An Introduction to the New National Curriculum

Helmingham Primary School

Sally Wilkinson

Standards and Excellence Officer

Core questions

• How is it laid out?• How has it changed?• What is the underlying thinking behind the

curriculum?• What are the expectations of learners?• What are the expectations of schools?

• Planning for an outstanding curriculum.

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• The National Curriculum was introduced in the 1988 Education Reform Act.

• Refined with the introduction of Curriculum 2000 and the Education Act 2002

• Opportunity to trial new curriculum during 2013-14

• New National Curriculum September 2014

The Curriculum

Importance of Teaching White Paper 2010

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The National Curriculum should set out only the essential knowledge and understanding that all children should acquire and leave teachers to decide how to teach this most effectively. 4.2 The National Curriculum was never meant to be the whole school curriculum…It was explicitly meant to be limited in scope yet in practice has come to dominate. …a new approach to the curriculum, which affirms the importance of teaching and creates scope for teachers to inspire…to be a benchmark not a straitjacket, a body of knowledge against which achievement can be measured.

The Curriculum

The New National Curriculum:• Outlines the knowledge pupils are expected to

know • Provides a skeletonThe school’s own Curriculum:• Should flesh out the content of the NC in more

detail• Be posted on the school’s website annually

Mick Waters...on curriculum

The school curriculum comprises the elements that young people need:

• to nurture them as individuals and meet the hopes we have for them

• and help them to appreciate their community

• so that they learn about their county, country, the world and the universe

• and it includes the national curriculum.Mick Waters 2013

What is the curriculum?

Layout of contentfor Foundation Subjects

• Statutory Requirements

• Notes and Guidance (Non-Statutory)

• Aims

• Attainment targets– Organised by year group or key stage

• Non-statutory content/examples

LearningLearning

KnowledgeKnowledge SkillsSkills UnderstandingUnderstanding

Understanding

Students who learn content with understanding not only learn the content itself but appreciate the reasons for learning it and retain it in a form that makes it usable when needed.

(Brophy, 2004)

New Reception Baseline 2016

• To be done within the first few weeks of school• A list of assessments which meet the criteria will

be published. These may be used voluntarily from September 2015 and should be in place for pupils starting September 2016

• The Early Years Foundation Stage continues to be statutory but the reporting of the EYFS Profile will no longer be compulsory from Sept 2016

End of Key Stage 1 2016

• Moderated teacher assessment informed by test scores

• New tests in maths, reading and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GaPS) (scaled scores with 100 as the expected standard)

• New GaPS test will inform the writing T.A.• Teacher assessments to be expressed by one of

several ‘performance descriptors’ which is the best fit to the child

• (Yr 1 phonics is unchanged)

End of Key Stage 2 2016

• Externally marked tests in maths, reading and GaPS• Teacher Assessment will continue, and new

‘Performance Descriptors’ will be used for this.• In writing there will be several performance

descriptors to assess against• In science, reading and maths there will be a single

‘expected’ performance descriptor for teacher assessment

• Test results will be as a scaled score, with 100 being the expected level.

End of Key Stage 2 from 2016 to 2022

• Progress will be a ‘value added’ measure based on KS 1 to KS 2 in all three of reading, writing and maths

• Attainment will be the proportion attaining a scaled score of 100 or above. The floor standard will be 85%

What you think a school should be like depends on the values you hold. What a school is like depends on its values. A school’s values are reflected in the curriculum it offers.

Barnes (2007)