Curriculum and assessment: time for change

Lindsey Taylor, OCR Policy Researcher

As the Department for Education (DfE) review into curriculum and assessment begins, I take a look at how our report on 11-16 curriculum and assessment, Striking the Balance, points to some of the solutions.

Review underway

The Department for Education’s (DfE) review into curriculum and assessment in England is now well underway. At its launch in July, the Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson promised that the review will: 

“Suggest ways to refresh the curriculum and assessment system including qualification pathways, to ensure it is cutting edge, fit for purpose and meets the needs of children and young people to support their future life and work”.  

This is a big ask for the review panel, but most in the education sector agree that the opportunity to refresh can’t come soon enough.

Call for evidence

The first action for the panel was to issue a call for evidence. This request for views from stakeholders to share their perspectives on potential improvements to the curriculum and assessment system set out over 40 questions covering an enormous range of themes. Amongst many others, topics include:

• identifying barriers for learners experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage or SEND 
• supporting learners who do not achieve Level 2 in English and maths by age 16 
• the benefits of vocational or applied qualifications
• the extent to which the accountability system influences curriculum and assessment decisions
• the use of technology to improve how we deliver the curriculum, assessment and qualifications.  

The last time a government asked for feedback on the curriculum following the 2010 Schools White Paper, over 6000 responses were received. Covering Key Stages 1 to 4 as well as 16-19 education this time, the current review panel will amass an enormous wealth of information from respondents to the call for evidence.

Evolution not revolution

Our own review and report into 11-16 curriculum and assessment, Striking the Balance, published in September, provides substantial evidence to the DfE’s review. The DfE’s no ‘big bang’ approach favouring “evolution not revolution”, is certainly an approach that runs through our report. An intense period of simultaneous reform is not something the education sector would welcome as we all seek to steady our ships following the pandemic, and importantly re-establish security and certainty for our young people. Changes can and should be made in an incremental way focussing on priority areas and avoiding the cumulative impact of too much concurrent change.

The good stuff

Responses to many of the questions posed in the call for evidence can be found in Striking the Balance, which offers an evidence and research-based approach. Our report highlights that there is much to commend in the current curriculum; it has admirable depth and is knowledge-rich. Our exam system is internationally recognised for its highly trusted qualifications which provide an authentic measure of a student’s performance. Indeed, “maintaining the important role of examinations” has been inherent in the DfE review’s aims from the start.

Need for improvement

But our report does not shy away from the widespread view that the curriculum, as experienced by most young people, is too narrow. The curriculum in England hasn’t been updated for years and there are few mechanisms for oversight of the whole system or that allow for change. Some of the impacts of a lack of ongoing review of the curriculum include the narrowing of subject choices and the decline in uptake of some subjects. 

And the issue of curriculum overload has become a key problem. Everyone will have their own priorities around what they want to see in the curriculum and, no doubt, these will be detailed in full across the thousands of responses to the call for evidence. But as Professor Becky Francis, Chair of the DfE’s review said at a Westminster Education Forum: “If we’re putting things in, we also need to find things to take out”. The creation of a curriculum body, independent of government, with the responsibility for overseeing an evolution of content, could help to address many of the concerns about what should or should not be in the curriculum.  

A new curriculum body is just one of the recommendations in our Striking the Balance report which sets out clear recommendations for making improvements to the curriculum and assessment. Reducing the length and number of assessments used at GCSE, reducing the amount of content in GCSEs, scheduling some exams early or making limited use of modular exams or Non-Exam Assessment, could all help to make incremental improvements to what is taught and learnt in schools, and what is assessed.

A chance to engage

Whatever the outcomes of the review, the DfE call for evidence allows all of us to have our say on the future of curriculum and assessment. It provides the rare opportunity to inform government choices and hopefully to shape policies. Not only did Striking the Balance gain widespread support for its recommendations and importantly, encourage debate about some of the key challenges facing curriculum and assessment, but it gave the DfE much to consider as part of its review.

The deadline for responses to the DfE call for evidence is 22 November 2024. An interim report from the DfE Curriculum and Assessment Review is expected early in the new year with full recommendations published in autumn 2025.

Further reading: Striking the Balance

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About the author

Lindsey has been with OCR since its inception in 1998 having worked for RSA in the early 1990s. Lindsey’s role covers policy research, policy comms and stakeholder engagement with a current focus on the Labour Government’s emerging education policies.