Memorandum submitted by The Association
of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ATL is committed to the idea of a National Curriculum.
We believe that all pupils should be entitled to access a broad
and balanced curriculum. To support this, we state the following:
— That the entitlement of all pupils
to a broad and balanced curriculum should be secured through state
intervention.
— That the current National Curriculum
is in need of urgent review and change.
— That the National Curriculum should
be built from the foundations up, ie from Early Years Foundation
Stage through to the successive Key Stages.
— That the principle of subsidiarity
should apply to the school curriculum; decisions should be made
at the lowest appropriate level.
— That any changes should be properly
costed, trialled and evaluated before implementation.
ATL believes the purpose of a National Curriculum
is to set out the skills, attitudes and understanding which pupils
need now and in future for employment, caring roles and citizenship.
In order to be fit for this purpose:
— The National Curriculum needs to
be re-defined in terms of skills, including academic subject and
work-related skills, but not limited to either.
— The National Curriculum needs to
promote the "whole" child, using the five Every Child
Matters outcomes as a good starting point.
— The curriculum as taught should be
designed locally, based upon a needs analysis which is set in
the context of national entitlement and strategy but is rooted
in local circumstances.
— The National Curriculum needs to
be flexible, allowing more time for innovation and adaptation
to local need.
ATL identifies key barriers to innovation and
flexibility in the taught curriculum:
— The National Strategies, due to their
prescriptive nature, have stifled innovation and narrowly focused
the primary curriculum on literacy and numeracy at the expense
of the broader curriculum, including science. They have also had
a narrowing effect on the teaching of English and Maths.
— The current testing and assessment
regime, including single-level tests currently being piloted,
narrows the taught curriculum, undermines the Every Child Matters
agenda and demotivates learners.
— Limited reviews of curriculum, such
as the Rose curriculum review, which is attempting to ask questions
about the primary curriculum without addressing the impact of
assessment and testing, and which is under pressure to ensure
certain ministerial priorities (such as foreign language teaching)
are included.
— An emphasis on personalised learning
as a tool to support particular strategies with little room for
the teacher autonomy to put it into effect nor an understanding
of the social purpose of education.
— An excessive accountability framework
which, through fears in schools of negative Ofsted reports or
a fall in place on the league tables, stifles innovation and creativity.
— The current model of teachers as
technicians, implementing the decisions of others, rather than
as experts equipped and empowered to lead a continuing debate
within their schools about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
ATL welcomes the opportunities being provided
through the lighter Key Stage 3 curriculum and the 14-19 agenda
for the curriculum to become more flexible, preparing the ground
for a meaningful review in 2013 of qualifications. We would like
the Rose Review to open up opportunities for greater flexibility
in the primary curriculum. Although we have concerns about the
Single-Level test, we recognise the good-will in this attempt
to deal with the levels of pressure and curriculum-narrowing caused
by high-stakes end-of-stage testing. However, we believe that
more needs to be done and that to drive this change, a coherent
vision of education is needed.
ATL's recommendations for action are for the
Government to do the following:
— Open up the debate around curriculum.
Review the current curriculum, from Early Years Foundation Stage
upwards, with a wide remit which includes the impact of the current
assessment system on curriculum coverage and on teaching and learning.
As part of this review, the government should:
— Investigate the re-framing of the
National Curriculum. ATL proposes that it should be re-framed
in terms of skills in a light national framework.
— Review the centralisation of curriculum
design and development, exploring options around the localisation
of such activity.
— Consider how the "whole"
child, as a moral, social, physical and intellectual being, can
be served by the National Curriculum and the permeation of the
Every Child Matters agenda in all aspects.
— Re-consider the current dichotomy
between academic and vocational skills, which is unhelpful and
limiting.
— To cost, trial and evaluate any proposed
change properly, before implementation. This must include impact
on teaching and learning, on pupils and on the professionalism
of teachers.
— Develop Assessment for Learning pilots
in schools exempt from national testing during the pilot period.
— Prioritise professional development
for teachers in curriculum design and assessment.
— End the use of national testing as
market information and accountability mechanisms and to explore
options of cohort sampling to meet national monitoring needs.
— Abolish school performance league
tables.
— Postpone national testing until a
terminal stage.
1. ATL, as a leading education union, recognises
the link between education policy and our members' conditions
of employment. Our evidence-based policy making enables us to
campaign and negotiate from a position of strength. We champion
good practice and achieve better working lives for our members.
We help our members, as their careers develop, through first-rate
research, advice, information and legal support. Our 160,000 members—teachers,
lecturers, headteachers and support staff—are empowered
to get active locally and nationally. We are affiliated to the
TUC, and work with government and employers by lobbying and through
social partnership.
2. ATL has produced Subject to Change:
New Thinking on the Curriculum which questions whether our
current curriculum and assessment systems are fit for purpose
for the needs of society and our young people in the 21st century.
This submission is based on these arguments and we strongly welcome
this Inquiry into the National Curriculum.
Whether there should be a National Curriculum
3. ATL is committed to the idea of a National
Curriculum. We believe that all pupils should be entitled to access
a broad and balanced curriculum. Before the introduction of the
National Curriculum in 1988, many schools, with autonomy on curriculum
issues, did not provide this entitlement. There was a strong tendency
towards class and gender differentiation. We believe it appropriate
that this entitlement is secured through state intervention, if
necessary.
4. However, what we currently have is a
highly centralised "state" curriculum, subject to ministerial
enthusiasms which is over-prescriptive in detail. Its almost total
coverage is a substantial barrier to innovation, although ATL
celebrates those professionals who have overcome this. According
to a 2006 survey, less than 4% of teachers believe that the National
Curriculum meets the needs of all their pupils.1 Almost 90% of
teachers want their school to have greater freedom to develop
the curriculum.
5. ATL believes that the current National
Curriculum is in need of urgent review and change. Elements of
ATL's curriculum policy Subject to Change: New Thinking on
the Curriculum are as follows:
— All children and young people should
be entitled to a curriculum that is broad, balanced and relevant
to their learning needs.
— There should be greater coherence
in the principles and values across the key stages and consistency
with the Early Years Foundation Stage.
— The principle of subsidiarity should
apply to the school curriculum; decisions should be made at the
lowest appropriate level.
— Any change to the school curriculum
should be properly costed, trialled and evaluated before it is
implemented.
What the purpose of the National Curriculum should
be
6. "A curriculum is a blueprint for
what we want children to become."2 Paul Hirst
ATL welcomes this question about the purpose
of a National Curriculum. To answer it involves asking whether
schooling is concerned with the whole person as a physical, moral,
social and intellectual being, or is it about the acquisition
of a narrow range of skills and knowledge, which are evidenced
in a particular form, such as the written word, with diversionary
activities for those who cannot cope. Whilst statements of principle
emphasise the former, the curriculum as taught looks suspiciously
like the latter.
7. ATL's curriculum vision is based on the
whole person. We believe that a National Curriculum should set
out the skills, attitudes and understanding which pupils need
now and in the future for employment, caring roles and citizenship.
If the curriculum is to meet all the needs of the whole pupil,
without denying the importance of literacy and numeracy, it cannot
be an `academic' curriculum where pupils spend most of their time
reading and writing and learning facts that have been organised
into academic "subjects". Instead, the National Curriculum
should give equal weight to a variety of skills that will be useful
in the whole range of adult roles, including but not limited to
the economic role.
How best to balance central prescription and flexibility
at school/classroom level
8. ATL's curriculum proposals assume that
the best learning is social and active, with opportunities to
make decisions, make mistakes and take responsibility. Learning
is more likely to be long-lasting if children have opportunities
to become engrossed and are challenged at the edges of their capabilities.
In this context, the curriculum is described in terms of a process
as well as intended outcomes; the habits of learning are just
as important as the items learnt. Indeed, more advanced versions
of this line stress that children create knowledge. As the action
research project Enquiring Minds puts it: "children are active
agents in social life; they construct meaning out of their diverse
experiences. Though this may sound obvious, it is important to
realise that this is not the view on which much schooling is based".3
9. Research from ATL demonstrates that the
most effective teachers are those who are able to create a classroom
dynamic in which pupils develop a sense of ownership.4 This is
very difficult to achieve, however, when the knowledge content
to be covered is so tightly prescribed. This work also confirms
how much the present regime is resented by pupils. The idea of
the learner as agent, who puts together their own discoveries
to create their own knowledge, does not lead necessarily to a
proposal for pupil control of the curriculum. What is necessary
is flexibility; a recognition that learning outcomes, in terms
of knowledge certainly, are unpredictable.
10. The knowledge model causes a fundamental
problem for curriculum designers. Knowledge is expanding at an
astonishing rate. Some of it is just extra detail of a known framework,
but much of it is not. This gives rise to two separate problems.
One is the increased difficulty of selection from an escalating
number of items. Second is the need for a dynamic model of curriculum
development, whereas change to a National Curriculum is always
laborious and bureaucratic. Whilst it is right to treat government
decisions on the learning of every child with due deliberation
and wide consultation, it makes the National Curriculum slow to
respond to change.
11. In the past, in England, the pressure
has been to add items to the curriculum rather than remove them.
When the Government decided to impose greater emphasis on English
and maths on primary schools, for example, it avoided the overcrowded
argument by removing the requirement to comply in full with the
programmes of study for the foundation subjects. The result in
primary schools has been to narrow the curriculum, which calls
into question the important principle of an entitlement to a broad
and balanced education. It is difficult to see how the overcrowding
tendency can be avoided if the curriculum is defined in detail.
12. Most schools in England claim that they
have no time left over after meeting the demands of the National
Curriculum. Many teachers claim that overcrowding significantly
damages pedagogy, by requiring coverage of the programme of study
at such a pace that there is no time to go down interesting by-ways
when they open up in lessons. A National Curriculum should not
dictate the entire content of teaching. Curriculum innovation
by teachers at local level is important for a number of reasons.
It requires teachers to reflect deeply on their pupils' learning
needs and their own teaching, thus using higher order skills and
knowledge other than the craft skills required to "deliver"
a lesson. It produces and reproduces a vital stock of expertise
in curriculum design, without which it is difficult to see where
the next generation of National Curriculum designers will come
from. Potentially it provides a point of contact between the school
and the community if the innovation is in response to a local
need or draws on local resources. And it creates a sense of dynamism
in schools.
13. ATL proposes a re-defining of the National
Curriculum, in terms of skills. ATL's proposed skills curriculum
is not limited to academic subject skills, although it includes
them nor is it limited to work-related skills, although it includes
them too. A new National Curriculum should place under one umbrella
the whole range of outcomes for all pupils expected by the state.
The major difference from previous curriculum models is that it
should consider the needs of the whole person without assuming
that the academic or intellectual aspects should have a higher
status than the others. A truly comprehensive curriculum should
rebalance the academic, situated in the mind, against those parts
of humanity situated in the body, the heart and the soul. The
21st century requires a population with higher levels of social,
emotional and moral capability, and a regenerated capacity for
doing and making.
14. This curriculum is not anti-intellectual.
The skills of metacognition (of reasoning about one's own thinking
and learning), of interpreting, codifying and evaluating knowledge
are becoming increasingly important and we cannot leave it to
chance that young people learn how to think metacognitively. This
curriculum is not anti-knowledge; it would simply promote knowledge
transformation over knowledge transmission.
15. Schools have been placed under the duty
to promote the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters
agenda: being healthy; staying safe; enjoying and achieving; making
a positive contribution; and achieving economic well-being. This
widens the required angle of vision of schools, after a period
of unrelenting single-minded attention to "standards".
Every Child Matters endorses a perspective of a pupil as
a person and it provides a reminder that the curriculum needs
to be responsive to a wide range of learning needs for people
in the twenty-first century.
16. ATL believes that the National Curriculum
should give equal weight to a variety of skills that will be useful
in the whole range of adult roles, including but not limited to
the economic role. These would include:
— physical skills of co-ordination,
control, manipulation and movement;
— information management;
— learning and thinking skills;
This light framework National Curriculum should
be built from the foundations up, ie from the Early Years Foundation
Stage through to the successive Key Stages. It will specify what
learners are able to do, rather than what they know.
17. For example, the young historian understands
chronology and enjoys the idea of locating evidence, weighing
pieces of evidence, having regard to their sources, and coming
to judgments about past events. History is an example of a subject
already partly defined in terms of skills such as these, and its
assessment attempts to be consistent with this. The skills-based
curriculum simply extends the idea by promoting this approach
to all subjects. The virtue of the skills-based curriculum is
that it would be for schools to decide how to organise their time
to ensure coverage of all the skills, including the academic.
18. "In times of change learners inherit
the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped
for a world that no longer exists." Eric Hoffer, Philosopher.
In every sphere of intellectual endeavour, the
volume of production is increasing as never before. As the total
knowledge of our physical and social worlds doubles and redoubles,
the onus on educators is continually to re-assess the selection
of that knowledge to ensure it is worthy of transmission. Some
areas of learning / subjects are subject to rapid change with
huge consequence to society. In these areas in particular, there
is a strong argument that change is too rapid for a state curriculum
to keep up. What learners and teachers need is a more flexible
arrangement to enable them to respond quickly to a changing knowledge
base.
19. ATL believes that the curriculum as
taught should be designed locally. It should be based upon a needs
analysis which is set in the context of a national entitlement
and strategy but is rooted in local circumstances. Local development
should focus on the knowledge content through which skills can
be developed. This would enable teachers to provide curricula
that are more relevant to their pupils' needs and interests, and
promote greater spontaneity. We do not specify a definition of
"local" but would expect a variety of models to develop.
These might be at school or cluster level, or perhaps at local
authority or even regional levels, but they must contain the flexibility
to respond to local and changing needs.
How effective the National Strategies are in supporting
the National Curriculum
20. One of the key effects of the National
Literacy and National Numeracy Strategies has been to organise
learning into a sequence of teaching objectives. Its impact has
been felt in all primary classrooms, but not always positively.
The Cambridge Primary Review finds that, in response to the Strategies'
demands, the primary curriculum has become narrowly focused on
literacy and numeracy at the expense of the broader curriculum,
even science, which has been in "marginal decline" since
1997.5
21. Recent developments of the Strategies,
aimed to give more weight to previously neglected elements, eg
speaking and listening in English and practical application and
problem-solving in Maths, have yet to have significant impact
with pupils. The result is that English is seen by pupils as mainly
literacy (with writing unpopular) and mathematics perceived as
"sums". The Cambridge Review identifies the cause as
lying within mixed messages from the centre: "Although oracy
(listening and speaking) has equal status with literacy in terms
of the detail in the Programmes of Study and within the attainment
targets and level descriptions (English in the National Curriculum),
other official documents belie this apparent parity of esteem."6
22. These issues are recognised by teachers
but there has been little meaningful engagement at national level.
The Cambridge Primary Review identifies the lack of consistent
attention to key findings from one Ofsted national report on English
and literacy curriculum to the next. The evidence base for the
National Literacy Strategy is hardly extensive and therefore questionable
in some of its recommendations; the requirement for teachers to
adopt the "synthetic phonics" approach to the teaching
of reading continues to be contentious and some argue is not supported
by sufficient research evidence (see Wyse and Styles 2007) and
yet this is now part of extensive guidance documents and training
for teachers.7
Impact of current testing and assessment regime
on the delivery and scope of the National Curriculum
23. There is no necessary connection between
a national curriculum and national testing, but in England the
two came together because the legislation introducing the curriculum
also introduced tests as accountability and market information
mechanisms. Curriculum designers know that this is how not to
do it, assessment should follow curriculum, but in England the
"core" subjects were described in sufficient detail
to be the syllabuses for a series of national tests: curriculum
following assessment. When the curriculum is subordinate to the
test there is inevitably an undue emphasis on knowledge outcomes
rather than the learning process with consequent damage to pupils'
overall experience.
24. Narrowing of the curriculum
A central proposition to the introduction of
the National Curriculum in 1988 was the entitlement of pupils
to access a broad and balanced curriculum. However, the amount
of high-stakes testing has had a well-documented narrowing effect
on the curriculum, undermining this entitlement for many pupils,
particularly in schools fearful of low scores on the league tables.
Webb and Vulliamy, carrying out research commissioned by ATL,
document this effect in the primary sector; the standards agenda,
through national curriculum testing in English, Mathematics and
Science at various key stages and related performance league tables,
"focused teachers' attention on curriculum coverage in literacy,
numeracy and science to the detriment of the rest of the primary
curriculum".8 However, it is not just teachers and their
representatives who are expressing this concern; Ofsted state
in their 2005 evaluation of the impact of the Primary National
Strategy in schools that the raising standards agenda has been
the primary concern of most headteachers and subject leaders coupled
with a far more cautionary approach in promoting greater flexibility
within the curriculum. Ofsted also recognises the narrowing effect
which Key Stage 2 tests have on teaching of the curriculum, in
terms of time and also in terms of support for earlier year groups.9
25. Undermining the Every Child Matters agenda
The negative impact of current assessment mechanisms
is not only diluting the principles of the curriculum vision of
1988, it is undermining the current Every Child Matters agenda.
The longitudinal PACE project in primary schools in England observed
that curriculum and testing pressures appeared to be "diminishing
the opportunities for teachers to work in a way that enables them
to `develop the whole child' and address the social concerns of
the wider society".10 The Assessment Reform Group notes the
lack of correlation between "the narrow range of learning
outcomes assessed by tests...with the broad view of learning goals
reflected in the DfES (now DCSF) Every Child Matters policy
document".11 This tension at school level between narrow
standards and school goals of engendering pupil enjoyment and
creativity was strongly expressed by the headteachers who took
part in ATL's research by Webb and Vulliamy.
26. Impact on teachers and teaching
ATL's members, teachers and support staff, with
pupils, are bearing the brunt of the testing overload and the
high-stakes pressure. They are frustrated by the narrowing of
the curriculum and the need to ready pupils for ever-increasing
numbers of tests. This pressure drives many teachers to be "presenters
of content", teaching to the test, to ensure that their pupils
succeed in the narrow focus of the tests and that the school receives
a good ranking on the performance tables. This process is ultimately
de-skilling; an enforced focus on performance outcomes lessens
and undermines richer assessment skills and feedback and will
ultimately weaken these skills within the profession.
27. The high-stakes context of the current
assessment system limits the value of achievement data. Tests
do not usually test the full range of what is taught and in low-stakes
contexts that limited range of achievement can indicate achievement
across the whole subject.12 Yet we know that once assessment occurs
within a high-stakes context, there is pressure on the school
and the teacher to focus on the student's performance on the aspects
of the subject likely to be tested—within an overburdened
curriculum, those aspects will, inevitably, be given more time.
Any such concentration of resources will inevitably mean that
breadth, and indeed depth, of subject coverage will be sacrificed
to the relentless pressure of targets, standards, tests and league
tables. The purpose of assessment as an aid to the development
of learning is shunted into second place.
28. A state education system inevitably
has the function of selecting pupils for future learning and employment
roles, so that some national assessment system is unavoidable.
However, ATL has long opposed Key Stage national testing arrangements
as counter-productive in terms of pupils' learning, as outlined
above. The adoption of a skills-defined and locally developed
curriculum would produce more fundamental questions about assessment.
29. The broad range of skills described
in paragraph 16 is not amenable to mainly paper tests; an expert
assessor must observe the skill in use. Some previous skills models
have been broken down into competences which are capable of tick-box
assessment, encouraging a limiting pedagogy which is the opposite
of ATL's intention. By definition, a locally designed curriculum
is not amenable to national testing.
30. International evidence now clearly links
high pupil achievement with systems which postpone national assessment
and selection. There should be no national assessment system prior
to a terminal stage. This includes any national system of teacher
assessment. In order for the curriculum to have a complementary
assessment system which is fit for purpose rather than one which
is a narrowing driver, ATL believes that we need a fundamental
re-balance in the relationship between formal external assessment
and teacher assessment. We propose, as an alternative, an assessment
system based on teacher formative and summative assessment which
would meet current system needs and be flexible enough to support
curriculum reform.
31. Bowing to political imperative and allied
parental fears, there may still be a need for national tests in
key skills, such as English, Mathematics and IT competency, and
this can be offered through a bank of tests, for offer to pupils
on a when-ready basis and only at the level of functional competence.
In terms of meeting the needs of national monitoring of educational
standards, ATL proposes a system of national cohort sampling,
regular across-the-curriculum surveys of small random samples
of pupils, thus reducing the overall test burden whilst increasing
the relevance and breadth of learner evidence. This kind of system
is used in many other countries; for example, the Scottish Survey
of Achievement in Scotland, the National Assessment of Educational
Progress in the United States and the National Education Monitoring
Project in New Zealand.
32. Assessment for Learning approaches (AfL),
where qualitative feedback is given to learners, rather than marks
or grades, invite learners to have a much deeper understanding
of their own learning and achievements, making them active in
their learning and engaging them in the curriculum far more directly.
This and other similar forms of internal, formative assessment
work with, rather than against, the curriculum, resulting in truly
personalised learning and re-motivated and re-professionalised
workforce equipped to innovate within the curriculum.
Likely impact of the single level tests
33. The reality of single-levels tests in
operation in pilot schools has already undermined the rhetoric
surrounding their public launch as part of the Making Good
Progress pilot. From a stated intention to reduce test pressure
by having single-level tests as when-ready tools of pupil level
endorsement, the result, in practice, has been more frequent testing
with little or no lessening of pressure on pupils, teachers or
schools. The continued emphasis on sub-levels and levels means
a failure to engage with the AfL elements of the Progress pilot,
where the emphasis is on qualitative, meaningful feedback on performance
to pupils, as outlined in paragraph 32. Unlike AfL, single-level
tests are likely to hamper moves towards personalised learning
because the increase of external testing undermines the confidence
of teachers in their own assessments of pupil progress. Very much
part of the current excessive external testing regime, single-level
tests will result in the same narrowing of curriculum to those
areas most tested. They will continue to stifle innovation due
to their part in the high-stakes standards agenda and most worryingly,
they will reinforce the cynical belief in many pupils that education
is about constant testing and that it is only worthwhile to learn
that which is tested, killing curiosity and enjoyment in learning.
Likely impact of the Rose primary curriculum review
34. ATL welcomes a review of curriculum
which explores ways to add flexibility to the current system.
However, based on member evidence and academic research, ATL is
clear that the assessment system has an undeniable impact on the
curriculum as taught in our schools. The remit of the Rose primary
curriculum review, does not include the assessment system, which
we fear will make its findings insecure and ineffective. We note
that the Rose Review is also under pressure to ensure certain
ministerial priorities (such as foreign language teaching) are
included, limiting the breadth of the review. We question the
timing of this review and the seeming lack of government engagement
with the recent research reports for the Cambridge Primary Review
led by Robin Alexander, which has consulted widely and with a
broader remit.
Implications of personalised learning, including
the flexibility introduced by the new secondary curriculum (from
September 2008)
35. The flexibility introduced in the secondary
curriculum, particularly at Key Stage 3, is certainly welcome
and a tribute to the recent curriculum development work carried
out by the QCA. However, the emphasis on its capacity for providing
choice and diversity and to thus provide a personalised curriculum,
is undermined by a homogenous assessment system within a high-stakes
accountability framework.
36. Personalised learning is not an unproblematic
term, having a strong presence in government policy without an
equally strong basis in strategy. David Miliband's initial attempt
at definition in 2003 described personalised learning involving
"an education system where assessment, curriculum, teaching
style, and out of hours provision are all designed to discover
and nurture the unique talents of every single pupil" with
five key processes linked to it; assessment for learning, effective
teaching and learning strategies, curriculum entitlement and choice,
school organisation and strong school-parent-community partnerships.
The Government has moved on from these five processes to link
a number of its policy interests to it; the changes at 14-19,
the Making Good Progress pilots.
37. While the curriculum is now being made
more flexible, assessment has remained inflexible, its nature
unchanged by any changes to modes of assessment, including greater
use of e-assessment. The high stakes nature of assessment and
its restriction to short written tests in many instances has not
only affected the reliability and validity of its pupil performance
outcomes but also on the taught curriculum and the motivation
and self-confidence of many pupils. Assessment for learning, one
of the five processes mentioned by Miliband, is part of Government
strategy and yet is still an add-on in reality, expected to thrive
within a system which is based around levels, targets, national
external tests and league tables.
38. ATL members are also increasingly concerned
about the growing inequalities in education. We are concerned
that, given the persistence of structural inequalities, the Government's
emphasis on the individual in the context of its "choice
and diversity" (standards) agenda in education is more likely
to exacerbate rather than diminish existing inequalities. Personalised
learning proposals needs to take these structural inequalities
into account and understand the re-prioritisation involved if
schools are to partly tackle them. We are concerned that the current
language around personalised learning transfers responsibility
for lack of achievement to the pupil, teacher or school when other
structural-level factors may well be pivotal in that lack of academic
success.
39. ATL members are concerned that links
have not been made clearer between curriculum flexibility and
the needs of diversity; as the Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum
Review (2007) states, "there is insufficient clarity about
the flexibility within the curriculum and how links to education
for diversity can be made". The language of personalised
learning does not address these issues, particularly as it seemingly
emphasises the individual over the social roles of education which
include secondary socialisation, community building and social
cohesion and cultural and ethical education for pupils. In Britain,
teachers believe that part of their job is to teach pupils to
get on together, to have respect for certain moral standards,
and to understand the world around them.
40. ATL advises the Government that schools
can be enabled to have more regard for the needs of all pupils
only when the powerful levers of the standards agenda and the
inspection system are removed in their present forms. The instinct
of teachers is to do the best for all their pupils and they must
be trusted to make professional judgements. If the Government
wants a more inclusive approach, it must give staff the autonomy
to determine priorities. School staff must be allowed to make
decisions about the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment appropriate
for all their pupils to be able to approach what some will call
personalised learning. Of course, this autonomy must be subject
to accountabilities, but these need to be reduced and rationalised.
For this to be successful, we need a workforce that has access
to, and can evaluate, innovation. We need a curriculum and assessment
framework capable of meeting the needs of all, with the flexibility
for local improvisation.
The National Curriculum and 14-19 Diplomas
41. The intended flexibility of the 14-19
Diplomas is one which ATL supports and we hope that the Diplomas
will become a success story for learners, schools, colleges and
other stakeholders. As supporters of the original Tomlinson proposals,
we welcome the intended review of A-Levels in 2013, although the
delay is driven more by political considerations than educational
imperatives. However, our members have many concerns about the
operation of the new Diplomas which include the following: lack
of sufficient training and preparation for the school and college
workforces; the speed with which the Diplomas have been developed
and the lack of time given for proper piloting; the difficulty
of securing access to the Diplomas for many; the complexity of
the aggregation system. While the Diplomas offer new educational
routes, they do not offer freedom from central prescription and
are therefore only offering flexibility in terms of offering new
pathways to learners, rather than flexibility to local need or
to innovate.
Role of the new style QCA in relation to the National
Curriculum
42. ATL welcomes the continuance of the
non-regulatory role of the QCA within the proposed development
agency. Its work and research on curriculum and assessment is
of high standard and innovative. However, its role "to support
Ministers' objectives for education and skills"13 is restrictive.
It raises the issue of whether there is to be policy steerage
from the centre, or from demand-led initiatives. If the former,
its ability to promote innovation will be severely circumscribed,
subject to short-term political agendas rather than longer-term
educational need. The separation of QCA into regulatory body and
development agency may facilitate the re-balancing of the currently
unbalanced relationship between curriculum and assessment with
the former leading the latter, but this remains unproven with
little evidence at present that this will be the case.
The role of teachers in the future development
of the National Curriculum
43. ATL regards teaching as essentially
intellectual as well as practical and we believe that teachers
ought to be equipped and empowered to lead a continuing debate
within their schools about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
The current balance between professional autonomy and prescription
by government and managers is inappropriate; teaching has to be
a learning and innovating profession with a real entitlement to
continuing development. ATL asserts that the collective intellectual
power of the teaching force should be recognised as a major national
asset and be utilised to create a more vibrant education system.
44. Persistence of the current model of
teachers as technicians, implementing the decisions of others,
would lead to the progressive reduction of the national stock
of knowledge about curriculum theory. ATL accepts that the implementation
of a locally designed curriculum based on skills would require
a very substantial programme of teacher education and development,
but this would be welcomed by the profession if appropriately
explained and provided.
45. ATL remains committed to finding further
solutions to the issues surrounding teachers' workload, but recognizes
that this is not a simple case of counting hours. Teachers are
concerned about control of workload, whether a task is imposed
or self-generated. The workload issue would be transformed by
teacher ownership of the curriculum. A local curriculum would
have no national assessment and no reporting except for the terminal
system described in paragraph 30; this alone would remove time-consuming
tasks.
46. We have already pointed out the close
relationship between curriculum and assessment and ATL's vision
of a new curriculum necessitates a reform of the assessment system,
which puts teachers at its heart. We believe that teacher assessment
must be seen as a central part of teaching, not an add-on, with
moderation becoming a vital part of teachers' continuing professional
development. We have identified the key areas of professional
development support required for teachers:
— development, understanding and application
of assessment criteria,
— the development of assessment/test
models,
— various assessment approaches and
tools, particularly Assessment for Learning.
CONCLUSION: RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR ACTION
47. ATL's curriculum vision is one where
the taught curriculum is flexible, responsive to local and pupil
needs and which delivers the skills outlined in a light-touch
national framework, skills which will prepare children and young
people for their present and future, in employment, caring roles
and as citizens. This curriculum vision is only possible if teachers
are given the time, space, autonomy and confidence to use their
expertise to innovate and to be creative, with appropriate systems
of accountability. The current assessment and accountability systems
are excessive and punitive, narrowing an already over-full curriculum.
ATL is clear that the curriculum, which must change, can only
do so if those elements which currently have a negative impact
on its implementation are also changed.
48. ATL therefore recommends the following:
— Open up the debate around curriculum.
Review the current curriculum, from Early Years Foundation Stage
upwards, with a wide remit which includes the impact of the current
assessment system on curriculum coverage and on teaching and learning.
As part of this review, the Government should:
— Investigate the re-framing of the
National Curriculum. ATL proposes that it should be re-framed
in terms of skills in a light national framework.
— Review the centralisation of curriculum
design and development, exploring options around the localisation
of such activity.
— Consider how the "whole"
child, as a moral, social, physical and intellectual being, can
be served by the National Curriculum and the permeation of the
Every Child Matters agenda in all aspects.
— Re-consider the current dichotomy
between academic and vocational skills, which is unhelpful and
limiting.
— To cost, trial and evaluate any proposed
change properly, before implementation. This must include impact
on teaching and learning, on pupils and on the professionalism
of teachers.
— Develop Assessment for Learning pilots
in schools exempt from national testing during the pilot period.
— Prioritise professional development
for teachers in curriculum design and assessment.
— End the use of national testing as
market information and accountability mechanisms and to explore
options of cohort sampling to meet national monitoring needs.
— Abolish school performance league
tables.
— Postpone national testing until a
terminal stage.
SUBMISSION REFERENCES
1. ATL, 2006. Online survey of teacher opinion,
September 2006
2. Hirst, P. 1974 Knowledge and the Curriculum,
Oxford: Routledge and Kegan. Hirst quoted by Newby, M, 2005 in
A Learners Curriculum: towards a curriculum for the 21st Century,
ATL
3. Enquiring Minds Project. Enquiring
Minds: Context and Rationale. Available online from: http://www.enquiring
minds.org.uk/download/pdfs/Enquiring_Minds_context_paper.pdf
4. ATL. 2004. It's like mixing colours:
how young people view their learning within the context of the
Key Stage 3 National Strategy. London. ATL
5. Wyse, D, McCreery, E and Torrance, H.
(2008) The Trajectory and Impact of National Reform: curriculum
and assessment in English primary education (Primary Review Research
Survey 3/2), Cambridge: University of Cambridge, Faculty of
Education.
6. Ibid
7. Ibid.
8. Webb, R and Vulliamy, G (2006) Coming
full circle: The impact of New Labour's education policies on
primary school teachers' work, Association of Teachers and
Lecturers
9. Ofsted (2005) Primary National Strategy:
An evaluation of its impact in primary schools 2004-05
10. Pollard, A, Triggs, P, Broadfoot, P,
McNess, E, and Osborne, M. (2000) What pupils say: changing
policy and practice in primary education, London, Continuum
11. Assessment Reform Group (2006) The
role of teachers in the assessment of learning London
12. Wiliam, D (2001) Level best? Levels
of attainment in National Curriculum Assessment Association
of Teachers and Lecturers, London
13. DCSF, DIUS (Dec 2007) Confidence
in Standards: Regulating and developing qualifications and assessment.
Also
— ATL, Johnson et al (2007) Subject
to Change: New Thinking on the Curriculum, London
— ATL, 2006, Subject to Change:
New Thinking on the Curriculum, position statement
— ATL, 2008, Assessing to Learn:
Teachers at the heart of assessment, position statement
— ATL, 2007, New Accountability
for Schools, position statement
— ATL, 2006, Personalisation
position statement
— ATL, 2005, New Professionalism
position statement
March 2008
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