The national curriculum in England is up for review again, and a report has recently been issued by Professor Becky Francis, Chair of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, outlining recommendations for change.
The first question that comes to mind is do we need any change at all? The last raft of sweeping changes, over a decade ago now and implemented by the then Conservative government, were intended to deliver a curriculum whose core would functionally eternal. The idea was that if you got the core curriculum right, there would be no need for it to ever change; you could just tinker at the edges. Fast forward to the present day, and the world has changed hugely since 2014, socially, technologically, politically, and reflected in the needs of industry. Also looking back, there is much that has gone right with the curriculum and its impact; conversely, there is much that has gone less right, perhaps even wrong. So maybe change is a good thing.
I’m just going to pull out a few of the key recommendations for mathematics, and give my initial reactions.
Key recommendations for mathematics
We recommend that the Government:
Retains the amount and type of content in the Key Stage 1 to 3 curriculum, but re-sequences it so that topics are introduced in such a way that pupils can master them deeply, with opportunities for more complex problem-solving in each area, and reduce repetition in later years.
Sounds potentially good though would need to see the detail. I hope this doesn’t mean they’re recommending doing away with the spiral curriculum, where a certain amount of repetition leads to beneficial reinforcement and consolidation; first repeat, and by doing so strengthen procedural fluency and make new conceptual bonds; then extend, so that you feel you are moving forward each year
Ensures that Maths should be the subject in which pupils are exposed to mathematical concepts for the first time and the curriculum is sequenced as such. These concepts should then be applied in different contexts, where appropriate, in other subjects – for example, aspects of financial education in Citizenship.
This sounds good. Perhaps logistically challenging, but good to ensure that important topics like personal finance don’t just get siloed into the maths curriculum. This strengthens the importance of maths across the curriculum. Maybe there will be opportunities for departments to work together on materials.
Ensures that the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) works with DfE to refine the current non-statutory Maths test at Key Stage 1 to reflect any updates to the Maths curriculum. Alongside this, the DfE should consider ways in which it can encourage more schools to use it.
Maybe the efforts should be in encouraging other forms of assessment at KS1 rather than testing
Ensures that the STA works with the DfE to redesign Key Stage 2 assessments minimally to reflect a re-sequenced curriculum and include a stronger focus on mental arithmetic and reasoning.
Sounds good
Introduces a diagnostic test in Maths, to be taken in Year 8, with the aim of supporting teachers to identify and deal with any weakness before students progress to Key Stage 4.
More testing – does it have to be a standard test? This is just another barrier and potential for students to fail. I appreciate the need for assessing readiness to be able to answer the multi-step problems that you get at GCSE, and maybe other KS4 pathways, but perhaps this is where a short focused individualised program could be helpful, using adaptive technology.
Introduces new level 1 stepped qualifications for Maths and English Language at 16-19, to enable learners to make progress towards achieving level 2 in these GCSEs during 16-19 study.
Would need to see what these look like, however GCSE Maths has been made a lot harder in the last decade so it’s inevitable that many students are struggling. Perhaps the idea that functional maths is in some way a stepping stone to GCSE will be reality-checked. Making maths relevant to real life contexts is just as hard if not harder than the more abstract GCSE topics, and often just provides students with a separate cul-de-sac to failure.
Other thoughts
The recommendations don’t say anything about making maths more enjoyable. What about the idea of a separate maths qualification focusing on the more interesting aspects of the subject. There are lots of people that may struggle with the procedural aspects and the reasoning/ problem-solving elements, but would love the ideas of say topology or set theory, or fractals; or even the history of maths, with the lives of mathematicians in the cultures that they lived in.
These topics could link to the core curriculum, but together would form a separate subject, maybe more essay or enquiry-based, and similar to how English has Language and Literature. I suspect it would be popular.