The Public, the Personal, and National Curricula: Reform in

England 1988 to 2010

Dominic WyseUniversity of Cambridge

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

Latest News from England“Important 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 their intentions 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.”

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

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, Published2008 September becomes statutory

Independent review of the teaching of early reading Final Report, Jim Rose, March 2006

Early Years Foundation

2007 published2008 becomes statutory2008, 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: National Curriculum 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 Committee’s Fourth Report of Session 2008S09Third Special Report of Session S09

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 an Education Revolution. Michael Barber

The Learning Game“Within the foreseeable future, Britain will need an education service which is capable of providing higher standards, to match those anywhere on earth ... “(p. 5)

“On the second of May [1997], I was appointed by David Blunkett to lead the new Standards and Effectiveness Unit in the Department for Education and Employment. As a result, I find myself taking responsibility for the implementation of the policy strategy which I played a part in developing prior to the election.” (p. 11)•World class education system; standards; national testing; target setting

New Labour, The NLS, and the rise of the regulatory state

• 1996 The Literacy Task Force (chair Michael Barber):International comparisons of children’s achievements in reading suggest Britain is not performing well, with a slightly below average position in international literacy ‘league tables’

• 1997 New Labour Government and the National Literacy Strategy (NLS)

• Powerful ‘levers’ for state control

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

• Lack of attention to the whole curriculum(Boyle and Bragg, 2006)

Reviewing the Primary Curriculum

Reviewing the Primary Curriculum

• Government commissioned ‘independent’ review

• The Cambridge Primary Review

• House of Commons inquiry

House of Commons inquiry1. The evidence that we received revealed a consensus that 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 prescribe as 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 the National 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.

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 remain exactly 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

Conclusions• New government proposals: Curriculum

freedom? But Subject disciplines; Relentless focus on basics

Conclusions• New government proposals: Curriculum

freedom? But Subject disciplines; Relentless focus on basics

• Who will be involved in future curriculum development?

Conclusions• New government proposals: Curriculum

freedom? But Subject disciplines; Relentless focus on basics

• Who will be involved in future curriculum development?

• Need more rigorous and subtle balancing of personal and public ownership of curriculum

Conclusions• New government proposals: Curriculum freedom?

But Subject disciplines; Relentless focus on basics

• Who will be involved in future curriculum development?

• Need more rigorous and subtle balancing of personal and public ownership of curriculum

• Other countries (including within the UK!) provide useful models of curriculum development