Tag Archives: national curriculum

Fine words butter no parsnips

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What is one to make of a government that announces an expansion of the place of the creative arts in the National Curriculum review literally weeks after cutting the bursary for trainee teachers of music? Labour’s determination to recruit new teachers doesn’t include music | John Howson 8th October 2026

If I am being kind, it would be that one part of the DfE doesn’t know what the other is doing. Recruiting trainee music teachers has been a challenge over the past few years, and with universities eyeing the future of music degree courses, recruitment probably won’t get any easier.

Did a Minister, when sanctioning the bursary withdrawal, ask what the forthcoming Curriculum Review might have to say about the subject?  If so, why was the bursary withdrawn if the creative arts re to play a larger part in the new curriculum?

Hopefully, someone at Westminster will ask this question over the next few days. Perhaps media arts programmes might also like to interrogate a Minister about this curious state of affairs.

Of course, it is possible that the talk of expanding provision is just that, and the government has no real intention of putting funds behind any expansion in order to make it happen. Blame can then be laid at the door of schools for not switching resources into the creative subjects.

After all the government just said that

‘A new core enrichment entitlement for every pupil – covering civic engagement; arts and culture; nature, outdoor and adventure; sport and physical activities; and developing wider life skills.’ New curriculum to give young people the skills for life and work – GOV.UK

Not much meat on the bone there. Delving into the detailed response from the government we find that

“We recognise the Review’s concerns around access to music and that some schools require support to deliver music well, including from specialist teachers, particularly to help pupils to develop their knowledge and skills in learning to read music and play instruments. We continue to invest in instrument stocks through the music hubs. Our £25 million investment will provide over 130,000 additional instruments, equipment and other music technology by the end of 2026, with around 40,000 already in the hands of teachers and pupils. We will consider how we maximise the impact of this investment to ensure the opportunity of and access to a reformed music curriculum is fully realised.”  Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review page 34.

Not much joined up thinking there. Encouraging singing has a much lower capital cost than instruments, and can capture more pupils – see the great scheme at Debry Cathedral that has over 900 possible singers.

The first sentence of the paragraph bears no relation to the rest of the paragraph, so don’t hold out hopes that music will achieve more than lots of instruments sitting on shelves or being played by children whose parents can afford the lessons.  

I am very disappointed in the music section of the government’s response, especially that now I chair the Oxfordshire Music Board and so music is a particular interest of mine.

Not more B…..y Vikings

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During her interview on the Today Programme, just before 8am this morning, I heard the Secretary of State talking about the need to review how to remove duplication in the teaching of the National Curriculum. That very sentiment was in part the Reason Kenneth Baker introduced a National Curriculum in the 1988 Education Reform Act.

 In the 1980s, discussion was about the repetition of the same topic, with little additional learning taking place when it was taught in both the primary and secondary sectors, so that an eight-year-old was drawing the same Viking boat as a thirteen-year-old – we didn’t have ‘year with numbers’ back then. There was both duplication and a lack of progression.

This morning, the Secretary of State cited the lack of coordination over languages between what is taught in primary schools and the secondary schools they feed into as an issue.

Now, during the past forty years since the idea of a National Curriculum became common currency in education, progress has been made in codifying what is taught, and England’s PISA scores have increased. Both no doubt great achievements.

However, many of my maths friends tell me there has been a price to pay in their subject. I think the idea of a new diagnostic test in Year 8 for English and mathematics highlights the dilemma facing secondary schools. How do you staff a school to both develop pupils’ knowledge and experience when they are on track, but also work to try to build on the knowledge and skills of those that have fallen behind where they are expected to be at that age?

Will the test be used to see the difference a school achieves in Progress 8 between the end of Year 8 and GSCE? More importantly, what will be the consequences of under-achievement? If there are no consequences, then why would schools do more than pay lip service to these new tests?

 In the original National Curriculum, there were 10 levels, and every child had another level to aspire to reach. That was about motivation, not checking for failure. After all, as Phil Willis sometime Lib Dem spokesperson on education used to say, ‘you don’t make pigs fatter by just weighting them.’

But, back to the issue of continuity across all subjects. This requires mandated programmes of work about what is taught and when to be fully achievable across all schools. Such rigidity risks undermining teacher flexibility and professionalism as it has been recognised in the past.

However, in a more mobile society, some continuity of delivery across the country must be a price schools have to pay to support change. Hopefully, technology is the friend of teachers in that respect. The digitising of the curriculum is a useful suggestion, and one Oxford Brookes University’s School of Education first undertook in the early 1990s, when increased computer power made it possible.

Elsewhere, in the announcement, I applaud the extension of the National Curriculum to all schools, but am horrified that support for the IB has been withdrawn from the small number of schools teaching that curriculum. Here is another example of national direction versus local flexibility.

In Oxfordshire, with many parents from across Europe working in the science and technology industries, this rigidity of approach might be counterproductive if the Europa School cannot continue teaching a language-based curriculum.  Westminster may not always know best.

Missions still need funding

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In February, Sir Keir Starmer outlined his five missions for the Labour Party – one wonders, will they appear on a pledge card, as once before – and the fifth one was ‘raising education standards’ according to a BBC report at the time Keir Starmer unveils Labour’s five missions for the country – BBC News

After a recent announcement about teachers, dealt with in my blog at Labour’s style over substance | John Howson (wordpress.com) came a Leader’s speech today on the subject of what the Labour Party would do about policy for education.

In reality, education seemed to mean schooling, skills and early years, if the press reports are to be believed. Interestingly, the BBC has now substituted the word ‘pledge’ for the term ‘mission’. An example of ‘word creep’, perhaps? Actually, it seems more like sloppy journalism if the text of the speech is to be believed, as it starts by referring to ‘mission’ not pledge. Read: Full Keir Starmer mission speech on opportunity, education and childcare – LabourList

At the heart of the speech seems to be these two questions

‘So these are the two fundamental questions we must now ask of our education system: are we keeping pace with the future, preparing all our children to face it?

And – are we prepared to confront the toxic divides that maintain the class ceiling?’

The speech was about class and opportunity as a means of raising standards. Sir Keir has clearly moved on form the famous ‘rule of three’ and now favour a five-point approach, so we had

Apart from the already announced increase in teacher numbers and the retention bonus, there was little about either how the new education age would be delivered or how it would be paid for. No pledge to level up post 16 funding, so badly hit under the present government.

Plans for Early Years

Oracy to build confidence

A review of the National Curriculum for the new digital age

The importance of vocational and work-related studies

Tackling low expectations

There was little for any progressive politician to take issue with in the speech, but little to demonstrate the drive to accomplish the fine words. Re-opening Children’s Centres will come at a price, as will changing the curriculum.

There was nothing to show how resources will be channelled into areas of deprivation and under-performance. Will Labour continue the Conservative idea of Opportunity Areas that do nothing for pockets of underperformance in affluent areas or will it revive the Pupil Premium introduced by the Lib Dems, when part of the coalition, ascheme that identified individual need, wherever it was to be found.

I think I still prefer the 2015 approach from the Liberal Democrats to end illiteracy within 10 years: something that can be measured, rather than the more nebulous ‘raising of standards’ offered by Sir Kier.

Finally, from the Labour Party that introduced tuition fees, not a word on higher education and the consequence of raising standards on the demand for places. Perhaps Labour has still to reconcile the brave new world of skills and the place of universities in the new education landscape. With higher standards will come another class ceiling at eighteen?

Imperial Measures

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The announcement of a consultation into the use of imperial measures either alongside or in place of metric measures – too European – timed to commence during the Jubilee weekend remind me of the following post that appeared on this blog in August 2019 which discussed the possibility of such an announcement.

That 2019 post also discussed the curriculum, another live topic with the Schools Bill that is currently wending its way through parliament and was based upon the decision to spend more on increasing the size of the prison estate rather than on preventing re-offending.  

Rods, poles and perches

Posted on August 11, 2019

The announcement of 10,000 new prison places and increased use of stop and search by the Prime Minister made me think about what he might announce for our schools and colleges once he goes beyond the financial carrot necessary to shore up our under-financed education system.

With such an ardent Brexiter in charge, could he direct that the curriculum changes on 1st November to throw out any reference to the decimal system and witness a return to imperial weights and measures? Could the government mandate that temperature again be expressed in degrees Fahrenheit rather than Centigrade, and kilometres be banished from the language once again? Any other summer and these might seem silly season stories, but not in 2019.

I have no doubt that schools would rather that spend the £2 billion to build new prison places that this cash was spent on youth services, more cash for special schools and strategies to reduce exclusions and off-rolling by schools. This could include better provision of professional development courses to help teachers educate challenging pupils, rather than exclude them. Such measures might obviate the need for building new prisons.

I do not want to return to the dark days of the Labour government, just over a decade ago, when, at any one time, around 4,000 young people were being locked up: the number now is closer to 1,000 despite the issues with knife crime that like drugs issues is now seeping across the country at the very time when it seems to have plateaued in London.

More police and other public service staff are necessary for society to function effectively, but the aim must be focused on prevention and deterrents not on punitive action and punishment. Criminals that know they are likely to be caught may well think twice: those that know detection rates are abysmal will consider the opportunity worth the risk.

The State also needs to spend money on the education and training of prisoners as well as the rehabilitation of offenders after the end of their sentence; especially young offenders. The recent report from the Inspector of Prisons makes as depressing reading as the study highlighted in a previous post of the background of many young people that are incarcerated for committing crimes. If we cannot even work to prevent the smaller number of young people imprisoned these days from re-offending, what hope is there if society starts to lock up more young people again?

A recurrent theme of this blog has been about the design of the curriculum for the half of our young people not destined for higher education. Here the new government could do something sensible by recognising that schools have accepted that the EBacc offers too narrow a curriculum to offer to every pupil and to encourage a post-14 offering that provides for the needs of all pupils. This might be achieved by encouraging schools and further education to work together.

A start might be made by increasing the funding for the 16-18 sector and identifying what was good about the idea of University Technical Colleges and Studio Schools and why the experiment has not worked as its promoters had hoped.

To educate: To draw out not to kick out

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I am delighted that the governors of St Olaf’s have reversed their policy about those that their school is there to serve. Might this be one case where the diocese has played an important role in changing hearts and minds?

Could this be one of the turning points in education history? Might all state schools now consider the purpose for which they are funded: to educate all and not just promote the seeming best. The quote from C S Lewis, cited in my previous post, really does look like it belongs to a previous age. His Narnia chronicles may still resonate with children and parents, but his views on education certainly shouldn’t. There was an inkling of the national mood last year when the idea of more selective schools was doing the rounds in the more old-fashioned segments of the Conservative Party.

Now is also the time to ditch the culture of league table schooling. Those with a good understanding of the revolution caused by the 1987 Education Reform Act will recall that alongside financial devolution and the National Curriculum ran the concept of ten levels of achievement. This allowed every child to have another level to aspire to achieve. Even a child at level one had a goal and the school could work to help them achieve it. Sadly, somewhere along the line, we ditched the ‘every child has a goal’ for the measure of the gaol achieved by the school as a collective. Naturally, this led to a desire to remove those that weren’t helping the school maximise its potential.

Now, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the 1870 Education Act that helped create schooling for all, it is time to redefine our beliefs in the role of education. We should no longer be looking for reasons to exclude, but for methods to challenge our pupils to succeed. Such a change will reinforce the great work already undertaken by many teachers and could even help to attract more entrants into the profession.

As a next step, the government might like to evaluate whether the over-insistence on the English Baccalaureate is actually hindering the aim of all pupils achieving both personal goals and goals of use to society? As a geographer by background, I welcome pupils studying the subject through to Year 11, but not at the expense of subjects such as design and technology. That subject has been so decimated by government actions that it is suggested that only 315 trainees had taken up offers of places on teacher preparation courses by late August. This is compared with more than 1,100 a few years ago.

Yet, a love of technology, or design and certainly of food can become an important motivator for life after school. Yes, homes and even TV programmes can play their part, but the motivation and support provided by schools remains critical in the development of a child’s education and their future progress as an adult.

The Secretary of State should now reaffirm the purpose of state education as developing the potential of every child entrusted to the State by their families. Those that want to enter a high stakes risk form of education, where lack of success mean exclusion, can still use the private sector.

New retreat from East of Suez

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The Geography Key Stages 1-3 programmes of study published this week rightly starts with an appreciation of the local area. Although requiring all seven year olds to know the names of all seven continents and five oceans seems a bit like setting them up for participation in a pub quiz team or TV quiz game. Perhaps the BBC will revive ‘Top of the Form’. Personally, I would be happy if a child by the age of seven knew what the earth looked like, and that there were masses of land and lots of water. Drilling a seven year old to spell Antarctica doesn’t seem very useful in this day and age.

At Key Stage 2, the opening phrase seems telling; Pupils should extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom and Europe, North and South America. So, having learnt of Asia and Oceania by name at Key Stage 1 they can be cheerfully ignored for the next four years with all examples taken from the Western Hemisphere. Hopefully it fits in with a study of the Maya and Aztec civilizations in history. By eleven, every child will no doubt know of Lake Titicaca and volcanoes such as Mauna Loa. They will also know about biomes. I confess that beat me, but fortunately there is a very good entry on Wikipedia including the main classifications. I think I will go with either the Walter or WWF classifications.

So, how will China, Japan, and the commonwealth countries of Africa, Asia and Oceania react to this geopolitical determinism that seemingly ignores them completely during the first six years of schooling in geography across England? Of course, teachers can draw in examples from beyond North & South America, but there seems little incentive to do so. At least Africa and Asia receive a mention at Key Stage 3. Oceania doesn’t seem to, so perhaps it’s not good news for the tourist industry of Australia, as pupils won’t be coming home full of the Barrier reef, the outback or the wonders of the west coast.

Fortunately, I trust teachers together with the powers of modern technology now available to schools and pupils to widen geographical horizons well beyond the narrow confines of these programmes of study. At Key Stage 3, I would have the interactive volcano and earthquake maps always available on my whiteboard or classroom computer. I would encourage pupils to tell me if they saw an interesting event and then the class could discuss it in real time.

The real debate is about what vocabulary of the subject children need to learn in order to help them progress? The capes and bays of Victorian schooling have been replaced by the continents and oceans, and capitals and countries, at a stage when children should be made excited about the subject. The challenge for the non-specialist primary teacher will be how to make geography exciting in this modern age, but still meet the programmes of study. But, if they are not assessed who will care anyway?