NET response to Sir Jim Rose's Interim Report on the Primary Curriculum
Richard Howard
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1. This NET response results from contributions from some of our Leading Thinkers and from associated schools and individuals.
2. Overall, NET warmly welcomes the thrust and direction of the Interim Report. One respondent wrote: "…this wide-reaching, thoughtful, cogently argued, balanced review says important things about the education of primary children, and offers much that will inform, enlighten and sustain those involved with it." Another said: “Sir Jim Rose ...has steered his way through a thicket of competing interests and has published an interim report which deserves wholehearted support."
3. The aims of primary education. Some respondents considered that too little has been said in the Report about the aims for primary education. Whilst agreeing that the aims set out by QCA for the secondary phase are commendable (1.33), it was felt that a discussion about the aims of education and, in particular, what it is to be an educated person in the society in which children are growing up, needs to precede and inform discussions about the nature of the curriculum.
4. Reducing content (1.14) and allowing for local flexibility (2.38). Not surprisingly, this has been greeted very positively by heads and teachers. Many have said that they will do their utmost to ensure that this challenge is met in a way that increases the quality of learning, and are pleased that confidence has been placed in them to do so.
5. Areas of Learning. The discussion and rationale around this part of the Report is particularly significant. More than anything else previously nationally reviewed, it effectively repudiates decades of polarised opinion that “you can’t have both" – i.e. it is possible to have a broad and creative curriculum as well as high standards in literacy and numeracy; it is possible for there to be child-initiated exploration and play as well as direct teaching. This great strength of argument in the Report needs to be retained, highlighted and further developed.
5.1 At the same time, a minority of NET’s respondents were concerned that organising the primary curriculum through six areas of learning could become a prescription for the very thing the Report has rejected elsewhere and were concerned not to lose the “required maps of the vital subject journeys children need to take".
5.2 However, NET recognises and supports the overwhelming evidence offered to the Report that single subject curriculum design should not remain and that programmes of study should be reduced.
6. Transitional Stages
6.1 Early Years to Primary. The emphasis placed by the Report on extending the EYFS is to be welcomed and, as the Areas of Learning are further developed, will more likely achieve the ‘dovetailing’ of EY into KS1. It is also important that the Report’s recommendation (14) concerning the better use of EYFSP be enacted to further contribute to smoother transition.
6.2 Primary to Secondary. NET does not entirely agree with the Report’s contention that “…issues associated with the transfer to secondary education are somewhat similar to those experienced when children enter primary education". The way in which a FS teacher is likely to observe and provide for a new entrant is markedly different from that of a Y7 teacher. For many decades a myriad of strategies for primary-secondary transition have been tried by LAs and school partnerships; too little has been disseminated about where good practice exists, continuity is maintained and the child feels secure and confident. Thus for the Report to recommend (15) that the issue is left merely with the National Strategy Teams is an insufficient response to this element. Parents, Governors and, above all, the children themselves (see note 10) should be involved.
7. ICT. The global implications for development of ICT during the time that the “2111" children will pass through (at least) 12 years of school-based education are mind-boggling. NET believes that more thought should be given to the Report’s statement about ICT enlivening “all domains of learning". Some respondents are concerned that ICT can mechanise learning as much as enlivening it. Properly, the Report considers the value for money aspect of the increased funding for ICT. Another respondent suggests: “ICT is indeed a potentially transforming and enriching force for teaching generally, but the real solution lies in the enhanced funding of Key Stage 2 pupils to match the funding of Key Stage 3."
8. Oracy. The Report’s recommendation (16) for “English, communication and languages" may well be helpful in ensuring that speaking and listening – too long neglected as an integral part of improving standards in literacy – achieve a full part in the primary curriculum. An increased ability to converse and listen to debate; to articulate feelings and observations; to describe an experiment; to talk about a play situation; to be confident in addressing and responding to a range of audiences; to enjoy reading aloud and to recite poetry and text - all these could well have a profound effect on personal development and in increasing positive attitudes to learning. The emphasis on drama, as a fundamental, challenging and enjoyable experience in itself, as well as its contribution to enhanced learning is also to be welcomed.
8.1. Some respondents have made a point that there is evidence that small primary schools are managing opportunities for developing oracy more effectively than the overall national picture. One reason for this, they argue, is that parents are more naturally and closely involved with both teacher and child in discussing and describing the ‘day at school’. New and different approaches to oracy should be encouraged, particularly for children who do not have strong models of spoken language at home.
9. MfL. NET welcomes the Report’s positive view, and unexpected statement that “the latent expertise in languages among primary teachers may be greater than anticipated" (2.127). This further enhances a generally favourable view on how primary MfL teaching and learning is developing. The difficulty remains in the area of transition and NET questions whether it is enough to suggest (2.122) that just one or two languages should be offered. It may be helpful for the final Review to add a further research brief to the present surveys: to establish whether the study of another language is transferable in terms of learning disposition, thus allowing for that small number of primary schools, for example, who are effectively teaching Arabic or Mandarin to continue to do so in the knowledge that the learning of French or Spanish at secondary school might be enhanced.
9.1. Alongside the provision of MfL, the Report highlights the linguistic diversity of this country and the opportunities to “gain insights into their own lives and those of others around the world". In these respects, it would be helpful if more emphasis was placed on making international links, an aspect where so many schools are deeply and effectively involved, for example through direct school-to-school interchange by visits and/or email. As one respondent has mentioned: “Moreover, skills and attributes such as teamwork, flexibility, empathy, and welcoming of diversity, while always of great importance, are especially so in a world where rapid and constant change is to be expected."
10 The views of children themselves. NET notes and welcomes that the Review has taken on board the views of primary children. In its promotion of the “Children’s Charter", which NET has developed with NCSL and QCA, we have been impressed and enlightened by what children have been saying about ‘the curriculum’ that they would like to have. Their presentations on this theme at various seminars have been impressive in delivery and instructive in content – they want fun and security, challenge and risk, ‘good’ information and ‘good’ teaching, recognition and care; they want to work cooperatively in teams, to play a part in the community, to make a contribution to environmental projects and development, to be able to make their feelings and findings available to their families and the school; they want to work more outdoors and with the ‘technologies we use’. NET has made a selection of these findings available to the Review’s archive and would be pleased to provide more should this be required.
11. Other issues. Whilst not necessarily within the remit of the Review, NET and its respondents are concerned to mention these points:
11.1 Assessment and National Tests: NET applauds the Interim Report in dealing with the overwhelming responses which indicated that the KS2 SATs had a profound effect on the way that children, especially those in Y6, were being taught (or, perhaps, more accurately, being ‘revised’). In the (assimilated) response from a number of NET respondents: “it is disappointing that its remit constrained the Review from facing, full-on, the crucial issue of assessment, the place and significance of SATs, the possibly excessive use of summative testing, and the negative impact of the League Tables on teaching, learning and access to a broad entitlement curriculum in many schools. As long as the present system remains, too many schools will feel unable to push ahead with the implementation of the changes in curriculum design and teaching which he has recommended". The fact that an increasing number of primary schools, led by confident and imaginative headteachers, have found ways to achieve ‘good SAT results’ as well as providing for impressive creative, outdoor and personal pursuits in no way alleviates the fact that ‘league tables rule’. It would be helpful if the Review could indicate that changes in National Assessment are necessary. The Review might suggest how a better way of reporting progress to parents could be achieved.
11.2. Inspection: the implications for Ofsted to be able to conduct effective surveys of how the Areas of Learning are being effectively developed are obvious. So too, is the fact that Ofsted Inspectors – and School Improvement Partners – need to spend more time in classrooms (including the outside and other places of learning) in order to establish, and effectively report upon, the quality of learning, expectations and progress.
11.3. Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development. Needless to say, the implications are considerable. We have some 70% of the primary teaching profession who have been used to prescription and the ‘three-part-lesson’. Additionally, we have a teacher-training programme in the process of radical change, particularly with the advent of ‘Teach First’. It may well be that the final Review seeks to deal with some of these matters, significantly those where ITT students are presently introduced to little more than the core subjects. However, it may well be that the Review would do best to suggest a more radical approach to teacher training, entrance to the profession, and in-service training.
11.4. The National Strategies: NET believes that it would be helpful for schools and learners if the responsibilities for the National Curriculum and the Primary Strategy were brought together under one management. This would be one example where the micro-management by national government (DCSF) of what is learned and taught could be minimised. At the same time, such a proposal would allow a national agency, such as the QCA, to effectively encapsulate, provide for and disseminate much of what the Interim Report is promoting.
11.5. The Cambridge Review. It appears to NET that the findings and recommendations of the Cambridge Review are not receiving due account by the DCSF and this may be a reason why the Report has not commented upon this. As with many organisations, NET has been acquainted with the research briefs and findings of the Cambridge Review and has made responses. Whilst having a much wider brief for primary education than that accorded to Sir Jim Rose, the Cambridge Review has provided some similar recommendations and has also promoted some distinctly radical resolutions. It seems to us that the impressively researched findings of the Cambridge Review have been ignored, or even dismissed, by the DCFS. This is a pity. The work of Sir Jim Rose and his Independent Report could have been enhanced by reference to the Cambridge Review and, of course, vice-versa.
Richard Howard
Chair NET
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