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Michael Gove creating 'neo Victorian'curriculum for primary schools, says professorwho led massive review into sector

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The man who headed the most comprehensive inquiry into primary

education for at least four decades has dismissed the Government's

new national curriculum as "neo Victorian" and "educationally

inappropriate" for the 21st century.

Robin Alexander argues core subjects of English and maths would befavoured at expense of arts and humanities

RICHARD GARNER EDUCATION EDITOR

Tuesday 24 September 2013

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Ads by GoogleProfessor Robin Alexander, of Cambridge

University, argued that the new primary

curriculum would mean a "two-tier

curriculum" favouring the core subjects of

English and maths at the expense of the

arts and humanities.

"Such stratification is both educationally

inappropriate and pedagogically counter-

productive," he argued in a lecture at the

British Academy to mark the setting up of

a new trust to promote the findings of his

inquiry.

"The two-tier curriculum undervalues not

just the true cultural and economic worth

of the non-core subjects but also the

evidence from research and inspection showing that learning in one

area enhances learning in others," he said.

"Without deflecting attention one jot from the absolute imperative of

literacy, the Cambridge Review (his inquiry team) argues for a

primary curriculum whose core includes essential knowledge, skills

and experience drawn from all subjects, not just three of them.

He took ministers to task over their claim that the job of primary

schools was to make their pupils "secondary ready".

"Of course children leaving primary school should be ready for what

follows but education also resides in the quality of the here and now.

Anyway, what follows year six (the final year of primary school) is

life, not just year seven," he said.

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"While primary schools must and do insist on the foundational

importance of literacy and numeracy, they should also lay those

other foundations - in science, the arts, the humanities, in physical,

emotional and moral development and in lived experience - that in

their way are no less important for young children's future learning,

choices and lives: foundations, we might suggest, that will make

children more truly 'secondary ready' than if they do the three Rs

and little else."

He was also critical of the dismissive attitude show by the

Government to critics of their plans, arguing "the bearer of evidence

which is questionable but ideologically compliant is hailed as the only

true expert while the bearer of evidence that is sounder but politically

unpalatable is pilloried".

"Thus, those who in March (in a letter to The Independent) proposed

an alternative national curriculum vision were denounced as

'enemies of promise' and 'Marxists hell-bent on destroying our

schools' and those who this month raised perfectly legitimate

questions about the kind of early years' experience that will help

children to thrive educationally were accused of 'bleating bogus pop-

psychology', dumbing down and lowering expectations.

"It's proper to ask whether heaping public abuse on those holding

different views is what government ministers in a democracy should

be doing."

Professor Alexander recalled that his original report - which

advocated a broader curriculum and less emphasis on tests and

league tables - recalled that the previous Labour government had

refused even to discuss most of the evidence with the inquiry team

and had misrepresented its findings to the media. At least with thePROMOTED STORIES

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and had misrepresented its findings to the media. At least with the

present government, he added, the criticisms were more "cultural".

However, he argued: "Policies have little meaning until they are

enacted by schools." Much of the review's time was spent help

schools to "domesticize" or even subvert government initiatives to

their own particular circumstances.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said: "It is utterly

unacceptable that so many children leave primary school without a

firm grounding in the basics of English, maths and science. That is

why our rigorous new primary curriculum focusses on these vital

subjects.

"Of course we expect primaries to teach beyond just English, maths

and science. That is why we are giving teachers more freedom than

ever before, allowing them to shape lessons to meet the needs of the

pupils they know best."

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