It appears to me that one of the best ways of improving teaching in a department is to publish schemes of work. Either on a web site or in a booklet its a way of saying to everyone:this is what we teach. It shows preparation, it shows up glaring mistakes, allows people to critique in advance and ‘gets everyone on the same page’ literally so that evaluation and improvement happens.
The reality in most secondary schools that I’ve seen is that people teach from an assortment of files on a network with a collection of short term or medium term plans that are often incomplete. Simply throwing files on a network is NOT publishing. It is the act of putting something into a document that is readable from beginning to end by teachers, students and parents that has the value.
All the other school wide issues that get us filling in another tick box on yet another form (citizenship, mentoring, extra tracking data etc) are but distractions (let alone more complicated) if the basics of the SOW aren’t to a publishable standard.
To those who argue for flexibility in the curriculum I say fine but at least have something to depart FROM.
Posted by richard 
