{"id":216589,"date":"2024-10-21T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/?p=216589"},"modified":"2024-10-23T17:02:41","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:02:41","slug":"three-concerns-about-the-curriculum-and-assessment-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/three-concerns-about-the-curriculum-and-assessment-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Three concerns about the curriculum and assessment review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let the curriculum games begin! Another review is underway<\/a>, and edu-gladiators and organisations are sharpening their pencils and elbows. The curriculum is overloaded, everyone agrees, but none want their particular passion removed. Some, in fact, want theirs added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, a senior civil servant shared with me some submissions from that year\u2019s review. The Campaign for Real Ale and the Anarchist Federation demanded that real ale and anarchy be included in the National Curriculum. Are we not entertained?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that I am back in class, the thought of yet more curriculum change is kind of exhausting. There are clear opportunity costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every minute spent tweaking curriculum content is a minute lost to the less politicised but usually more profound choices \u2013 especially around task design –  that make the daily differences to children\u2019s learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as I battle to teach adverbials, or struggle to find  time for developing pupils as active citizens, the chance to refresh, reduce and repurpose our national curriculum is welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guardrails for the current review are now set. They rule out revolution and rightly prioritise social justice and equity. However, they also exhibit three serious flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Primary goals<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First, the review will \u2018work backwards through young people’s educational journey\u2019 starting with Key Stage 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This seems to suggest that the primary curriculum is simply a \u2018flight path\u2019 to what needs to be achieved at and by secondary schools, rather than have any intrinsic, real-time value to enable a thriving childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accompanying evidence paper, which includes only data from secondary schools, subtly reaffirms this post-11 bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole curriculum<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Second, the review fails to differentiate between the whole curriculum and the national curriculum. The <\/a>2011 review<\/a> specifically noted this distinction, arguing that \u2018the National Curriculum should not absorb the overwhelming majority of teaching time in schools\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, this feels laughable. For academies as well as maintained schools, and for nearly forty years, the national curriculum has left almost no space for any locally-determined content, aims or outcomes. The OECD has noted as much<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I have argued elsewhere<\/a>, there is a compelling case for government to guarantee schools 20 per cent of their curriculum time will be reserved for \u2018non-National Curriculum learning\u2019, and to ensure that accountability systems protect, inspect and monitor this space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the review is serious about its principle to \u2018support the innovation and professionalism of teachers\u2019, it has to face up to this fundamental failure. Government should see itself as a curriculum space-creator as well as determiner. It needs to tread more lightly on schools\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defining so-called skills<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The third flaw is that the review wording refers to \u2018skills\u2019 on numerous occasions but offers no clear definition of the word, further obfuscating this issue with occasional use of the terms \u2018attributes\u2019 or \u2018life skills\u2019. Worryingly, none of its 54 consultation questions create space to discuss this explicitly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How shall we distinguish, then, between skills as the application of knowledge (academic and technical know-how) and skills as dispositions (habits of mind and character)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether and how to include the latter in any national curriculum is a live debate. There are genuine differences about whether creating a national curriculum that is both knowledge-rich and dispositions-rich (within, across and beyond subjects) is either desirable or realistic. Yet the review looks likely to miss the opportunity to have that debate sensibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing such dispositions is precisely where guaranteed school (not national) curriculum time might allow for genuine development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than nail down specific dispositions, the review could create space for rigorous experimentation, which could be incentivised by beefing up the presently low-leverage \u2018personal development\u2019 element of the Ofsted framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three flaws should not prevent anyone from engaging with the review in good faith. (See Tim Leunig\u2019s excellent \u2018how to\u2019 in FE Week<\/a> to help you have your say.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All reviews, like all curricula, are imperfect, but I am still optimistic that this one will move our national curriculum to the better place all our children deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, may the odds be ever in your favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flaws in the review\u2019s terms of reference mean a(nother) opportunity to deal with the perennial issue of curriculum overload could go begging<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311124,"featured_media":216454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"post-theme":[3550],"class_list":["post-216589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","post-theme-opinion-curriculum-review"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t