The review of the National Curriculum – my fears
The Government has appointed Becky Francis to review the National Curriculum. She was recently the subject of a Telegraph article that delved into her past and her pronouncements to try and understand what it might mean for education.
She comes from the progressive direction which always sends shivers down my spine having had to deal with left-wing ideologues when I advised on the 2014 National Curriculum.
There are also some worrying signs that as well as helping those children who might be disadvantaged, she wants those families who are more advantaged to be targeted.
For example, she derides families who ‘cheat the system’ to get places for their children at the best schools.
In 2013 she wrote a report about it for the Sutton Trust and noted that parents employed cunning schemes such as moving house, hiring tutors or sending children to extracurricular activities including drama or music to give their them an advantage.
The idea that parents doing everything they can for their children is ‘cheating’ or should be criticised goes against most parenting instincts.
And again, it is typical of many on the left who, through envy, muddled socialist thinking or misguided ‘equality’ obsessions, would rather make the high achieving low achieving rather than make the low achievers high achievers.
The emphasis ought to be on making all schools excellent and the state sector as good as the private one.
Francis wanted the VAT charitable perk denied to private schools a decade before this government took it away.
It no doubt makes them feel better in their left-wing circles but means thousands of children flooding into the already-stretched state sector. This will place bigger burdens on teachers and will negatively impact all children, from whatever background.
Those with the means ought to be encouraged to send their children to private schools and tax perks should be available. The more children in the private sector the larger the capacity and the more resources in the state sector.
And grammar schools should be re-introduced across the country so the academically gifted can be properly stretched.
Francis has the opposite view and believes children of all standards should be taught together.
She argues that teaching in sets disadvantages the less able, suggesting it knocks the confidence of those in lower sets. Their expected low grades then become a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.
As director of the Institute for Education, the Telegraph reported, she tried to persuade schools to take part in experiments with mixed sets – but many had struggled because they were ‘scared of parents’.
Again, this is informative of her instincts. If being in lower sets self-fulfils the prophecy of lower grades, then making the brightest work in mixed ability classes would necessarily mean bringing down their grades.
But in the world of ‘equality’ it is better that everyone is average rather than some excel.
Her attempted experiment said some schools didn’t go with the mixed-class method because they were scared of parents.
The very idea that parents ought to have a say seems anathema to the progressives who have decided that they know best.
But in the private sector parents have great power because they pay and have a choice. And as Francis acknowledges, private schools do much better. Many in the private sector are taught in sets. Intelligence has nothing to do with wealth.
Francis has spent a career in education academia and is certainly passionate about her subject.
And as she is a fan of the National Curriculum, she should also recognise that England’s PISA rankings have greatly improved since the curriculum was renewed in 2014.
Prior to the 2014 changes, the curriculum was vague, progressive and hard to implement.
In maths, for example, there was little emphasis on teaching algorithms and times tables were only supposed to be learned by the end of Year 6 – and this rarely happened.
Although I was involved in the 2014 curriculum, I don’t believe it is demanding enough in the core subjects. And it lacks ambition.
Rather than attacking private schools, we should be looking at why their preparatory system is far more successful than the state system. Many will yell ‘privilege’, ‘middle-class’ and point out that these schools have better facilities and smaller classes. These claims have some foundation but there are things the state system can learn from these schools.
- Maths and English are taught by subject specialists at primary level and not generalists.
- The curriculum is ambitious (just like the Singapore curriculum) and traditional. It expects higher standards from the very beginning and children are usually around 18 months to two years in front of state school children.
- Progressive vs traditional. As an advisor on the primary maths curriculum for 2014, I was continually frustrated by academics and teachers who did not believe children could achieve more. In effect, although the result was a great improvement what I proposed along with a minority of others was constantly dumbed down. For example, there was a belief by some that children in Years 3-6 could not understand algebra because numbers were represented by letters. I have taught algebra to thousands of children in Years 3-6 and they were able to grasp it.
Those opposing reforms were always on the progressive wing and quite frankly appeared to have little real experience in the classroom and were ivory-tower academics. The curriculum needs to be strengthened in a traditional way and the state system should look to the preparatory schools as models of success.
- Preparatory schools just get on with the job and are held to account by parents. If they don’t deliver, the parents will take their children out and move them to another school. In the state system children are treated like guinea pigs for the latest educational theory.
I believe that parental councils governing schools could really change matters. This would give parents a real say rather than having their children subjected to the latest wacky theories of the academic left. I once explained to the Schools Minister of the time that I believed there was a great deal of anger among parents – I have seen it. Parents from all backgrounds want their children educated and not indoctrinated. The job of the school is to teach literacy and numeracy and other relevant subjects, and it stops there.
Of course, there is a template in the state sector – a school that takes pupils from the poorest, most disadvantaged backgrounds and achieves astonishing results.
The Michaela Community School in Wembley takes pupils between the ages of 11 and 18 and routinely achieves the best progress score at GCSE in the country.
On its website it boasts that it ‘makes tradition fashionable’. And there is the problem for the progressives.
One of the great shining lights of state education eschews progressive techniques and concentrates on the traditional, successful ones.
It believes its pupils can achieve. It pushes them. It turns out pupils with excellent grades who are also well-rounded individuals.
I wish Becky Francis the best with her review. I know she wants the best for our children. So do we all. But I fear her methods will not work.