A National Curriculum Deskills Teachers and Narrows Pupils’ Experience

The national curriculum deskills teachers, restricting their creativity and narrowing the experience of children. Teachers in collegial schools, not government, should make curricular decisions.

If there is one over-arching message that keeps coming through, it is this: the concentration of educational decision-making at the centre has led to a situation where “command and control” dominates, and this has now reached a point where it is seriously counter- productive.Sir John Cassells, director, National Commission on Education (an independent body) (2003)

Allow teachers to create an imaginative and engaging curriculum tailor-made for the pupils they teach.Item in the Teachers’ Manifesto compiled by the TES from its readers’ contributions (2005)

Slowly but surely the teaching community begins to act as if worthwhile knowledge were only to be found in ring-binders, swiftly supplemented by training packs with videos.Mary Jane Drummond, Faculty of education, University of Cambridge (2005)

For too many young people, the last thing the curriculum does is inspire and challenge. That’s why so many young people walk away from sc Mick Waters, director of curriculum at the Qualifications and Assessment Authority (2006)

We share a profound concern about England’s early years foundation stage (EYFS) legislation, which becomes law next autumn. We believe it is fundamentally flawed in conception, with net harm to be done to children due to the framework’s contestable assumptions and unintended consequences. Letter in the TES from 7 prominent educationists (2007)

The biggest inquiry into primary education for 40 years concluded yesterday that Labour’s tight, centralized control of England’s primary schools has had a devastating impact on children’s education. Micromanagement, meddling and a succession of ministerial edicts have killed the spontaneity in the nation’s classrooms. Teachers have been stripped of their powers of discretion. And the net result of new Labour “reform” has almost certainly been a decline in the quality of education that the young receive.Report in The Independent on the massive research-based Cambridge Primary Review (2008)

Disastrous Impact of the Changing National Curriculum

Anyone who has watched the changes in the national curriculum since its inception in the Education Reform Act of 1988 must despair to have seen one generation of children drilled one way and the next another. Ring-binder after ring-binder has been sent to schools, telling them what to teach as determined by small groups of so-called experts.

One of the worst features of the national curriculum is that it is subject-based and designed by people blinkered by their concerns for their subject. Each of the Government-appointed national curriculum subject committees has doggedly focussed on the perceived vital importance of its own subject – to the exclusion of the rest. Mathematicians, historians, geographers, scientists, artists, musicians all have a multitude of ideas as to what should go into the national curriculum. But they forget the old challenge to teachers: do you teach your subject or do you teach children?

Perhaps the clearest example of the danger of subject specialists making national decisions as to what every child should do at school lies in the field of literature. Committees and then ministers have decided what books should be studied. David Blunkett (1997-2001) insisted on George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World being in the lists for 11-14 year-olds to read; Alan Johnson (2006-7) took them out. To anyone outside the hothouse of the Westminster village it is obvious that it should be teachers who decide, in the light of their knowledge of their pupils and their own reading, what literature should be taught in their classes.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, while subjects traditionally dominated secondary schools, they were not considered necessarily the best way to structure a primary school curriculum. But when Kenneth Baker introduced the structure for the national curriculum in 1988 it was designed on the assumption that each subject would develop from year one, that is 5 year-olds. It was argued that this would facilitate the progression of learning as pupils moved from one school to another, particularly the transfer at 11 from primary to secondary school. It represents a complete failure to understand the differences between primary and secondary schools

In primary schools this damaged the common practice of concentrating on themes or topics which embraced a variety of disciplines. It led to rigid timetabling and a very fragmented experience of education for young children. Fewer secondary schools worked around themes, but there were some running successful experiments in getting away from a 35-period subject-based week – which withered when the national curriculum arrived. Surprise, surprise – the latest government recommendation is to return to themes!

It is probably true that for weaker teachers and their classes the national curriculum was a Godsend because it put a coherent structure into their work and told them what to do. For able teachers, used to making their own decisions, it was devastating. As Mary Jane Drummond has suggested, the national curriculum began to deskill able teachers.

Curriculum Should Be Decided By Collegial Schools, Not Government

Of course children need to learn to read, write and do simple calculations. Throughout the 20th century these were taught as essentials and obviously should continue as such.

But beyond these essential elements in a curriculum is an enormous range of worthwhile activities that are all educational but do not have the need for compulsion and uniform application throughout the country. Their inclusion in the curriculum should depend on what the talents of the school can offer.

Yes, it is great that children learn to swim, make music, sing, dance, paint, and draw. Certainly some sense of historical events and geographical concepts is valuable – but it is absurd for central government to try to determine what events and places should be studied. Enquiry into the physical, natural and mathematical world is important. Environmental exploration and community work are worthwhile. Youth hostel visits and camping events not only stimulate interest in the out-of-doors world but are important social experiences for children who may have never left home without their parents. Spiritual growth matters for many parents. But none of these should be laid down by a London-based government and its specialist agencies. It should be a matter for schools to decide, in relation to their knowledge of the children in the school, maybe in discussion with parents, but certainly in the light of the knowledge, skills, values and enthusiasm of the teaching staff. It is what a collegial school should do and what teachers should learn to do in their training.

What Would Happen if the National Curriculum Became Non-Obligatory?

No doubt many schools for a time would continue as before. Slowly staff would gain confidence in themselves to make curriculum decisions based on their own talents and interests, while bearing in mind the needs of children to experience as rounded and balanced an education as possible. The ring-binders and guidance booklets of the national curriculum could sit on the staff-room shelves to act as a resource when needed. They contain a wealth of ideas valuable for choice but not compulsion.

Teachers’ creative energy would flow and their enthusiasms for teaching flourish. Young people of all ages would be much more likely than now to thoroughly enjoy school, learn effectively, develop their individual talents, and gain a love of learning which will illumine their whole lives. Teachers would ‘walk tall’ in our society and establish their proper role as guardians of the future.