Curriculum Reform: School leader, teacher and student perceptions on the implementation of the New UK National Curriculum (original) (raw)
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Subjects, not subjects: Curriculum pathways, pedagogies, and practices in the United Kingdom
INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK
To follow a curriculum is to be inducted into a social order. From this perspective, curriculum practice has the intention to foster social identities. The visible curriculum and the hidden curriculum are rendered as inseparable. This paper discusses curriculum research in the United Kingdom, adopting the framework sketched above. The paper pays attention to the pre-figurative relationship that exists between curriculum and social structure. It assumes that courses of schooling foreshadow specific forms of social order, and, in turn, it recognizes that curriculum change has a functional relationship to changes in the social order. It also recognizes, however, that this functional relationship is problematic: curricula, like schooling, may work to maintain the social order, or they may operate to change the social order. But, the paper asks, "What is the social order and how does it operate at local, regional, national, European and global levels?" To explore these questions, the paper focuses on four areas of curriculum and practice: (1) the association of curriculum with social order; (2) the growth of curriculum federalism in the United Kingdom under the shadow of the fragile hegemony of the super-national state; (3) the advancement of new pedagogic identities as a means of injecting social justice into curriculum practice; and (4) the centralist promulgation of a
The context of contemporary curriculum change
2008
The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the broad field of curriculum change, with the focus being on school curriculum. The first part of the paper provides a brief overview of curriculum change in New Zealand at the national level. In the early years of a state system of schooling, curriculum revision was highly centralised, giving way in recent decades to a wider involvement of stakeholders. The second part examines how national curriculum implementation in schools involves input from the state and schools; in particular, reference is made to a greater emphasis upon school-based curriculum development. It is argued that to achieve greater teacher involvement in school-level decisions, ongoing professional development of teachers is necessary.
* ‘The Curriculum’ paper included in New Visions for Education Group on-line publication Much improved: should do even better? http://www.newvisionsforeducation.org.uk/2010/03/31/much-improved-should-do-even-better/ The paper sets out the current dislocation of aims and the subject-based content of the National Curriculum and calls for a Commission immune from political meddling to create a unified system of curriculum aims accompanied by a full rationale. The curriculum would become statutory guidance and the Commission review the national aims every five years. THE PAPER The Conservative education manifesto calls for a more rigorous National Curriculum. It is likely, though, if it ever materialises, to show more rigidity than rigour, returning us to the inflexibilities of the original 1988 version. Labour's changes to this since 1997 have finally begun to meet twenty-first century expectations – instead of those of the grammar school parent of circa 1930. Its reforms have been more timid than many have wanted; but, if it is re-elected, it would be likely to travel further along the same road. This paper suggests what the next milestones might be. BACKGROUND
Curriculum for Excellence and Subject Choice: A Parliamentary Paper
Curriculum for Excellence and Subject Choice, 2019
The Scottish Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) initiative is representative of many recent international trends in curricular policy. Although CfE suggested that improved learning should be the main focus of the secondary curriculum, this was enacted through high-level guidelines suggesting a 3-year period of “Broad, General Education”, followed by a “Senior Phase” (years 4-6) of study for qualifications. Relatively little detailed advice was developed to support curriculum designers, as this was to be a ‘local’ process. This paper, one of a CfE-related sequence produced by the author, analyses the evolving shape of the Scottish secondary curriculum (S1-6), resulting from national, local authority and school interpretation and implementation of the CfE initiative since 2010. The paper considers the impact of CfE on subject areas, specific subjects and course choice in Scottish local authority-controlled secondary schools, seeking to answer the question: “How has the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence initiative from 2010 impacted on curricular structures, subject choice, individual subjects and/or wider learning contexts in Scottish secondary schools?” The findings of the paper include evidence drawn from all Scottish state secondary schools of significant fragmentation of the S1-3 curriculum, continuing flux in the S1-3 curriculum, significant variation within S4-6 curriculum structures and narrowing or severe narrowing of the S4 curriculum in a majority of Scottish secondary schools. The paper also identifies subject areas whose curricular ‘footprints’ have significantly to very significantly declined, and some that have increased, after 2013, with evidence of a continuing decline in certain subjects during the period 2014-2018.
Prospects, 2007
This article analyzes the common educational challenges faced by curriculum developers in the UK at the turn of the 21st century and the steps taken to address them by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England and the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland. The paper explores how the solutions emerging during the three curriculum review phases of 1998 in Northern Ireland came about largely as a result of collegial working between the two bodies. As well as considering steps taken to develop aims that would drive curriculum change and a curriculum that would address the learning needs of students in the 21st century, the article also considers the lessons learnt about managing and supporting curriculum change. Developments in England and Northern Ireland serve to illustrate that an effective curriculum needs to: articulate clearly the key aims that will shape and drive it; be sufficiently visionary and flexible to allow teachers to respond to the needs of students now and in the future; and provide on-going support to help embed and sustain change. The three are inter-related and successful curriculum development involves considering them together.
The National Curriculum and the Cultural Politics of Secondary Schools in England and Wales
1998
The National Curriculum, introduced under the Education Reform Act of 1988, has influenced the cultural politics of secondary schools in England and Wales. The National Curriculum began a new phase in the role of teachers developing school curriculum that is characterized by centralized control and external accountability. To many it suggests a crisis in teacher's professionalism. This paper considers the degree of departure in policy and practice represented by the National Curriculum and suggests commonalities that underlie the surface appearance of change. The paper also describes the curriculum policies prior to the National Curriculum from the 1950s to the 1970s and how curriculum has been affected by change. Accounts by secondary school teachers reveal the extent of their autonomy within the classroom as presented in the Dearing Review of 1994. Teachers do generally find a degree of latitude that appears to reflect a note of optimism and self-reliance in spite of wider bureaucratic constraints. One view of the National Curriculum describes, in positive terms, the decrease in potential abuses in pre-National Curriculum years known as the "secret garden." The paper also mentions the changes in public support for teacher autonomy of curriculum in the classroom. (Contains 42 references.) (RIB)
Organizing curriculum change: an introduction*
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2016
This paper introduces the questions and approaches of a five-nation cross-cultural study of state-based curriculum-making discussed in this issue of JCS. The paper reviews the two decade-long interest of many nations in state-based curriculum-making and presents a framework for thinking about state-based curriculum-making as a tool of educational governance. Few undertakings of departments of education and of governments mobilize as many people, lead to so many controversies and public debates in various bodies, school publications and media-and tie up so many resources-as the development and revision of the curricula … Committees are appointed, innumerable meetings called, consultation processes organized, tests scheduled and administered. It commonly takes years from the initiation of such an undertaking to the final introduction of a curriculum-and some curricula barely reach the point of formal adoption before their next revision. (Bähr et al., 2000, p. 3)
Curriculum deregulation in England and Scotland: Different directions of travel?
2013
This chapter explores the balance in curricular policy between input regulation (for example prescription of content) and output regulation (for example accountability mechanisms). The chapter draws upon two case studies, England and Scotland, which have adopted diverging approaches to curriculum regulation, identifying the current balance in each country between input and output regulation. Drawing upon an ecological understanding of teacher agency, the chapter is concluded with an analysis of the extent to which England and Scotland are centralized or decentralized systems, and the relative freedom of teachers in each case to engage in school-based curriculum development.