Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and
regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted
as their god of the school curriculum. Their first book in the Huh series
focused upon how school practitioners design the Key Stage 3 curriculum.
Its popularity prompted calls from many quarters for a similar book on the
primary curriculum.
Supported by their primary colleagues, Rachel Higginson, Lekha
Sharma and Emma Turner, Mary and John interviewed over 30 primary
practitioners about how they design the primary curriculum. Considering
the diverse nature of primary schools in this country, it’s not surprising that
they were soon confronted with numerous context-dependent curriculum
complexities. Designing the curriculum for small primary schools, for
instance, means solving the conundrum of teaching the same subject at
the same time to three different year groups in one class.
The wisdom gleaned from the genuine experts Mary and John interviewed
was limitless. The material was so important it meant that they had too
much for a single volume. Twenty-one of those thirty-plus conversations
comprise the book Primary Huh, which focused upon the curriculum of each
individual subject from EYFS to Year 6. In this companion book, Primary Huh
2, Mary and John give a platform to practitioners who lead on the broader
issues of primary curriculum design, including, amongst other things:
shaping the curriculum for mixed-age classes; designing and implementing
a cross-MAT curriculum; building the “cradle to career” curriculum;
timetabling; assessment; transition, and diversity.
