This paper builds on the call by Luke et al. (2013) for case studies showing the complexities of policy and curriculum located within their specific cultural and historical contexts, especially with respect to the technical form (i.e. the locus of authority) of the curriculum. We thus describe diverse ways in which primary science teachers in Singapore interpreted, adopted, and transformed a suite of integrated curriculum resources that were recently developed by the Ministry of Education. From our lesson observations and interviews, local teachers demonstrated a defensible mix of adherence and autonomy in teaching science concepts and practices at different phases of their lessons, expressed rationales for teaching the way that they did prioritised national syllabus requirements, and showed sensitivity to learner profiles, and other classroom factors. In accounting for teachers’ pedagogical decision-making and use of resources, we therefore highlight the negotiation of informed prescription as well as informed professionalism. This was done within a qualified “low-definition” primary science curriculum context that tried to balance curriculum guidance and implementation flexibility. More productive and quality curriculum reforms—at least based on our primary science cases—may benefit from orchestrating multiple factors while striking a balance between prescription and professionalism, rather than adopting an “all-or-nothing” stance.
