The government’s vision for delivering the new national

curriculum

Jim Magee

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Aims of my presentation

To set out the government’s approach to delivery:

less prescription

system leadership

ITE, CPD and teaching materials

raising awareness

assessment

…providing a sense of what’s being done by government, and what by others

Vision for delivery

“…But what really matters is that this is a new approach to education, one that gives head teachers and schools far greater freedom. How they implement the national curriculum is down to them.

There will be no new statutory document telling teachers how to do their job. No national strategies telling teachers everything that they have to do. No national roll-out. This is a huge cultural shift.”

Elizabeth Truss, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (education and childcare) Speech at: http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/speeches/a00222888/felcom

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Delivering the vision: less prescription

new national curriculum sees government setting out the ‘what’ (at a high level) – making sure that pupils grasp the concepts – and not the ‘how’

shorter programmes of study setting out core content – especially in foundation subjects and key stage 3 and 4

Fuller for key stage 1-2 maths and English, but so important

disapplication – giving schools chance to prepare by adapting curriculum in 2013/14

Delivering the vision: system leadership

key feature of the government’s policy – less well reported

real expansion of system leaders across England: • 355 teaching schools, 299 alliances, with c.20

schools per alliance• over 800 national support schools (NLEs)• Over 2000 LLEs

Schools Direct – major shift in delivering ITE

National College Fellowship Commission

Delivering the vision: system leadership

announced £2m to help teaching schools to support schools in their alliance and beyond to plan for change

aiming for geographical coverage, some proposals working with hundreds of schools

focus on primary, mathematics, English, science, computing and languages

supporting change management – auditing strengths, identifying materials

Delivering the vision: curriculum change

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http://www.education.gov.uk/nationalcollege/leadingcurriculumdevelopmentresource

National college have developed online resources to help schools plan curriculum change:

how good is your current curriculum?

what makes a great curriculum?

how can learning be organised?

Delivering the vision: ITE/materials/CPD This curriculum makes new demands of teachers’ subject

knowledge

schools’ needs will differ and it is for them to identify their areas for development

government is focussing investment in priority areas:• maths – NCETM has a range of support• science – national STEM centre has new materials• computing – recently announced £2m for additional master

computer teachers

‘expert groups’ have been looking at the challenges of the new curriculum for ITE and serving teachers and how they might be addressed. computing and geography expert groups have already published their work.

subject associations and publishers developing new materials

Delivering the vision: raising awareness

there’s a need to raise awareness of:

the curriculum reforms themselves

what’s already available to support teachers – there’s quite a lot out there

schools that have already introduced elements of the new curriculum, such as those in the maths mastery network

we are going where teachers go – TESonline, Guardian, Teachit, SLT chat and through our media channels

Assessment reforms

We propose to replace the existing 5 A*-C including English and maths floor standard measure with a progress measure based on pupils’ average scores across a suite of 8 qualifications.

The 8 qualifications counted in the measure will be English, mathematics, 3 further English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects, and 3 other high value qualifications – EBacc, other academic, arts or vocational.

We will calculate progress using a value added method, using KS2 English and maths results as a baseline.

A school will be below the floor standard if pupils make half a grade less progress than expected across their 8 subjects.

Looking ahead

September 2014: first teaching of national curriculum, except years 2 and 6 for English, mathematics and science, and key stage 4 EMS

May 2015: final key stage 2 tests based on previous curriculum

September 2015: first teaching of new GCSEs in English and mathematics

May 2016: first new key stage 2 tests and whatever baseline assessment is decided after consultation

Summer 2017: first new GCSEs assessed in English and mathematics

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Links – sources of support National curriculum information sheet: https://

www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-and-assessment-information-for-schools

DfE TES page: http://community.tes.co.uk/national_curriculum_2014/b/national_curriculum_2014/default.aspx

NCETM: https://www.ncetm.org.uk/resources/40775

STEM: www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/primaryscience

Computing expert group: https://sites.google.com/site/primaryictitt/

Geography expert group: http://geognc.wordpress.com

Sport funding: http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/adminandfinance/financialmanagement/b00222858/primary-school-sport-funding

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