The department of education
is still consulting the content of the national curriculum. Michael Gove has
signed his intention to make assessment more challenging and move toward more
end of course assessment. There will also be a change in terms of subjects
studied. In some senses this has been seen as a move back to a more traditional
curriculum, however subjects like citizenship will remain (KS3 &4).
Changes are also being
proposed to the system of league tables used to measure school performance with
the introduction of two new measures:
• the percentage of pupils in each school reaching an
attainment threshold in the vital core subjects of English and maths
• and an average point score showing how much progress every
student makes between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4
The average point score
measure will reflect pupils’ achievement across a range of eight subjects.
As well as English and
maths, it will measure how well pupils perform in at least three subjects from
the English Baccalaureate – sciences, history, geography, languages – and computer
science, and in three additional subjects, whether those are arts subjects,
academic subjects or high quality vocational qualifications.
Further
information can be found at
http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00221416/curriculum,-exam-and-accountability-reform
The
question remains what impact this will have on alternative forms of learning?
In
what ways can we seek to make the case for the development of such learning in
different settings?
