How well does the Curriculum Review navigate breadth, depth and balance?

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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.  

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