The fragmented curriculum gives birth to the fragmented day.

This is the six-and-a-half-hour segment of a student's day which is divided into unrelated chunks called periods or lessons. It is often marked quite dramatically by bells and other noises.

The time allocated is often just long enough to move in, sit down, present homework, and engage with some new material, record tonight's homework and move out. The activity is usually quite unrelated to what has happened in the hour before or in the time that follows. Switch brain onto this channel; switch brain off when the bell sounds.

Within this fractured and fragmented framework, teachers struggle to engage students, to meet their individual needs, to ‘cover' the course. Sometimes they succeed beyond expectations; sometimes everyone just has to wear the frustration.

This is the fragmented day. It is the unnatural offspring of a curriculum construct which envisages knowledge as fitting naturally into separate packages.

Surely there's a better way!

Teachers can be very creative in dealing with this challenge, always searching for flexible ways of dealing with constraints. Let's share them.