The National Curriculum and its Effects

Cedric Cullingford, Paul Oliver

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138724419
• eBook ISBN: 9781351755184
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2001. What impact has the National Curriculum for England and Wales had on pupils, teachers, academic and social standards in the ten years since its introduction? The distinguished contributors to this volume examine the history and development of the National Curriculum to date and assess its effects.

1 Introduction: Can a Curriculum be National?

CEDRIC CULLINGFORD

Everyone has their own curriculum. As in a curriculum vitae it is like a loose fitting set of cultural clothes, an idiosyncratic texture of knowledge that is unique. There are as many hidden or overt curricula as there are people. The word curriculum is therefore a Humpty-Dumpty word: "When I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less". "The question is" says Alice, "whether one can use a word like that?" "The question is" replies Humpty-Dumpty, "who is to be master, that's all".

The great irony about such a lubricious term is that it has become redolent with its association of a firmly imposed, inflexible will. The National Curriculum as in the curricula imposed on communist countries rests on the supposition that there is a clear collective whole appropriate to everyone. The very concept of 'entitlement' is that all should feast at the same table. The 'broadness' and the 'balance' is all inclusive. All the tests must be 'standard'. That we meet with the collective experience of submitting to one agreed centralised plan, where, in the words of one child at the official opening of a new school building, 'all of us sang the National Curriculum'.

There are many layers of meaning attached to the curriculum from the personal to the collective. This is why there has always been debate about what kinds of knowledge are most appropriate. Since Plato the debates about what 'subjects' were appropriate were as much to do with politics and society, the way in which individuals not only saw the world but their places in it, as with fitness for purpose or different types of pleasure.! The history of this debate is fascinating and could have been useful as a corrective to the rather superficial arguments that were developed since Mr Callaghan's much invoked 'Ruskin' speech that was taken as a starting point, as if nothing of the kind had been addressed before. Indeed the National Curriculum, in the way it is enshrined, is noteworthy for its eschewing of philosophical principles.

Debates about the curriculum have always been about underlying tensions, which are still with us. Some are to do with the distinctions between knowledge and the acquisition of useful facts, since 'knowledge is power', and the need for 'manners', for the development of such understanding as improves the character and strengthens the morals. There is also a tension between the discipline of thinking - the word 'discipline' here chosen deliberately - and the practical application of knowledge. There are some subjects, associated with the academic, not only deemed to be useful for their own sake but empowering those who study them with such strength of thought that their critical skills can be applied to almost anything. Against this is placed the formidable amounts of practical knowledge and accumulated understanding on which we tend to rely, or trust, in surgeons and engineers.

The curriculum is not just a matter of facts. It involves skills which are transferable and personal development. There are some who suggest that it does not matter which subject is studied as long as it is done with adequate depth and conviction. There are, for example, some private institutions in the United States whose curriculum consists of nothing more or less than a selection of one hundred books, its own 'Great Tradition'. The curriculum in the broadest sense is inclusive and unavoidable. The moment it is subject to control and choice it tends to be exclusive. Nearly all formal curricula, again from Plato onwards, tend to be for some kind of 'elite', however that is defined. Most of the debates about the curriculum are about exclusion; how many people are capable of entering the inner sanctum of T.S. Eliot's cultural aristocracy, or S.T. Coleridge's 'Clerisy'.

One of the tensions about the curriculum is the extent to which it should be 'relevant' to the modern world, or should be above such immediacy. Trilling (1966) lamented the "unargued assumption ... that the true purpose of all study is to lead the young person to be at home in, and in control of, the modern world" (p.4), long before the idea of a 'core' curriculum was thought of. Bantock (1980) makes a distinction between the banal 'truth' of physical actuality and the higher truth of moral and aesthetic spheres, "in touch with the historical nature of their consciousness, which has hitherto largely been ignored" (p. 137).

Technical and vocational education have never gained that intellectual prestige accorded to the academic. This is a conclusion which is reached in many different parts of the world. A sense that the most able or gifted are those who aspire to that which is least useful is an atavistic instinct which runs deep even in anti-intellectual cultures like the British. Advanced levels are the natural standard entrance requirements to prestigious universities; vocational qualifications tend to be associated with those who are, how shall we put it, less 'fitted' in that direction. Even in subjects like accountancy, useful, practical and lucrative, where one would have assumed that prior knowledge required at university would make for well qualified entrants to the profession, there are latent academic snobberies. The large accountancy firms in the City of London recruit at least three quarters of their staff from the ancient universities, who continue to eschew such mundanely practical subjects. To have read classics remains respectable.

Such distinctions in prestige have long been with us. There is a resistance to new subjects, such as rural studies or environmental studies, even in schools (Goodson, 1982). This is not just a result of clinging to the familiar, or even of despising the potentially utilitarian. It is a result of a sense of the curriculum as something that can be controlled and be imposed. The complexities of real practice mean that there can never be a sense of the coherent whole. As Schoen (1987) so often pointed out, the contamination of actual problems can lead to deeper reflection about practice, but it often develops into the protection of established academic hegemonies.

This idea of a perfect curriculum in terms of coherence, theory and testable outcomes is not only deep-seated in the National Curriculum, but closely linked to the assumption of traditional values and beliefs. One of the results of the lack of philosophical debate about the National Curriculum is that many traditional assumptions are left unexamined. Whether it is for better or worse, the State's curriculum is not geared towards inclusiveness, towards addressing the needs of the deprived or disadvantaged. Nor does it deal with either new ways of studying or new ways of being assessed. The very idea of league tables and of set targets would anyway undermine genuine notions of 'inclusiveness' as opposed to 'entitlement'. There is something both traditional and elitist in the National Curriculum.

Goodson (1994) compares the secondary regulations of 1904 with the National Curriculum and concludes that the curriculum remains a process of social privitising. He sees it as a form of social control, with subjects of high status resisting new intrusions. As in the 1970s and 80s subjects that are new, like environmental studies, social studies or political education, are rejected or marginalised against the established core. Perhaps they are too technical, or too subversive. The given curriculum in its traditional monumentality prevails.

It could be argued that the National Curriculum is properly elitist and divisive in its intentions, for all the desire for uniformity. Those who do not meet the standards can always be 'disapplied' either formally or psychologically. But the purpose of the National Curriculum has rarely been debated. There are different models for the curriculum (Ahier and Ross, 1995). There are those which see the curriculum as a form of cultural transmission, passing on a received body of knowledge - the 'academic'. The curriculum can be alternatively understood as a means of developing social, economic and technically desirable skills - a utilitarian approach. Or the curriculum can be a means of developing social understanding of the world, including inculcating values and good behaviour. The National Curriculum is an uneasy turning away from all three. It could easily have been thought of as a troubled combination, but any concern with personal social education or with citizenship, or with high levels of communication and information technology are marginal.

Those who witnessed and commented on the introduction of the National Curriculum all point out that it was never really thought through. When one compares the way in which some countries approach the curriculum with the 1988 Educational Reform Act, we see some interesting contrasts. The Act has perhaps half-a-page on the purpose of the curriculum, and one thousand pages on the content. Other counties put all their energies into debating the tensions between the needs of society and those of the individual, and then have perhaps one page on the content. This is one result of what all who were involved saw as indecent haste.

It is ironic that after a number of years in which the curriculum was subject to contemporary debate, with a number of pamphlets produced by HMI and focus groups, long before the idea became a political mantra led by one Secretary of State, the actual National Curriculum was introduced in a great deal of hurry. This is a result of the politics involved. The Education Reform Act was a symbol of the will of politicians. It signaled the desire to interfere with the education system in a way unprecedented for at least one hundred years, since the imposition of payment by results. This use of education as a sign of political will set up in the Education Reform Act has been continued ever since (Hunter, 1997). Humpty-Dumpty's rhetorical question about who is to be master has a more sardonic ring.

The haste behind the reforms was apparent to all involved. Even at the time some of the results of political interference were anticipated and warned against (Graham and Tytler, 1993). There are many inadvertent signals, as well as prescience, about what might happen next. Even supporters of the Act, including those who made a living from it, could anticipate the dangers.

Narrowing it to the basics could be superficially appealing, easy, testable and cheap, but that is the route of the Philistines ...

(Graham and Tytler, p. 147)

The many subsequent clashes between the government and those involved in education stem from the very concept of whether political actions give the results that are intended. Here we can only hint at what is a real debate: on the one hand the research evidence which shows that good educational results occur when there is a sense of ownership by those involved (stakeholders?) - and the political expediency of wanting to make things happen.

This tension between freedom and control is real, but it tends, like the debate about the curriculum itself, to be reduced to analysis of a fairly simple kind, with inspection seen as purely punitive (Cullingford, 1995) and any hint of opposition dismissed as part of the entrenched educational establishment. The problem is that 'control', an imposed system, never can operate as intended. There are too many factors, let alone people, involved. The Holy Grail of all politicians is an Act which makes a clear difference, for which the instigator is remembered. Whether the results are beneficial or not are of secondary concern.

Nothing demonstrates the desire to impose reform through set structures better than the way in which the National Curriculum was developed. At the heart of the reform was the complete system of tests. The Task Group on Assessment and Testing was set up to create a structure into which the National Curriculum would fit. The argument then focused not on purposes, or the reasons for choosing subjects, but simply on the battles within and between subjects, for space within the overall framework. The Chair of TGAT is one of many who felt himself to be deceived; to be manipulated and used for purposes which were nefarious, essentially political rather than educational (Black, 1997).

From the start the National Curriculum was viewed with suspicion, not only because of the speed, or the political inferences but because of its lack of a theoretical basis. There were many warnings made of its dangers and unforeseen consequences, warnings that were so weighty that they were assumed to be persuasive (Haviland, 1988). They were ignored, and continue to be so. The set, conservative idea that there should be three core subjects, and seven 'foundation' subjects, prevailed. The amount of time given to each was not specified. Nor were the teaching methods, the timetable or textbooks. The early assumption was that only seventy percent of the time would be spent on the National Curriculum. It is telling to note how more and more rigid has become the control. Literacy hours and numeracy hours, and regulations including personal and social education, as well as ever increasing inspectorial powers, all demonstrate that the experiment in imposing a will, especially through target setting, continues not only unabated but with ever fierce and tighter determination.

The imposition of this political will contains a deep-seated irony. The rhetoric behind the National Curriculum was that of the importance of market forces (Tomlinson, 1988). Nothing could be more contradictory. Local management of schools, parental choice, and grant maintained schools are all manifestations of the significance of the social market. Against this is a curriculum seen as a 'safety net', a control system for all of those not in the independent system. The social divisions which are growing rapidly according to the government's own figures have some of their origins here. The Institute of Economic Affairs pointed out that the centrally imposed curriculum was wrong. "The most effective national curriculum is that set by the market" (Haviland, 1988, p.28).

The National Curriculum in its introduction and continuance was never really thought through. It was seen to be pragmatic. The consequences of its imposition have rarely been explored, not only because of the difficulty in isolating one set of variables in such a complex area but because the political will is there that it should be left unexamined. There are, however, many questions which were raised at the time the National Curriculum was being introduced, and these still deserve some answers. Many public bodies expressed grave doubts about the reforms. The RSA suggested that there was too much emphasis on knowledge. The Roman Catholic Bishops called it 'utilitarian', a "National curriculum which effectively ignores beliefs and values" (p. 16). The NAS/UWT was against a prescriptive curriculum and national tests. The Association of Secondary Heads felt that the "prescriptive proposals will severely limit pupils' opportunities".

These are just some examples of the doubts which were expressed by professional bodies at the time. To what extent do they remain unallayed? Perhaps the most telling worry, which goes to the heart of the matter, is that expressed by one of the Local Education Authorities, Derbyshire, at a time when they still had a significant role to play. Their doubts, however, were not about their own position, nor about the details of the curriculum, but about the fundamental assumption on which the National Curriculum was and is based.

The general tone of the document is one of disbelief in the teaching profession, a disbelief that the teacher can be anything more than a conveyor of given information.

It presents a quality control system based on a model already rejected by industry; top-down with no trust displayed in the work force.

(p.39)

Who is to be master? One hundred years ago the centralised curriculum, with set targets...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• 1 Introduction: Can a Curriculum be National?
• 2 Conceptual Issues in a Centralised Curriculum
• 3 The Crumbling Shrine: the National Curriculum and the Proposals to Amend it
• 4 Secondary School Pupils' Experience of the National Curriculum
• 5 Pupil Perceptions of the National Curriculum 63
• 6 Secondary Subject Teaching and the Development of Pupil Values
• 7 Excluded or Empowered: The National Curriculum and Exclusions Robert Berkeley
• 8 Exploring the Policy Influence of England's National Curriculum on School Exclusion: A Dilemma of Intended Entitlement and Unintended Exclusion?
• 9 Horse Before the Cart: Developing an Evidence-Based Approach to Educational Policy
• 10 National Curriculum Subjects are Repositories of Values that are Under-Explored
• 11 ICT in the National Curriculum - Revised but not Resolved
• 12 Conclusion: Logic, Rationality and the Curriculum