The Outline of the National Curriculum in England - Case Study Example

National curriculum The Outline of the National Curriculum in England The curriculum consists of programs of study and targets to be attained for every subject, at all key stages (Anning & Anning, 1995, p. 225). The National Curriculum (NC) was established to Wales, England and Northern Ireland for primary and secondary state schools. Independent schools like Academies and special schools does not to apply the national curriculum, there is a possibility that they can deviate from the national curriculum system. The curriculum is purposefully set to bring about standardised content of what is taught in primary and secondary schools. The national curriculum is undertaken in form of four key stages of compulsory schooling within the age bracket of 5-16years (Yokayama, 2010, p. 172). The school curriculum is set to aim at providing opportunities for every pupil to learn and achieve besides promoting pupils’ social, spiritual moral and cultural development. The urge to grasp opportunities and be responsible as one experiences life is considerably emphasized in the national curriculum. The Key Stages The compulsory school age children in the community and foundation schools, for instance; foundation special schools and community special schools, voluntary controlled and voluntary aided schools, are supposed to follow the national curriculum. It is structured on the foundation of four key stages incorporated with twelve subjects, categorised in legal terms as ‘core’ and ‘other foundation’ subjects. Key stage 1 comprises of Year 2 and Year 1 of the primary school. Key stage 2 is composed of the year 3 to year 6 of the primary school. The compulsory national curriculum subjects for the Key stages 1 and 2 are the same, and include; Maths, English, Science, Geography, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Design and technology, History, Art and design, Music and Physical education. Key stage 3 is for children attending a state school between the ages 11 -14 (years 7 to 9) undertake Key Stage 3 of the national curriculum, scheduled for subjects: Maths, English, Design and technology, Science, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Modern foreign languages, geography, History, Art and design, Citizenship, Music, and Physical education. Kids between ages 14 to 16 years old are pupils in Years 10 and 11. Pupils sit the national exams, that is; GCSEs but other exams like BTEC are also done at the end of Key Stage 4. Key Stage 4 gives opportunity to study both the optional and compulsory subjects (Neary, 2002, p. 87). The subjects done that are compulsory at this stage include; English, Science, Maths, Physical education, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Citizenship, while the optional ones include; Design and technology, Arts subjects, Humanities and Modern foreign languages. The Purpose for the Development of the Curriculum The need by the every state funded schools to offer balanced, comprehensive and broadly based curriculum laid the ground on which the national curriculum was established. The curriculum was to promote moral, cultural, spiritual, physical and mental development at the schools and the society. The comprehensive and broadly structured curriculum enables student to develop human skills and greater scope of knowledge acquisition for better understanding of the world phenomena. The curriculum further was designed to prepare the pupils at the school for responsibilities, opportunities and life experiences. The national curriculum being part of the school curriculum which comprises all the learning and experiences that every school schedule for their pupils enables the student to carry out tasks as assigned by the teachers thus shaping them to be target and goal oriented and hence becoming responsible personalities. The essence to uphold the societal moral virtues makes all state schools to create provisions for daily act of joint worship as well as tutoring of religious education to children at every key stage but sex and relationship teachings to pupils in secondary education. The national curriculum equips pupils with a prologue to the essential knowledge that they require to be citizens who are educated. The curriculum introduces pupils to the best that has been said and thought. The appreciation of human achievement and creativity is also engendered in the curriculum. The aspect of diversity is highly given attention in the national curriculum as all teachers are required to take an account and special concern on it. There should be positivity of teachers towards valuing differences in social, cultural and political. This enables cooperation of all the stakeholders as it leaves no crucial aspect of the community lifestyles and background is left unincorporated (Neary, 2002, p. 102). National curriculum is also on a wider view pegged on the purpose to provide equality of opportunities to all the citizens of the nation. This would eliminate the bias access to opportunities due to socio-economic and political differences. This promotes even and balanced progress of the nation. Develop the creative, practical and technical expertise necessary to perform tasks and duties confidently to enhance participation successfully in the building of the society. In addition the national curriculum helps in building and application of the repertoire of knowledge, skills and understanding in order to devise and make high-quality products and prototypes for a wide range of users in ensuring societal good. The School Curriculum in England-Act of implementation Each of the state-funded school should offer a curriculum that is a balanced and broadly based curriculum must be offered by all the state funded schools in light of promotion of cultural, spiritual, moral physical and mental development at school and society levels (Yokayama, 2010, p. 39). National curriculum being part of the extensive school curriculum provides pupils with opportunities; equip them to be responsible citizens and they also gain experiences of life. In England maintained schools are legally obliged to follow the statutory national curriculum that sets out the programmes of study, on the grounds of key stages, subject content that should be taught to every pupil (Neary, 2002, p. 37). Every school must publish its school curriculum by academic year and subject online. There is room for provisions by the schools to incorporate personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and inclusion of other topics and subjects to suit their own program of education. All the above outlined requirement were developed as a result of Education Act 2002, section 78. The act applies to every maintained school The year 2002 in the United Kingdom It happened that in the year 2002 it was Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The Education Act of the year 2002 was put into force during the tenure of the Prime Minister Tony Blair who served in the position from 1997-2007. EBaccs set to replace GCSE exams When the education minister came out to pronounce the government stance in replacing the GCSEs with the EBaccs it made clear as the biggest upheaval to the secondary school examination program since the introduction of the GCSEs back in 1986. Under this arrangement the majority of the pupils will be awarded an English Baccalaureate certificate – which is only awarded to pupils who have obtained top grade in English, Maths, foreign languages, and the sciences and the humanities; that is, history and geography. It was argued that the GCSE was conceived and designed for a different generation altogether. Analysis of the National Curriculum Assessment Methodologies Yokayama (2010) notes that it is of importance to recognize the documents vital link between curriculum content and the assessment and the significance it attaches to the latter. The programs of study should reflect the attainment of targets. Assessment should build up out of the curriculum and not be used to gauge it. Assessment to pupils can be stretched more when they are fairing on well and given extara help and support when they are not; this seems to be something that all would support (Ross, 2000). But teachers, surely, could be entrusted to facilitate the assessment guidelines once they have been devised? To curb this unlikelihood it is claimed that at the core of the assessment process there will be nationally regulated tests done by all pupils to complement the individual teachers assessments. However the overall marking and assessments of the teachers will be externally moderated. The assessment details a more challenging test that enables a result of a scaled score at the end of every key stage. From a direct link to the content of the national curriculum, detailed performance descriptors should be made available to alert teachers on assessment at the end of every key stage (Neary, 2002, p. 23). The level of moderation regime should be improved to ensure there is consistence with teachers’ assessment. The assessments are basically aimed at providing standard information to the parents and to depict a clear picture of the school’s performance. The assessment us done in different approaches through a child’s education and development by use of the most appropriate approach for tracking the children’s progress at every stage of their studies. The approaches to assessment would include: phonic check just about at the end of year 1, the statutory two year old progress check done in the early years, a teacher assessment tests like the externally set but internally marked exams in both oral and written in respective subjects and the national assessment tests given at the end of key stage 2 in respective subjects. The legality of the national curriculum assessment in UK finds lots of cons and pros along the course of its operations. The Advantages of the National Curriculum Assessment Methods The incorporation of the aspect of diversity in the national curriculum makes the curriculum very elaborative and comprehensive enough to enable absorption of all facets of personalities, religion, and lifestyle among other divergent issues that affect humanity. It is instilled in the teaching system that schools must follow the curriculum to offer a leveled ground for all the pupils to have an equal opportunity to succeed no matter individual needs and potential variations existing from one pupil to another. The nation al curriculum provides a fair platform for Equality of Opportunity to everyone (Yokayama, 2010, p. 75). This promotes national cohesion and even distribution of resource and further balance of economic growth and development. The national curriculum sets the suitable learning challenges that tend to be fairer to every pupil without biasness. The suitable learning environment creates a learning conditions likely to be favorable to relatively all the pupils. The different pupils’ needs are responded to adequately; this enables special attention to pupils with special needs. The comprehensiveness of the curriculum makes it inclusive that fairly functions to the best of the society. Again teachers value differences positively and discourage harassment, bullying and stereo-typing (Ross, 2000, p. 107). The Disadvantages of the National Curriculum Assessment Methods One of the challenges of any such analysis is the wide complexity of national curriculum assessment. One of the complexities is that national curriculum assessments are used for different purposes and therefore the consequential aspects are propagated and compounded. Secondly there is complexity of the national curriculum assessment involving both Teacher Assessment and tests - both of which has weaknesses and strengths n relation to validity. The worry is that the weight on use of test results for an accountability purposes might weaken the role of Teacher Assessment to an extent that the full programs of study are inadequately being assessed. The distinction across key stages and subjects make the task of evaluating the soundness of national curriculum assessment exceedingly complex (Neary, 2002, p. 123) Furthermore Shiro (2013) argued that one of the most difficult purposes of the tests is to present measures of how performance standards are varying over time. This means that there should be fair results for those undertaking the tests in a specific year, the tests must also equate and compare with those of past years so as to examine changes over time can. The concern of standards has been debated on continuously, but the question relevant to this connection is whether the standards correspond to the levels are suitable at each key stage. A problem arises from the point that do those interpreting the assessment information have a clear understanding of it and are they aware of its limitations. There is threat of misunderstanding the information, biased interpretation and explanation. In case of such misinterpretation can be very disastrous to the target purpose of the curriculum assessment (Ross, 2000, p.57). Teacher Assessment, however, is extra open to validity threats since the conditions of assessment are highly varied and the consistency of judging receives less attention compared to test marker consistency. For teachers the validity threat is not having few tasks on which to base appropriate decision but rather having very much information that the method for judgment may vary from one teacher to another. The Implications of the National Curriculum to Learners The new Progress 8 gauge will be the main sign of school secondary performance. The Progress 8 measure holds the policy aiming to encourage schools to offer a balanced and broad curriculum with an academic core which appropriately meets the needs of every pupil. Schools will be held accountable for pupils’ academic improvement in a suite of 8 qualifications: mathematics, English, three EBacc subjects and then an “open” category of subjects which includes EBacc subjects not already counted in the specific EBacc slots and also other high-value academic, vocational and arts qualifications (Yokayama, 2010, p. 161). As Neary suggested that the room for schools to develop a school curriculum in which they incorporate the national curriculum helps to adjust the course of their teaching to suit the environment and conditions in which the students tap the most of their potential and ability. Establishment of proper and effective assessment systems at schools levels is an assuring formula to tapping the best from the pupils and flexibility measures to fit the pupils’ situation for highly improved results (Yokayama, 2010, p. 298). Teachers have the opportunity to develop stimulating and exciting lessons to encourage the development of pupils’ understanding, skills and knowledge as a portion of the wider school curriculum this broadened specification beyond the national curriculum suits well with changing times and incorporation with situational circumstances for effective progress of the pupils. References YOKOYAMA, K. (2010). Government, policy, and ideology: higher educations changing boundaries in two island kingdoms--Japan and England. Lanham, Md, University Press of America. GREAT BRITAIN, & SAUNDERS WATSON, L. M. M. (1990). Final report. London, H.M.S.O. ANNING, A., & ANNING, A. (1995). A national curriculum for the early years. Buckingham, Open University Press. ROSS, A. (2000). Curriculum: construction and critique. London [u.a.], Falmer Press. NEARY, M. (2002). Curriculum studies in post-compulsory and adult education: a study guide for teachers and student teachers. Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes. SCHIRO, M. (2013). Curriculum theory: conflicting visions and enduring concerns. Thousand Oaks, Calif, SAGE Publications. Read More