Scope and Sequence Designer Agent Skill

Design a scope and sequence showing vertical and horizontal curriculum coherence across a programme or year.

Context cost
14.4k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 57.6 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
not declarednone named by its author
Last change
—v1.1
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Design a scope and sequence showing vertical and horizontal curriculum coherence across a programme or year. Use when building new programmes, restructuring subjects, or ensuring progression.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

brunercurriculum-coherenceknowledge-typeslearning-progressionsprogramme-designscope-and-sequencespiral-curriculumvertical-coherence

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md57.6 kB · preview
--- # AGENT SKILLS STANDARD FIELDS (v2) name: scope-and-sequence-designer disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true effort: medium # EXISTING FIELDS skill_id: "curriculum-assessment/scope-and-sequence-designer" skill_name: "Scope and Sequence Designer" domain: "curriculum-assessment" version: "1.1" evidence_strength: "moderate" evidence_sources: - "Bruner (1960) — The Process of Education: spiral curriculum and vertical coherence" - "Wiggins & McTighe (2005) — Understanding by Design: backwards design applied to programme-level planning" - "Bernstein (1999) — Vertical and horizontal discourse: hierarchical knowledge sequencing" - "Hattie (2009) — Visible Learning: curriculum coherence as a high-effect variable" - "Muller (2009) — Forms of knowledge and curriculum coherence: conceptual vs contextual coherence" - "Maton (2013) — Making semantic waves: cumulative knowledge-building across a programme" - "Schmidt, Wang & McKnight (2005) — Coherence of the intended, implemented, and attained curriculum" - "Duschl, Schweingruber & Shouse (2007) — Taking Science to School: learning progressions as programme architecture" - "Kolb (1984) — Experiential Learning: experience as prerequisite for dispositional development" - "Bransford, Brown & Cocking (2000) — How People Learn: experiential readiness and conceptual framing" - "Flavell (1979) — Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: naming before practising metacognitive strategies" - "Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006) — Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: explicit instruction for novices" input_schema: required: - field: "subject_or_programme" type: "string" - field: "developmental_bands" type: "string" - field: "intended_outcomes" type: "string" optional: - field: "existing_units_or_competencies" type: "string" - field: "knowledge_architecture_output" type: "string" - field: "time_available" type: "string" - field: "kud_charts" type: "string" - field: "lt_types" type: "string" - field: "prerequisite_map" type: "string" - field: "sequencing_principles" type: "string" output_schema: type: "object" fields: - field: "knowledge_progression_map" type: "object" - field: "vertical_coherence_check" type: "object" - field: "horizontal_coherence_check" type: "object" - field: "sequencing_rationale" type: "string" - field: "gaps_and_overlaps" type: "object" - field: "design_flags" type: "object" - field: "inferred_prerequisite_map" type: "array" - field: "sequencing_constraints" type: "array" - field: "sequencing_principles_output" type: "string" - field: "sequencing_questions_for_teacher" type: "array" - field: "teacher_discretion_flags" type: "array" - field: "prerequisite_violations" type: "array" - field: "confidence_level" type: "string" chains_well_with: - "curriculum-knowledge-architecture-designer" - "kud-knowledge-type-mapper" - "kud-chart-author" - "learning-target-authoring-guide" - "developmental-band-system-designer" - "backwards-design-unit-planner" - "competency-unpacker" - "learning-progression-builder" - "gap-analysis-from-student-work" teacher_time: "15 minutes" tags: ["scope-and-sequence", "curriculum-coherence", "vertical-coherence", "learning-progressions", "programme-design", "Bruner", "spiral-curriculum", "knowledge-types", "prerequisite-sequencing", "KUD-charts"] ---
118# Scope and Sequence Designer
119
120## What This Skill Does
121
122Takes a programme description and developmental band structure and produces a coherent scope and sequence — mapping what gets taught across all bands, in what order, with explicit reasoning for the sequencing decisions. This skill works at any level of education: early childhood through upper secondary, undergraduate, professional development programmes, or any other staged learning architecture. Most scope and sequence documents are lists: topics assigned to year groups without coherent logic for why that topic sits there, what it builds on, or what it prepares students for. This skill produces a structured progression grounded in three knowledge types: hierarchical elements are sequenced by prerequisite logic so foundational knowledge is always in place before the next layer is introduced; horizontal elements are sequenced to build thinking sophistication progressively rather than repeating the same thinking moves at the same level year after year; dispositional elements are mapped as continuous threads with explicit identification of the knowledge prerequisites that must be in place before a disposition can meaningfully develop. When KUD charts, LT types, or a pre-built prerequisite map are supplied, the skill applies them directly; when they are not, it infers prerequisite relationships and flags the confidence of every inference. The result is a programme where every element has a defensible reason for being where it is — and where the epistemic status of each recommendation is explicit. AI is specifically valuable here because coherent programme design requires simultaneously tracking prerequisite chains across years, monitoring knowledge type balance within and across bands, and identifying gaps and overlaps that are invisible when looking at individual units in isolation — a level of systematic cross-referencing that is cognitively demanding and frequently skipped in real curriculum planning.
123
124## Evidence Foundation
125
126Bruner (1960) established the foundational principle of the spiral curriculum: key ideas should be revisited across year groups at increasing levels of sophistication, with each encounter building on prior encounters rather than repeating them. A scope and sequence that revisits a topic without increasing the cognitive demand is not a spiral — it is repetition. The spiral principle applies differently to the three knowledge types. Hierarchical knowledge spirals by adding new layers of complexity on top of secured foundations — fractions before algebra, cell biology before genetics. Horizontal knowledge spirals by increasing the sophistication of analytical thinking applied to recurring themes — a student who identifies perspectives at Band A should be evaluating and comparing analytical frameworks at Band D. Dispositional knowledge does not spiral in the same way — it develops continuously through enacted practice across the full programme, though the knowledge that supports dispositional expression deepens at each band.
127
128Schmidt, Wang & McKnight (2005) analysed curriculum coherence across high-performing education systems and found that coherent curricula share three features: **focus** (fewer topics taught more deeply), **rigour** (appropriate challenge at each level), and **coherence** (topics connect logically within and across years). Systems that lack coherence — where topics appear and disappear without progression logic — consistently underperform. Their most significant finding for scope and sequence design is that coherence is not just a vertical property (does Band B build on Band A?) but also a horizontal property (do the elements within Band B connect to each other?). A programme can have perfect vertical sequencing and still lack coherence if the units within each band are isolated from each other.
129
130Duschl, Schweingruber & Shouse (2007) developed the concept of **learning progressions**: empirically grounded descriptions of how student understanding develops across years, with each level building specifically on the previous one. Their work establishes that progression is not automatic — it requires deliberate curriculum design that matches what is taught to what students are ready to learn. Learning progressions are best documented for hierarchical knowledge domains (mathematics, early reading, some areas of science), where the prerequisite structure is well-researched. For horizontal and dispositional domains, progressions are less empirically established and must be constructed from developmental principles rather than from replicated research on specific learning sequences.
131
132Wiggins & McTighe (2005) applied backwards design to programme-level planning: begin with the intended outcomes at the end of the programme, then work backwards to determine what must be in place at each stage to reach those outcomes. At the scope and sequence level, this means the final band's expectations determine what must be taught in every preceding band — not as direct preparation for a test, but as the knowledge and capability foundations that make the final outcomes achievable.
133
134Bernstein (1999) and Muller (2009) establish the theoretical foundation for knowledge-type-specific sequencing. **Hierarchical knowledge** has an inherent sequencing logic: concepts must be taught in prerequisite order because later concepts genuinely depend on earlier ones. You cannot teach genetic inheritance before students understand cell division. **Horizontal knowledge** does not have prerequisite chains in the same way — different analytical lenses can be introduced in various orders — but it does have a sophistication progression: students should move from identifying perspectives to analysing through perspectives to evaluating and synthesising across perspectives. Sequencing horizontal knowledge by increasing analytical demand rather than by prerequisite dependency is one of the key distinctions this skill makes.
135
136Maton (2013) adds the semantic wave concept: effective knowledge-building requires movement between abstract principles and concrete cases across a programme, not just within individual lessons. A scope and sequence that stays at the abstract level throughout produces disconnected theoretical knowledge; one that stays at the concrete level produces experience without conceptual development. Across a programme, the semantic profile should show increasing capacity to move between concrete and abstract — students at early bands work primarily with concrete cases and simple abstractions, while students at later bands should be able to operate fluently at multiple levels of abstraction and move between them deliberately.
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md7,690 words
Files1
Licencenot declared
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈2,170
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
12,230
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
7.2%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 72% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

14.4k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

1 file, 57.6 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md57.6 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 1 file you can review in full before installing.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Scope and Sequence Designer · 14.4k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/scope-and-sequence-designer-2" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2 ] || { mv .claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2 "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/scope-and-sequence-designer-2" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add garethmanning/scope-and-sequence-designer-2

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/scope-and-sequence-designer-2" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2 ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2 "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/scope-and-sequence-designer-2" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/scope-and-sequence-designer-2/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where. It appears as scope-and-sequence-designer in Gemini CLI, Codex, Copilot and Grok (its own name); Claude Code lists it by the folder name, scope-and-sequence-designer-2.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Version1.1
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencegarethmanning/scope-and-sequence-designer-2

Versions

v1.1 is what is on the shelf; no release here carries a date. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

v1.1
  • No earlier releases have been published to the marketplace.
Pinning

The install command always fetches the release that is current the day you run it — v1.1 today — and cannot ask for an earlier one. The copy on your disk does not change until you run it again.

Reviews

—no reviews yet

Nobody has reviewed this skill yet. The rating is the mean of the reviews written here, so there is none until somebody writes the first.

Sign in to review it

A review is tied to an account so it can be answered, edited and taken down by the person who wrote it.

Sign in
Who can post

Anybody with an account, one review each. It carries the version that was current when you wrote it, and the publisher may reply once.

Publisher
Servers0
Claim this skill