Curriculum, Assessment and Qualifications Reform: Implementation Hardip Begol Director, Assessment, Curriculum and General Qualifications BESA AGM, 6 November

Aim of my presentation Reforms to curriculum, assessment and qualifications Government’s approach to implementation:  less prescription  system leadership  ITE, CPD and teaching materials  raising awareness … and how this will enable the teaching profession and wider education sector to take ownership of reform.

Case for Reform 2010 Importance of Teaching White Paper:  So many great schools and teachers but performance below our potential when compared internationally  National curriculum should be slimmed down  Qualifications less demanding and failing to meet needs of employers and university lecturers

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Reforms on a page  New national curriculum : slimmer; focused on core knowledge and concepts; languages compulsory at key stage 2 (KS2); computing replaces ICT. In force from  Assessment: should relate to schools’ own curriculum; KS2 national assessment in English and maths remains.  New GCSEs: English and maths for first teaching in 2015, controlled assessment dropped; other subjects from  New A and AS levels: assessed at end of course, main subjects for first teaching in 2015; maths, languages and others from  Vocational Quals: Wolf-reforms driving up quality, first at KS4 and now post-16.  Accountability: smarter measures, minimising perverse incentives.

Vision for delivery “…But what really matters is that this is a new approach to education, one that gives head teachers and schools far greater freedom. How they implement the national curriculum is down to them. There will be no new statutory document telling teachers how to do their job. No national strategies telling teachers everything that they have to do. No national roll-out. This is a huge cultural shift.” Elizabeth Truss, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (education and childcare) Speech at: 6

Delivering the vision: less prescription  New national curriculum sets out the ‘what’ and not the ‘how’  Shorter programmes of study setting out core content – especially in foundation subjects and key stage 3  Fuller for key stage 1-2 maths and English, but so important  Disapplication – giving schools chance to prepare by adapting curriculum in 2013/14

Delivering the vision: system leadership  Key feature of the government’s policy  Significant expansion of system leaders across England: 355 teaching schools, 299 alliances, with c.20 schools per alliance over 800 national support schools (NLEs) Over 2000 LLEs  Schools Direct – major shift in delivering ITE

Delivering the vision: system leadership  £2m to help teaching schools to support schools in their alliance and beyond to plan for change  Aiming for geographical coverage, some proposals work with hundreds of schools  Focus on primary, mathematics, English, science, computing and languages  Supporting change management – auditing strengths, identifying materials

Delivering the vision: curriculum change 12  National college have developed online resources to help schools plan curriculum change:  how good is your current curriculum?  what makes a great curriculum?  how can learning be organised?

Delivering the vision: ITE/materials/CPD  This curriculum makes new demands of teachers’ subject knowledge  Schools’ needs will differ and it is for them to identify their areas for development  Government is focussing investment in priority areas: maths – NCETM has a range of support science – national STEM centre has new materials computing – recently announced £2m for additional master computer teachers  ‘Expert groups’ have been looking at the challenges of the new curriculum for ITE and serving teachers and how they might be addressed. Computing and geography expert groups have already published their work.Computinggeography

Assessment reforms  Consultation on assessment and accountability closed in early October  Proposals are that National curriculum levels will be removed and not replaced; government will not prescribe approaches to formative assessment; key stage 2 tests will remain  Proposed an option of a baseline assessment for assessing pupils’ progress across the whole time at primary school.

Opportunities  New curriculum materials and services  School-led assessment and reporting systems  Material that goes beyond the specified content in the curriculum or qualifications.

Curriculum, Assessment and Qualifications Reform: Implementation Hardip Begol Director, Assessment, Curriculum and General Qualifications BESA AGM, 6 November