Mary Myatt – författare

For one reason or another, mainstream education does not suit every young person. Many young people are educated in alternative provision, which is defined by the Department for Education as educational provision 'for pupils who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive suitable education'. As of 2023, over 25,000 young people are enrolled in alternative provision, and those numbers continue to rise.It is essential, then, that the curriculum on offer in alternative provision is exemplary, as these young people - already facing extraordinary challenges - need the very best if they are going to progress successfully into adulthood.Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted as their god of the curriculum. Their Huh series of books focuses on how practitioners design the curriculum for the young people in their schools.The Huh project is founded on conversations with colleagues doing great work across the education sector. In AP Huh, Mary Myatt and John Tomsett discuss curriculum provision for pupils attending alternative provision with some of the leading experts in the field. Mary and John interviewed pupils, parents, teachers, headteachers, CEOs, educational consultants and lecturers. They then edited the transcriptions of those interviews to provide an ambitious, thoughtful, nuanced and challenging vision of what the best possible provision looks like for children who find that mainstream schooling is not for them.The challenging conversations that comprise AP Huh paint a positive picture that is hugely hopeful for the future of the curriculum in our alternative provision settings.

Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted as their god of the curriculum. Their Huh series of books focuses on how practitioners design the curriculum for the young people in their schools.The Huh project is founded on conversations with colleagues doing great work across the education sector. In SEND Huh, Mary Myatt and John Tomsett discuss curriculum provision for pupils with additional needs with some of the leading experts in the field.Mary and John interviewed pupils, parents, teachers, headteachers, CEOs, educational consultants and lecturers. They then edited the transcriptions of those interviews to provide an ambitious, thoughtful, nuanced and challenging vision of what the best possible provision looks like for children with additional learning needs.The challenging conversations that comprise SEND Huh paint an inspiring picture that is hugely hopeful for the future of SEND curriculum provision in our schools.

There’s plenty to do when planning the curriculum in primary schools. If it feels daunting, then one of the most helpful things is to talk to other people about how they have developed the curriculum for their particular subject or key stage.This is what John Tomsett and Mary Myatt have done. After the secondary ‘Huh: Curriculum conversations between subject and senior leaders’ was published, they were flooded with requests to produce a primary version. They enlisted the help of renowned primary specialists, Rachel Higginson, Lekha Sharma and Emma Turner to have conversations with primary teachers and key stage co-ordinators who are doing great curriculum development work.Each chapter provides insights into the importance of individual subjects and the unique contribution each makes to pupils’ cognitive and personal development. The subject chapters discuss the steps colleagues take to ensure that there is a coherent thread across the year groups, as the discrete subjects deliver, collectively, the primary curriculum. These conversations show how the craft of creating a rich, challenging curriculum for every subject is not a quick fix. This is a nuanced piece of work, and there are many ways of approaching it. Each chapter also contains links to subject associations and helpful resources. Primary Huh has been written for subject leaders and key stage co-ordinators; it has also been written for senior leaders, as they prepare to have supportive conversations with their colleagues who are responsible for curriculum development. Primary Huh is offered as a prompt rather than the last word. Informed debate is, as they say, the fuel of curriculum development.And why have John and Mary called it ‘Huh’? Well, John discovered that Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration, and they thought that was a pretty good metaphor for their work on the curriculum!