National Curriculum review - What should we teach our children?

The National Curriculum is to be changed yet again and we at Wolverhampton University have been invited to respond to the consultation. Why another change? And should we bother to respond asks Angela Gault.

The body that would normally undertake this process, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), has been abolished leaving this responsibility and power in the hands of the Department for Education.

The National Curriculum will impact initially on those of us working in teacher education, with teachers, and then, finally the children.

We will have to manage any change, and the consequences, day-by-day in our classrooms.

If we don't agree with the outcome then working with those tensions will impact upon our professional identity, our professional development and most important of all the future life chances of our children and young people.

Perhaps even more importantly are the impacts the National Curriculum will have on all of us – both in education and outside. Society will have to live with the consequences of its reform. It will affect your children, your family, your future and the futures of millions of children and young people.

Aren't these good enough reasons to have a say?

We know that Michael Gove wants more children from the poorest backgrounds to follow in his footsteps and go to Oxford and Cambridge.

We all agree that family background should not be the sole determinant of future life chances.

However, in order to achieve his aim, some argue that Mr Gove believes that all children should study traditional academic subjects and learn key facts.

This is at the heart of his policies and underpins his desire to change the National Curriculum, change assessments and impose the English Baccalaureate.

If Mr Gove were to engage in our secondary teacher training courses he would be encouraged to reflect upon his own educational beliefs and recognise that they are coloured by his experience and, more importantly, that there are other equally valid educational aims, experiences and values that may vary from his.

Of course we need to teach subject content, but teaching children how to learn, giving them the know-how, is also our responsibility as educators.

Equipped with the skills necessary for study, finding out what and how, students can become independent learners and exercise more control over their lives.

Dividing knowledge of what, from knowledge of how, and perhaps concentrating upon one to the neglect of the other, is rather a false position yet it has dominated curriculum decision making to date.

This divide is particularly relevant when considering assessment. It is easier to test children's knowledge of facts than assess other more challenging yet essential attributes, like creativity or team working.

Assessment is one of the means by which the state has a degree of control of the education system.

Is the revised National Curriculum going to be dominated by prescribed subject content? Is it just a coincidence that the chairman of the Expert Panel charged with designing the revised National Curriculum? Is Mr Tim Oates an assessment expert seconded from Cambridge Assessment?

Decisions about the very first National Curriculum for England and Wales in 1988 were taken by a few political appointees, who were representative of neither professional educators nor society as a whole.

Michael Gove supports the study of history. Unfortunately, instead of learning from the mistakes of the past, he is in danger of repeating them in this latest National Curriculum review.

This is why it is important that we give our views about the new National Curriculum. Consider these points:

• What's good about the current National Curriculum?

• What should be included in the revised National Curriculum?

• We have been told which subjects are to be statutory. Should there be non-statutory subjects?

• If so, which subjects should be included as non-statutory?

• Is there essential knowledge for each subject and, if so, what is it?

• Should the curriculum be prescribed year-by-year or by Key Stage?

• Should schools and colleges decide what is taught in all or some subjects?

One fact that is worth knowing - in the past, such public consultations on proposed educational polices have generated perhaps 1,000-1,500 responses. There have rarely been more than 2,000.

So it's worth asking - can we afford to leave the education of future generations in the hands of an 'expert panel' and 2,000 respondees?

Angela Gault is Secondary Schools Partnership Director at the University of Wolverhampton.

• Read more about the National Curriculum