England ECER England Curriculum Symposium

8/8/2019 England ECER England Curriculum Symposium

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The Public, the Personal, and

National Curricula: Reform in

England 1988 to 2010

Dominic Wyse

University of Cambridge


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Overview

Latest news from England

Exploring why we have reached this point

Theoretical orientation

New Labour, The NLS, and the rise of the

regulatory state

Reviewing the Primary Curriculum


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Latest News from EnglandImportant information on the primary curriculum and

Key Stage 3 level descriptions ...

Ministers are committed to giving schools more

freedom from unnecessary prescription and

bureaucracy. They have always made clear theirintentions to make changes to the National Curriculum

that will ensure a relentless focus on the basics and

give teachers more flexibility than the proposed new

primary curriculum offered.

The Government intends to return the National

Curriculum to its intended purpose a minimum

national entitlement organised around subject

disciplines and will shortly announce its next steps.


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Theoretical Orientation

Globalisation as a spatial frame(Ball, 2008)

Politicians perceptions of risk; the rise of

the regulatory state; decline in trust(Wyse and Opfer, 2010)

League tables, target setting, high stakes

assessment as a new imperialism

(Tikly, 2004)

Political ideologies - classic Conservatism

vs New Labour Project

The personal and the public


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Date Title

1997

Published 1999 for

Implementation in 2000

National Literacy Strategy Frameworks for Teaching

The National Curriculum Handbook for Primary Teachers in

England Key Stages 1 & 2

2003 Excellence and Enjoyment: A strategy for primary Schools

2006 March

2007 March, Published

2008 September becomes

statutory

Independent review of the teaching of early reading Final Report,

Jim Rose, March 2006

Early Years Foundation

2007 published

2008 becomes statutory

2008, December

National Curriculum Key Stages 3 and 4

The Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum: Interim

Report

2009, March House of Commons Children, Schools and Families: NationalCurriculum Fourth Report of Session 2008 SO9 Vol. 1

Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum: Final Report

2009, June House of Commons Children, Schools and Families: National

Curriculum : Government Response to the Committees Fourth

Report of Session 2008S09Third Special Report of Session S09


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New Labour, The NLS, and

the rise of the regulatory state

Education Reform Act

1988 and a trajectory of

increasing government

control

The Learning Game:

Arguments for anEducation Revolution.

Michael Barber


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The Learning Game

Within the foreseeable future, Britain will need aneducation service which is capable of providinghigher standards, to match those anywhere onearth ... (p. 5)

On the second of May [1997], I was appointed byDavid Blunkett to lead the new Standards andEffectiveness Unit in the Department forEducation and Employment. As a result, I findmyself taking responsibility for the implementationof the policy strategy which I played a part indeveloping prior to the election.(p. 11)

World class education system; standards;

national testing; target setting


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New Labour, The NLS, and the rise of

the regulatory state

1996 The Literacy Task Force (chair MichaelBarber):

International comparisons of childrens achievements in readingsuggest Britain is not performing well, with a slightly belowaverage position in international literacy league tables

1997 New Labour Government and the NationalLiteracy Strategy (NLS)

Powerful levers for state control

Personal visions of Barber, Stannard andHuxford (Stannard and Huxford, 2007)

Lack of attention to the whole curriculum

(Boyle and Bragg, 2006)


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Reviewing

thePrimary

Curriculum


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Reviewing the Primary

Curriculum Government commissioned independent

review

The Cambridge Primary Review

House of Commons inquiry


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House of Commons inquiry

1. The evidence that we received revealed a consensusthat the nature and particularly the management of the

National Curriculum is in urgent need of significant reform.

2. We would like to see the National Curriculum

underpinned by the principle that it should seek to prescribeas little as possible and by the principle of subsidiarity, with

decisions made at the lowest appropriate level.

3. In order to keep the amount of prescription through theNational Curriculum to an absolute minimum we

recommend that a cap is placed on the proportion of

teaching time that it accounts for. Our view is that it should

be less than half of teaching time.


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Government ResponseRecent curriculum reviews have found overwhelming

support for the continuation of a National Curriculum and

the benefits it brings ...

Responsibility for curriculum development will remainexactly as it is now.

There will be no substantive change to how the curriculum

is developed and monitored.

Rose recommendations accepted by New Labour.

New Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition

government deletes new NC and axes QCDA


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Conclusions New government proposals: Curriculum

freedom? But Subject disciplines; Relentlessfocus on basics


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Who will be involved in future curriculumdevelopment?


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Need more rigorous and subtle balancing of

personal and public ownership of curriculum


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Need more rigorous and subtle balancing of

personal and public ownership of curriculum

Other countries (including within the UK!) provideuseful models of curriculum development

England ECER England Curriculum Symposium

Documents

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