England’s curriculum review: what education experts want to see

Ditching phonics screening, slimming down bulging GCSE courses and increasing children’s agency over their schooling are among education experts’ suggestions for the government’s curriculum and assessment review in England, which is scheduled to begin later this summer.

As ProfBecky Francis, an expert in education policy, prepares to take up her new role as chair of the review next week, the Guardian spoke to experts about the changes they would like to see when the findings are published next year.

Let children make choices about their learning

“I’m going to call this children’s agency,” said Dominic Wyse, a professor of early childhood and primary education at University College London’s education institute. “What I mean is the opportunity for children to make choices about their learning, to be properly consulted in their learning. They’re almost ghosts in the [current] national curriculum.

“We need more focus on the learner, their interests and their needs than there is at the moment … I’m not advocating a wholesale switch to some sort of wacky, extreme form of child-centred education, although I’m sure my views in some places will be characterised like that.”

Less emphasis on grammar and phonics in primary schools

“The amount of technical grammatical terms that children have to learn is way over the top,” Wyse said. “There’s far too much teaching of things like ‘what is a fronted adverbial?’”

He is also critical of the emphasis on synthetic phonics – a method of teaching reading where words are broken up into smallest units of sound – which the previous government credited for helping to raise reading standards among England’s children.

Fewer tests for primary schoolchildren

The general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Paul Whiteman, said: “Unnecessary statutory tests like the multiplication tables check, phonics screening check and key stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test should be scrapped to reduce the burden on schools and the harmful impact of such tests on children and staff.”

A broader curriculum

The government has already said it wants a curriculum that gives space to arts and music as well as vocational and technical subjects. Experts say reducing the testing burden would help make space for such changes. Fewer tests at primary level would mean more space for art and PE.

At secondary level, “the over-focus on academic subjects to the exclusion of much else is putting off a lot of young people,” said Julie McCulloch, the director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders. The curriculum is so packed that teachers are barely able get through the required content, she said.

Less content in GCSEs and fewer exams

Something has to give. “We don’t think that means reducing the number of subjects,” said McCulloch. It’s more about reducing the content within each subject, which in turn could lead to fewer exams. “We think there’s absolutely a place for exams,” she said, but “there might be a place for more modular assessment” to take the pressure off final exams.

Pupils sit an average of 30 hours of GCSE exams in their last summer at secondary school. “Do we need three full weeks of assessment?” asked John Jerrim, a professor of education and social statistics at UCL’s education institute. “I would like to see GCSEs remain – don’t throw the baby out with the bath water – but cut the assessment time down to a week.” It would leave more time for learning and reduce the pressure on young people.

Expanding opportunities for working-class children

Lee Elliott Major, a professor of social mobility at Exeter University, is concerned the current curriculum is dominated by knowledge produced by people from middle-class backgrounds.

“We must do much more to recognise and celebrate the countless examples of working-class achievements in society,” he said. “Learners from all backgrounds deserve to feel connected and represented in the curriculum. If the curriculum fails to resonate, they will soon become alienated.”

Decolonise the curriculum

Subjects such as English and history are the most obvious targets, but campaigners argue there needs to be change in other subjects too. Lavinya Stennett of the Black Curriculum said: “The curriculum review needs to challenge the notion that Black history is within history alone.

“This is a cross-curricula exercise that includes examples of pre-colonial ideas and events that shaped Britain, African migration, the economic contribution and resistance movements from the former colonies, and later migration patterns.”

Sex education

The chief executive of the Sex Education Forum, Lucy Emmerson, said the government should scrap the latest draft guidance on relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) produced by the Conservatives, which put age limits on what can be taught and banned teaching about the concept of gender identity.

“Young people have repeatedly called for inclusive, up-to-date RSE lessons that start early in their school lives and extend beyond year 11,” she said. “We call on ministers to utilise this review for a reset on RSE, discarding the draft RSHE guidance, making evidence-based updates, and addressing the training and support needs with schools.”

Other possible areas of interest

There are those who think the government’s review could be expanded to consider selective school admissions and the future of England’s 163 grammar schools.

Jerrim said the review presented Labour with an opportunity to be brave and bold. “My guess is they’re going to actually be pretty radical with something like this because it’s one of Labour’s opportunities to make a big difference without spending any money – or not that much money, compared with a lot of other things,” he said.

“So it wouldn’t actually surprise me if they do say schools can no longer use test scores or academic criteria in their admissions throughout the country. And they can take pretty decent cover from a fair amount of academic evidence base around that.”