Our Curriculum Was a Mess of Google Docs — Here's How We Fixed It
Building a coherent K-12 curriculum framework with AI assistance
The Google Docs Graveyard
When I became Curriculum Coordinator, I asked for 'the curriculum.' What I received was a shared drive with 47 Google Docs, some dated 2019, some dated last month, with no clear indication of which was current. The Maths curriculum was in a spreadsheet. The English curriculum was split across three documents created by three different coordinators. Science had a beautiful Notion page that nobody else could access because the teacher who made it had left.
Vertical alignment? Impossible to verify. We couldn't easily see whether Year 5 skills built on Year 4 or repeated them. Cross-curricular connections existed only in individual teachers' heads. When Ofsted asked about curriculum progression, we improvised answers and hoped for the best — the exact gap the longitudinal insights dashboards were built to close.
The Hierarchical Framework
KiwiBee's curriculum module enforces structure: Curriculum → Subjects → Units → Lessons → Skills → Subskills. You can't create a lesson without linking it to a unit. You can't create a skill without placing it in the progression. This sounds restrictive, but it's actually liberating. There's one place to look. One source of truth. When I update a skill description, every lesson linked to it reflects the change.
The TeacherLab AI assists by suggesting skill progressions based on national standards and research-backed learning sequences. When I add a Year 6 skill, it asks whether it builds on the related Year 5 skill and flags potential gaps. It's like having a curriculum expert reviewing every addition.
What Teachers Actually See
Teachers don't interact with the full framework — that would be overwhelming. They see their year group, their subjects, the units they're teaching this term, and the skills those units should develop. When planning a lesson, they select skills from a curated list rather than typing freeform objectives. This consistency means our Skills Gradebook data actually aggregates meaningfully across the school.