​​These diagrams were originally conceived as a way for me to analyse the connections between different curricula. Specifically, my goal was to see the ways in which our Little PM approach could be best adapted to support the needs of teachers working in a variety of international schools. Additionally, since my experience in teaching was using the English National Curriculum (NC14), it was a means of educating myself more thoroughly about the IB PYP curriculum and the curriculum used in US International schools. Since many of the Little PM units aim to help teachers in the delivery of the Dubai MSC curriculum, it was also also useful to consider the learning objectives from this scheme as well. Finally, since many schools now incorporate UN Sustainable Development Goals into their learning, I thought it would be interesting to see where connections could be made here as well.

My original analysis was carried out in Excel. I gathered the main objectives, or objective areas, for each of the curricula and then compared to them one at a time to see if there were any obvious similarities or points of connection between them. It should be noted that these connections and judgements were made from my experience as an educator and so whilst individual connections may be interpreted definitely by other professionals, I am confident with the overall picture created by these diagrams. Before diving deeper into some of the patterns and observations that I gleaned from this exercise, it is useful to give some more detail about the objectives I used from each curriculum. The MSC curriculum is an easy place to start as, although the framework document details approximately 50 individual objectives within each year group, these are grouped within 10 distinct strands: "Character and Morality", "Individual and Community", "History", "Geography", "Sociology", "Economics", "Information Literacy", "Information Processing", "Heritage" and "Civics". The Little PM skills framework is also very straightforward as we have devised ten clear skills that can be applied across all our projects: "Collaboration and Teamwork", "Leadership and Personal Responsibility", "Planning and Organisational Skills", "Problem Solving and Critical Thinking", "Communication, Creativity and Innovation", "Cultural and Ethical Awareness", "Reflection and Self Assessment", "Digital Literacy and Technological Fluency", and "Resilience and Adaptability".

Moving onto the different school curricula, for the IB PYP, I chose to take as a comparison point the six transdisciplinary themes since they seemed the most useful when comparing the structure and ethos of the curriculum: "Who We Are", "Where We Are In Place And Time", "How We Express Ourselves", "How The World Works", "How We Organise Ourselves", and Sharing The Planet”. Regarding the US curriculum, in order to focus on the areas in which there would be the most useful and meaningful links to the other curricula and Little PM framework, I looked to the Social Studies curriculum, specifically the thematic framework taken from the National Council for Social Studies: "Culture", "Time, Continuity and Change", "People Places and Environments", "Individual Development and Identity", "Individual Groups and Institutions", "Power, Authority and Governance", "Production Distribution and Consumption", "Science, Technology and Society", "Global Connections" and "Civic Ideas and Practices". Finally, the English National Curriculum 2014 was my reference document for the English curriculum. Interestingly, although this is the curriculum with which I am most familiar, this was the one that was the most difficult to adapt into a format for a comparison. In contrast to the IB PYP or the US Social Studies framework, NC14 is very focused on knowledge that children should know, which is organised by discrete subjects rather than thematic ideas. Therefore, I decided that it would be most useful to extract objectives from the aims section of both the history and geography programmes of study: five from history and three from geography. Since these aims are not tied to specific year groups or subject areas, it makes for a closer and more useful comparison with the other curricula in the study. It is worth noting that the NC14 does not specifically cover any social personal issues; in England, many schools will choose to use a separate scheme for PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education).

My original analysis in Excel compared every curriculum and framework with each other, but in the diagrams shown here, only three data sets are compared at a time for clarity. Within each diagram, MSC and Little PM are present and these are compared against PYP, US Social Studies and finally the English NC14. Some patterns begin to emerge on closer examination of the diagrams. Firstly, the web of connections in the PYP and Social Studies diagrams are much denser and I believe this is a result of the thematic approach to these curricula, which are supported by the broad strands of the MSC framework and the fact the Little PM skills framework can be applied across many different areas of learning. The point of a skills framework is to enable the children to become better learners in a variety of contexts rather than simply being able to regurgitate facts.

It is pleasing to see that there are still a significant number of connections in the diagram for the English national curriculum but it is worth remembering that, since the MSC curriculum has specific strands for history and geography, there are multiple connections stemming from the same nodes. In a similar way, the node that is labelled "8" on NC14 is relating to geography skills, specifically the skills that children should be taught in order to carry out meaningful fieldwork. This then means that strong links can be made with the skills of the Little PM framework and also the Information Processing and Literacy strands within MSC. Although I have enjoyed teaching the English National Curriculum, the caveats above are necessary to understand that this diagram makes it seem more thematic and skills-based than it is on paper. It is important to recognise, however, that many schools nowadays that teach the English curriculum will be delivering these objectives through cross-curricular approaches, whether it is by use of an external scheme such as IPC or simply by implementing topic-based learning.

What is the point then of these diagrams and what does it mean in practice? Considering that the Little PM skills framework and the ethos of the company is to promote the development of skills that are preparing them for the real world, the strong links with the thematic approach of the PYP and Social Studies curricula show that Little PM can be an effective way to bring these ideas into the classroom. It also means that objectives that are required by the MSC framework can easily be reinforced through these curricula. Although guidance on MSC has changed this year so that all objectives have to be taught explicitly in MSC lessons, it is always useful for connections to be deepened and embedded in other subjects. For teachers, this means that recognising connections between the subjects allows for more efficient use of classroom time particularly in schools where timetables have significant constraints for a variety of subjects. We always want to make sure that we are teaching children skills and providing environments where they can construct their own learning across lessons; fundamentally, these diagrams show that it is perhaps easier than you thought.