There is considerable rhetoric internationally around the need for national curricula to reflect the changes that are taking place in the world outside school. This raises questions about what a quality curriculum in a technological era should look like, and equally challenging issues about how to achieve the necessary changes in schooling in order for such a curriculum to be realised. This paper summarises the views of 11 experts from seven countries. It introduces a sociocultural framework that highlights the complexity of achieving alignment between policies and practice spanning the national to local school to classroom levels. Three key issues that underpin alignment are then explored, each of which link with the issue of trust:

• stakeholders engagement;
• teacher professionalism;
• summative assessment.

By exploring and exemplifying these three issues the paper indicates potential ways of addressing them and provides ‘tools to think with’ to enhance future curriculum development initiatives.