Stripping back “less vital” curriculum areas will give schools the “flex” to develop a more “bespoke” offering for pupils, the lead in the government’s review of curriculum and assessment said today.
Professor Becky Francis was speaking at an event this afternoon run by the Chartered College of Teaching. In response to a question about how the review could cater for schools’ different locations and needs, she discussed how curriculum reform could support smaller schools.
“One of the aims in our work will be to comb back some of the less vital elements of a high-aspiration curriculum,” she told the Great Big Small Schools Inset Day event.
The curriculum under review
This will give “more flex back to individual schools to address the basic curriculum” and make the curriculum “more bespoke for the local community and local needs”, Professor Francis said.
The review, launched by the Labour government, will publish its recommendations for curriculum and exam reform later this year.
The review will span all key stages and aims to “deliver a new national curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive and innovative”.
Small schools have voiced concerns about the challenges some of them experience in delivering the current curriculum.
This year Ofsted established specific training for its inspectors to ensure that they “make adaptions to their thinking and practice” when visiting smaller schools.
The question of emerging edtech
Professor Francis also told delegates at today’s event that the review is happening in a “frustrating period” when many digital advancements in the education sector have not progressed enough for the review to fully consider them.
“We are on the cusp of many sort of promises that can be an opportunity for education but that are yet relatively untested,” Professor Francis said.
As a result, the review “may not be able to confidently recommend” new technologies, she explained, beyond suggesting “further exploration”.
However, Professor Francis acknowledged that this situation will likely change in “five to 10 years’ time”.
By this point, she believes the sector will have “genuine prospects for doing things quite differently”, but at present “we are not quite there yet”.
Subject experts have previously called for more emphasis on technology from the review, and the government has said that digital skills will be considered as part of its focus.
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