Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:27 am Post subject: New school curriculum in the UK
Taken from education.guardian.co.uk
Quote:
Slimmed-down school curriculum aims to free quarter of timetable for pupils aged 11 to 14
· New chance to catch up on basics or play to strengths
· Hitler and Churchill are no longer compulsory
Will Woodward, chief political correspondent
Friday July 13, 2007
The Guardian
A slimmed-down curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds in England, designed to liberate more time to help students either catch up on the basics or play to their strengths, was unveiled by the government yesterday.
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority says the new plan, to be introduced from September 2008, will free up 25% of the school timetable.
Sir Winston Churchill - along with Hitler, Gandhi and Stalin - will no longer be compulsory, though William Wilberforce remains.
"I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them," complained Sir Winston's grandson, Conservative MP Nicholas Soames last night.
The new regime does include three new subjects and topics close to ministers' hearts. The Jamie Oliver effect means cooking is now an entitlement for all 11- to 14-year-olds, with some doubt expressed by unions as to whether some schools have the hardware to offer the subject to all.
Citizenship education will now include work on British values and national identity. An optional "economic wellbeing and financial capability" strand, to help pupils understand mortgages, personal finance and business, can be taught throughout secondary school as part of the renamed PHSE curriculum, now meant to refer to "personal, social, health and economic wellbeing".
Lord Adonis, the schools minister, said: "We asked the QCA to review the secondary curriculum because it did not have the flexibility and space for stretching students or for helping those who had fallen below the expected level in English and maths.
"By cutting back on some duplication and unnecessary detailed prescription in the curriculum, we will free up a significant proportion of the school day so teachers have more time to concentrate on what is vital.
"Teachers can use this time to focus on pupils struggling with literacy and numeracy, as well as giving other students extra challenges to stimulate them."
The changes, in line with the government's personalised learning agenda, reflect anxieties both about the continuing "tail of underachievement" in schools, with targets for tests at 14 still being missed and one in 20 youngsters leaving school at 16 with no GCSEs, and about whether the regular annual hoarding of A-grades at GCSE by top pupils means they are not being pushed hard enough, early enough.
"The development of such a customised or child-centred approach to teaching and learning is not some new-age obsession with making students feel good, or any rejection of the importance of formal teaching, or a drift from discipline based curriculum," the QCA's chief executive, Ken Boston, said yesterday. "It is the internationally proven research-based strategy for improving learning and raising attainment at individual, school and national level," he said.
Most of what is being lost as a compulsory element remains as voluntary or optional, the QCA said.
The revised history curriculum includes both world wars and the Holocaust, the development of political power from the middle ages to the 20th century, the British empire and slavery; but not - automatically - the Wars of the Roses or Elizabeth I.
But Mr Boston was at pains to emphasise the curriculum's practical, real-world theme.
"Are we going to deal with the Battle of the Nile or are we instead going to concentrate on how to take out a mortgage and manage it - and use the school time for that purpose?"
Schools will be encouraged to lay on not just European languages but Mandarin, Arabic and Urdu. And they are being urged to offer quick-fire five-minute revision sessions in languages and mental arithmetic, already offered in some schools.
The plans received a mixed response from the teacher unions, partly because compulsory national tests at 11 and 14 remain in place.
"The job of revising the secondary curriculum is only half done," said Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. Carole Whitty, deputy general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, urged ministers to take a more progressive view of the proposals. The government must recognise that the principles behind the revised curriculum are about much more than "catch up and stretch".
But John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "This is certainly a move in the right direction. Now is the right time to introduce the more flexible 11-14 curriculum. The advantage of the new framework is that it puts control into the hands of schools, letting them decide when and how to introduce curriculum changes."
For the Conservatives, Michael Gove warned against "Audrey Hepburn politics". The shadow children's secretary told Radio 4's Today programme: "When you look at what's happening, we see that the number of pupils taking modern languages is declining - except in independent schools - and you realise the number of teachers equipped to teach these subjects simply isn't there. In My Fair Lady, Audrey Hepburn says of everything: 'Wouldn't it be lovely'. And wouldn't it be lovely if we could do all these things, but the question is, is the flexibility there?"
Changed priorities
Changes to the key stage 3 curriculum for 11 to 14 year olds include:
Geography
Climate change to take a bigger role while the study of Ordnance Survey maps is no longer compulsory
English
Students must study at least one play by Shakespeare but are also expected to draw on a list of contemporary writers including Dodie Smith, Michael Rosen, Alan Bennett and Carol Ann Duffy
Science
To include study of the ethical and moral implications of science, the effect of drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, and sexual health. Encouragement to brightest youngsters to take individual sciences - biology, chemistry and physics - at GCSE rather than double science
History
The European Union and UN are in. Henry VIII and his wives are out - or at least not compulsory
Teachers' reaction
Heather Scott, history teacher and deputy head at Allerton high school, Leeds, said: "It really gives us flexibility so the teacher in the classroom can decide what he or she is teaching. I'm looking forward to doing new things." As a member of the Historical Association, she was involved in discussions with QCA and said it had learned the lessons of the past and listened to teachers.
Patrick Couch, science teacher at Sandwich technology school, Kent, said the changes were "tinkering", adding: "We're going to be simply trying to manoeuvre lots of things into a smaller space and it can't be done. The best comment I've heard is that primary schools teach children, secondary schools teach subjects. This focus on subjects isn't helpful at all.
"We want youngsters to be creative in their thinking so that learning doesn't have a solution, it has several, and they become more critical in their thinking. The way it is means children are thoroughly dependent on what teachers tell them and [today's announcement] will not change that."
Sue Marland, acting headteacher of William Sharp comprehensive in Bilborough, Nottinghamshire, said her school and others in the county had made changes in anticipation of the curriculum shakeup. "We've already developed a flexible curriculum to include history, geography, RE and English. Instead of approaching them as individual subjects, a team of teachers have put together a new curriculum for the new year 7 coming in September, which will have a themed approach.
"These are small steps to address what the government is asking us to do. Every year there's a new idea from government - or every 20 minutes, it seems like. What we have to do is look at our school population and think what are their needs and where do we want them to be in five years' time - and then fit that with what the government wants."
Churchill, Hitler, Stalin out of curriculum? Am I dreaming?
Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin - it looks as if they were implying that Gandhi was a cruel dictator, too. _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
I just cannot help but feel that exams are getting progressively easier. The Ministry of Education has probably confirmed my suspicions, at least where the British 'O' and 'A' levels are concerned.
The fact that William Wilberforce, he who had a change of heart and turned against his former profession of slave-trading with a vengeance, was retained speaks volumes of the sort of indoctrination plans which the Ministry of Education has. It is true that Mr Wilberforce is not a peripheral figure in history, but for Winston Churchill to be eclipsed begs incredulity.
If there are any positives to be taken from this change, it is the renewed emphasis placed on the learning of non European languages such as Mandarin, Urdu or Arabic. I suppose any parent of an English schoolboy or girl can have no complaints with that.
PS: If that's you Liz, you look quite a bit like a brunette Nicole Kidman! _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
What is the name of the actress then? The only Mexican actress I know is Salma Hayek!
PS: So you look like a cross between Garfield and this Nicole Kidmanesque girl? _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
By the way — I think this curriculum applies only to England, and possibly (not sure) also to Wales. Education in Scotland (and I think also Northern Ireland) is completely separate.
Some of the proposals here seem sensible, such as more focus on the EU and the UN, instead of Henry VIII. But others seem completely bizarre.
Quote:
Citizenship education will now include work on British values and national identity.
*feels sick* — What are 'British values', exactly? And I'm not quite sure what sort of 'British national identity' will be promoted. This sounds like more of Gordon Brown's dubious promotion of 'Britishness'. All I can say is that I'm happy that schools in Scotland will not be subjected to this campaign.
*feels sick* — What are 'British values', exactly? And I'm not quite sure what sort of 'British national identity' will be promoted. This sounds like more of Gordon Brown's dubious promotion of 'Britishness'. All I can say is that I'm happy that schools in Scotland will not be subjected to this campaign.
I empathise with you. The idea of 'British values' is a very nebulous one indeed and if implemented at schools, I can confidently predict these values to be no different from the sort of universal humanist values which are already largely adhered to by most civilised societies: belief in the untrammelled authority of the parliamentary system, democracy, respect for others, multiculturalism, etc.
To me, this smacks of a much watered down and politically correct Tebbit Test and I think the principal targets of 'British values' classes would have to be immigrants or children of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, especially Pakistan. I suppose the most recent terrorist plot would not have escaped your attention and in the light of how unsettled some of these British-Asians seem to be, the intentions of Gordon Brown's Government is nakedly clear.
On the other hand, the romantic in me would also believe that the inculcation of 'British values' in every schoolboy or girl would mean imbibing in all the traditional values and practices which the nation used to hold close to her bosom, individually and collectively. Of course, I am talking about a rural pastoral England with the village green as the fons et origo of English cricket, bastion of its abiding values, source and mainstay of the quintessential English appeal. This class would be a celebration of quintessential English characteristics: swans on the Avon, country churches, sheep grazing on rolling green fields, pub signs with interesting font, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminister, West End theatres, St Paul's, double-decked red buses, booming Canary Wharf and inevitably, a village cricket match (in whites, of course and not those horrid coloured pyjamas). In short, a tourism management class so that every schoolboy and girl can grow up to be excellent tour guides to lost tourists searching for a slice of lost Britain.
If that is the case, PM Brown is cannier than we think.
_________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
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