The Curriculum and Assessment Review received a broadly positive reception from across the education sector when it was published last week. The review, carried out by Professor Becky Francis, was welcomed by the government who have now pledged to implement some of the recommendations as a new national curriculum is put in place by 2028.
One theme of the review’s report is that in many areas the current curriculum has too much content, and it makes a series of recommendations subject by subject. In some cases these are minor tweaks, while in others – for example English – they are more wholesale. The review also seeks a 10 per cent overall reduction in exam time, focusing on assessment design choices to deliver this reduction. ‘Some of those other really precious and important things that schools do around enrichment, life skills, support for young people’s confidence – those things are being squeezed by the sheer volume of content in the national curriculum at present’, Professor Francis said.
The government will also scrap the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure which, the review says, has ‘to some degree unnecessarily constrained students’ choices’. This move will enhance the status of arts subjects, which had been excluded from the EBacc. Other recommendations made by the review, and which the government have accepted, include publishing an oracy framework and introducing compulsory citizenship teaching in primary schools, which would incorporate both financial literacy and digital literacy – including understanding misinformation. Meanwhile, secondary schools will be required to offer the triple science GCSE.
The current grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) test is set to be replaced with an amended assessment, while there will be work to make primary assessments more accessible to pupils with SEND. However, in some areas changes announced by the government run counter to recommendations in the review. For example, they say they will ‘reform’ the progress 8 accountability measure, whereas the review recommended there be no changes.
Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, commented: ‘It has been over a decade since the national curriculum was updated, and it’s more crucial than ever that young people are equipped to face the challenges of today, so they can seize the exciting opportunities that life has to offer. The path to our country’s renewal runs through our schools: they must be an epicentre of the strongest possible foundations of knowledge, and the skills to excel in the modern world.’
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said: ‘The NEU welcomes the curriculum principles in the Review and their focus on preparing young people for their futures especially oracy, critical thinking and digital literacy. The focus on better representation in the curriculum looks promising.’ He added: ‘The recognition of the need for content to be genuinely teachable within the time available is important and must now lead to real, tangible reductions because the curriculum is overloaded.’ However he went to criticise as a ‘missed opportunity’ the failure of the review to ‘push for a wider, fairer range of secondary assessment methods, beyond only end-of-course exams, so that young people can successfully demonstrate what they can do.’
Quoted in the Reading Chronicle Laura Mathews, headteacher of Highdown School in Reading, said: ‘Our parents and students consistently tell us in our school surveys that they would like more digital and financial literacy on the curriculum, so I am very pleased to see that as a key recommendation in the review. I also welcome the idea of opening up more opportunities to study triple science, because so many jobs of the future will need scientific knowledge and skills, and I hope that can be reflected in more training and recruitment of science teachers. The review also suggests giving schools more flexibility to balance English and Maths with more arts-based subjects, and more choice for pupils has always got to be good.’
The government will aim to publish the final revised national curriculum by spring 2027, and then implement it in full for first teaching from September 2028. It will be both digital and machine-readable, to ‘support teachers to more easily sequence their school curricula’.
The full curriculum review is available here: https://tinyurl.com/muk86ju8