s collective commitment, working together to improve life chances for every learner in our town.
