The School Curriculum, Qualifications Regime, and Testing
The National Curriculum was introduced in 1988 and ensures that all state schools follow a common curriculum. It has been criticised for being over-prescriptive, but its advocates argue that it ensures that all children are taught skills and knowledge to prepare them for later life. It is maintained and developed by the QCA, a public body, currently sponsored by DCSF. Concerns have been raised that this model has led to the ‘politicisation’ of the curriculum.
Consideration should be given to whether a National Curriculum is a suitable device for ensuring that all schools adequately educate children or whether this is an area in which schools could be given increased freedoms to innovate under a broader ‘framework’ curriculum model.
Pupils in England are among the most tested in the world. Various studies have also pointed out that England is unique in using testing to control what is taught in schools, to monitor teaching standards and to encourage parents to choose schools based on the results of the tests. We need to consider the role of national tests and reflect upon whether or not they can be an accurate indicator of both an individual child’s and a school’s performance.
With childhood obesity rising, the health of children has become a central concern, and children’s diet and exercise habits have become widely debated. As a result, the quality of school meals has received increased attention and a debate has begun on the responsibility that schools should have in relation to the health of their pupils.
In February 2007, a UNICEF report ranked Britain bottom of 21 developed countries for child well-being. It is necessary to consider what role the education system can play in increasing the opportunities available to all children.
In relation to the curriculum, qualifications and testing, here are some questions to consider:
Schooling up to age 11:
- How should children learn up to the age of 7?
- Should there be a National Curriculum in schooling for under-11s? What should it contain? Is the existing curriculum fit for purpose?
- What priority should be given to basic literacy and numeracy skills?
- How much freedom should schools have to determine their own curriculum?
- What are the effects of the existing school testing regime up to age 11? What testing and assessment regime is needed in under-11 schools?
Schooling from age 11:
- Should there be a National Curriculum for post-age 11 schooling? If so, what should its focus be, and what should it contain?
- What should be taught in post-age 11 schools? Is the current teaching proving motivating, relevant and useful to pupils?
- What changes are needed to the post-14 system of qualifications and testing? What role does applied learning, vocational education and specialisation have to play in the post-14 system?
- Should the government’s new Diploma model be supported, or should there be a more fundamental change to the post 14 curriculum and qualifications system?
- What advice should be available to young people and parents to allow them to make informed choices? Should this advice be independent of the school and how should it be best managed for each individual child?
- Until what age should young people be obliged by law to remain in education?
Testing:
- What role should pupil assessment play in the accountability regime for schools and how should modern data systems be harnessed to assess and improve learning?
- To what extent should formative testing regimes be set externally to the school and their results be published? What effect would this have on the existence of school league tables?
- What targets should be set nationally, locally and by schools in relation to national testing outcomes?
- What testing and assessment mechanisms should be used to measure and recognize the achievements of pupils with special educational needs?
- What curriculum and qualifications access entitlements should be given to pupils and parents?
General:
- What is the right school structure to support children through the different stages of learning and development? Does the current structure offer the best opportunities to the child?
- Should disciplines such as modern languages, culture, cooking, and sport be compulsory? If so, from and to what age?
- What should be done to improve the health of school pupils? What role should school sport and school meals play in this?
- Should schools be obliged to provide a minimum period of lunch break and what should pupils be entitled to do with this time?
- What can be done to extend to all pupils access to school trips to cultural and sporting visits?
May 18th, 2008 at 10:40 am
The issue of pupil motivation needs to be given prominence especially in an environment where far to many families do not value the current educational process and there is a sub-culture among pupils that deems it “clever” to be seen not to care about it.
To improve levels of motivation, curriculum relevance and credibility must be considered.
Does the national curriculum still try to force an over-academic structure on those for whom it is unsuitable and, therefore, largely irrelevant? If the answer is yes, this must damage the credibility of both teachers and those in authority in society generally.
Credibility in the educational process must also be damaged by the promotion of faith beliefs as facts to the large number of pupils who just don’t believe and who probably sense the system is not being honest with them. Teaching knowledge of faiths and beliefs is a proper educational curriculum subject but teaching beliefs as facts undermines the whole process.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Basic literacy and numeracy skills are crucial and should still be the core of the curriculum. The issue is not the emphasis on these skills but the reliability and validity of the way they are tested. How many adults can sit and write a well-constructed piece of writing fit for a given purpose, use commas to mark grammatical boundaries, use extended vocabulary and use a wide range of connectives in a time limit of 20 or 40 minutes? Can they read a 20 page booklet in 15 minutes and answer over 30 questions in 45 minutes? At 10 and 11, the children undertake 9 tests in 1 week; this puts them under great pressure.
The temptation for teachers to narrow the curriculum in order to teach children to ‘jump through these hoops’ is very significant. And, schools then feel the need to undertake half termly or termly testing along the same lines in order to ‘track’ children.
A National Curriculum should help schools in understanding the wider context and greater aims for learning. It should outline core skills and progression, both ‘academic’ and social/personal.
The issue of ownership is not just for teachers. We know that children who are given choices in their learning pathways engage more and learn more. Any National Curriculum needs to be flexible enough so that children can make choices about the specifics of what and how they learn.
Extending the range of provision in schools; more subjects; greater access to out of school activities; opportunities to improve health and well-being; lunchtime programmes is commendable. However, we cannot continue to place these expectations on schools without adequate additional funding. We know that recruiting headteachers is becoming more and more difficult, and any debate needs to consider how we ensure that the role of headteacher is a desirable one. Placing more demands on them without ensuring they have the capacity to meet them is unreasonable.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Comment on Qs22&23:-
In order to achieve greater relevance and motivation for the Adolescent i.e. 14-18/19 age group I would suggest that there should be some material that I would call Preparation for Adult Life [as opposed to work]. This should aim to help prepare them for their future Adult Roles as Citizens, taxpayers, consumers, relationship partners, potential parents etc.
As a minimum it should cover:-
The Political System, how it works and the issues surrounding this.
How taxes are raised, what they are spent on and the issues surrounding this.
Some elements of Economics.
Some elements of Psychology including Understanding Oneself and Others and Child Development and the role of the parent in this.
Currently some of this is covered in Personal,Social and Health Education [PSHE] and Citizenship but these subjects are often [usually!] scantily and badly taught by staff without relevant qualifications in the subject area, and it is only taught up to 16.
I would argue that it should be taught up to 18/19 and that 10% of the teaching time should be devoted to this area of study for this Adolescent age group [and with suitably qualified staff] because as many Psychologists have pointed out Preparation for Adult Life is one of the main “Developmental/Psycho-Social Tasks” of Adolescence. So hopefully they would find this relevant and useful
Comment on Q.33:-
I feel that Adolescents [i.e.14-18/19s] would benefit from being taught in separate educational establishments from younger children with more of an Adult/College atmosphere. As this would have knock-on effects for younger children I would suggest First/Early Years Schools for 3/4yr.olds - 8/9 yr.olds followed by Secondary/Middle Schools for 8/9yr.olds - 13/14yr.olds. Interestingly this is similar to the system used in the private sector - [at least for boys]!! Also it would allow for the gradual introduction of a subject-based Curriculum for 9+yr.olds in subjects like Modern Foreign Languages and Music which Generalist Teachers often struggle with.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
My comments are already submitted, above but I would like to add the request to be notified of follow-up comments via e-mail.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
The suggestions I have made above in relatoin to Q.33 would also allow for testing to take place at just three points in a pupil’s school career, at the end of each phase i.e. at 8/9, 13/14, and 18/19.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Further to my comments on Q.33 above I would like to add that the present system of Universal Secondary School for all, dates from the 1944 Education Act, when most pupils [c.80%] were to leave school at 15 and if they did continue their education it would be as Day-Release from work if they were an apprentice.
In the last 64 years, and particularly in the last 15 years things have changed enormously. Now the majority of 16-18 yr. olds pursue Full-Time courses [both academic and vocational e.g. BTEC,GNVQ etc] and the numbers doing Day-Release have fallen dramatically.
So NOW we are in a situation where the educational pattern of 14-16 yr.olds and 16-18 yr.olds is virtually the same, so there is no reason why they should not be in a common educational institution.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:14 am
In trying to understand how the Every Child Matters aim on achieving economic well-being is relevant to primary aged children a headteacher said that literacy and numeracy were the two most important factors. I agree and that carries over into secondary school. For that sort of reason I think a core national curriculum is needed for all schools, with possibly the opportunity for opt-out under special circumstances. There should not be whole classes of schools such as academies which do not have to follow the national curriculum. The same rules should apply to all. Good performing schools should have more flexibility but that should apply to maintained schools as well as others.
Vocational education can motivate children who are switched off by academic subjects but the little evidence I have heard suggests that practical vocational studies for part of the time can re-motivate children to succeed in core academic subjects. Vocational education should not squeeze out academic studies. It is important however that vocational education is not “academicised”. Ways need to be found to use the experience of skilled trades people rather than falling into the trap of making vocational studies theoretical because there are not enough trained teachers with the right skills.
The government’s new diploma model seems to be moving towards the Tomlinson model. The ideal should be a single qualification within which it is possible to show clearly what has been achieved across the whole range of the curriculum. We should be immune to the lure of the ‘gold standard’ of A-levels.
There seems to general agreement, apart from within the government, that we have too much testing. Tracking of pupil progress must be important as a teaching aid, and as a management tool but publishing this as often as it is at present sends out the wrong messages and put unnecessary pressure on pupils and schools. KS3 seems on the face of it to be in this category.
League tables are a seductive, self-indulgence for successful schools but a demoralising distraction for schools in challenging circumstances. The basis of the calculation of position in the league table will always be contentious - it is an over-simplication of what a school does. We need strong external assessment of a school’s performance in order to promote improvement but not in the form of league tables. Parents should be able to know what the assessment of a school is but it is not necessary or constructive to try and rank it in relation to other schools.
Formative testing should be handled from within the school although external agencies could give assistance if requested.
In order to give self-respect to children with learning difficulties, the argument is made that they should take GCSE’s even if they are awarded an F or a G. I don’t believe we should set tests of which only 20% of the paper is accessible to some groups of children. They should take specialised assessments either for a separate qualification or for a grade within the GCSE.
Children should be obliged to undertake some form of education until 18. This should be interpreted very flexibly and include everything from on the job training, to full-time college courses.
The role of academies needs to be clarified. And the role of local authorities needs to be examined. The government brings in academies for failing schools and lets them operate independently, albeit in their new model in cooperation with the local authority. The implication is that the local authority model of education is incapable of pulling some failing school around. (I putWhat are the characteristics of academies that are supposed to enable them to succeed where the LA has failed? Is it a strong ethos, perhaps more strongly expressed than in a maintained school? Is it the ability to respond more quickly to underperforming staff (in particular heads). Is it the more flexible curriculum? Why does it have to be an academy to have these qualities and not a maintained school? If we adopt the academy concept it is essential that they all work very closely with the local authority and follow exactly the same schemes of cooperation with local primary and secondary schools, as other schools in the area.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I think Q.7 is the first most relevant question that we must adress.
You can only start to teach children when they are ready to learn. There is a fundamental mistake in trying to start this process earlier and earlier. What we should be teaching children up to the age of 7 is social skills, how to play and interact with other children. By giving them emotional inteligence we prepare them for school where they will have to socially interact to be able to learn.
Without this solid foundation the rest of the ’system’ will continue to crumble.