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Latest Blog Posts
- What curriculum do young people need? July 23, 2020
- School reopening? top scientists say not yet May 25, 2020
- Sending England back to work and back to school? May 11, 2020
- Too early to reopen schools : look at Europe April 30, 2020
- Ofsted : unreliable, destructive, beyond repair December 5, 2019
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Category Archives: Curriculum
Who gets what from maths qualifications reform?
by Professor Andrew Noyes, University of Nottingham This blog post looks at some of the perverse effects of recent GCSE and A-level reforms, including their impact on less advantaged students. The celebrated French sociologist and public intellectual Pierre Bourdieu wrote … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum
Tagged A-levels, accountability pressures, disadvantage, GCSEs, gender, maths
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A curriculum for all? GCSEs, EBacc and Progress 8
We are pleased to announce a new survey, commissioned by the NUT and carried out by a research team from King’s College London. A curriculum for all? The effects of recent Key Stage 4 curriculum, assessment and accountability reforms on … Continue reading
Primary arts are in trouble
by Professor Pat Thomson, University of Nottingham The national curriculum guidelines affirm the value of cultural education for all children. The arts – including art and design, music, dance, drama and media arts, design and technology – are an integral … Continue reading
Remove the figurehead… and change direction
The NUT has called for the resignation of Nicky Morgan as Secretary of State for Education. We expect that other organisations of teachers and parents will soon follow. Morgan’s position is now untenable. She was appointed to calm the storms … Continue reading
BACC to a grammar and prep school curriculum?
by Dr Valerie Coultas, School of Education, Kingston University The Conservative government’s changes in the curriculum and testing are presented as radical, forward looking, and creating greater opportunities for all. In reality the new curriculum in the primary school, the new GCSE … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum
Tagged comprehensive schools, grammar, National Curriculum, politicians
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The phonics check: what does it prove?
drawing on research by Professor Margaret Clark The ‘phonics check’ is one of the most insane tests ever invented. It is not a real test of children’s reading, but designed to monitor whether teachers are teaching reading in the government-approved way. That is … Continue reading
The Rose Report on phonics: playing fast and loose with ‘the evidence’
Agitation about synthetic phonics and the Clackmannanshire experiment by Nick Gibb, then an opposition MP, had two outcomes: a systematic review of research (led by Carole Torgerson) and a committee of enquiry (chaired by Jim Rose). Torgerson’s research review came … Continue reading
The Scottish phonics miracle: myths and evidence
A major trigger for politicians insisting that synthetic phonics is the only good way to teach reading came from an experiment in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. The work of Sue Ellis at Strathclyde University reveals serious exaggeration by politicians and the press. Gains in … Continue reading
Phonics: myths and evidence
Margaret Clark’s recently updated Learning to be Literate (2016) provides essential pointers to the biased way in which evidence was assembled and deployed in support of teaching reading by synthetic phonics. Briefly, synthetic phonics involves starting by learning letters and then assembling … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum
Tagged literacy, National Curriculum, phonics, phonics check, politicians, reading
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Deciding ‘ability’ and ‘potential’, or learning without limits
Alison Peacock is becoming very widely known, and rightly so, for her advocacy of learning without limits, and her challenge to core assumptions of the English education system with its constant sorting and ranking, ability tables and setting. The world … Continue reading
Reclaiming Schools 