This paper explores the place and nature of substantive teacher-teacher, cross-disciplinary dialogue in a time of intensive curriculum development in Wales. It focuses in particular on teacher dialogue across traditional subject boundaries in a curriculum where disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are encouraged. Teachers in different subject disciplines can have diverse views about the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed and how pupils best make progress within that disciplinary tradition. If a curriculum is to be interdisciplinary, teachers from diverse disciplines need to come together and discuss their different approaches to knowledge in order for pupils to have a coherent curriculum experience. Within current debates on the place of knowledge in the curriculum in England and beyond (Muller & Young, 2019; Niemela, 2020), less is known about how knowledge works across disciplinary boundaries. Rigorous interdisciplinary education is of increasing interest in educational contexts beyond England. The OECD Education and Skills 2030 project (OECD, 2019) recognises disciplinary, interdisciplinary, epistemic and procedural as four different types of knowledge. Priestly and Biesta (2013) have pointed to the emergence of a “new curriculum” across Europe and beyond which has emphasised the autonomy of schools and teachers in making the curriculum. Almeida, Sousa and Figueirdo (2022), in their study of European  curriculum autonomy, have pointed to growing evidence of the importance of the empowerment of teachers in the curriculum design process.

This paper builds on research from a large-scale project funded by Templeton World Charity Foundation exploring beginning teachers confidence and competence in experiences of science/religion encounters in the classroom. This project revealed some of the processes necessary to effect meaningful encounters between two contrasting curriculum subjects, for example an understanding of the purpose of the other subject. In focus groups and an online survey, teachers of science and religious education revealed some misunderstandings about the nature and purpose of the other curriculum subject (Woolley et al., 2022). This raised questions about whether and how secondary school teachers can gain an up-to-date understanding of other subjects on the curriculum in order to provide a coherent educational experience for pupils. Teachers were also asked to describe the relationship between departments of science and religious education, using an adapted version of Barbour’s (1990) typology  and the words conflict, independence, dialogue, collaboration and integration (Woolley et al., 2023). Findings showed that departments were overwhelmingly independent, with little dialogue or collaboration taking place.

This finding is not surprising in English schools, where disciplinary knowledge and discrete subjects are valued by government policy and the inspectorate. However, in Wales, Scotland and other countries across Europe, interdisciplinary learning is more valued. It is our contention that disciplinary study should provide the structure for the curriculum, but that interdisciplinary understanding is also necessary, whether through critical overarching topics such as climate change or points where curriculum subjects intersect, such as origins of the universe or gender identity. Pupils need to have a coherent experience of the curriculum, and that involves teachers being aware of how their subjects intersect and interrelate with other subjects on the full curriculum.

Two research questions guide this paper. The first, what research exists on teacher-teacher dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and how is ‘deeper’ dialogue encouraged? The second, what place is there for teacher-teacher dialogue across curriculum boundaries in the Curriculum for Wales and how might this be best supported? Questions of teacher autonomy underpin curriculum development and enactment, but curriculum innovation is also a critical site for teacher professional learning. As Curriculum for Wales is embedded, it becomes a vital site to explore the intersection between teacher dialogue and interdisciplinary curriculum innovation.

This paper will be based on a literature review of two sets of documents. The first will be a systematic literature review of published, peer-reviewed papers on teacher-teacher dialogue, seeking out examples of research into teacher-teacher conversation, in particular teacher-teacher dialogue (distinct from conversation in using Bakhtin’s definition ‘conversation and inquiry’ (e.g. Alexander, 2000, p.520). We seek to prioritise examples of dialogue related specifically to substantive curriculum matters, the subject content that students will learn. We are looking particularly at examples of teacher-teacher curriculum dialogue that fall across traditional subject boundaries, how or whether teachers are supported to develop these conversations and go beyond shallow conversations to ‘deeper end’ dialogue on more contentious aspects of the curriculum (Spencer and Waite, 2022) such as epistemology or ethics. The Curriculum for Wales was launched for first teaching in September 2022. Teacher professional learning was at the heart of the curriculum development process and teachers, particularly those in ‘Pioneer Schools’ were given substantial agency over the development of curriculum, progression and assessment decisions. Subjects were placed into Areas of Learning Experience (AoLE), but interdisciplinary learning was still encouraged between different AoLEs. Hayward et al. (2022), evaluating the initial stages of curriculum enactment, report some tensions between curriculum planning groups, consisting of teachers, and invited experts. Tensions were also described between definitions of progression in disciplinary and interdisciplinary terms. The second part of this paper offers a documentary analysis of the documents existing so far on Curriculum for Wales, with a particular focus on the role of the teacher and interdisciplinary learning. A third set of data will be collected through a small survey of teachers in Wales during May 2023. The survey will focus on experiences of and opportunities for teacher-teacher dialogue across curriculum boundaries in the enactment stages of Curriculum for Wales.

This research is currently in its initial planning stages. However, it expects to report several connected findings: First, in relation to teacher-teacher dialogue, that there is a lack of research on teacher-teacher dialogue across curriculum boundaries, especially how such dialogue can best be supported and deepened. It expects to find that where teacher-teacher dialogue is researched, it tends to be within subject communities or related to mentoring, behaviour or pedagogical innovations. Second, initial research into Curriculum for Wales suggests that some teachers have been deeply involved in the process of curriculum development over several years. Teacher autonomy and involvement is greatly valued within the Curriculum for Wales project. However, in this second enactment stage of curriculum reform, teachers have fewer opportunities for dialogue, particularly across curriculum boundaries. This could lead to grabbing opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration that are not properly thought-through and fail to properly enrich pupils’ understanding of a coherent curriculum. Third, that some teachers in Wales need support and guidance frameworks in developing the skills and knowledge necessary to have challenging, deep conversations about substantive and epistemological curriculum matters.

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