Consultation to finish 16 April 2013
On 7 February 2013 the Secretary of State for Education announced a public consultation on the draft National Curriculum which will run until 16 April 2013.
A final version of the new National Curriculum will be available in autumn 2013 for first teaching in schools from September 2014.
Background information on the review, including details of previous publications, can be found in the Review of the National Curriculum section.
You can download the Draft National Curriculum programmes of study from the DfE website.
Please find the time to reply to the consultation.
Responses to the Draft Curriculum
Following the publication of the draft curriculum there has been a great deal of discussion (particularly of the POS for History), the following is a short selection (if you know of any important articles or blogs I’ve missed please let me know in the comments section below):
Revised 9 April, 2013
- Debra Kidd – Calling All Teachers
- Michael Tidd – National Curriculum Consultation Response Form
- Via Michael Tidd – PowerPoint showing the “What’s in and What’s out?” of the draft primary National Curriculum
- Tricia Kelleher – Gove’s Daily Mail column confirms he doesn’t understand how learning works
- 3D Eye – A collection of blogs on the curriculum review (scroll to the bottom of the page)
- Prof. R. Alexander & Board of Cambridge Primary Review Trust – National Curriculum Consultation response form
Revised 3 April, 2013 – Recent developments including some more considered opinion
- Warwick Mansell – Is the proposed new national curriculum too much too soon?
- Russell Hobby – The new curriculum will not work without backing from teachers
- Tom Middlehurst – Are we all singing from the same curriculum handbook?
- Matthew Jenkin – Climate change and the curriculum: teachers share their views
- David Green – Michael Gove’s planned national curriculum is designed to renew teaching as a vocation
- NUT National Curriculum survey: “This must not be the future for the children of England”
- Conservative Home – Heresy of the week: There should be more than one National Curriculum
- Pat Thomson – Just a letter from 100 academics – some thoughts on ‘impact’ and ‘public engagement’
- Martin Spafford – What knowledge? Whose knowledge?
- Dr Michael Riley (pub. 11th Feb, 2013) – The unthinking history curriculum
- Richard Preston – Idiotic academics (pt 2): facts yes, but we don’t want Dickens’s Dr Blimber and Mr Feeder teaching our children
- Richard Brown – ‘Pub quiz facts curriculum’
- John Giles – ICT – Programming: The ‘Human Factor’
Revised 28 March, 2013 – to include new articles and “The Blob” row:
- Various – 100 academics savage Education Secretary Michael Gove for ‘conveyor-belt curriculum’ for schools
- Michael Gove – I refuse to surrender to the Marxist teachers hell-bent on destroying our schools
- Terry Wrigley – “Academics savage Gove’s conveyor-belt curriculum” (The Independent)
- Michael Bassey & Terry Wrigley – Gove’s new National Curriculum demands too much, too young
- Laura McInerney – Marxists, Feminists & The Blob”: Rethinking Gove’s Outburst
- 3-DI – Reviewing the National Curriculum
- Luke Brunning – How can we have an Education Secretary so hostile to those who work in higher education
- Guardian Letters – We need cross-party curriculum talks
- LearningSpy – Redesigning the curriculum
- John Elledge – Not everyone who disagrees with Gove is a ‘wrecker’ or an ‘enemy of promise’
- Richard Evans – Michael Gove’s history curriculum is a pub quiz not an education
- Miles Berry – Draft Response to the National Curriculum Consultation
- History Works – History Curriculum: Gove, Newsprint, & BBC Debates
- Andywarner78 – Response to Michael Gove’s MailOnline Article
- Michael Tidd – The DfE vs the Experts
- Matthew Hunter – At Last: Gove goes for the culture of Excuses
- Peter Wilby – In Michael Gove’s world who needs teachers?
Dated: 11 March, 2013
- Dr Grant Bage – Six Questions for Mr Gove about the proposed history curriculum
- Miles Berry – My First Reaction to the New Curriculum
- Matthew Hunter – History Lessons for the 21st Century
- Oliver Wiseman – Is Hunter’s History Bunk?
- Tim Taylor – Some thoughts on the draft National Curriculum for History in Primary Schools
- Nicola Sheldon – Back to the past for the school history curriculum?
- Nicola Sheldon – This is a Ladybird curriculum. Is anyone ready to teach it?
- Robert Guyver – Should we thank Mr Gove for giving us more history?
- TES Comment – Primary curriculum is in a critical condition
- John Bolt – Moving the primary goalposts … again
- Key Stage History Blog – Strangle Gove’s monster at birth: why we need to respond quickly
- Ken Robinson – Robin Alexander’s Response to the National Curriculum proposals
- Michael Bassey – Free School from Government Control
- The History Association – Forum: Give us your views of the new draft curriculum
- Matthew Jenkins – Draft national curriculum: change for the better or a step back in time?
- Guardian discussion – Is the curriculum putting students off learning?
- Luke Abbott – Hawks and Doves? The new draft national curriculum
- Giles Fraser – The idea of history as progress is underpinned by a hidden theology
- Colin Richards – Heads need to wake up to the nightmare
- Janet Downs – Minister tries to reassure teachers that the Government isn’t being “doctrinaire” about phonics. She fails.
- Keith Turvey – Horse-burgers & the draft National Curriculum: Is there a connection?
- Simon Jenkins – History teaching? Karl Marx would agree with Michael Gove – and so do I
- Niall Ferguson – On the teaching of history, Michael Gove is right
- Seumas Milne – Michael Gove is not just a bungler, he’s a destructive ideologue
- Guardian – Michael Gove’s new curriculum: what the experts say
- Guardian Letters – History curriculum ‘experts’ need to consult primary sources
- Guardian Letters – History teachers learn to face the facts
- Cambridge Primary Review – National Curriculum Review – Are we nearly there yet?
- History Association – Curriculum Concerns
- Ian Dawson – National Curriculum Reform
- Michael Tidd – Horrible Histories: the Gradgrind Govians
- Daniel Boffey – Historians attack Michael Gove over ‘narrow’ curriculum
- Warwick Mansell – Education in brief: rewriting history
- Stephen Bates – Stick to Facts, Mr Gove
- Guardian Letters – Plan for history curriculum is too focused on Britain
(Not strictly on the draft, but apposite to the debate on how the new curriculum could affect pedagogy)
- Eduthink – A Pedagogy of Poverty
- Webby101 – Discriminating in favour of the more able
- Heymisssmith – Yadda Yadda. It’s Me Against the World
- Headguruteacher – From Plantation Thinking to Rainforest Thinking
- Janet Downs – Minister tries to reassure teachers that the Government isn’t being “doctrinaire” about phonics. She fails
- John Bolt – Moving the primary goalposts … again
Finally, Toby Young has also written a number of blogs on the subject, but because hasn’t added anything useful to the debate I can’t bring myself to show his links to the ones above. But if you’re really desperate you can find most of them here, all except the ones in the Daily Mail. There are limits.
