Cross-curriculum dimensions

To achieve the aims of the curriculum, young people need to experience opportunities to understand themselves and the world in which they live.

Cross-curriculum dimensions provide important unifying areas of learning that help young people make sense of the world and give education relevance and authenticity. They reflect the major ideas and challenges that face individuals and society.

Dimensions can add a richness and relevance to the curriculum experience of young people. They can provide a focus for work within and between subjects and across the curriculum as a whole, including the routines, events and ethos of the school.

Cross-curriculum dimensions include:

• identity and cultural diversity

• healthy lifestyles

• community participation

• enterprise

• global dimension and sustainable development

• technology and the media

• creativity and critical thinking.

Although dimensions are not a statutory part of the National Curriculum, schools will find them useful in designing and planning their wider curriculum. Individual dimensions should not be considered in isolation as they are often interdependent and mutually supportive. For example, there are links between identity and cultural diversity and global dimension and sustainable development, and between creativity and critical thinking and technology and the media.

Schools have found many different ways to build cross-curriculum dimensions into their curriculum. They include:

• teaching the dimensions through subjects, with links across subjects being made where there are common issues or areas of learning
• specifically timetabled thematic days, activity weeks or events that focus on a particular dimension
• activities that are integrated into the routines of the school, such as running a mini-enterprise or arranging a fundraising event
• educational visits or out of hours learning opportunities
• using experts from outside of the school to stimulate discussion and debate in assemblies or with specific groups of learners.

Schools are encouraged to build the dimensions into their curriculum in a way that reflects the specific needs, interests and context of their learners.