Government initiatives and the national curriculum

From these pages you can access a history of the national curriculum, its shortcomings and ATL’s vision as to how the curriculum could work in the future.

The time is right for a renewed national debate on early years and school curricula.

Central to that debate were linked the propositions listed below:

• all pupils should be entitled to access a broad and balanced curriculum 
• individual schools had complete autonomy on curriculum issues and many did not provide this entitlement. There was a strong tendency towards class and gender differentiation
• the state should intervene to secure pupils’ entitlement. 

In 1988, there was a very large consensus in favour of a national curriculum, with the notion of entitlement at the heart. Social justice continues to demand an entitlement for all.

ATL remains committed to the idea of a national curriculum. However, we judge that the time is right for a renewed national debate on early years and school curricula. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the uneasy settlement represented in the current national curriculum. The responsible UK agency, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), is itself stimulating a rethink, while the Primary National Strategy reconsiders the foundation stage as a stage for children from birth to age five.  

We also recognise the important work being done elsewhere; the Welsh Assembly Government has used its devolved powers to make significant changes to the proposed early years provision and has produced the consultation document entitled Flying Start, which recognises the importance of ‘play’.  Also, the Welsh Baccalaureate Diploma represents a step in the direction of a broader curriculum in the 14–19 phase. Whilst in Northern Ireland, the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment has attempted to graft a skills framework onto a subject-based curriculum.

What kind of national curriculum?

Supporting a national curriculum does not mean supporting the present national curriculum, the drawbacks of which have become clear:

• its complete coverage is a substantial barrier to innovation, although ATL celebrates those professionals who have overcome this
• its detail is over prescriptive
• its design by committees of experts in academic subjects, and the associated assessment, has not resulted in a broad and balanced learning experience
• the highly centralised model has produced a state curriculum, subject to the enthusiasms of passing ministers. 

ATL seeks a national curriculum which eradicates these drawbacks.

A question which has never been resolved with respect to a national curriculum is this, is schooling 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.

A twenty-first century curriculum cannot have the transfer of knowledge at its core for the simple reason that the selection of what is required has become problematic in an information rich age. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) suggests that we live in a ‘knowledge economy’ but that we need to think carefully about what actually constitutes knowledge. It proposes four distinct types: Know-what, know-why, know-how and know-who and suggests that there is growing demand for the latter three compared with the more straightforward factual knowledge embodied in know-what. The traditional school curriculum consists of the know-what category.

Resources

• Subject to change - new thinking on the curriculum, Pdf document, 69 KB