Discuss about the English Literature for Primary Schools of Britain.
The concerned assignment aims to establish a critical review regarding the aspect of curriculum in England in the present scenario. More specifically, the discourse will concentrate chiefly on the National curriculum of the primary schools of Britain and its prime features. To construct a coherent understanding regarding the existing curriculum activities of the primary schools in Britain, the assignment has considered making a brief evaluation of different perspectives regarding National curriculum. Additionally, the concerned review will analyze England’s historical and political background regarding National curriculum. However, in terms of reviewing the act of national curriculum for primary school, attributes regarding assessment, curriculum structure and contents are going to be considered with high priority.
The term curriculum has numerous perspectives though fundamentally the term is indicative of a program for study that is offered by educational centers following their individual prospects. In this respect, it is to say that the word “curriculum” has formulated from the Latin word “Currere” that means, “to run”. In other words, curriculum is the word that refers the particular racecourse of experiences, which helps children to development from the stage of being immature to adult (Harrison and Pittard 2015.). On the other hand, curriculum is perceived as the overall study to which learners are exposed through school activities. Nevertheless, as per the contents, curriculum involves planned activities for the student, a program of intended outcomes of learning and cultural preservation.
As per the perspective of Michael Apple, curriculum could not be perceived only as a accumulation of knowledge that could be gained through text and classroom learning. It is more of a distinct segment of the selective tradition that generates an individual’s or a group’s vision regarding legitimate knowledge (Lewis 2014). On the other hand, in the words of Hendricks and Wangerin (2016), curriculum performs as a fruitful attempt to share necessary principles of educational proposal. Additionally, curriculum is the open form of critical scrutiny and an effective interpretation of practice. However, in this respect, it has to be noted that curriculum is various times conceptualized as a particular syndrome that set aims and plan implementation strategy for measuring results. However, in this case it has to be kept in mind that this particular concept is only possible for the closed systems. On the contrary, according to the postmodern perspective, curriculum is open, flexible and gives importance on local context (Zipin 2013). Based on this perspective of curriculum, everyone’s view is given the same value. Therefore, the concept that says that curriculum is an aspect that helps to expose learners through school studies should be regarded with utmost priority.
Nevertheless, there is another concept regarding curriculum that states that curriculum is an amalgamation of certain knowledge and a convenient organization of social program in school. Furthermore, this particular concept implicates that curriculum is a phenomenon that socially, dynamically and politically constructed. According to this concept, curriculum highlights those messages about knowledge, which are valued by the influencing social groups. However, according to Bartlett and Burton (2016), instead of the postmodern perspective of curriculum, there are three others, which are technical, practical, critical and postmodern. According to the technical perspective of curriculum, it is an effective tool for accomplishing unquestioned goals. On the contrary, the practical perspective indicates that curriculum is an experiment that gives focuses on educational values. Probably, the critical perspective is the most crucial of all that says that curriculum is related with political framework and therefore it a curriculum should be politically fair (Reiss and White 2013).
It can be said after considering each of the concepts regarding curriculum, that Curriculum is a phenomenon that holds both knowledge and social life within the framework of individual school culture. This conceptual approach is found to be most relevant as it refers curriculum as a space for acquiring knowledge and having the opportunity for social interaction. On the other side, the post-modern perspective of curriculum is probably the most approachable and relevant in the current world as the postmodern perspective of curriculum gives significance on the local context and redesigns the power relations according to that norm.
The historical or chronological background of National Curriculum in England can be traced back to 1960s when the entire concept of curriculum has been introduced as a mixed ability of teaching. In that era, in terms of progressive education, some schools of England implemented the child-oriented methods and used curriculum as a subjected integrated tool. However, in the year 1965 secondary schools gain comprehensivisation in terms of curriculum and some of the comprehensive schools were found to retain the subject-based or subject-oriented curriculum (Cooper 2014). It has been this particular era that comprehensive schools innovated the Mode III of CSE. However, the most interesting occurrence regarding this aspect taken part in the 1960, when the former minister of Education, David Eccles made the official suggestion that government should take influential part in the space of curriculum.
However, the unfortunate fact about the historical and political influence upon National Curriculum of England survived the economic recession of 1970s due to which several questions raised regarding the failure cases of several youngsters and the money spent on education. It is required to be said in this sense that the National curriculum of England undergone an eventual critical treatment from the contemporary political background in a chronological manner. On the other hand, it has been unfortunate that in the time of recession of year 1970, the politicians completely blamed the teachers for every failure case of education, as they believed that teachers were having unnecessary curriculum supremacy and freedom (Barber and Graham 2013). Nevertheless, Britain’s National Curriculum experienced a huge change, which has been brought up by the Great Debate of 1976. More elaborately, the former labor minister James Callaghan at the Ruskin college of Oxford strongly raised his voice for establishing potential link between industrial aspects and education, which is named as the Great Debate of 1976 (Kelly 2009). Alongside, his debate continued to argue for the teachers’ responsibility and enhanced rate of efficiency that took place in the educational spending.
On the other hand, probably the most unfortunate year for National Curriculum of Britain has been year 1979 when the entire country suffered with a relatively conservative government, which shifted the perspective of parliament from social democracy to the free politics of market. Moreover, the new nature of government started to acknowledge education as the pivotal source of socio-economic problems. Thereafter, the education policy of new right took place whose premises regarding National Curriculum found dependant on measurement of individual achievement of the learners, competition among the schools based on tests and privatization (Goodson 2013). On the other hand, the new education policy considered the parental choice of national curriculum and the shift of education responsibility from government to schools. Most importantly, this has been the initial time from when the government started to measure schools’ curriculum performances through frequent inspections and league tables.
Possibly the most eye-catching incident regarding the National Curriculum of England had been the Education Reform Act, which has taken place in the year 1988. The act modified the entire National Curriculum and introduced a convenient as well as maintainable format for educational and social development for the young inhabitants. According to the new act, National Curriculum became objectives-led and subject based (Echlin et al. 2014). The act regulated compulsory enrollment of all children belonging to 5-16 age group into the state schools and the act implemented the KS (key stages). The facilities of mandatory testing after each KS and the compulsory publication of the test results came through the implantation of this distinct act.
Prior to review the National Curriculum for Primary school in Britain, it is essential to understand that the prime aim of the curriculum in regards to Primary school is to provide a balanced education to children between the ages of 5-16. Therefore, it can be said that the National Curriculum for Primary school has designed their aim by appropriately following the Education Reform Act 1988. However, the review of this curriculum has considered assessment, structure of the curriculum and contents of the aspect as three chief traits of the curriculum prospect of primary schools.
It has been remarked before that the National Curriculum for primary schools have designed each of their aspects according to the principles of the Education Reform Act of 1988 in Britain. Following the principle that says that test after each KS is essential; the curriculum has implemented the SATS (Standard Assessment Test). On the other hand, in form of assessment, children are obliged to give national tests at the age of 7 for KS1 and at the age of 11 for KS2. In KS1, learners’ skills regarding reading, speaking, writing, mathematics, science listening skills are assessed, whereas in KS2 three main subjects – English, Mathematics and Science (Priestley and Biesta 2013). Hence, it is understandable that the national curriculum for primary education in Britain is found to follow the way of measuring whether their growth per KS is reaching the expectation level or not. It has been found that the testing process of the primary curriculum for primary education fundamentally aims for objectives, which are –
In this regard it is to be noted that possibly the most impressing attribute of this curriculum’s assessment feature is that at the very initial stage, phonics or vocal test is taken for the children between the age bars of 5-7 (Goodson 2013). However, it has to be noted that the assessment framework should have been more creative as the assessment procedure only concentrates on three staple subjects. Therefore, there stays an uncertainty about whether in the secondary level the pupils could adapt with several new subjects or not.
The rudimentary structure of the primary curriculum is found to have four key stages, which are –
In this respect, it is to mention that the UK government in the year 2010 introduced the performance measure structure for primary curriculum – Ebacc (English Baccalaurate) for better achievements regarding the existing primary curriculum (Cole and Hill 2013). The framework includes subjects such as Language, History and Geography instead of Mathematics, English and Science. Therefore, it could be said that with the introduction of EBacc, the government has finally able to break down the traditional limitation of subjects, which will help the pupils to understand wider field of theories regarding social science, language and geographical aspects in the secondary level (Priestley and Biesta 2013).
Content of national curriculum of Britain’s primary school is another major facet that requires to be reviewed as per the fact that the content wise the curriculum includes creative class room practices and a wide list of subjects. With the help of ICT and TAs (Teaching assistant) most of the primary schools accomplishes the primary purpose of this curriculum (Bourne 2013). The subjects are the pillars of knowledge and along with the upper mentioned three fundamental subjects; the content includes foundation subjects like –
It is needless to say that the extension of the subjects could not have been possible without the implementation of EBacc (Long 2016). However, the rudimentary classification between the core subjects and newly included foundation subjects implicates a hierarchical structure of knowledge.
The reason to critically analyze three of these features of the considered curriculum as the entire purpose of the curriculum fundamentally depends on these three premises. Without a proper structure, appropriate yet relevant contents and without a convenient testing procedure, the whole approach of national curriculum for primary level could not have been successful.
Conclusion
The review has highlighted some vital facets which depicts a transparent condition of the existing national curriculum for the primary level of UK. It could be deduced from the review that curriculum for the primary schools have undergone a good amount of change and currently with the help of EBacc framework is running with potency. Moreover, the determinants of the concerned curriculum’s success are found to be its content, assessment procedures and rudimentary framework. Most importantly, it is a fact worth acknowledgeable that the entire framework and its policies have been found to follow the Education Reform Act.
References
Barber, M. and Graham, D. eds., 2013. Sense and Nonsense and the National Curriculum (RLE Edu B) (Vol. 12). Routledge.
Bartlett, S. and Burton, D., 2016. Introduction to education studies. Sage.
Bourne, J. ed., 2013. Thinking through primary practice. Routledge.
Cole, M. and Hill, D., 2013. Schooling and Equality: fact, concept and policy. Routledge.
Cooper, H., 2014. The teaching of history in primary schools: Implementing the revised national curriculum. Routledge.
Echlin, P.S., Johnson, A.M., Holmes, J.D., Tichenoff, A., Gray, S., Gatavackas, H., Walsh, J., Middlebro, T., Blignaut, A., MacIntyre, M. and Anderson, C., 2014. The Sport Concussion Education Project. A brief report on an educational initiative: from concept to curriculum Special article. Journal of neurosurgery, 121(6), p.1331.
Goodson, I.F., 2013. School subjects and curriculum change. Routledge.
Harrison, C.V. and Pittard, S.K., 2015. Teaching-Learning Strategies in a Concept-Based Curriculum [Innovation Center]. Nursing Education Perspectives.
Hendricks, S.M. and Wangerin, V., 2016. Concept-Based Curriculum: Changing Attitudes and Overcoming Barriers. Nurse Educator.
Kelly, A.V., 2009. The curriculum: Theory and practice. Sage.
Lewis, L.S., 2014. Outcomes of a concept-based curriculum. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 9(2), pp.75-79.
Long, R. and Boulton, P., 2016. Language teaching in schools (England).
Long, R., 2016. Religious Education in schools (England).
Priestley, M. and Biesta, G. eds., 2013. Reinventing the curriculum: New trends in curriculum policy and practice. A&C Black.
Reiss, M. and White, J., 2013. An aims-based curriculum: The significance of human flourishing for schools. IOE Press.
Zipin, L., 2013. Engaging middle years learners by making their communities curricular: A funds of knowledge approach. Curriculum Perspectives, 33(3), pp.1-12.
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