 Trashed Robot - The Magic Tuba Pixie https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trashed_robot.jpg This is the fourth blog in my series on the Curriculum and Assessment Review. You can find the rest HERE. In this short blog I want to explore an aspect of the review I was really excited about - the promise to restore teachers' professional autonomy. This is important not only because teachers need to be able to make moral and ethical choices in classrooms, but also because a lack of autonomy has been wreaking havoc with teacher recruitment and retention. The past decade has seen a significant reduction in teacher autonomy, and lots of concerns about this from the profession, so anything to buck this trend would be welcome.
What Does the Report Mean by Teacher Autonomy? For too long now, teachers have been increasingly controlled by external pressures, reducing both their efficacy and enjoyment of teaching. But even a cursory reading of the scope of this principle reveals the internal contradictions. While the report suggests the importance of teachers as ‘curriculum makers’ (p50), shifting the focus away from the previous obsession with separating teachers from the process of curriculum making, the description of the quality seems to be very different from the label. The authors suggest that the best thing for teacher autonomy is to have a ‘a rich and well-specified national curriculum’ (p50), presumably running on the line that the best kind of freedom is less freedom. The professional freedom therefore seems to fall under a heading of freedoms to deliver in novel ways, rather than being part of an iterative process of curriculum reform and development. Indeed, ‘curriculum makers’ in this content is defined as the process of ‘interpreting and transforming the content in the national curriculum to ‘author’ instructional events with students in the classroom’ (p50) and ‘unpacking and interpreting content to unlock its educational potential’ (p50). This is about as far from the concept of teacher as ‘curriculum maker’ as I can imagine. ‘Curriculum interpreter’ potentially, but even that feels generous. That the curriculum principle itself was not recognised as a contradiction by the authors is something of a mystery: ‘The refreshed national curriculum should ensure the professional autonomy of teachers is maintained, making sure that greater specificity does not substantially restrict teachers’ flexibility to choose lesson content and how to teach it’ (p50). Once again, the conclusions here feel like they are a result of an uncritical adherence to the ‘knowledge-rich’ approach of the previous reforms, with their focus on close specification and uniformity across contexts. The slightly ominous note about turning the national curriculum into a ‘digital product’ (p53) raises still further concerns about the desire to overly specify curriculum content, and reduce teacher freedoms to choose curricular focuses. Almost all Primary schools have cross curricular planning on multiple scales to ensure coherence. The challenge they mostly face is one of limited time and resource to develop expertise across the school. Meanwhile, in secondary, attempts to create connections across subjects are important but cannot be done easily without heavily restricting content choices to ensure coherence. Ironically this would mark a significant reversal of the previous reform’s emphasis on schools being able to set their own curricular directions. On a very cynical level, it also feels like an opportunity for a company to make a lot of money producing a tool to show these connections, or for Oak Academy and it’s extremely problematic (an autonomy reducing) AI tool to make greater inroads into schools… Without wishing to sound like a Luddite, it was not hard to see connections on older paper copies of the National Curriculum, however creating huge tables of cross curricular links did very little to generate meaningful cross-curricularity in the 10 years this was emphasised under New Labour. Thanks for reading. If you would like to comment, please do drop me a line here: Alex Ford (@apf102.bsky.social) — Bluesky. To return to the rest of the blog click HERE.
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An empowering History curriculum? What does the Curriculum Review mean for school History?11/10/2025  People protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline march past San Francisco City Hall. Pax Ahimsa Gethen https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stand_with_Standing_Rock_SF_Nov_2016_11.jpg I have written extensively on the role of school History (see the end for links). Now that we have explored the broader issues in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, I want to look more closely at the role is sees for school History as well as the changes the authors suggest. This is the third blog in my series on the Curriculum and Assessment Review. You can find the rest HERE.
The Role of School History There is a long standing tradition in History teaching, especially for those of us in the Schools History Project tradition, to frame curricular discussions around meeting the needs of young people in the contemporary and future world. Today I think we need to expand that to include the needs of young people in the midst of a planetary crisis exacerbated by ongoing extractive colonial and capitalist mindsets. Therefore, while I think there are a number of sensible recommendations in relation to school History, there are still a range of significant shortcomings in the report's recommendations with relation to History. This begins with the fact that the History curriculum is claimed to be ‘broadly working well’ (p84), with no real sense of which elements of the research base informed this claim. This complacency sets up a pattern in approaching History education which suggests that no real changes are required. This is not simply a lost opportunity, but is actually actively create more harm. Broad Issues The first major point of departure for History is that the EBacc 'qualification' is being abolished. School History has benefitted significantly from the focus on Ebacc, with take-up of the subject at GCSE rising from 31% in 2009/10 to 42% in 2024/25. On the surface, this is welcome news for breadth of study for pupils. The real challenge is whether or not History can sustain pupil faith in a world where schools will (theoretically) no longer be actively pushing pupils down this pathway. That said, because the calculation of Progress 8 does not change, is is not yet clear whether or not the focus on EBacc will in fact change at all. It was a relief to see that concerns about the History GCSE have been noted and recognised, particularly the issue of ‘content overload’ (p85). No solutions are yet proposed but there is a call for a review of the requirements of each component. There is also a focus on the concerns that students are doing rote learning to pass exams. The solution however does not seem to recognise that disciplinary concepts are already routinely tested as part of GCSE (though no longer as a personal study), so a call to review the assessment objectives seems shallow. The scope to reintroduce some disciplinary approaches to History, including allowing pupils to conduct their own studies does feel like a potential opportunity, but this seems to have been quashed already in a later section on assessment forms. Diversity and Inclusion There is interestingly very little focus in the report on the diversity and inclusivity of History education. Indeed, the words ‘diversity’, ‘inclusivity’ and ‘colonialism’ don’t seem to appear at all. This feels like a deliberate and disappointing sidestepping of what teachers and pupils have been long raising as concerns about the nature of the examples given in the History National Curriculum. Instead, we are told that History covers ‘a wide range of eras, contexts and cultures’ (p85) and are told that teachers want more guidance to enable them to ‘capitalise on existing flexibility, particularly when representing a wider range of perspectives in British History’ (p85). The suggestion is for non-statutory examples of content to be included. Whilst I understand the need not to poke the Daily Mail beehive this also feels like a betrayal of what many teachers and even more pupils are asking for. History at its core should help young people understand the world they live in and to make more diverse and inclusive content optional sends a very weak message about its importance. Although I am sure many History teachers will jump at the opportunity to include more diverse and decolonised histories in their curricula, I also know that increased specification in other areas, as is suggested, will just draw more time and attention away from these aspects in most schools. History and the Planetary Crisis Equally absent is any mention of History’s contribution to the exploration of the planetary crisis. History has a unique position in enabling young people to explore how past societies have grappled with environmental and existential impacts, adapted and learned to live in new ways. Crucially a focus on the impacts of colonialism and the ways in which Indigenous communities have survived its ecological, socio-political and economic impacts reveals a great deal about the resilience of peoples to adapt and survive in spite of all the odds. To fail to place the planetary issues and an understanding of the impacts of European colonialism into the curriculum feels not just like a lost opportunity but an active barrier for pupils in fully understanding the world today and the potential for a human future. Although there was a brief nod to the importance of local history, once again, its potential to reveal the interconnected nature of local, national and global stories, as well as of the local, national and imperial, shows a significant lack of imagination. To further suggest that Oak National Academy and its AI fabrications might provide appropriate exemplification of local history is not just an insult to the thousands of teachers doing fantastic work on this front but also a direct assault on the nature of local history and its deep connections with real, human (and more-than-human) experiences. Local history requires careful time, work and resourcing. It opens up space and place. It draws on lived experiences and connects communities. It explores the impacts of shaping forces like industrialisation, globalisation, capitalism, and colonialism. If done well, it builds trust. To try to shortcut local history is to achieve the opposite of these things. It does violence against people, places and planet. Disciplinary History It was encouraging to see recognition that one core criticism of the current curriculum has been its failure to give students a sound knowledge of ‘how historians study the past, and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts’ (p84). As Harris has noted, this lack of focus on the construction of historical knowledge has been directly impacted by approaches to History teaching which over-emphasise knowledge acquisition, and have been brought to the fore once again during the ‘knowledge turn’ in education. The recommendation made is therefore to ‘enhance the requirement for disciplinary understanding, without adding excessive content’ (p85). This suggestion does raise some questions as the importance of studying disciplinary aspects of history was embedded in the National Curriculum Levels (if poorly) between 1991 and 2014, and disciplinary modes of thinking are still a core aspect of the National Curriculum itself. The background concern is that we might see the creation of a separate unit within the National Curriculum focusing on disciplinary understanding which would run counter to decades of practitioner research highlighting the importance of historical enquiry in unifying the substantive and the disciplinary. Statutory and Optional Content There is a helpful focus on the balance between statutory and optional content in the National Curriculum. The current curriculum is actually very open in terms of the topics for teaching, and many teachers have used this freedom to develop innovative content, relevant to their pupils, contexts and contemporary issues. However, it is true to say that the suggested lists have also led to a curricular narrowing in some schools who sought to reproduce an ‘island story’ type narrative for their pupils. The report claims that a confusing mix of mandatory and optional content makes the curriculum ‘appear overloaded’ (p84) placing the blame partly with teachers’ interpretation of the source. Rather than investing in upskilling History teachers to be able to make careful and well reasoned curriculum choices, as has been promoted the the Curriculum PATHS project for instance, we get the contradictory claim that by specifying what is mandatory, teachers will have more opportunity and professional freedom. We are told that more specification will ‘support teachers to decide whether to treat elements in depth or at a high level’ (p85). Almost no space is given to reflect on how political demands to teach a coherent and comprehensive British story, alongside inspection demands to have a highly detailed curriculum sequence, contributed to this feeling of overloading. Equally there is no further exploration of how the ‘knowledge-rich’ approach to History has led to the silencing of History as an active debate and turned it into a subject obsessed with content recall. Once again, the adherence to the Conservative curriculum paradigm prevents the review from tacking the most significant problems in History classrooms today. Meaningful Oracy Although not covered directly in the History section of the report, there is a focus on the need for improved oracy in schools. I wanted to touch on this here as the lack of focus on oracy in the curriculum in recent years has been particularly notable. Thinking specifically about History, but with knowledge of the broader picture too, silent classrooms have grown exponentially in the last ten years and real opportunities for pupils to think and discuss key ideas, issues and topics have been all but removed in some contexts. The explicit focus on oracy in the report is a welcome shift in direction as it sits at the core of meaningful exploration of historical questions. As Ingledew has highlighted, talk is crucial to historical learning and reasoning, and indeed to make sense of disciplinary concepts which the report suggests need greater focus. Equally, meaningful talk sits at the heart of pedagogies which seek to address the planetary crisis. However, the past ten years has seen oracy turn into what Segal and Lefstein call an ‘exuberant, voiceless participation’, a ‘hollow and ritualistic’ practice which is more concerned with ‘animating the teacher’s voice’ rather than enabling pupils to offer ‘independent or original perspectives’. Oracy, the bedrock of meaningful socialised learning in classroom spaces, is at risk of becoming yet another performance to be assessed and monitored, rather than being restored to the heart of the learning process. This is equally true of the way oracy is presented in the English curriculum (p75). It is critical that oracy does not get reduced to an assessed skill but is seen as a crucial part of classroom pedagogies which foreground pupil voices and discussion. Given the focus on ‘speaking and listening requirements’ (p43) I fear however that the interpretation of oracy will be narrower than many History teachers are looking for. Conclusions In summary, the suggested reforms to the History curriculum sit in the same bracket as much of the rest of the report. On the surface there appear to be sensible nods to change. However, the detail of the changes seems to pull in very different directions and risks not only leaving History in its present crisis, but actively making that crisis worse by failing to recognise what is preventing change from happening. I have made the case many times that History education has great potential to be a positive force in schools. However, nothing in this report seems to be pushing to realise its ethical, moral and social potential. Instead, it allows the deadening hand of ‘knowledge-rich mastery learning’ to slow teachers in their work to teach meaningful, engaging, accessible, global and empowering histories to their pupils. Thanks for reading. If you would like to comment, please do drop me a line here: Alex Ford (@apf102.bsky.social) — Bluesky. To return to the rest of the blog click HERE. Other blogs
 Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Richardson et al 2023 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fronteres_planet%C3%A0ries_al_llarg_del_temps_(2009-2023).png This is the second installment of my blog series on the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review. You can read the rest HERE. In this brief blog, focus on the report's stated ambition to build a 'world class curriculum' which 'reflects our society'. An Inclusive Curriculum? One of the most interesting parts of this review is the inclusion of a commentary on the need for diversity within the curriculum. This is quite deep within the text (page 32) and is probably the element which most challenges the curricula status quo. It is really encouraging to see the commitment to ensuring all young people are represented through curriculum and that they should encounter ‘a wide range of perspectives that broaden their horizons’ (p32). It was especially good to hear the student voice coming through strongly here. The authors noted that pupils made ‘compelling arguments…that the curriculum needs to reflect society, support equality of opportunity, and challenge discrimination’ (p33). Again, the fact that this element is coming through so strongly highlights the failure of the paradigm of the previous curriculum reforms to deliver on these aims. It is hard however to be optimistic about the opportunity for reform when calls for more inclusive curricula go back decades. Nick Dennis for instance has highlighted the important work of educational activists such as Bernard Coard and Nana Bonsu, who were instrumental in the ‘Supplementary Schools’ movement; as well as numerous government reports (e.g. Rampton (1981), Swann (1985), McPherson (1999) etc.) which have focused on the importance of a diverse and inclusive curriculum. It is also notable that there is no recognition of the calls for decolonisation, nor the work which has been done to decolonise curriculum. The authors state that ‘mutual access to core knowledge, and curriculum coherence, efficacy and breadth for all children should remain central as we work to ensure the curriculum is more broadly representative’ (p33). But simply adding more stories into the curriculum is not the same as a truly inclusive curriculum. This treats curriculum as content choices only, ignoring its wider ontological, pedagogical, ethical and affective dimensions, and running counter to almost all theoretical work on curriculum. Inclusive curricula consider not only the curriculum content but the purposes of teaching, the pedagogies employed, and the agency enabled through teaching. Because the review is so wedded to the ‘knowledge-rich’ and ‘mastery’ approaches, it is hard to see how these aspects of inclusivity can be pursued at all. It is also notable that the phrase ‘a curriculum that reflects our society’, by definition, raises questions about what constitutes ‘our’ society, as well as encompassing the challenges society is facing. The report itself notes that children in Britain, and by extension the wider world, are facing an environmental crisis, ‘A curriculum that reflects our society’ therefore needs to tackle these aspects as well. Dale Banham has spoken many times about the importance of the curriculum acting not just as a mirror, reflecting our society back to us, but as a light to illuminate paths forwards. A curriculum should enable young people to reflect on societal (and global) directions, ethics and values with a view to shining a light on future paths. This kind of work has never been more important. Yet the solutions remain stubbornly unambitious partly due to their attachment- and unwillingness- to challenge the ‘knowledge-rich’ approaches and pedagogies laid down in the last ten years. There is little evidence that the ‘powerful knowledge’ turn in schools has in fact allowed young people to ‘engage more effectively with issues affecting them and the world around them’ (p34). Rather, there is good evidence that the ‘powerful knowledge’ approach, as interpreted in the National Curriculum set by the last government, led to increasingly narrow curricula, especially in History, and actively blocked pupils from understanding global forces such as colonialism by making the subject taboo in schools.  A World-Class Curriculum with no Planetary Perspectives
The report also suggests that ‘it is crucial that young people benefit from an understanding of the climate crisis’s causes, consequences and possible solutions’ (p40) and that ‘subject-specific knowledge remains the best investment in preparing young people for these challenges and opportunities’ (p34). The lack of citations here is quite notable! In almost the same breath we are also told that pupils will need this knowledge so that they have ‘the necessary knowledge and skills to thrive in tomorrow’s industries and tackle the serious challenges facing our planet’ (p40). This is a set of outcomes rooted firmly in the idea that 'sustainability education' can be a means for continued economic growth. Such an analysis seems to sit a decade or more behind the current consensus on the planetary crisis we are facing. In his 2021 book, Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, Bruno Latour makes the case (supported by a significant scientific consensus) that the concept of sustainability and the maintenance of extractive late-stage capitalism have long since become non-options for future directions. His claim is that the planet is already beyond the point of total transformation. Humans have altered the Earth to such an extent, he argues, that we have left its surface altogether, the world has changed in our absence, and that our current challenge is to work out how we land again safely on this new Earth. Such a challenge requires education to, as Martin Gren put it at a recent conference, lift its gaze beyond societal concerns and consider questions which relate to what sort of planet we can and want to live on, through and with. Gren’s call is for traditional disciplines to consider how they collectively might contribute to the reimagining needed survive on a new Earth. In this context, the continued failure to recognise the importance of challenging existing modes of thinking about the planet means opportunities for meaningful change are lost. Whilst the concepts of 'climate change' and 'sustainability' appear numerous times in the report, the intertwining issues of colonialism and planetary collapse are not highlighted at all. Instead, issues of climate and sustainability are framed in narrow, nationalistic ways, with an emphasis on enabling economic advancement. There is a call to ‘maximise young people’s opportunities’ and prepare them for ‘the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and trends in digital information’ (p10) with its demands for ‘media literacy and critical thinking’ (p10). The solution proposed is to leverage sustainability education as a means to find children future work in economic fields connected with AI, digital information, media, and so on. The inherent contradictions in pursuing both of these aims are also ignored. Many of these industries are actively contributing to the crisis in our planetary system – not least AI. Of course, addressing global issues does not preclude the study of traditional subjects, but it does raise real questions about whether the content and core concepts of the traditional subjects (especially in isolation) are sufficient. To come back again to Latour’s framing, every discipline needs to become a geo-discipline which has a concern with the planetary Earth. It is also notable that this lack of engagement with the planetary is reflected in the review of the Geography curriculum itself, which is deemed as 'fit for purpose', and requiring only ‘light-touch attention' (p82). Any reference to the need for a focus on planetary issues is subsumed under the somewhat inadequate heading of ‘green skills’ and the recommendation to focus on climate and sustainability education. The latter has already been noted as an inadequate response to the planetary crisis by many experts in the field, and I am convinced will have been raised by professional bodies, teachers, parents, pupils and scholars who contributed to the review process. Indeed, Martin Gren's 2021 article 'Climate Emergency - Another Mayday Letter from the Earth' makes an impassioned plea for Geographers to take the planetary dimensions of the current crisis seriously. Similar is also true in the Science curriculum. Although there are more mentions of the climate in the notes for Science reform, the imperative is linked to ‘supporting the wider economy, with the growth of the green economy’ (p115) and is building from a previous curriculum iteration which made only limited reference to climate Science. There is also a continued focus on the concept of sustainability here too, despite calls for the concept to be left behind. It is notable that sustainability education has been a major focus in many European countries and is now beginning to be abandoned. By contrast, England is only just beginning to engage with an already defunct conceptual framing. The fact that the global perspective is so absent from the reform of Science and Geography reveals already that the chances of meaningful shifts towards more global focuses across the curriculum, as suggested by Latour, will almost certainly not happen. If the planetary lens is not central to curriculum then whether or not teachers engage with it will be entirely dependent on the interests of individuals. Curriculum specification could lead to significant investment in planetary-scale teaching, but the opportunity is squandered. The absence of the planetary leaves us on the edge of a lost decade in education when it comes to educating children meaningfully for the Anthropocene. Thanks so much for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments over at (@apf102.bsky.social) — Bluesky You can return to the main blog HERE.  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chodowiecki_Basedow_Tafel_13_b.jpg This is the first instalment in my blog series about the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review. You can find the other entries HERE. In this blog I am looking at how the review has interpreted the breadth, depth and balance of the current curriculum, as well as the suggested changes. Broad Directions The first point I really found myself 'nodding along' to in the review came on page 9, which states that the National Curriculum ‘is just one element in the education of every child’ and ’ was not intended to take up an entire school day.’ In a really welcome move, the authors note that schools are expected to ‘go beyond it to provide innovative practice, locally tailored content, and enrichment activities that help to ensure young people thrive in education and later life.’ In all honesty I think most schools do much of this already and would be more interested in how this might be enabled, but it is still nice to have the principle recognised early on. Another positive note in the report was the commitment to ensuring that the drafting process for the revised National Curriculum ‘must involve teachers, as well as be informed by subject specialists’ knowledge of the discipline’ (p53). It would still be good to have more transparency about the selection of panels for such work, but this could potentially come further down the line. Primary Curriculum Also, welcome is the recognition that the Primary curriculum is currently extremely overloaded and has too much breadth at the expense of depth. What feels slightly more confusing however is that the implied solution seems to be to support ‘greater breadth and depth’ by specifying coverage in more detail. This sounds like adding more demand in terms of curricular specification and feels like it runs counter to other suggestions that pupils’ experiences of education need to be more than the curriculum. However, on the theme of specificity the report seems to suggest the need for greater specification without adding to the volume of content or impeding teacher autonomy. I am fascinated to know how this will look. Secondary Curriculum With regard Key Stage 3, structural challenges are noted as a cause of low learning motivation. However, the core challenges are noted as being resource prioritisation compared with Key Stage 4 (probably fair) and limited continuity between Key Stage 2 and 3. Again, this feels like another implied case for greater control over the content of the Primary curriculum and modifying its role to serve the development of subject knowledge for secondary. Given this has already been a direction for the last 10 years, I cannot imagine it would be helpful. It certainly does seem to mean even greater specification of curriculum content at Key Stage 3: ‘Our recommendations are designed to tackle these challenges by improving curriculum content, specificity and continuity, introducing a diagnostic assessment tool to support progress and strengthening the educational experience during this critical stage.’(p45) I can’t help but feel like we have been here before back in 1989… It is interesting I think that there is a broad acceptance of the current Key Stage structure. Given the extreme dip we see in student engagement in transitioning from KS2 to 3, it might suggest there is something for fundamentally amiss here. I do wonder if any studies were done / data explored in relation to middle schools, which bridge the KS2-3 divide by taking pupils from Years 5-8.  I was however pleased to see a challenge to the dominant EBacc structure in Secondary schools. This will of course present challenges for subjects like History but is a lifeline for those subjects whose time and resources have been stripped by leadership teams seeking to maximise P8 scores at the expense of pupil choice. It is important I think that the authors emphasise that, if we are to widen choices, ‘we must particularly avoid facilitating trends for young people from some backgrounds to take routes that are narrower or less demanding’ (p30). By the same token however, I hope they will also support the idea that students who are more academically able should also take a broad range of subjects, so that breadth does not become something pushed only for those deemed to be ‘disadvantaged’ by the system. Curricular narrowing is not just an issue for those seeking vocational pathways post 16. However, there is a fundamental contradiction in the announcement of the removal of EBacc. The Progress 8 measure will be retained and whilst the EBacc bucket in Progress 8 will be renamed as ‘Academic Breadth’, its function and role in calculations will remain unchanged, still incentivising schools to enter pupils for at least one of the three foundation subjects: history, geography or MFL. In effect it means that the EBacc will no longer exist but it will still exercise nearly the same impact over curriculum choices as Progress 8 hold much greater sway for schools in proving performance than the EBacc entry and attainment measure.
Moving beyond the puzzling and into the realm of the actively discouraging is the continued adherence to the ‘knowledge-rich’ approach established under the last government. Indeed, retaining the ‘knowledge-rich’ approach is a core principle of the review, continuing to cite Young and Muller’s work on the subject, though without acknowledging the many critiques, including those by Young himself who argues that a ‘powerful knowledge’ curriculum must also be a ‘resource rich’ curriculum! Many aspects and implications of the knowledge-rich / mastery approach are left unexamined and unexplored. Indeed, the now familiar drivers of mastery, coherence and sequencing remain as core curriculum principles, once again sidelining wider ethical considerations. The report however seems to be even less sure what mastery might mean, pointing out that it is both important but should not be seen as repetition. Again, the pedagogical and affective implications of a mastery approach are not unpicked. However, the report itself notes that these approaches ‘have not yet benefited all’ (p7). It is an odd faith to put in an approach to education which has not only failed a significant minority in terms of transition into secondary and academic outcomes (I’d argue the majority in terms of affective outcomes), but has also widened gaps for the most disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND. Indeed, the report itself highlights this exact gap yet still commits itself to the same educational paradigm. Thanks so much for reading. Please click HERE to go back to the main blog.  The School Exam - Alber Anker (1862) http://www.sikart.ch/Werke.aspx?id=6002621 This is the fifth installment of my blog series on the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review. In this brief blog, I want to focus on some of the commentary on assessment and the proposals for changes. To return to the rest of the blog click HERE. This is an interesting one as I have written a lot about the problems inherent in the GCSE exam system in recent years:
Dealing with the disease: The urgent need for exam reform - andallthat.co.uk Examinations: The Gilded Age - andallthat.co.uk Examinations: Searching for Gold - andallthat.co.uk Examinations: After the Gold Rush - andallthat.co.uk Let’s begin then with the positives here. I am very interested to see what happens with V Levels. I think there is a lot of potential here - especially for qualification which speak to significant global challenges. There is huge scope for V levels to address issues which address pressing social and planetary scale challenges. It is notable how much museums, archives, and History departments in universities are now grappling with concepts of decolonisation and globalisation. As a great fan of the GCSE History Pilot course of the early 2000s, I genuinely hope there is scope for meaningful vocational qualifications which bring History and other subjects into conversation (jointly or individually) with issues of justice at the local and planetary scale. Less exciting, though expected, is the news that the current system of assessment at 16 seems set to remain. The justification for this, against what I assume was a large body of feedback, seems weak at best. We have the claim that ‘England is by no means an international outlier in providing national exams at 16’ (p12). Or, in other words, everyone else is doing it. Beyond which, we are only left with the oft cited claim that ‘the system must maintain the important role of exams…[because they are] the fairest way of assessing students nationally’ (p12). Yet there is a contradiction. We are told that ‘our national assessment and qualifications are, broadly, working well’ (p8) but the attainment gaps noted in the report and the huge body of critical feedback suggest this cannot be true for all pupils. Those pupils for whom exams arguably matter the most are also those most likely to be underserved by them. The lack of engagement with a more fundamental rethink of examinations feels like a huge, missed opportunity. Given that this also impacts the most disadvantaged pupils most significantly, the lack of change is actively harming those most in need of change. The suggestion to reduce the volume of exams by 10% feels to be vaguely sensible, but its workings in practice will be difficult to navigate. Reducing the content of a History exam which has to cover two units for instance will be challenging, and not always helpful for pupils. History already has very narrow domain sampling and extremely poor agreement between markers at question level. Fewer questions will actually exacerbate this problem, as will less time. We saw this in AQA’s 2016 decsion to have 2 papers instead of 3. Moving to shorter form answers risks reducing the validity of the examination and runs counter to desires to stop History becoming a rote recall subject. It is good to note that performance examination will remain in subjects like Dance and Drama but disappointing to see that a form of controlled assessment cannot be returned to History. Equally the development of English and Maths tests for Year 8 feels like it is filling a gap left when National Curriculum levels were abolished. Levels, of course, were a very imperfect tool, but the vacuum left by their absence was variously filled by assessment methods of wildly varying quality. I am not fundamentally opposed to having formal checking points in Key Stage 3, but I am not convinced that adding another accountability layer linked to a high-stakes exam solves the issue. A better question to ask might be why so many struggle with English and Maths. The report itself places part of the blame for the transition dip at the door of Primary schools. We are told that ‘students entering Key Stage 3 without these strong foundations often struggle to build momentum in their learning. Instead of progressing confidently, many begin to fall further behind’ (p31). Yet engagement with learning at Primary school has been found to be consistently higher than at secondary school, where it tumbles over a cliff edge at Year 7 and 8, and only slowly recovers by Year 11. Putting aside the impact of emerging teenage mindsets it seems very clear that to have an effect so large, a good part of what is going wrong must be rooted in curricular choices, pedagogical approaches, and school structures in Secondary. I won’t spend too much time on the changes to Primary assessment as they are more minimal but the retention of the phonics screening check will, I know lead to a lot of debate. It is interesting that reforms underway in Norway at the moment are actively looking at the English approach to phonics as example of how not to approach reading…and this is in a country with an incredibly phonically regular language (unlike English which has over 250 phoneme-grapheme correspondences in RP English alone). The revised GPS test sounds plausible but I won’t claim the expertise required to fully evaluate it. So the final conclusion on this? It's probably too early to say. Once again however, for every positive headline there appears to be something pulling the opposite way. Thanks for reading. If you would like to comment, please do drop me a line here: Alex Ford (@apf102.bsky.social) — Bluesky. To return to the rest of the blog click HERE. |
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