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:

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.
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

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?
Development of a curriculum