1. From consultation to classroom – the renewed primary curriculum
October 2009

2. Publishers’ seminar 9th December 2009

3. The story so far… Children’s Plan released December 2007
Independent review of the primary curriculum by Sir Jim Rose began January 2008
Sir Jim’s final report to Secretary of State published 30 April 2009
Public consultation on a range of curriculum reform proposals held May-June 2009
Reports on the consultations provided to the DCSF at the end of September

4. The primary curriculum consultation
Over 1000 formal responses
School workforce – teachers, headteachers and support staff
Teacher unions and groups
Subject associations
Academics
Special interest groups
National associations
Parents, children and young people
Over 3000 education specialists, parents and young people shared their thoughts and ideas at:
Conferences, focus groups and seminars
Partners’ education events
Meetings with communities of interest

5. What we learned
Strong support for the aims, essentials and areas of learning
Many thought the new curriculum had more flexibility and less prescription
Support was strong across all interest groups
Sometimes for different reasons
Some areas had less support or provoked a range of responses
Physical development, health and wellbeing

6. Aims of the curriculum
The aims of the primary curriculum are to enable all children to become:
successful learners
confident individuals
responsible citizens

7. The essentials for learning and life
The essentials are embedded throughout the whole curriculum
literacy, numeracy and ICT capability
learning and thinking skills, personal and emotional skills and social skills

8. Areas of learning

9. What’s in an area of learning
Each area of learning has a common format and includes:
an importance statement
essential knowledge
key skills
cross-curricular studies
breadth of learning
curriculum progression

10. What happens next
The revised national curriculum website goes live at the end of January, featuring
The new primary curriculum
Proposed statutory curriculum content
Online tools to support curriculum design
Case studies on specific aspects of the curriculum
Curriculum design guidance and a handbook is being prepared for circulation to all schools early in 2010
The DCSF is setting up an implementation support programme

13. Resources for learning
Embedding the essentials – how to ensure the literacy, numeracy and ICT are progressive and challenging
Essential knowledge - focus on the big ideas
Essential skills – a common process across areas of learning
The challenges for teaching ICT – embedding, teacher confidence, pace of change, new technologies
Linking learning – coherence,
Personalisation and flexibility – 1-to-1, catch-up, gifted and talented, child initiated learning and play.
Memorable learning experiences