Developmental Band Translator

Tags harness-decomposed curriculum items (KUDs, LTs, criteria) with a school's developmental band metadata while preserving source voice and labels. Supply the band schema; the skill derives mapping rules from it.

Sources

• Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005) — Understanding by Design (2nd ed.), ASCD: backward design establishes the principle that curriculum alignment begins from stated outcomes and works backward through learning targets; band-tagging is an alignment operation on that model.
• Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2011) — The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units, ASCD: KUD as the canonical unit of translation between frameworks.
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) — Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, Harvard University Press: the Zone of Proximal Development provides the theoretical basis for developmental banding as an age-and-readiness construct rather than a pure age construct.
• Heritage, M. (2008) — Learning Progressions: Supporting Instruction and Formative Assessment, CCSSO: progressions are developmental rather than age-deterministic; band mappings must preserve this.
• Webb, N. L. (1997) — Criteria for Alignment of Expectations and Assessments in Mathematics and Science Education, CCSSO Research Monograph No. 6: alignment is multi-dimensional (categorical concurrence, depth-of-knowledge, range, balance) — band translation addresses only the age-range dimension and must not be mistaken for full alignment.

How to use it in your lesson

For the best results with EvidenceLesson, give it:

• band_schema — The school or programme's developmental band definitions. Must include band labels, approximate age or grade ranges, and any named groupings. Example: REAL School Budapest uses Bands A-F — A (Water+Air Dragons, K-2, ages 5-7), B (Earth Dragons, G3-4, ages 7-9), C (Fire Dragons, G5-6, ages 9-11), D (Metal+Light Dragons, G7-8, ages 11-13), E (G9-10, ages 13-15), F (G11-12, ages 15-17).
• kud_json — The harness-produced KUD file (kud.json). Each item must include at minimum item_id, content_statement, knowledge_type, and source_block_id.
• lts_json — The harness-produced LT file (lts.json). Each LT must include lt_id, lt_name, lt_definition, kud_item_ids, and knowledge_type.
• progression_structure_json — The harness-produced progression_structure.json for the source. Must include band_labels, source_type, and age_range_hint (or per-band approximate_age_range). If both age-range fields are absent, the skill returns request_age_range_context in skill_flags and halts.
• criterion_bank_json (optional) — The harness-produced criterion_bank.json if criterion-level band tagging is also required. Optional — if omitted the skill tags only KUD items and LTs.
• source_name (optional) — Human-readable source name (e.g. "UK DfE Statutory RSHE, July 2025") for output provenance. Defaults to progression_structure.source_slug if omitted.
• user_age_range_override (optional) — Explicit age-range mapping supplied by the user when a source has no native band structure (flat list). Required only when the skill emits a request_age_range_context error.

Pairs well with