2 Standpoints on the National Curriculum
43. The evidence that we received revealed a consensus
that the nature and particularly the management of the National
Curriculum is in urgent need of significant reform.
44. As the previous section illustrated, despite
repeated reforms intended to reduce the level of prescription
contained in the National Curriculum it remains substantial. While
the new secondary Programmes of Study may be much shorter in length
than their predecessors, the secondary curriculum is arguably
as complex as it ever was, if not more so, because greater emphasis
is put on its other components—the lengthy set of statutory
aims and the non-statutory life skills and cross-curriculum themes.
The ongoing reform of the primary curriculum must find room for,
among other things, additional time for literacy and numeracy,
modern foreign languages as a new statutory subject at Key Stage
2 and a set of life skills that all pupils should cover. The Department
and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) no longer
just concern themselves with setting and supporting the Programmes
of Study; through the 'Big Picture' they have also taken an interest
in how schools link the National Curriculum that is delivered
in lessons to all other aspects of school life. Mick Waters, Director
of Curriculum at the QCA explained:
We have tried to develop a conversation that
encourages schools to think about how the Curriculum is the entire
planned learning experience for children, bringing together lessons,
subjects, events that children take part in, routines, out-of-school
life, and the work that children do beyond and outside school.[16]
45. To the National Curriculum the Department has
felt the need to add a raft of additional centrally-produced frameworks
and guidance. Despite the Department's claims that steps have
been taken to streamline the National Strategies guidance,[17]
the amount of that guidance remains considerable—all of
it, according to the Department, crucial to empowering teachers
and raising standards.[18]
46. Other witnesses were dismayed at the degree of
control over the curriculum and its delivery that the Department
has pursued, particularly over the last decade. As one submission
remarked:
Initially there was a promise to provide guidelines
only on what children were entitled to be taught, and there
was to be no question of eroding the teacher's responsibility
for the how or the particularity of teaching. There
can still be no quarrel with that. However, that promise was quickly
broken and we now have a totally prescriptive, centrally worked
out set of curriculum packages designed for "delivery"
by teachers […].[19]
Another witness commented:
I think we are living in a dangerous dream world
if we accept the official view that the National Curriculum is
a light regulatory framework within which teachers can develop
their skills. That is not what we are hearing from teachers. Teachers
are very oppressed. […] I am afraid I do not accept the view
that it is only the poor teachers who say, "Oh, we can't
do this because of the National Curriculum." It is a genuine
excuse: they feel they are so rigidly controlled that they cannot
do what they trained to do as teachers.[20]
47. We received related calls for a much greater
emphasis on local determination of the curriculum and responsiveness
to parents and pupils:
Missing […] is the sense of a pull from
the consumer or beneficiary. Teachers are well aware of the collective
view of the parents but they have not been encouraged or enabled
to use that as their driving force. The role of teachers in meeting
the needs of parents has effectively been reversed to one of meeting
the requirements of the State.[21]
[…] under the aegis of the National Curriculum,
there can be no way in for the notion of education as cultural
conversation led by a cultured profession free to express itself
in essentially local, small scale environments. In short, politicians
have to be persuaded to […] return [the curriculum] to the
care of a revitalized and independent profession working in partnership
with a resurrected, well-funded network of local authorities.
[…] Along with these reforms there must be a fresh remit
for the [Qualifications and Curriculum Authority] reflecting the
needs of children, families and schools—rather than the
latest whims of its political masters.[22]
48. As we now go on to discuss, even very strong
supporters of the principle of a national curriculum were clear
that the current National Curriculum and its management are damaging
both to pupils' learning and to teacher professionalism.
16 Q 6 Back
17
Q 567 Back
18
e.g. Q 615 Back
19
Ev 250, paragraph 2 [Malcolm Ross] Back
20
Q 91 [Robert Whelan, Civitas] Back
21
Ev 256, paragraph 9 [Jolly Learning Ltd] Back
22
Ev 250, paragraph 6 [Malcolm Ross] Back
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