England’s curriculum review ideas range from fewer tests and less focus on grammar to reforming sex education and enhancing children’s agency.
Education experts’ recommendations for the government education and assessment review in England, which is set to start later this summer, include ditching phonics screening, reducing the number of GSCE courses offered, and increasing children’s agency over their education.
The media spoke to Prof. Becky Francis, an expert in education policy who is about to resume her new job as the chair of the review week, about the changes she would like to see when the findings are published next year.
Let students make choices about their learning.
According to Dominic Wyse, an early childhood and primary education professor at University College London’s education, “I’m going to call this children’s agency.” “What I mean is the opportunity for children to make choices about their learning, to be properly consulted in their learning. They’re almost ghosts in the current national curriculum.“
“We need more focus on the learner, their interests and their needs than there is at the moment … I’m not advocating a wholesale switch to some sort of wacky, extreme form of child-centred education, although I’m sure my views in some places will be characterised like that.”
Less focus on phonics and grammar in primary schools
Wyse stated, “The amount of technical grammatical terms that children have to learn is way over the top.” “There’s far too much teaching of things like ‘what is a fronted adverbial?'”
He also criticizes the previous government’s emphasis on synthetic phonics, a reading-teaching approach that breaks words down into their smallest units of sound and is credited with raising English children’s reading standards.
Fewer tests for primary schoolchildren
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Heads Teachers, said: He is also critical of the emphasis on synthetic phonics—a method of teaching reading where words are broken up into the smallest units of sound—which the previous government credited with helping to raise reading standards among England’s children.
A broader curriculum
The curriculum should include vocational and technical courses and spaces for music and arts, as stated by the government. According to experts, reducing test loads might assist in creating room for such changes. Fewer tests at the primary level would free up time for PE and arts.
According to Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, “the over-focus on academic subjects to the exclusion of much else is putting off a lot of young people” at the secondary level. She claimed teachers struggle to cover the essential materials because the curriculum is so densely packed.
Less content in GCSEs and fewer test
Something should be given. McCulloch stated, “We don’t think that means reducing the number of subjects.” It’s about reducing the content in each course, which would lead to fewer tests. She stated, “We think there’s absolutely a place for exams,” but “there might be a place for more modular assessment” to lessen the burden of final exams.
During their final secondary education summer, students sit for 30 hours on average for GSCE exams. John Jerrim, a professor of education and social statistics at UCL’s education institute, asked, “Do we need three full weeks of assessment?” “I would like to see GCSEs remain – don’t throw the baby out with the bath water – but cut the assessment time down to a week.” However, the assessment period should be shortened to one week. It would ease the burden on young people and provide them more time for education.
Increasing prospects for working-class children
Lee Elliott Major, a professor of social mobility at Exeter University, is concerned that people from middle-class backgrounds produce the majority of the current curriculum.
He stated, “We must do much more to recognize and celebrate society’s countless examples of working-class achievements. “Learners from all backgrounds deserve to feel connected and represented in the curriculum. If it fails to resonate, they will soon become alienated.”
Decolonise the curriculum
The most obvious subjects to reform are English and history; however, activists contend that other subjects also need to change. Lavinya Stennett of the Black Curriculum stated, “The curriculum review needs to challenge the notion that Black history is within history alone.”
“This is a cross-curricula exercise that includes examples of pre-colonial ideas and events that shaped Britain, African migration, the economic contribution and resistance movements from the former colonies, and later migration patterns.”
Sex education
Lucy Emmerson, the chief executive of the Sex Education Forum, suggested that the government should eliminate the most recent draft guidelines on relationships, sex, and health (RSHE) created by the Conservatives. The guidelines ban teaching about gender identity and place age limits on what can be taught.
She stated, “Young people have repeatedly called for inclusive, up-to-date RSE lessons that start early in their school lives and extend beyond year 11.” “We call on ministers to utilise this review for a reset on RSE, discarding the draft RSHE guidance, making evidence-based updates, and addressing the training and support needs with schools.”
Other potential areas of interest
Some believe that the government’s assessment should cover the future of England’s 163 grammar schools as well as selective schools’ admissions.
Jerrim said Labour had a chance to show courage and audacity with the review. He stated, “My guess is they’re going to actually be pretty radical with something like this because it’s one of Labour’s opportunities to make a big difference without spending any money – or not that much money, compared with a lot of other things.”
“So it wouldn’t actually surprise me if they do say schools can no longer use test scores or academic criteria in their admissions throughout the country. And they can take pretty decent cover from a fair amount of academic evidence base around that.”
