On 5 November the government released the long-awaited review of the National Curriculum. So, what is in the review and what is missing?
The National Curriculum Review
The review rightly sees the National Curriculum as an investment in all our young people, it is seen as representing “an opportunity to build on what is working well, and to address what is not, to ensure that the curriculum and assessment system in this country is truly world class.”
While the use of a description of the curriculum as having to be “world-class,” may understandably grate with many who still have bad memories of the Johnson era; when everything was going to be ‘world-beating’ and of course ended up as nothing of the sort; the review does make some important and useful points.
For a start, it acknowledges that the current system is not working well for all young people. It notes that there are barriers to some groups of young people accessing the curriculum, and that these need to be challenged. The report notes: “We must promote high aspirations and raise standards for the significant group of young people for whom the current system creates barriers. In this way, we can ensure the best life chances for all young people, irrespective of their background.”
The report is also correct to say that the curriculum must respond to social and technological change. It rightly states that there needs to be a third pathway to adulthood, for those who are not going down the A-level or T-level routes.
The report is also right to note that too much time is spent on assessment, especially at the end of Key Stage 4.
Recommendations of the report
The report delivers a number of key recommendations. These suggest that the refreshed national curriculum:
- Must be aspirational, engaging and demanding.
- Should retain a knowledge-rich approach, ensuring skills are developed in conjunction with knowledge.
- Should ensure the professional autonomy of teachers is maintained
- Should reflect our diverse society and the contributions of people of all backgrounds to our knowledge and culture
Selected subject recommendations
Here in the North East, it is particularly interesting to read what the recommendations are for subjects such as Citizenship, English, History and Geography, which can have a particularly regional dimension for us.
In Citizenship the report recommends that core concepts are taught at primary school and that there must be a better handover of the subject from Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 4, with an option for students to take GCSE Citizenship.
In English the report does recommend that there be “greater clarity of purpose to focus English Language more clearly on the nature and expression of language, and to support critical analysis of a wider variety of text types and genres…”
In Geography, the curriculum report recommends that little changes so that it “embeds climate change and sustainability more explicitly across different Key Stages, including across the physical geography, geographical applications, and human geography sections of the curriculum, ensuring early, coherent, and more detailed engagement with climate education. This should be done without risking curriculum overload.”
Meanwhile in History the report recommends that understanding of disciplinary knowledge is advanced and that assessment is fit for purpose.
What is missing?
The simple answer to that is quite a lot, especially for pupils in a region like the North East. While there is acknowledgement of pupils coming from diverse backgrounds, that does not seem to include regional differences.
While it is right to say that Citizenship should be taught in schools, there is no sense of how it could be an inspirational and empowering subject for young people and the ways that it could help the much-needed community development in many parts of our own North East, whilst also reflecting our regional heritage of work in areas such as human rights.
In Geography and History there is little or no mention of any regional dimension to each subject to help make them more relevant to our pupils in the North East, and to really help make the subjects come alive.
While it is refreshing to see the report state that the professional autonomy of teachers should be maintained, it does not always acknowledge that teachers’ professional autonomy has been undermined in the last 40 years and that consequently, bringing in a regional dimension to the Humanities, where teachers could use their local expertise might be a good way of restoring autonomy and professionalism.
Similarly, in English it is good to see an emphasis on understanding the nature and expression of language, though there is still no sense that this will include the spoken language of pupils in northern England and especially in places such as North East England.
Pupils in Scotland are taught Scots Language in school and consequently are taught to be proud of the way that they speak. ‘Wor bairns’ in North East England are rarely if ever taught in a similar way to be proud of the way they speak. That must change.
In the final analysis, we need a curriculum that is relevant to our young people, that they can relate to and one which can give them a sense of pride and place.
The Vocational pathway
The report does rightly say that there needs to be a third pathway and that, “this pathway should provide an aspirational alternative to A Levels and T Levels and should be based on new vocational qualifications, which we recommend calling V Levels. This should support the significant proportion of young people for whom these former routes are not suitable to pursue high-quality and rewarding level 3 study. This group disproportionately includes those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and those with SEND.”
Again, however, the review could go further. It would be particularly helpful to look at the proposals of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, discussed in a plan to develop both technical and academic education.
To sum up; the Curriculum review does seem to be a step in the right direction, especially in acknowledging what has been so wrong with the National Curriculum for a number of years. However, it needs to go a lot further and really consider how the curriculum might be made more useful and relevant to pupils in a region like North East England and how it can then help to build on the inherent strengths of the pupils, instead of constantly finding out their weaknesses and undermining them.
Let us hope that the review and the curriculum can be developed further along these lines.
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