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Ministers urged to stop 'meddling' in teaching
5 hours 29 mins ago
Ministers have been criticised today for "meddling" with the national curriculum. Skip related content
A report, published this morning, called for a dramatic reform of the national curriculum to allow teachers more freedom.
The children, schools and families committee attacked the government for taking too much control of the curriculum.
The committee stated that Whitehall interference in teaching has turned it into "a franchise operation more dependent on a recipe handed down by government rather than the exercise of professional expertise by teachers".
As a result, teachers have become "de-skilled" and "de-motivated", the report said.
MPs are now calling for the national curriculum to be 'slimmed down' and for a limit to be placed on the amount of teacher guidance contained in the curriculum.
The report said: "The bloated nature of the current national curriculum also stems from excessive ad hoc changes, which have often stemmed from the particular priorities of successive ministers."
It recommended that national strategies should not continue in their current format.
And it suggested that the teaching style in academies should be rolled out across all schools.
This would mean that only the core subjects of English, maths, science and technology and communications would be dictated by the curriculum.
The committee also rejected elements of the interim report by Sir Jim Rose on the primary curriculum.
MPs stated that they found his recommendation of 'programmes of study' for primary schools to be "unnecessarily complex".
Barry Sheerman, chairman of the committee, said that "simplicity" was the key message of the report.
"We need a simpler, more coherent curriculum. Poor transitions from one key stage to the next create disruptions which damage the educational experience of pupils. It is vital that this is tackled," he added.
"We need to trust schools and teachers more and empower teachers to do what they do best.
"There is a regrettable tendency for governments to make continual changes to the structure and framework of the curriculum. Ministerial meddling must stop."
But schools minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry rejected claims that schooling had become a "franchise operation".
She said: "The national curriculum has been at the heart of raising the quality of education. No one wants to go back to the days where there were no minimum national standards for what children were taught and parents had no idea what was going on in classes.
"It is down to teachers to use their professional judgments in designing their own lessons around the core, statutory curriculum. The perverse recommendation that Whitehall should dictate how much time every teacher should spend on the national curriculum flies in the face of the committee's own call for less prescription.
"But it is right for ministers, who are accountable for the whole school system, to set the aims and overall subject requirements of the curriculum - advised by the experts from the QCDA. It would be bizarre if an unelected agency was in sole charge of setting national policy."
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said the government "should stop meddling and trust teachers".
"Instead of producing endless guidance, and collecting streams of daft data, the government should encourage local professional decision-making based on meaningful research and support teachers in sharing effective teaching practices," she added.
Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws said: "This report confirms that the national curriculum is stifling teachers who want to give young people a broad education.
"There is a glaring inconsistency in government policy which allows academies more freedom over the curriculum while denying it to the majority of schools."
Ministers urged to stop 'meddling' in teaching
5 hours 29 mins ago
Ministers have been criticised today for "meddling" with the national curriculum. Skip related content
A report, published this morning, called for a dramatic reform of the national curriculum to allow teachers more freedom.
The children, schools and families committee attacked the government for taking too much control of the curriculum.
The committee stated that Whitehall interference in teaching has turned it into "a franchise operation more dependent on a recipe handed down by government rather than the exercise of professional expertise by teachers".
As a result, teachers have become "de-skilled" and "de-motivated", the report said.
MPs are now calling for the national curriculum to be 'slimmed down' and for a limit to be placed on the amount of teacher guidance contained in the curriculum.
The report said: "The bloated nature of the current national curriculum also stems from excessive ad hoc changes, which have often stemmed from the particular priorities of successive ministers."
It recommended that national strategies should not continue in their current format.
And it suggested that the teaching style in academies should be rolled out across all schools.
This would mean that only the core subjects of English, maths, science and technology and communications would be dictated by the curriculum.
The committee also rejected elements of the interim report by Sir Jim Rose on the primary curriculum.
MPs stated that they found his recommendation of 'programmes of study' for primary schools to be "unnecessarily complex".
Barry Sheerman, chairman of the committee, said that "simplicity" was the key message of the report.
"We need a simpler, more coherent curriculum. Poor transitions from one key stage to the next create disruptions which damage the educational experience of pupils. It is vital that this is tackled," he added.
"We need to trust schools and teachers more and empower teachers to do what they do best.
"There is a regrettable tendency for governments to make continual changes to the structure and framework of the curriculum. Ministerial meddling must stop."
But schools minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry rejected claims that schooling had become a "franchise operation".
She said: "The national curriculum has been at the heart of raising the quality of education. No one wants to go back to the days where there were no minimum national standards for what children were taught and parents had no idea what was going on in classes.
"It is down to teachers to use their professional judgments in designing their own lessons around the core, statutory curriculum. The perverse recommendation that Whitehall should dictate how much time every teacher should spend on the national curriculum flies in the face of the committee's own call for less prescription.
"But it is right for ministers, who are accountable for the whole school system, to set the aims and overall subject requirements of the curriculum - advised by the experts from the QCDA. It would be bizarre if an unelected agency was in sole charge of setting national policy."
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said the government "should stop meddling and trust teachers".
"Instead of producing endless guidance, and collecting streams of daft data, the government should encourage local professional decision-making based on meaningful research and support teachers in sharing effective teaching practices," she added.
Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws said: "This report confirms that the national curriculum is stifling teachers who want to give young people a broad education.
"There is a glaring inconsistency in government policy which allows academies more freedom over the curriculum while denying it to the majority of schools."
