Many countries around the world are one way or another in a process of changing their curriculum. Differences exist in the way countries maintain balance between the intentions at the national level and the elaborations at the local level, in how responsibilities are appointed to central levels and local levels and in the way teachers and school leaders are involved in curriculum development efforts. Within the context of country-wide curriculum reforms of Australia, Scotland and the Netherlands, this symposium will focus on the processes that schools undergo when involved in local curriculum development and what is needed in order to enhance the curriculum design capacity within schools.

In the first contribution, Natasha Ziebell (University of Melbourne, Australia) will present a range of factors that influence the curriculum redesign process at the school level and will discuss implications for providing support materials at the school level. In the second contribution, Mark Priestley and Valery Drew (both University of Stirling, Scotland) will report on a study that aimed at enhancing teachers’ capacity for local curriculum-making through a promising methodology called Critical Collaborative Professional Enquiry. The third contribution by Nienke Nieveen and Herman Schalk (both SLO Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development), covers a study concerning the variation in design duties related to curriculum development at the school level and the opportunities teachers and school leaders get to acquire and expand their curriculum design expertise in order to succeed in these tasks. The symposium will be completed with a discussion by David Clarke (University of Melbourne).

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