A classroom constitutes ‘a transformative space in which knowledge is created’ (Hopmann, 2007, p. 120). A genuine curriculum question is what kind of knowledge is produced and formed in classrooms, but of course, this cannot be separated from other imperative questions, such as why, how, when, by whom and for whom (Deng, 2020). Teaching repertoires (Alexander, 2001) shape classroom contexts and also raise questions about factors that influence students’ access to knowledge that can determine their future career choices, democratic and civic participation and social inclusion. By drawing from a conceptualisation of curriculum making as a co-constructive process between students, teachers, knowledge content, teaching materials, and the contextual setting in the classroom which shape and establish different meanings of knowledge (Priestley et al, 2021), I explore and discuss conditions for teachers’ curriculum making and how curriculum making in classrooms is played out in practice using a high performing classroom and a low-performance classroom as cases. The empirical data is based on classroom observations, teacher interviews and student group interviews retrieved from two secondary school classrooms (14-15-year-olds) over a school year. First, I will present a contextual description of the different classrooms, teachers’ curriculum making and dominant teaching repertoires. Secondly, I will look into student perceptions of knowledge that emerge in the ‘making’ of curriculum in the classrooms and from student talk about teaching. Finally, I will discuss implications of emergent patterns of curriculum making with particular attention to students’ access to knowledge and interaction in the classroom. Results show that dominant teaching repertoires revealed quite similar time distributions related to the teacher as main actor but main differences in what is referred to the repertories monologue, group work and individual work. These differences can be explained by different contextual conditions in terms of interactions between the teachers and the students and the teaching content (Doyle, 1992). A conclusion is that knowledge requirements of the curriculum shaped the students’ understanding of theoretical and practical knowledge as ‘moving up and down the progression steps’. Students appreciated when knowledge was linked to everyday experiences and appealed to their future plans. The paper discusses how teaching repertoires and classroom culture can limit or enable space for student interaction and how teachers’ balance of social and epistemic factors may provide access to valuable and worthwhile knowledge to their students.

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