The national curriculum is set to be made more ‘diverse’ under Labour plans – oh, and every school will have to teach it. The Telegraph has more.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, has begun a review to “refresh” what is taught in schools, pledging to “breathe new life into our outdated curriculum”.
The new curriculum will be compulsory in all state schools, including academies that were previously free to opt out.
The Telegraph can reveal that the Department for Education’s terms of reference for the overhaul explicitly say that the department (DfE) aims to create a curriculum that reflects the “diversities of our society” and help produce young people who “appreciate the diversity” of Britain.
This newspaper has also seen suggestions for changes to the curriculum that have been submitted to the review by unions and other teaching groups, including for how to “decolonise” subjects which have been branded too “mono-cultural”.
The moves were criticised by the Conservatives on Sunday night. Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said: “Instead of spending time fiddling with our academic curriculum, which has led to English children being the best at maths and English in the Western world, the DfE needs to concentrate on getting absence rates down and kids back in the classroom.”
Sir John Hayes, the former Conservative education minister, said the changes would “undermine the education of young people” for ideological reasons.
He added: “The truth of the matter is there’s a canon of English literature, there’s a factual basis to learning, and you can’t twist the facts to suit your political agenda.
“When you do you risk undermining the education of young people and leaving them ill-equipped for life beyond schooling.”
Sir John, who trained as a history teacher, warned that the move would add to the “distortion of history” for political reasons, adding: “The pretence that some things count and others don’t – that’s just not intellectually rigorous.”
The review, announced in July, is being led by Prof Becky Francis, a feminist professor who started a call for evidence in November urging teaching experts to offer proposals on achieving the aims of the curriculum overhaul.
Prof Francis, who criticised the Tony Blair government for “an obsession with academic achievement”, and the committee leading the review are now considering proposals suggested by teaching unions, school groups, think tanks and Royal Societies.
After a review of the evidence, an interim report is expected to be published in early 2025. A full set of recommendations to curriculum changes will be released later in the year.
Among the proposals submitted by major unions and educational institutions are suggestions of the introduction of more diverse material, particularly in “majority white” classrooms, and a move away from English literature which is seen as “traditional”.
The teachers’ union NASUWT, which has about 280,000 members across the UK, told the review that it must “embed anti-racist and decolonised approaches” in the curriculum and advised “inclusive curricula that reflect diverse authors, cultures and perspectives”.
The Association of School and College Leaders warned that “history and English curricula are seen as largely mono-cultural”, and welcomed plans to “diversify the curriculum”.
The group, which represents more than 25,000 senior secondary school teachers, warned that “in particular, ethnicity and sexual orientation are under-represented in the national curriculum”.
The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) told the review that the planned curriculum must reflect “the diversity of our society”, adding that members saw the benefit of using diverse reading material for “subverting racial biases” especially when “teaching to a majority white classroom”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Bridget Phillipson has been accused of “gaslighting” middle-class parents after claiming that they support Labour’s private school tax raid. The Telegraph has more.
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