From the DCSF
New Primary Curriculum
Key Messages
By Ian Lenham
National Strategies
The curriculum lies at the heart of our policies to raise standards and help every school to improve all of the time. Our curriculum should help children become the very best they can be. We live in a changing world, and our curriculum has to evolve to prepare our children for the opportunities and challenges of life in the 21st century.
The independent review of the primary curriculum, the first in ten years, was led by Sir Jim Rose. During the review, he listened to thousands of teachers, children and parents and met with education specialists. He looked at what is already happening in good schools to bring learning to life. And he looked at what other successful countries are doing with their national curricula.
We want teachers to understand that the new primary national curriculum promotes:
- High standards and good progress for all learners, with no child left behind
- A strengthened focus on securing essential literacy and numeracy skills with opportunities to develop, use and apply these skills embedded throughout the new curriculum
- Increased expectations of children’s ICT capability and the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning.
- A continued entitlement to a broad, balanced and coherent curriculum through the creation of broad areas of learning, which will be underpinned by the new ‘pupil guarantee’
- Recognition that children need a well-rounded school experience to succeed, and that personal development is essential to wellbeing and achievement
- Better transition from the early years through to primary and through to secondary education
It will also:
- Provide schools with a powerful tool to tackle continuous school improvement through self assessment, renewal, development and review of the effectiveness of their curriculum
- Reduce prescription and encourage teachers to use their professional judgement and expertise to design the curriculum
- Allow schools to increase flexibility to tailor learning to their local circumstances and the needs of all children in their care
- Encourage a focus on deeper learning through a range of curriculum opportunities and cross-curricula studies
- Aid planning for progression through the three curriculum phases and help reduce the dip in performance in the middle years of primary
- Promote inclusion, diversity and community cohesion
- Recognise the opportunities that play-based learning offers for approaches into Key Stage 1 and encourage active learning in the whole primary phase
- Promote the curriculum as dynamic and always evolving
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