HISTORY NATIONAL CURRICULUM 2008

History National Curriculum 2008



History National Curriculum 2008

Introduction

A national curriculum sets out the body of knowledge, skills and understanding that a society wishes to pass on to its children and young people. Most countries have some form of national curriculum. In countries where the curriculum is set at regional level these frameworks are often informed by shared guidelines. Countries typically structure their national curriculum around aims and values, subject content and skills, but do so in varying levels of detail(Curzon 2005). In comparison to many countries' frameworks, England's National Curriculum remains relatively prescriptive. Unlike in some other countries, England's National Curriculum only applies to maintained schools and not to independent schools, nor to children who are educated at home. National or state education Ministries typically have oversight of their respective national curriculum. In England the Department is responsible for the strategic management of the National Curriculum. Development and support of the National Curriculum largely rests with the Non-Departmental Public Body, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).  The National Curriculum was introduced into primary schools in 1989, and implementation across the primary and secondary phases continued into the mid-1990s. The first run of Key Stage testing was completed in 1991.

Discussion

In 1993 responsibility for school inspections was transferred from Her Majesty's Inspectors and local authority inspection teams to independent inspection teams, the work of which would be co-ordinated by a new Non-Ministerial Department of State, the then Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) (Cornbleth 2009). 

The National Curriculum has subsequently been reviewed and reformed on several occasions. The first review, in 1993, was a response to teachers' complaints that the National Curriculum and its testing arrangements were simply too unwieldy and, indeed, to proposed teacher boycotts of the Key Stage tests. Under John Patten as Secretary of State, the Department of Education invited Sir Ron Dearing to conduct the review, and a revised version of the National Curriculum was introduced in 1995. The key changes included a reduction in the amount of prescribed content, the restriction of Key Stage testing to the core subjects and the replacement of a 10-level assessment scale for each subject with 8-level descriptors. In 1993 the National Curriculum Council and the School Examination and Assessment Council were merged to form the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. In 2007 the Children's Plan announced a 'root and branch' review of the primary curriculum, with changes to be implemented from September 2011(Bobbitt 2008).

The Review, led by Sir Jim Rose, commenced in 2008. In line with the reform of the secondary curriculum, the Review has been tasked with, among other things, reducing prescription and addressing to a greater degree than before the development of pupils' life skills. The Review team published its interim report in December 2008. It is due to publish its final report and recommendations in Spring 2009. The Department's ongoing reforms to 14-19 provision will have a bearing on the National Curriculum. In particular, the Diploma represents an attempt to reform the curriculum and qualifications in tandem(Barrow 2008).  

The Primary National Strategy has contributed to improvements in primary history teaching and learning but weaknesses persist. The Strategy's resources and professional development programmes for teachers have led to more consistency in primary ...