An educational suppliers’ leader has warned that she is “extremely concerned” at the lack of “clear evidence” for proposals to turn Oak National Academy into a permanent curriculum-focused government arm’s-length body, as revealed by Tes on Wednesday.
The education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, is set to confirm the plan at the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) annual conference today, where he is expected to say that the new body will save teachers from having to “reinvent the wheel”, by helping them to “save time” and “improve lessons immeasurably”.
But Caroline Wright, director-general of the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), says she is “shocked” at the lack of evidence that the Department for Education is using to underpin its plans, as it amounts to an “out-of-date survey of just 39 schools and 23 Ofsted inspection reports”.
Writing for Tes today, Ms Wright says the plan to turn Oak - a national supplier of free online lessons, set up during the pandemic - into a quango risks the forthcoming Schools White Paper ”achieving even less impact and longevity than those now long-forgotten fads of flossing and fidget-spinning”.
Oak National Academy set to be new curriculum resources provider
She told Tes that she is “glad that schools will continue to have access to the Oak resources for back-up support and reference” but in a comment article written for Tes today, she says the “admirable ambition and “good intentions risk being let down by the department’s lack of consultation and engagement with the sector to gather evidence and inform policy-making”.
Ms Wright added that she has written to the DfE this morning to express concerns that it has not followed “due process” in the lead-up to the announcement of the plan.
The DfE said today that the new - as-yet-unnamed - curriculum resources provider will become “fully operational” from this autumn, but that its newly created suite of resources will not be available to schools until September 2023.
Funding details for the new body, including its funding during its transition from Oak National Academy over the next few months, have yet to be agreed, Tes understands.
Ms Wright said she had held a “useful meeting” with schools minister Robin Walker yesterday, and that BESA and its members “fully support” the DfE’s ambition to better support schools. But she added that they are “extremely concerned by the lack of proper consultation on the department’s plans and the lack of a clear evidence base for the department’s proposals in their current form”.
She added: “I am shocked that the DfE has used an out-of-date, pre-pandemic, 2018 survey of just 39 schools and 23 Ofsted inspection reports as the only government-commissioned sources of research to inform their curriculum announcements.
“BESA’s own 2022 surveys of more than 1,200 schools across the UK, which we have offered to share with the DfE, show that teachers want autonomy over their own curriculum resource budgets and value independently sourced high-quality resources over ‘one-size-fits-all’ centralised content.
“Our research also highlights school leaders’ ongoing concerns over school resource budgets (which have declined in real terms since 2015), training needs and digital infrastructure and connectivity significantly ahead of any concerns over the availability of curriculum resources.
“For the DfE’s curriculum plans to stand any chance of successfully delivering the support that schools need, the DfE must urgently carry out up-to-date independent research to ensure that any new curriculum initiatives reflect and address the current challenges that teachers are facing now and during the next period of education recovery.”
Writing for Tes today, Ms Wright adds that the DfE not conducting proper research risks the forthcoming Schools White Paper “achieving even less impact and longevity than those now long-forgotten fads of flossing and fidget-spinning”.
A DfE spokesperson said: ”Curriculum design is complex and we want to share the very best practice so teachers can draw inspiration from evidence-based, carefully sequenced examples.”
A spokesperson from Oak National Academy said there was “clear evidence” of the need for better support for teachers with quality curriculum materials.
They added: “Just in the last few weeks, Teacher Tapp has found the majority of teachers spend between one-to-three hours online each week looking for resources. Almost half of primary school teachers (46 per cent) say they need to plan a lot of lessons from scratch and 30 per cent do not have access to existing lesson plans.
“Demand from teachers for the support from Oak National Academy after the pandemic is clear, averaging more than 40,000 teachers and 200,00 pupils using the platform each week in 2022. According to independent research, 79 per cent of Oak’s users recommend it.”
