Life Centered or Balance Curriculum: Introduction To The Balanced Curriculum Model

Life Centered or Balance Curriculum
The Balanced Curriculum is a web-based tool that school districts use to create, align, assess, and
manage their curriculum development and implementation. The courses are divided into timebound units with significant tasks (or assured activities) that local district teachers develop and
promise to teach. The significant tasks are aligned to standards and assessment specifications.
District curriculum authors also develop assessments for all to use when implementing the
curriculum. Results of more than 15 years of implementation show that all districts that have
developed curriculum using this model, and ensured implementation, have had significant
improvement on their test scores. Implications for teachers, principals, and central office staff are
given at the end of the article.
Introduction to the Balanced Curriculum Model
The Balanced Curriculum has produced improved achievement in every district that has written
their curriculum according to this design and done a credible job of implementing the curriculum
(Squires, 2005). As the curriculum is web based, it offers online access to all who are registered
by the school district. The Balanced Curriculum is designed so that the curriculum structure is
specific enough to ensure similar implementation by district teachers while being general enough
so that teachers have the freedom to use the curriculum to meet the needs of their classes. There
is alignment to standards, state assessment specifications and other specifications, such as
Blooms taxonomy, that the district finds important to use. Assessment encourages use of the
data-based results to determine the power of the curriculum. Implementation is addressed by
allowing teachers to register their progress and talk back to the curriculum by offering comments
on the curriculum through the website. Finally, this curriculum design produces results that are
measurable in improvements of student achievement. No other published curriculum system
offers this combination of attributes.
This article reviews the structure of the balanced curriculum, how it would be implemented in a
school district, the results of more than 15 years of implementation, and implications for
teachers, principals, and central office staff.
The components of the online Balanced Curriculum are divided into two sections: (a) writing the
curriculum and (b) implementing the curriculum.
Writing the curriculum

Courses
Time-Bound Units
Significant Tasks (or assured activities)
Alignment of Significant Tasks to Standards and Assessment Specifications
Curriculum-Embedded Assessment Aligned to State Standards and Assessment
Specifications
Implementing the curriculum

A Management System for Tracking Classs Progress
A Record of Teacher Comments to Guide Staff Development Planning and Curriculum
Revision
Yearly Curriculum Revision Process
Writing the Curriculum
The curriculum must be written with implementing and revising the curriculum in mind.
Courses, Units, and Significant Tasks Guide Time, Content, and Process Dimensions of the
Curriculum
The curriculum is written by the districts teachers/authors to guide instruction. To guide
instruction, courses are divided into time-bound units so teachers know the pace of instruction.
This ensures that everyone will complete the courses curriculum and students do not get left
behind. Within the unit, significant tasks or assured activities, described by district
teachers/authors in a paragraph, specify what district teachers should teach (an objective) and
which instructional processes to use. The significant tasks take longer to complete than a daily
lesson plan and generally encompass 2 days to 2 weeks of activities. The units significant tasks
take approximately 70% of the units time. The other 30% is spent however the teacher decides
to meet class needs, through remediation, enrichment, or both. This allows teachers to manage
the creative aspects of instruction.
Implementing the Curriculum
The design of the curriculum needs to promote curriculum implementation by having a

management system to teachers progress, a way to talk back to the curriculum by recording
teachers comments about improvements or frustrations that might have been encountered, and a
way to revise the curriculum.
Management System for Curriculum Implementation
The district must plan strategies to ensure that the curriculum is actually implemented by the
districts teachers, and that they are actually teaching the significant tasks. This helps address
teacher accountability. As all teachers use the same significant tasks for a course, tracking a
teachers progress is a matter of determining whether the significant tasks are taught. On the
Balanced Curriculum website where the curriculum is located, teachers can log in and check off
their completion of a significant task, view their own completion record, but cannot view others
completion records. Principals can check the progress of all teachers in their buildings. District
staff can access completion information across district schools, providing easily accessible
information for managing student learning, without micro-managing the teachers instruction.
Balanced Curriculum at the Middle Stage

We aim to provide students with high quality education that raises aspirations and inspires
confidence.
This means:
Offering a full, broad and balanced curriculum at Key Stage 4
Offering a range of specialized courses for Gifted and Talented students
Participating in deep learning days, educational visits, work placements and university
and industry seminar workshops
In Key Stage 4 (Years 9 to 11), the IGCSE, GCSE and BTEC Level 2 curriculum will be
introduced.
A range of subjects, catering for a variety of academic needs and interests, will be offered. These
will include the compulsory core subjects of English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics,
Computer Science, Arabic, Physical Education and Islamic Education (for Muslims).
A wide range of Option Subjects to stimulate students interests and talents will include:
French
Spanish
Mandarin
History
Geography
Economics
Business
Music
Dance
Drama
Art & Design
As a specialist technology school a whole range of technologies will also be available:
Resistant Materials
Food Technology
Graphic Design
Electronics
Textiles
Music Technology

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Life Centered or Balance Curriculum

Writing the curriculum

Implementing the curriculum

Implementing the Curriculum

The design of the curriculum needs to promote curriculum implementation by having a

Management System for Curriculum Implementation

Balanced Curriculum at the Middle Stage

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