16 Comments

• Mary Reid 1st Jul '14 - 11:26am

  I’m disappointed you haven’t included either Music or Drama in the list of creative subjects. Was that an oversight? Incidentally, I seem to remember promoting a very similar set of options when I was involved in teacher education back in the 1970s.

• Barry Holliday 1st Jul '14 - 12:12pm

  Yes and no. I’d put them in the 5th group~ others as per skills allow

  Its a shame 40 years on we still don’t have a true comprehensive education

• Ryan 1st Jul '14 - 12:23pm

  I’m a teacher.

  How do you propose to end teaching to the test? Abolishing the spec? In which case how do you ensure all schools are teaching the same?

  One of those fluff phrases that mean absolutely nothing.

• Rebecca Hanson 1st Jul '14 - 12:56pm

  There’s vastly more to the curriculum changes than you’ve described Barry.

  I’m stunned you’ve concluded

  “‘Teaching to the test’ be ended and all children to be given a rounded education in all subjects.”

  Why do you think that will happen?

• Barry Holliday 1st Jul '14 - 1:26pm

  Ryan,
  I also work in schools as a cover supervisor (working on gaining NQT/QTS)

  The problem is there’s so much more to any subject than is on the GCSE paper. The best bet would reform to the exam boards & marking systems/grades. giving teachers more time within the year to teach around the spec and not just hot housing on the spec to get good grades.

• Paul Griffiths 1st Jul '14 - 1:34pm

  This list seems over-prescriptive to me. Politicians should not be involved in drafting the Minimum Curiculum Entitlement. It should instead be drawn up by representatives from all sectors, and require unanimous agreement.

• Peter Watson 1st Jul '14 - 1:39pm

  “Likewise, ‘Teaching to the test’ be ended and all children to be given a rounded education in all subjects.”
  If there is a test then people will “learn to it” and be “taught to it”. This is not new: it worked for me when I did my O-levels, A-levels and degree in the 80s.

• Martin Land 1st Jul '14 - 2:47pm

  Stop tinkering, Barry. the system is not fit for purpose.

  Why? Because nobody can agree what the purpose is, that’s why.

  Is our educational system designed to meet the needs of the individual? The requirements of the universities? The wishes of employers? A mixture of two or more of these? Until someone fully and properly addresses this question and provides a reasonable answer, we are always going to fail to provide the best education possible.

• Rebecca Hanson 1st Jul '14 - 4:04pm

  Barry have you actually read any part of the new curriculum, compared it with what was there before and discussed your analysis with somebody who understands the issues?

• Roland 1st Jul '14 - 7:33pm

  I compared the list of subjects with those offered at the school I attended back in the 1970’s and am a little concerned at how low you are proposing to set the barrier!

  I went to what was then regarded as a ‘large’ school with 150 pupils per year which was able to offer the majority of the subjects listed at O-level/GCSE, plus some others not listed!

  My understanding is the majority of new schools have year groups significantly larger the 150, I therefore suggest there is no reason why schools shouldn’t be required to offer the full list of subjects…

• Peter Watson 1st Jul '14 - 7:53pm

  @Barry
  I notice that in your list, Science is a single subject. Many children study dual science (2 GCSEs) or separate sciences (3 GCSEs).

• Rebecca Hanson 2nd Jul '14 - 12:20am

  There’s more to a new curriculum than a list of the subjects to be taught.

  This new curriculum involves a massive ‘raising of the bar’ in subjects like maths, where much more challenging procedural content is to be taught to younger children.

  Tiny details such as this seem to have entirely escaped Barry’s detailed scrutiny of the curriculum. If my guess here is correct that would explain why he hasn’t considered the history of what’s happened when there have been previous attempts to dramatically raise the bar – such as in curriculum 2000 when the procedural content of maths A-level was suddenly increased.

  Sigh. Why do so many people who know so little about education have so little awareness of the limits of their own knowledge and so much confidence in current government policy?

• Michael BG 2nd Jul '14 - 2:37am

  I think this is a terrible idea and it is illiberal because it doesn’t offer real choice.
  Why would you force someone to do a humanities subject when they hate all the subjects and always do terribly in them? You are ensuring that some pupils will fail.

  Are you really saying to a child who is great at science we will not let you take, Chemistry and Physics and Biology?

  What are you trying to achieve?

  Are there enough Spanish teachers, because the last thing you need is an unqualified person trying to teacher a foreign language which isn’t their own?

  Is IT Computer Studies including programming? Computer Studies including programming should be an option somewhere.
  What extra benefit is ICT GCSE once you have studied the subject for three years?

  I am glad I didn’t have to take 10 subjects when doing my CSE’s/O levels. What is the norm these days and if less why increase it? Isn’t PE a compulsory subject even if the children don’t take the subject to GCSE level?

  If you don’t mainly teach to the test then you are just ensuring that children get a worse grade. Who benefits from that?

  To give a rounded education you would need to abolish the curriculum and exams.

  Wouldn’t a liberal approach be to ensure that every child is given the opportunity to study a humanities subject, a science subject (any one of the three), a creative subject (as Mary Reid says plus Music and Drama), a language subject (I thought we were encouraging the learning of Chinese), a social science subject (including Economic or Commerce) as well as English and Maths? (I am not familiar with a subject called “Science” or why it is studied rather than the three core subjects. Is it for those who are not really interested in or don’t like the science subjects? I know I would have hated having to study any aspect of biology to “O level” standard I had a hard enough time doing it in my first three years at secondary school.)

  Then as part of this approach each child should be able to choose more than one subject from these groupings. This would offer the child greater choice and the opportunity to take subjects they are interested in, rather than studying lots of subjects they have little interest in and/or no aptitude for.

• Steve Griffiths 2nd Jul '14 - 8:34am

  @Barry Holliday

  ” I’d put them in the 5th group”

  No, they should be in the second group, where they are already are in many schools – in the creative arts departments. I recall the percussionist Evelyn Glennie saying that she believed children had a right to a musical education as well as the other subjects in the curriculum – and she was right. Sadly in many state schools the subject has largely disappeared and instrumental teaching reduced to a bit of guitar teaching from students wanting to earn a bit of cash. No wonder of the BBC Young Musician of the Year contestants are almost exclusively from private schools. It wasn’t always so.

• Peter Chivall 2nd Jul '14 - 9:34am

  I don’t understand. Why are we spending so much intellectual effort on the irrelevancy of an set of exams at 16.? 16 WAS the end date for compulsory education, but the Education Participation age is soon to be 18.
  We need two sets of national assessments: one at 14 to establish a young person’s competency in basic skills, mostly English and Maths, but also Scientific Concepts and Principles, Moral and Religious Principles, Problem Solving and Design and Creative Skills etc. Supported by competent Advice and Guidance, the young person could then choose to remain in a ‘conventional’ academic education, culminating in University admission at 18+, or undertake a more practically-based ‘vocational’ educational programme which would involve Work Experience and an Apprenticeship-style education from 16+, or a hybrid ‘mix and match’ of both elements, leading to Advanced Apprenticeships and vocational degrees at technically-oriented Universities, possibly while continuing in employment.
  At 18-plus, all students could opt to take a true Baccalaureate-style Diploma with a compulsory minimum of both Sciences and Humanities, or a Technical Diploma, of equal standing, for those actively involved in aspects of their Technical and Vocational Education.
  Much of this was recommended by Tomlinson 10 years ago. The Blair Government, in typically cowardly fashion, ignored it and tried ‘baby steps’ reform which the Govites easily dismantled with their ‘back to the ’50s’ programmes.
  Fortunately, Tomlinson has not given up and is proposing a ‘Modern Baccalaureate’ which has been taken up by our own LDEA.
  This should form the basis of our Party’s Manifesto. Far more useful than wasting our time and effort tinkering with the remnants of an irrelelvant 1970s 16plus examination.

• Rebecca Hanson 2nd Jul '14 - 10:26pm

  If anyone wants to know about the Modern Baccalaureate and other web based forms of assessment (and how they’re positively transforming education but could do so far more rapidly if we weren’t in the middle of a cultural revolution) can I warmly invite them to read my chapter in the SLF book 21st Century Education?
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JB68YMA/?tag=libdemvoice-21+liberal+forum+21st+century+education