Memorandum submitted by the New Vision
Group's sub-group on the Aims of the Curriculum
SUMMARY OF
MAIN POINTS
— There should be a National Curriculum
Framework to structure the curriculum. This submission makes a
clear distinction between a National Curriculum and a Curriculum
Framework (see section 1(ii)).
— The current framework supports an
inflexible and highly prescriptive curriculum that is test-driven
and directed towards "human capital" production, to
the relative neglect of other purposes of education (see section
2(i)).
— There is a need for a new framework
that supports the development of a less prescriptive and more
flexible National Curriculum by opening up a space for teachers'
to play a more generative role in curriculum planning and development
at both the school and local area levels.
— A new Framework should support whole
person development for every child through a Wholistic Curriculum,
which balances the economic, moral and cultural purposes
of education (see section 2(iii-x)).
— Policymakers and citizens in this
country have been slow to acknowledge that the distinction between
"academic" and "vocational" curriculum content
is now largely redundant. The issue at stake is no longer that
of "parity of esteem" but of how to create curriculum
experiences that bring the different purposes of education—economic,
moral and cultural—into a harmonious relation. The task
of a new National Curriculum Framework would be to provide guidance
in this respect for curriculum planning and development (see section
2(iv-vii)).
— A new Framework should provide a
unified view of the different purposes outlined. We would argue
that they should reflect and promote the democratic values by
which we live as members of society ie promote the freedom of
individuals to make informed choices of lifestyle, equal opportunities
to live lives they have reason to value, and a socially just distribution
of educational goods. This implies that the over-riding purpose
of education is to enable all pupils to choose a way of life they
value and have reason to value (see section 2(vii)).
— A new Framework should emphasise
the importance of a curriculum that enlarges the space of learning
for all pupils, thereby expanding rather than narrowing the range
and variety of the things they are capable of doing. It should
also increasingly, over time, support the development of a capability
to engage in evaluative reasoning as a basis for constructing
a chosen way of life. The current "policy talk" about
the need for more personalised learning appears to be highlighting
the importance of such a capability in the context of the 14-19
Curriculum (see section 2(vii), but also section 4(v)).
— Moreover, a new Framework should
prevent policy makers from conceptualising the production of "human
capital" in ways that are quite dysfunctional in "knowledge
intensive" economies; namely, conceiving it in terms of discrete
functional skills or "competencies" that are abstracted
from forms of appreciative experience. The capabilities required
to augment production processes in "knowledge intensive"
economies are not discrete, mechanical skills that can be routinely
applied to stock situations. Rather they are combinations of different
elements—knowledge, skills, and dispositions—that
are shaped by the requirement to exercise discernment and intelligent
judgement in particular kinds of complex and unpredictable situations
(see section 2(x)).
— The guidance provided by a new National
Curriculum Framework should take the form of setting broad curriculum
aims and procedural principles (rather than rules) for realising
the aims in practice in ways that are sensitive to context (see
section 2(xi) for the different kinds of principles to be specified
in the Framework, and section 2(xii-xv) for examples of each kind).
— The new Framework proposed would
need to set realistic time-scales for the development of a new
National Curriculum. We are of the opinion that a 10 year lead-in
time would be required to allow for school initiated curriculum
development, experimentation, formation of collaborative arrangements
between teachers, their schools and local and national groups
of stake-holders. Current time-scales have been too fast to allow
for such change processes to develop (see section 2(xvi)). However,
in order to maintain motivation and commitment to change, and
provide a consistent direction to the reform process, the Framework
should also outline staged intermediate goals and time-scales
for completing different aspects of the curriculum planning and
development process (see section 2(xvii)).
— The Government should set up a National
Forum or Standing Education Commission to identify the aims of
the National Curriculum and a broad framework of values and principles
to guide curriculum planning and development at national and local/regional
level (see section 3(ii)).
— The proposed Forum/Commission would
have an independent voice from government and while engaging with
the world of politicians will also preserve a sense of distance
from it. Only in this way will curriculum continuity be protected
from disruptive discontinuities caused by changes of personnel
in government and indeed changes of government (see section 3(iii)).
— The proposed Forum/Commission would
consist of individuals drawn from different walks of life who
are known for their ideas and achievements in civil society. Although
they would be drawn from a cross-section of society the members
of the Forum would be publicly appointed rather than delegated
by different stakeholder groups to represent their interests.
In this way the Forum would be detached from the power politics
of special interest groups (see section 3(iv)).
— It would be the responsibility of
the proposed Forum/Commission to specify implementation stages
for the reforms, and to continuously monitor and review the Curriculum
Framework's fitness-for-purpose by commissioning independent and
national evaluation studies of curriculum development programmes
that would report at the end of each stage (see section 3(ii)).
— The proposed Commission/Forum should
have responsibility for issuing guidance, based on commissioned
research, about the implications of the National Curriculum Framework
for organisational practices in schools (see section 3(v)).
— Section 4 of the report addresses
specific issues concerning the management of the National Curriculum
(see section 3). The other specific issues raised by the Committee
are dealt with in sections 1 and 2.
1. Should there be a National Curriculum?
(i) Objections to a National Curriculum
are likely to stem from teachers', childrens' and parents' experience
of the prescriptive and inflexible nature of the present curriculum
in spite of attempts to make it less so. The problem resides in
a framework that is structured around targets, detailed content
objectives, and attainment levels for the purposes of testing
at different key stages and constructing school league tables.
A National Curriculum Framework does not have to be test-driven.
On the contrary we are of the view that assessment methods should
be shaped by the curriculum. A National Curriculum Framework should
be there, not to support the testing regime, but to control testing
at all levels of accountability. It should make it difficult for
teachers to simply "teach for the tests" at different
Key Stages.
(ii) A clear distinction needs to be drawn
between a National Curriculum and a National Curriculum
Framework. In the context of the current National Curriculum
there is a Framework whose key elements are a core test-led curriculum,
subject-based learning targets, and attainment levels. This Framework
has shaped a centrally planned, highly prescriptive and inflexible
curriculum in the form of detailed programmes of study that specify
the learning content and the learning tasks to be performed in
relation to it in the light of pre-specified content objectives.
The curriculum was designed to guarantee the delivery of standards
as defined by Key Stage tests and GCSE results. However, its critics
have pointed to the fact that the claim of government to have
improved standards via the National Curriculum appears to have
been undermined by increasing levels of pupil disaffection that
has spread down the Key Stages as a result of its prescriptive
and inflexible nature.
(iii) There should be a National Curriculum
Framework, but one that is structured very differently to the
present Framework. The new framework should support the development
of a less prescriptive and more flexible National Curriculum by
opening up a space for teachers' to play a more generative role
in curriculum planning and development at both the school and
local area levels. This would include space for more "assessment
for learning" ie teachers'-based assessment, which is curriculum-led
and takes the form of formative feed-back to pupils on their progress
in learning. Such a framework would enable teachers to be more
responsive to the learning needs of their students and thereby
reduce current levels of disaffection from learning. This implies
a reduction in the amount of time and resources devoted at the
level of the classroom and school to meeting the requirements
for "high stakes" testing across the Key Stages. A New
Framework should sanction teachers having more control over how
and when particular content is taught (eg mathematical and scientific
content could be organised in terms of themes rather than subjects),
and over the assessment process.
2. How can fitness-for-purpose of the National
Curriculum be improved?
(i) The new Curriculum Framework should
be open to a broader conception of the purposes of education.
The current National Framework supports a centrally controlled
curriculum that is largely geared towards the government engineering
the production of "human capital" (abilities that
have high commodity value in labour markets) in order to satisfy
the national economic growth imperative. The new framework should
portray children as more than "economic subjects" who's
human flourishing and well being depends solely on their income
levels and capacities for consumption.
(ii) The framework should support whole
person development for every child through a Wholistic Curriculum
that balances the economic, moral and cultural purposes of
education.
(iii) The moral purposes of education will
be concerned with developing children's capabilities to empathise
with an increasing diversity of individuals and groups—extending
their sense of we—and thereby to engage in practices
that contribute to the well being and human flourishing
of others in a range and variety of social situations. They
should also cover people's responsibilities to the natural environment.
The introduction of a Citizenship Education Curriculum by David
Blunkett, when Secretary of State for Education, may be viewed
as a rather belated attempt to carve out a space within the current
framework for the moral purposes of education. However, this inevitably
meant that it shaped up as a curriculum subject with its own distinctive
subject matter, rather than a broad curriculum aim that can be
pursued across a range of subject content. In the process it excluded
a consideration of "sustainable development" issues—drawing
on scientific, geographic, and economic content—from the
Citizenship Education curriculum.
(iv) The cultural purposes of education
will be concerned with the development of children's capabilities
to appreciate activities for the intrinsic qualities that are
experienced in pursuing them eg qualities of the intellect and
of the imagination. Some traditional curriculum subjects—the
humanities and the arts (known as the "cultural subjects")—have
been regarded almost exclusively as forms of appreciative experience
that are pursued for their own sake rather than for the sake
of some further end. Certainly, the cultural subjects may be regarded
as intensifications of the elements that render human activities
intrinsically worthwhile, but capabilities for appreciative valuing
can possess instrumental value in augmenting productive process
and developing moral sensitivities.
(v) Subjects that have been viewed as instrumentally
worthwhile, such as Maths and Science, may also be viewed as intensifications
of appreciative experience, inasmuch as they engage the imagination
and powers of the understanding. Simply to regard them as no more
than instrumentally valuable is to run the danger of reducing
their elements to easily measured "competencies", in
the form of mechanical skills and instrumental knowledge that
can be routinely applied to job functions and tasks. The more
complex occupational skills, which are increasing demanded by
work in knowledge-based economies, also depend on the activities
in which they are developed being regarded as forms of appreciative
experience. This applies not only to particularly intensive forms
of appreciative experience, but also to activities that more directly
serve the interests of productive enterprise. Hence vocational
curricula—such as the new Diplomas—designed to serve
particular occupational interests need to provide pupils with
opportunities for an appreciative valuing of the intrinsic qualities
of occupationally relevant experience.
(vi) The development of "Knowledge
Intensive" occupations is leading to a new appraisal of cultural
subjects that constitute particular intensifications of appreciative
experience, but are traditionally viewed as of little instrumental
significance for the economy. For example, Philosophy is now beginning
to be seen by employers as an important source of the kinds of
thinking skills they are now seeking in their employees. It is
very important that the National Curriculum provides every pupil
with access to a wide range of subjects that constitute intensifications
of appreciative experience, while also providing ample opportunities
for them to transfer, and further develop, the capabilities they
have acquired to activities that serve economic and moral ends.
(vii) Policymakers and citizens in this
country have been slow to acknowledge that the distinction between
"academic" and "vocational" curriculum content
is now largely redundant. The issue at stake is no longer that
of "parity of esteem" but of how to create curriculum
experiences that bring the different purposes of education—economic,
moral and cultural—into a harmonious relation. The task
of a new National Curriculum Framework would be to provide guidance
in this respect for curriculum planning and development. It should
provide a unified view of the different purposes outlined. We
would argue that they should reflect and promote the democratic
values by which we live as members of society ie promote the freedom
of individuals to make informed choices of lifestyle, equal opportunities
to live lives they have reason to value, and a socially just distribution
of educational goods. This implies that the over-riding purpose
of education is to enable all pupils to choose a way of life they
value and have reason to value. Maximising freedom of choice
in this respect will consist of both an opportunity and
a process aspect. On the one hand it consists of expanding
a pupils' capacity to perform a range of complex activities, which
they may come in the process to appreciate as valuable pursuits
in themselves. On the other hand it will consist of developing
their capacity for evaluative reasoning, which involves finding
reasons to select certain activities that they have come to value,
as part of their self-chosen way of life.
(viii) A new National Framework should emphasise
the importance of a curriculum that enlarges the space of learning
for all pupils', thereby expanding rather than narrowing the range
and variety of the things they are capable of doing. It should
also increasingly, over time, support the development of a capability
to engage in evaluative reasoning as a basis for constructing
their chosen way of life. The current "policy talk"
about the need for more personalised learning in the curriculum
appears to be highlighting the importance of the process aspect
of freedom in the 14-19 Curriculum. Enabling pupils' over
this period to take responsibility for selecting their own curriculum
pathways as autonomous learners implies that they are engaged
in the process of choosing a way of life. What may not be appreciated
is that the National Curriculum needs to provide space in which
pupils' can be helped to develop a capacity for Evaluative Reasoning.
However, this presupposes that the curriculum at earlier stages
has expanded their range of capabilities rather than channelled
them along a restricted set of pathways.
(ix) A New National Curriculum devised to
realise the overarching purpose set out above should offer a different
yardstick for assessing the outcomes of education for every child
to the narrower "human capital" approach. However, the
two aims, although distinct, are not incompatible. They should
not be treated as alternatives, since many of the human qualities
and capacities that satisfy the moral and cultural requirements
of education also have instrumental value as "human capital".
(x) The guidance provided by a new National
Curriculum Framework should take the form of setting broad curriculum
aims and procedural principles (rather than rules) for implementing
them in practice in ways that are sensitive to context. The construction
of such a framework will require policymakers to have the courage
to dismantle the present Curriculum Framework in favour of one
that supports the development of human capabilities that
are not exclusively restricted to those that policymakers assume
will constitute human capital for labour markets. Moreover,
the Framework should prevent policy makers from conceptualising
the production of human capital in ways that are quite dysfunctional
in "knowledge intensive" economies; namely, conceiving
it in terms of discrete functional skills or "competencies"
that are abstracted from forms of appreciative experience. The
capabilities required to augment production processes in "knowledge
intensive" economies are not discrete, mechanical skills
that can be routinely applied to stock situations. Rather they
are combinations of different elements—knowledge and understanding,
skills, and dispositions—that are shaped by the requirement
to exercise discernment and intelligent judgement in particular
kinds of complex and unpredictable situations.
(xi) The aims and principles that constitute
the new Framework should furnish criteria against which to monitor
the curriculum's fitness-for-purpose and for holding those involved
in its planning and development to account. A new National Curriculum
Framework should provide principles for:
— selecting a common core of curriculum
content—objects of learning—in the light of the curriculum
aims as clarified above;
— organising and sequencing content
in forms that are "fit for purpose";
— developing teaching and learning
strategies for handling different types of curriculum content
in the light of the curriculum aims; and
— studying and evaluating pupils' progress
in learning in ways that enable pupils to self-evaluate and self-direct
their own learning.
(xii) One criterion for selecting content
would be the need for a Common National Learning Requirement that
also reflects an international/global perspective on what is worth
learning. A National Learning Requirement will need to acknowledge
pupils rights to compete for entry into international as well
as national and local labour markets, and to secure equal access
to international as well as national qualifications. Another criterion
for selecting content would be that it should be the responsibility
of the democratically elected government to specify this Learning
Requirement as opposed to the responsibility of the teaching profession.
This implies that the working groups, which meet to plan the requirement,
should reflect the interests of different groups who have a legitimate
stake in what pupils learn at school, and also reflect the perspectives
of intergovernmental organisations.
(xiii) One criterion for organising and
sequencing curriculum content for the purposes of teaching and
learning would be that it should be the responsibility of teachers
at the school and local area levels in close association with
school governors, parents, local employers, and other local stake-holder
groups. At the local area level teachers and community representatives
should participate in curriculum development by forming Curriculum
Area Groups (CAG's).
(xiv) One criterion for the development
of teaching and learning strategies, in the light of the principles
set out in the Framework, would be that they should be developed
experimentally by teachers undertaking action research in networked
learning communities operating at school, local area, and national
levels. Such research would give pupils and their parents a voice
in shaping and testing strategies in the light of the principles
and aims set out on the Framework.
(xv) One criterion for the development of
formative assessment methods would be that they should be accompanied
by significant reductions in the amount of time teachers spend
on "high stakes" testing for the purpose of meeting
the requirements of the target culture. Another, would be that
any tests used in schools for purposes of formative assessment
should be pedagogically valid ie there should be evidence
to show that they yield good diagnostic information for the purpose
of improving learning.
(xvi) A Framework of the kind outlined above
would need to set realistic time-scales for the development of
a new National Curriculum. We are of the opinion that a 10 year
lead-in time would be required to allow for school initiated curriculum
development, experimentation, formation of collaborative arrangements
between teachers, their schools and local and national groups
of stake-holders. Current time-scales have been too fast to allow
for such change processes to develop. In the past there has been
a pronounced tendency for policy makers to under-estimate the
problem of securing real and sustainable changes in the curriculum
field. The result has been a series of chaotic changes in reaction
to minor external circumstances (eg test results failing to improve).
However, in order to maintain motivation and commitment to change,
and provide a consistent direction to the reform process, the
Framework should also outline staged intermediate goals and time-scales
for completing different aspects of the curriculum planning and
development process.
(xvii) A new Framework should not only establish
a clear direction for change but also set out guidelines for monitoring
and evaluating progress in relation to the change process. Such
programme evaluation should provide formative feed-back to those
engaged in the process and be the principle means of securing
consistency between the direction for change set out in the Framework
and the implementation strategies and processes.
3. How to manage the National Curriculum and
articulate its relationship with other policies and strategies
with which schools must work
(i) The national curriculum needs to be
protected from the exercise of arbitrary power.
(ii) The Government should set up a National
Forum or Standing Education Commission to identify the aims of
the National Curriculum and a broad framework of values and principles
to guide curriculum planning and development at national and local/regional
level. It would be the responsibility of the Forum/Commission
to specify the implementation stages referred to above and to
continuously monitor and review the frameworks fitness-for-purpose
by commissioning independent and national evaluation studies of
curriculum development programmes that would report at the end
of each stage. Such studies would be informed by Ofsted reports
on schools and local authorities, which should include a close
scrutiny of the implementation and impact of the reforms in particular
schools at appropriate stages. The Forum/Commission would also
commission research into persistent problems at the national and/or
local level that the curriculum development process needs to address.
(iii) Such a body would have an independent
voice from government and while engaging with the world of politicians
will also preserve a sense of distance from it. Only in this way
will curriculum continuity be protected from disruptive discontinuities
caused by changes of personnel in government and indeed changes
of government.
(iv) The proposed Commission or Forum would
consist of individuals drawn from different walks of life who
are known for their ideas and achievements in civil society. Although
they would be drawn from a cross-section of society the members
of the Forum would be publicly appointed rather than delegated
by different stakeholder groups to represent their interests.
In this way it would be detached from the power politics of special
interest groups.
(v) The Commission/Forum should have the
resources to commission research studies that enable it to articulate
principles governing the relationship between the curriculum and
organisational structures in schools, particularly with respect
to the needs of pupils' from socially disadvantaged back-grounds.
Organisational practices, such as vertical or year group teaching;
setting, streaming; formative or normative assessment and marking;
behaviour policies and practices that achieve a positive weighting
on the rewards and sanctions spectrum; the use of language; the
experiences offered by the school—all have a positive or
negative impact on individual pupils' learning. A school may be
successful for many, some or few pupils. Existing evidence is
that schools are less successful with children from apparently
disadvantaged backgrounds but that a few schools buck that trend.
The Commission/Forum should therefore have responsibility for
issuing guidance about the implications of the National Curriculum
Framework for organisational practices in schools.
4. Specific Issues concerning the Management
of the National Curriculum
(i) National Strategies. The current
national strategies should be scrapped as soon as possible. They
are far too prescriptive. The primary strategies have done some
good work because they had a long incubation period, but they
are nevertheless too prescriptive eg three-part lessons, how many
lessons, and detailed content objectives for each lesson. The
new strategy changes in Maths are a disaster. They were not negotiated
and many stake-holders were resistant to them. Teachers are being
handed down meaningless orders with little support for implementation.
At secondary level it is difficult to identify much gain at all.
Some enlightened consultants were appointed to support teachers
but on the whole those appointed tended to be less enlightened
than those they replaced.
(ii) The impact of the current testing
and assessment regime on the delivery and scope of the National
Curriculum (See sections 1(i) and 2(ii) above). A valid alternative
to the current system of "high stakes" assessment for
accountability purposes would be to sample (with little prior
warning) only a small part of the curriculum in each student's
assessment.
(iii) The likely impact of the single
level tests currently being piloted. There are some good principles
underlying the development of such tests (eg, at KS2 low attaining
students do not have to be coached for questions they don't understand
and high attaining students don't have to be coached for what
they already know well. However, in the context of the current
"high stakes" testing regime such tests are likely to
result in pushing pupils through tests too fast and too often—coaching
for the test every six months and not just every three to four
years. Also they provide a context for meaningless policy-talk
eg "Flatliners" (pupils who may have advanced by two
years development, but because they started from just having achieved
a level they don't appear to have progressed, as they have not
quite made it to the next level).
(iv) The likely impact of the current
"root and branch" review of the primary curriculum by
Sir Jim Rose. It is very important that it is set alongside
Robin Alexander's Nuffield Review. There is a wide-spread fear
that Rose will reduce learning to mechanical rote learning and
exclude forms of appreciative experience that enable pupils to
enjoy learning and to establish learning agendas for themselves,
to carry them through their educational careers in ways that enable
them to lead lives they have reason to value.
(v) The implications of personalised
learning, including the flexibility introduced by the new secondary
curriculum (from September 2008). The concept looks good in
principle but its meaning has never really been understood by
most people. It is sometimes interpreted to mean physical activities
for kinaesthetic learners, although the introduction of more varied
activity has been a good thing on the whole. At other times it
is interpreted as pupils choosing their own curriculum pathways
(See 2(viii)).
(vi) How well the National Curriculum
supports transition to and delivery of the 14-19 Diplomas.
Since we have a new KS3/4 curriculum starting in September it
is too early to say, but there is certainly a muddle at KS5 created
by drawing a false boundary between Vocational (Diplomas) and
Academic (A-level) pathways. There is a grave danger that the
introduction of Diplomas alongside A-levels, rather than as an
overarching structure of 14-19 qualifications, will in practice
reinforce this traditional and damaging distinction.
(vii) The role of the new style Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority in relation to the National Curriculum.
It has to be seen as much more accountable to the teaching profession
and other stake-holders such as parents and employers. What has
to stop is the current tendency for personal philosophies to get
imposed by officials on teachers and schools in a top down manner
for implementation in over rushed time-scales.
(viii) The role of teachers in the future
development of the National Curriculum (see above, section
1(iii)).
John Elliott (coordinator)
Robin Alexander
Eric Bolton
Tim Brighouse
Margaret Brown
Leon Feinstein
Michael Fielding
Fred Jarvis
Bethan Marshall
Sally Tomlinson
Bob Wolfson
John White
Tom Wylie
March 2008
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