When you work in a public school district in your home country, it is typically unlikely that you will also have to spend time specifically working on curriculum development. Unless I suppose you are getting paid extra to do so. Usually, curriculum development is handled at the district office.

But at international schools, it is very commonplace to also have this task added to a teacher’s annual workload. Especially at small international schools with fewer teachers, the odds are quite high that you will spend a number of hours doing curriculum development.

Who can remember how this work was done 20 years ago? But, of course, now it is all done online. A popular choice amongst international schools is now Toddle (in the past it was Rubicon Atlas). Though this service has a lot of good features and is “easy to use”, it is not always so popular and user-friendly for teachers.

Many international schools require teachers to plan their lessons every day and then also update their units on whatever the school uses for their written curriculum. It can be a lot of work!  Each international school needs to think about what is the right balance for the teachers and who is responsible exactly for the updating of their writing curriculum.

Luckily, International School Community has a comment topic on our school profile pages related to this topic of curriculum development, so you can stay as informed as possible. It is called: “How much curriculum development work are you expected to do? (Atlas Rubicon, Toddle etc.)“

Our veteran international school teachers have submitted a total of 446 comments (December 2025) on this comment topic.  Here are a few that have been submitted:

“Curriculum development happens once or twice every 5 years. This review cycle is a new tool, and still being implemented. Everything should be uploaded and populated to Toddle. Even though, as a school we are still trying to figure out how to make Toddle a friendlier LMS…” – American International School of Bucharest (Bucharest, Romania) – 117 Comments

“You report the outline of each class in Pronote (a French school management system).
This is also used for communication with parents, behaviour and reporting. Many parents do not really engage with it though…” – Lycee Francais de Shanghai (Shanghai, China) – 82 Comments

“TKS3 have moved from the IMYC to Cambridge Lower Secondary.
Unit planners have also been introduced, and a target for this year is to to have them in all subjects for all years in Secondary. Time is being given to work on them during the year…” – Colegio Gran Bretana (Bogota, Colombia) – 232 Comments

“This is depending on you and your Grade level or department. I was excited that this school allows you much freedom to develop different curriculum. My department had units in place for all grades that I could have followed. But my colleagues were excited and assisted in changing and updating many if any of us had ideas or passions around changing some. VERY dependent on grade and department…” – Hangzhou International School (Hangzhou, China) – 78 Comments

“We are responsible for developing all of our own curriculum. Although this sounds daunting, we have a curriculum specialist who provides guidance on effectively developing and implementing our teaching plans. Additionally, collaboration within our department allows us to update and tailor our curriculum to suit our teaching styles best and meet the needs of our students. I recently had to create my curriculum from scratch since the previous teacher left nothing on our platform. While establishing a new curriculum, I anticipate adjusting next year due to changes in the departments I co-teach with. These changes will necessitate that my curriculum aligns with the evolving needs of these departments. I’ve paused further curriculum development until I better understand the specific requirements for the next academic year. At that point, I’ll refine my curriculum with the support available to me…” – Tsinghua International School (Beijing) (Beijing, China) – 271 Comments

“Toddle is our app of choice. Most work is done by the Team Leader or other mid management members. Teachers are expected to post student work, assign homework, communicate with students/parents, post reflection and evidence routinely…” – Kuwait Bilingual School 2 (Al-Jahra City, Kuwait) – 40 Comments

How is the curricular work at your international school? Submit a comment on your school today!