The skills in which the transition coaches are trained are part of a comprehensive curriculum. Therefore this is the right place to present the theory of the development of the INTENSE curriculum. The available literature shows that it is very difficult to define the concept of curriculum unambiguously.
A very short and useable definition is ‘plan for learning’ by the American Hilda Taba in 1962. It is reflected by related terms in many languages, including the classical Dutch term leerplan and the German lehrplan.
For the short reading of the concept curriculum, the work of Jan van den Akker (SLO, 2003, 2006) is useful. He introduces the curricular spider web and distributes the web into five main levels or sections.
“The ‘higher’ curriculum levels will affect the ‘lower’ ones. The challenge for professional curriculum developers who operate on different levels is to anticipate implementation problems, not only concerning the product characteristics, but also, in collaboration with the many parties involved, regarding the change strategy.”
table 1:
| LEVEL | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLES |
| SUPRA | International | Common European Framework of References for Languages. |
| MACRO | System, national | Core objectives, attainment levels. Examination programs. |
| MESO | School, institute | School program. Educational program. |
| MICRO | Classroom. Teacher | Teaching plan, instructional materials. Module, course. Textbooks. |
| NANO | Pupil, individual | Personal plan for learning. Individual course of learning. |
A second, clarifying distinction concerns the different forms in which curricula can be represented. Three levels, split up into six forms. This representation is based on the work of John Goodlad (1979) is especially useful in the analysis of the processes and the outcomes of curriculum innovations.
table 2
| INTENDED | Ideal | Vision (rational or basic philosophy underlying a curriculum) |
| Formal / Written | Intentions as specified in curriculum documents and/or materials | |
| IMPLEMENTED | Perceived | Curriculum as interpreted by its users (especially teachers) |
| Operational | Actual process of teaching and learning (also: curriculum-in-action) | |
| ATTAINED | Experiential | Learning experiences as perceived by learners |
| Learned | Resulting learning outcomes of learners |
The core of a curriculum generally concerns the aims and content of learning. Changes to this core usually presuppose changes to many other aspects of (the plan for) learning. A clarifying way to visualize the relationship between the various aspects is the so-called curriculair spider web (van den Akker, 2003).
The core and the nine threads of the spider web refer to the ten parts of a curriculum, each concerning an aspect of learning and the learning programme for pupils. In question form:
table 3
| COMPONENT | CORE QUESTION |
| Rationale | Why are they learning? |
| Aims and objectives | Towards which goals are they learning? |
| Content | What are they learning? |
| Learning activities | How are they learning? |
| Teacher/coach role | How is the teacher/coach facilitating their learning? |
| Materials and resources | With what are they learning? |
| Grouping | With whom are they learning? |
| Location | Where are they learning? |
| Time | When are they learning? |
| Assessment | How is their learning assessed? |