Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
JIM KNIGHT
MP AND HELEN
WILLIAMS
7 JULY 2008
Q240 Ms Butler: That sounded positive,
so I will leave that matter there. Before they read this, many
teachers probably felt excited about the promise of being able
to be more flexible and innovative in their teaching. Does this
proposal deliver that?
Jim Knight: Yes, I think it does.
It delivers much greater opportunities for teachers to be flexible
and innovative. Paul is one among you who has experience of having
taught before the National Curriculum came in, when you were trained
to be flexible and innovative. We have a generational issue, and
we have to help the generation that was born with the National
Curriculum to get used to the notion of increased flexibility
and having room for innovation. We have to do that in a way that
delivers on programmes of study, learning goals and so on. It
is very exciting for teachers.
Q241 Ms Butler: I have one final
question about the essential things that young people need when
they leave school, such as skills to do with social inclusion,
conflict resolution, studying and citizenship. Confidence and
the ability to work in a team will also be developed. Those are
practical steps to help young people, given all the communication
that has been lost with the media age, the internet and texting.
Those skills help to equip young people.
Jim Knight: I agree. Citizenship
and diversity is a cross-cutting theme across the new curriculum,
partly to address exactly that concern and need. Whatever we decide
to do about PSHE, we think it is an important subject that should
be studied in schools. We have set up a subject association to
extend and deepen the specialism of teaching it. Part of that
is the social and emotional aspects of learning, which we are
introducing into secondary and national strategies that have been
mentioned. We have done a good job of assisting with that introduction
by doing some of the things that you have mentioned to develop
some of those skills and competencies, whether for employment,
for life or for both. They are important for children as they
go through school.
Q242 Mr Chaytor: I am desperately
trying to find a quote from "Macbeth" that is relevant
to my question on Diplomas, but I just cannot. What did the CBI
say to you about its new attitude to Diplomas?
Jim Knight: It did not say "toil
and trouble". What has surprised me about its position is
that it had been very supportive of Diplomas, acknowledging that
the starting point for their design was employers. It has also
been very supportive of our policy to raise the participation
age to 18. We launched the additional three Diplomas at the CBI,
and the director general supported us on the platform. We then
developed policy around the three additional Diplomas as part
of the development of our qualification strategy, and we had a
representative of the CBI on the group that took that strategy
through to publication. It was therefore surprising when it said
to us, "We really support the 14, but we have concerns about
the three—that they are not necessary and might threaten
the A-level." It said that it was reflecting the views of
its members through the regional councils. In the end, that tells
us that teaching on the science, humanities and languages Diplomas
will not start until 2011. The three chairs have only just started
their work and employers are starting to come on board with diploma
development partnerships, but it is relatively early days. We
have got some communicating to do with employers to show them
why the new style of Diploma teaching and learning should apply
to science, humanities and languages as much as it applies to
engineering, sport, retail or any other of the 14 Diploma lines.
I think they are a fantastic opportunity. Companies such as AstraZeneca
have told me on the science Diploma, for example, that they see
the opportunity to re-sell science and the importance of science
in terms of career opportunities to young people. Science is about
not only getting into white coats in laboratories, but designing
computer games. Furthermore, by studying maths and physics you
can end up getting a very well-paid job in the City working out
risk allowances and so on. Our research tells us that more than
four out of five young people want to work at some point in the
future in the environment, making the world a better place in
environmental terms, and they can do that through science. There
are great stories to be told by positioning science in its real-world
context, which is what the Diplomas do, alongside bringing out
the academic best.
Q243 Mr Chaytor: Going back to the
origins of Diplomas, when the Tomlinson report was first published,
did the CBI endorse it in its totality?
Jim Knight: No. As I recall—this
was before my time, so Helen, you might recall better than me—the
CBI was not thoroughly supportive.
Chairman: I was around at that time.
I distinctly remember Digby Jones marching down to No. 10, saying,
"It will be the end to the civilised world as we know it."
I have just seen a splendid production by the Royal Shakespeare
Company in Stratford-upon-Avon of "A Midsummer Night's Dream",
and the rude mechanicals all sounded just like Digby Jones. I
do not think that that is any comment on his accent, but that
is the case.
Q244 Mr Chaytor: Let us move away
from the CBI. In terms of the three new Diplomas from 2011, it
will still be possible for a student to combine A-levels with
Diplomas. Does the current director general of the CBI understand
that?
Jim Knight: He says that he is
reflecting the views of his members, so perhaps some of his members
do not understand.
Q245 Mr Chaytor: He might have some
work to do with his members as well, you think? Fine. Could I
ask one other question on Diplomas? Leaving aside Sir Digby, considerable
support has built up for the Tomlinson principles over a number
of years. In retrospect, would it have been easier if the Government
had stuck with the Tomlinson report, rather than backtracking
from one or two of its key principles?
Jim Knight: No, I do not think
so. As I set out earlier, the three prongs of our qualifications
strategy—apprenticeships, the more traditional academic
form of GCSE and A-level learning and our attempt to bridge and
end the divide between academic and vocational learning through
Diplomas—offer a coherent way forward. Simply trying to
wrap everything into a single Diploma had the danger that it would
not change anything.
Q246 Mr Chaytor: But the consequence
of not adopting Tomlinson in its totality is that the system is
now fragmenting. In addition to the 14-19-year old Diplomas, we
now have the Cambridge pre-U, the international baccalaureate
(IB) and different sectors of the system announcing that they
will adopt different qualifications. Are you comfortable with
that fragmentation in the curriculum, and are you comfortable
with the likely increasing segregation between the state and private
sectors?
Jim Knight: I do not think that
there is fragmentation in the curriculum; it is more about qualifications.
That is one of the reasons why we published the qualifications
strategy earlier this year. There was a need to try to get rid
of what was described at the time as an alphabet soup of qualifications;
there were thousands of them, some taken by very few learners
in the statutory education sector or up to 19. Some of them may
well be extremely valid as adult qualifications, but we felt that
it was important to distil the qualification choice around the
three prongs. We cannot just turn off the funding of qualifications,
because it is not up to us to do that and funding them in the
maintained sector is our responsibility. We have set up a joint
qualifications committee—I cannot remember its exact title—to
help us make those judgments. As the existing qualifications develop,
some will not be replaced, but where there is a significant and
reasonable demand for others, such as the BTECs, we will retain
them. The pre-U has been through the accreditation process. Our
decisions on funding are bound by criteria that we have set out
and consulted on. When qualifications meet those criteria, they
go through to funding, although whether that remains consistent
as we go forward is a different question. We helped the IB go
through the process, and it is now offered in the maintained sector
in most areas up and down the country. It is a good, broad qualification,
but in the future, with the extended Diplomas and projects attached
to A-levels, which will provide the breadth that the IB currently
almost uniquely offers post-16, it may become less attractive.
Mr Chaytor: Is it your preference—
Chairman: David, I do not want to interrupt
your flow, but you are leading on the next section, so you are
eating into your own time, because we are finishing at 5.30. The
longer you take on this session, the less time you will have on
the final section.
Q247 Mr Chaytor: I have just one
more point to make. With regard to the multiplicity of qualifications,
is it the Government's intention to extend IBs? Do you welcome
the announcements about the Cambridge pre-U, or is that something
that you prefer not to have? Would you prefer the Diplomas to
be absolutely dominant? Is it still Government policy to have
an IB in every town?
Jim Knight: No; it is not something
that we are funding. When we announced the qualifications strategy,
we announced at the same time that we would fund Local Authorities
that said that they wanted to take one of their schools or colleges
through the IB accreditation process. However, we did not want
to force any Local Authorities into that. Then that funding window
was closed. In the end, we set out our stall—more apprenticeships,
the new Diplomas, the GCSE / A-level route underpinned by the
foundation learning tier, and a review in 2013. That is where
we are, and that is where we want to be.
Q248 Mr Chaytor: Is there any other
country in the world that has a National Curriculum that is as
prescriptive and detailed—in terms of its level descriptors,
targets and national strategies—as England?
Jim Knight: I am no expert on
this, but Helen may be able to help me. I have been told apocryphally—if
that is a word—that my equivalent in France knows what a
pupil is studying at any given time because of the rigidity in
the French system, for which I am sure the French have good reason.
Helen Williams: I think that the
French curriculum is becoming less prescriptive than it was.
Jim Knight: Like ours.
Helen Williams: Like ours, yes.
There have been a number of international comparisons of curricula.
It is quite difficult to compare them across national boundaries
for various reasons. From the evidence that I have seen, I do
not think that England is out on a limb with its curriculum framework.
Q249 Mr Chaytor: Pursuing that point,
has the Department conducted any analysis of other countries'
approaches to the National Curriculum with a view to learning
which is the most effective?
Helen Williams: As part of the
primary curriculum review, the QCA has commissioned the National
Foundation for Educational Research to carry out a benchmarking
study with a number of countries which are thought to have successful
primary systems, so that information about their curriculums can
be taken into account in our review. I cannot remember now off-hand
which countries they are—there are about half a dozen. It
is not across the whole curriculum, though; it is in terms of
English, maths and science, the core subjects.
Q250 Mr Chaytor: But not in respect
of comparisons of approaches to the secondary curriculum?
Helen Williams: QCA has done some
benchmarking work, yes.
Q251 Mr Chaytor: The Department has
not taken on board the results, though, has it? What I am trying
to get at is this. The National Curriculum was established in
1988, 20 years ago this year, which is why we are having this
inquiry. However, neither this Government nor the previous Government
appear to have made evaluations of what happens in other countries,
particularly countries that tend to perform better than we do
in international comparators.
Jim Knight: QCA did the detailed
work on the development of the new secondary curriculum; it has
done some benchmarking, so I would expect it to have been informed
by that.
Q252 Mr Chaytor: But you would accept
that this is not a thing that has been dominant in the Department's
thinking, either now or at any time in the last 20 years?
Helen Williams: I think it is
a fair criticism that, over the last 20 years, we probably have
not done as much international benchmarking in this area, but
we have remedied that recently. In its secondary review, QCA took
on board international comparative evidence and it is certainly
built into the primary review.
Q253 Mr Chaytor: I would just like
to switch tack a little bit. In terms of the relationship between
what is determined at national level and what is determined at
local level, as part of the process of the general lifting of
the heavy hand that we are now going through, do you think that
there is more scope for some details of the curriculum to be determined
at local level, as they are now in respect of religious education?
Is the SACRE—Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education—model
one that could be applied to science or humanities?
Jim Knight: I had not really thought
about extending the SACRE model to other areas.
Mr Chaytor: Helen is nodding vigorously
in agreement, and I wonder if I could ask her what she thinks.
Chairman: Is she nodding at you or nodding
at the Minister?
Jim Knight: I have to say that
we would need to carry out a regulatory impact assessment of setting
up a lot of science-type SACREs and history-type SACREs.
Helen Williams: The thing about
the SACRE model for religious education is that the syllabus in
every one of 150 Local Authority areas is locally determined.
There is a national framework for religious education, but it
is non-statutory and it is guidance for SACREs to follow. That
is not the principle for the National Curriculum, which is to
have a national, prescribed framework of knowledge, skills and
understanding, within which broad framework there is a certain
amount of flexibility for schools to tailor the curriculum to
the needs of their pupils. However, that is a different model
from the SACRE model.
Q254 Mr Chaytor: But in respect of
languages in primary schools, for example, would there be a case
for individual Local Authorities to decide what the approach to
languages should be, and particularly which languages should be
taught in primary schools?
Jim Knight: Why not leave that
to schools? That would be my question. It is obviously what we
do at the moment, in terms of deciding which language should be
taught. Jim will come forward with suggestions about how we take
forward compulsory language learning in primary schools, but the
latest statistical release that we had very recently put the figure
at above three quarters of primary schools that now offer a language.
The vast majority of those schools offer French.
Q255 Mr Chaytor: But that answers
your question—"Why not leave it to schools?"—does
it not?
Jim Knight: Yes. That decision
has been left to schools and the fact that French is most commonly
taught probably reflects the language skills of the primary work
force.
Q256 Mr Chaytor: But Minister, that
is exactly my point; if you leave it to schools, they will offer
what they can offer. If there is a wider discussion at Local Authority
level, views might be expressed that other languages could be
more relevant in those catchment areas and that may force schools
to think about whether Chinese, Urdu or Farsi is more relevant
than French.
Jim Knight: They may. That is
something that I would have to think about. I have not given it
much consideration before.
Helen Williams: We have built
up the capacity of Local Authorities to support primary schools
in developing languages. One of the issues that primary schools
need to consider with the secondary schools that they feed into
is what languages they will provide together, so that there is
some consistency when children move from primary to secondary.
So we encourage local discussion between schools and with the
Local Authority about what is a sensible mix of languages.
Q257 Mr Chaytor: A final question,
Chairman. Why not leave religious education to schools?
Jim Knight: There is just a different
sensitivity about that issue than is apparent in respect of any
other subject in the curriculum, with the possible exception of
personal, social and health education—but that is not statutory—although
the sensitivities around PSHE are largely informed by religious
bodies. The Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education
does a really good job: the SACREs are, in some ways, an underused
resource in terms of bringing together people of various faiths
in a representative way in their area. In the context of some
of the community cohesion work that we have been doing, I have
been giving some thought to whether we should use their expertise
a little more deeply.
Q258 Chairman: What is your opinion
of the view, which has been expressed, that teachers' understanding
of assessment for learning is weak? Is that a problem in terms
of delivering the new curriculum? After all, you would expect
to get some views, not just from the unions, but from going into
schools. Teachers have seen a big change in the curriculum—that
is challenging for a professional, is it not?—and, at the
same time, we are introducing a new concept of assessment for
learning. Where is guidance for teachers that delivers something
that they can understand and deliver?
Jim Knight: We published excellent
guidance recently to go with the £50 million a year funding
over each of the next three years to improve training for teachers
on assessment for learning. Clearly, by implication, we think
that it could be better than it is at the moment. We are also
developing the assessing pupil progress—APPs—to help
teachers identify what level each of the individuals in their
class is at. Those have been working well, through the Making
good progress pilots and elsewhere, in maths and English and
we are developing them now in science and other subjects. Although
the feedback from teachers suggests that they find it quite hard
work at first—as the APPs are being implemented and they
are getting used to them and learning how to use them—they
find that the investment of their time gets a good reward, both
in terms of their delivering on their vocation to be teachers
and, obviously, therefore, in terms of the children's results.
Q259 Chairman: Minister, it has been
a good session, but can I just remind you of one thing? The evidence
given to this Committee suggests that about 50% of the young people
in our country get a pretty good deal out of their education—with
the balance between the curriculum, the quality of teaching and
everything else—but that does not get to 50% of young people:
whatever we are doing in education does not reach down and enliven
and inspire them. Do you think these changes in the curriculum
are going to reach the other kids that have not been reached up
to now?
Jim Knight: Are you asking whether
they will pass the Heineken test?
Chairman: Yes.
Jim Knight: I would not be as
bleak as to say 50:50, but undoubtedly, when you look at some
international comparisons, for example, in the last PIRLS—progress
in international reading and literacy study—our best are
among the best, and our worst are among the worst, and there is
too much variability. That is one reason why we have brought in
the national challenge to lift the performance of those schools
that need that support. However, the curriculum changes will result
in more opportunities for teachers to use their training to be
more engaging. If you are engaging young people in their learning,
they are more likely to succeed.
| 
