What Is A Rich Curriculum? Looking Beyond Textbooks

By Author: The Paras World School
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Speaking in lines of academics, only the top 10 schools in Gurgaon talk about curriculum richness while others merely limit themselves by stating their board of affiliation. You can recognise a performance-oriented school where the USP is often proposed as the marks its students obtained in national exams. While an education-oriented institution will show you their pedagogy, learning methods applied, and ingredients of their curriculum. Students automatically perform when their curriculum is rich. Their motivation to pursue an education comes from within. When their learning goes beyond the boundaries of textbooks, skills see equal development as academics and that lays the foundation for assured future success.

So, what is a rich curriculum?

Rich, in its adjective form, means interesting owing to the presence of variety. Curriculum, as a term, includes the group of subjects that are allocated to be taught in a class. The meaning of a rich curriculum is thus evident when you utter their meanings under the same breath. However, some clarification is still necessary here as curriculum richness does not simply entail ...
... variety in subjects. It also means variety in learning sources, classroom activities, educational environments, and so on. When the top 10 schools in Gurgaon 2019 state that they have a rich curriculum, it means that students of these institutions get a mix of educational ingredients which work together to take their academic knowledge and soft skills forward.

How does it look?

From the skill development angle, you can identify a rich curriculum by identifying the existence of the following activities as part of the school’s regular curriculum.

Sports and other extra-curricular activities
School trips and excursions
Clubs that promote varied interests
Community involvement activities
Festivals and cultural events
And so on. A bit of logical introspection will clear the essence of each of the above pointers and their contribution as a whole to students’ education.

Along with ensuring physical fitness that has a direct impact on students’ concentration levels, sports also help to teach soft skills like leadership, team playing, goal setting, and more. Excursions also involve similar lessons along with adding independence, self-awareness, and confidence into the mix. Similarly, community involvement lays the ground for better awareness and humility. And festivals and cultural events raise the levels of tolerance and foster creativity. All of these lessons are crucial to complete education. Especially in the modern era, students need these in order to thrive along with their academic know-how.

Another side to curriculum richness involves variety in pedagogy. The top institute in the list of CBSE schools in Gurgaon will acknowledge the fact that the way subjects are taught cannot have monotony to any extent. Thus, such schools will promote inquiry-based learning, include technology in the classrooms, bring in experimental lessons, and focus on project and application-based teaching. The pedagogical structure of a rich curriculum is personal in approach. The method sways in that technique’s favour which the students have the need for.

Do textbooks still have a prominent role?

A rich curriculum does not trivialise the role of textbooks. It simply escalates the overall benchmark of education that is solely not achievable by textbooks. For instance, teachers are only limited to the direct lecture method when their resources are limited to textbooks, however, with the provision of projectors or access to the laboratory, they can make learning visual and experimental. These bring in variety, which creates interest, and leads to better knowledge consumption.

Plus, a rich curriculum also recognises that some 21st-century skills cannot come from bookish knowledge. They need practice and exposure, training and implementation. Thus, activities also form an essential part of a rich curriculum that often sits in between two academic lessons. In all, when a school tries to look beyond textbooks while pursuing curriculum richness, it merely stretches the boundaries of learning to accommodate all. Textbooks do hold their prominence but there is now space for sports, music, awareness programs, and more.

A rich curriculum is the need of the hour

Understandably, an all-inclusive curriculum has stark benefits as compared to standard ones. And that is where students can really thrive and build a proper foundation. The Paras World School India is an institute that brings in curriculum richness both through extra-curricular activities and learning techniques. Excursions, special assemblies, interschool sports and community awareness programs are regular occurrences at TPWSI along with space for iSTREAMM pedagogy in the classrooms that ensures perfect variety in learning methods as well. A rich curriculum leads to in-depth knowledge. Education receives its deserved treatment. The ultimate aim of all great schools is to make their students fit for the society to come and a rich curriculum is the straight-forward path to achieve that.

Hey! Myself Tanya! I work as a marketing strategist. I have been working as a content writer for various educational institutions.