Each calendar year, when new PGCE students arrive at the College of Bristol to start out their journey toward getting to be English lecturers, I inquire them to review the countrywide curriculum. This is the statutory document prescribing what youngsters aged from 5 to 16 are taught at university.
I do this regardless of that curriculum showing up progressively irrelevant. It is rarely – if ever – observed in the educational institutions in which our scholar instructors educate, despite it getting the only document mandating what council-taken care of schools “need to educate”.
Academies – self-governing colleges acquiring direct govt funding, fairly than getting council-taken care of – are exempt from the curriculum. As of January 2023, 80.4% of secondary educational facilities are academies or free educational facilities, accounting for 80.2% of secondary university pupils.
The significance of the curriculum will adjust if a Labour authorities arrives to ability at the future common election. The get together has promised a evaluate of curriculum and evaluation – and that all point out faculties, which includes academies, will be essential to abide by the “core countrywide curriculum”.
It may possibly be, even though, that the nationwide curriculum has outlived its usefulness. A extra radical approach could be to dispense with it entirely.
Restrictions of the curriculum
The primary curriculum only ever lined England and Wales, and iterations published just after Welsh devolution in 1998 have been only for England. Scotland and Northern Eire have their own programs. Furthermore, the curriculum has only at any time used to state-funded colleges, not independents.
The notion of a “national” curriculum was more undermined when Tony Blair’s government launched the academies programme. Ironically, it was the entice of independence from the curriculum that inspired some of the earliest educational facilities to transform. Gordon Brown later on promoted academies as “engines in deprived regions for social mobility and social justice”, possibly implying that the curriculum was incapable of reaching this.
Considering that 2010, the Conservative government has enthusiastically embraced academisation, and educational facilities that do not perform well in Ofsted inspections can be compelled to come to be academies. This is despite statements that academies do not always perform improved than the taken care of universities they change.
But even with their clear flexibility from the countrywide curriculum, the programmes of review supplied in most academies are remarkably equivalent. This is the result of an accountability-heavy, overall performance-centric procedure, which judges and ranks schools on examination benefits. The GCSE test specifications have become the new national curriculum.
Training to the check
The stress of GCSE good results in English is these kinds of that many schools start off getting ready their learners for the exams all through vital stage a few (researched by children aged 11 to 14), very well in advance of when GCSE review is supposed to start out.
Study has located that critical stage a few teaching is normally motivated by GCSE needs, such as the analyze of the Victorian novel – a ingredient of GCSE English Literature. This insular literary diet suggests that pupils absence the chance to examine a broad vary of numerous and contemporary texts, these kinds of as the “seminal globe literature” that the nationwide curriculum necessitates.
If educational facilities do make adjustments to what they train, they may be prompted a lot more by exterior influences than a will to adhere to the curriculum. They could be, for instance, responding to concerns raised by the Black Lives Make a difference movement by applying methods and examining lists these types of as Lit in Color to address the deficiency of diversity in English Literature.
It is achievable that the current curriculum is perfectly previous its sell-by date anyway. All 5 previous iterations (1989, 1995, 1999, 2004, 2007) enjoyed a substantially shorter shelf daily life. Today’s curriculum is a ten years old.
This milestone is not likely to be celebrated – at minimum amongst English lecturers. In contrast to the 1989 authentic, which was mostly welcomed by the profession, today’s curriculum has faced accusations of becoming devised with only token session of the folks who would close up instructing it.
Specified the extent of the curriculum’s decrease, both of those in arrive at and in identifying what is taught, it is fascinating that it remains often cited in governing administration files, these kinds of as the new Department for Instruction examining framework.
It is utilised as a normal by Ofsted in inspections: educational institutions need to instruct a broad variety of topics, as “exemplified by the national curriculum”. But for the the vast majority of schools, it is simply just an case in point of what to teach, not a prerequisite.
If the national curriculum is to survive, it requires revision. To have a good influence on mastering, that revision ought to require a spectrum of academic experts and be open up to national debate. And academies should be required to teach it. It is hardly worth revising for a modest and dwindling variety of colleges.
Much more radically, it could be dropped altogether. Finland and New Zealand have successfully released a part-local curriculum, making it possible for academics options to deal with subjects that answer to the difficulties and demands of their communities.
A single trouble, although, is that this would demand a total overhaul of the evaluation procedure in England – and so is not likely to garner political assistance.
To find out about the courses we have on offer: Click Here
Join the Course: Click Here
