Massive changes to curriculum, is it too late to change this?

[nycortaki]

This is not just about stonehenge, it is massive changes to maths, science, history, literature - phrases such as moving of goal posts and rewriting history do not come close!

The other thing which jumped out at me which at first glance is NOT relevant to diversity and inclusiveness is that around 40 percent of 16 year olds do not reach the required level of level 3 in the core subjects of maths and english, and 15 percent of those 16 year olds do not reach the required level for level 2 (ie 16 year olds not meeting the level set for 11 year olds). If you look at the report in relation to level 2, it says that around 60 percent of 11 year olds achieve the required level - and so broadly the same percentage failing at level 2 at 11 years as are failing at level 3 at 16 years. So they are not being helped to catch up.

Of course they aren’t that’s how the grade boundaries are set at GCSE. It’s a feature of the system not a bug. That’s not to say an individual or a school can’t catch up their children, but at a national level roughly 40% are always going to fail to meet the standard because that’s where the grade boundary for a 4 is set.
If you want a criterion referenced pass/fail we’d need a whole different gcse assessment system and the likes of Hartley-Brewer would lose their shit.

Yet another poster who doesn't know what gaslighting is.

Ah That's interesting, I didn't know that.

Yes you're right KS3 is very English not British in its focus. I grew up in a different country and the differences are very striking - eg rather than the Reformation being very "Henry and the break with Rome", we did the European Renaissance and Reformation as a whole. So by the time we got to the English reformation we'd covered lots of France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland which definitely aided understanding.

It was a very Eurocentric view of history, and obviously couldn't cover the full sweep in the way that the KS2 curriculum does in what feels like a much more episodic approach. So pluses and minuses I guess.

Ok first of all I’m not watching a random YouTube Video. Explain clearly what your worries are and people may address them. You talk about peer reviewed a lot but YouTube is not peer reviewed. I could make one right now about anything I wanted. What book don’t you agree with and why!

@nycortaki I think you need to look up the meaning of 'tongue in cheek', 'rudeness' and 'gaslighting'.

I don't identify as woke or extreme liberal but I still require proper evidence rather than a youtube video before I get concerned about something. Have you actually fact-checked any of this?

You need to explain what "damage" will be done. The YouTube clip was simply garbage.

LATER
I have now read your explanation in your subsequent post. I disagree entirely. I cannot see any so-called "damage" as a result of these changes. I suggest you stop watching third-rate "news programmes" (using those words in the loosest sense).

No, you are wrong there - have a read of the report. Some references are early on and some towards the end so you will need to read the whole thing.

I don't have time to go through every point raised by the group of posters who dominate threads. That is why you dominate threads, so that people don't have time to respond to any (or a lot of) wrong thinking.

In summary I don't agree with any of the posters' analysis or conclusions, the facts are reasonable but I don't think that the poster has taken them to logical conclusions, but what really put me off were the last four lines where you find the gaslighting and rudeness.

It didn't gaslight me. It was generally gaslighting as it misportrayed what had been said by various sources, and the last four lines were rudeness and gaslighting which is really off-putting to arguments, and I would argue are used intentionally to try to shut discussion down.

This is an interesting point. I have found that children who have been given good levels of resources such as the DK books/encycs not just about history but also about timelines, engineering and science all of which contact references to history, do in fact gain a really good level of knowledge within a short period, which is pretty comprehensive. And you mention "highlights", by which you mean, I think, key events, but even this level has not been achieved in curriculums, and this is explained together with their recommendations in the think tank report. But going back to children who have had really good resources to read, I think that this is the sort of intention the think tank report was aiming for when it talked about the chrono history. If that makes sense.

Personally I think what would work best is that up to GCSE broad information to be provided and looked at, with some specialising at A level and more specialising at degree level. This would mean that children at 16 would have a broad base knowledge of history with an idea of what happened when, which would enable them to either go on to study history at A level and/or beyond, or to pick up on interest points in spare time if they are studying other subjects.

This also applies to teaching maths and english, and other subjects - having a broad base knowledge of key information at 16 would be of great benefit.

What do you think?

I don't necessarily agree with everything in the video, but they raise a number of important points - and since then as you say I have referred to other sources, and made summary references to the issues. The only reason the video and the think tank report are being slated rather than discussed is because the posters here want to discredit anything which casts a light on the changes.

What changes? There haven’t been any as far as I can tell.

I am not saying you are wrong for certain (I found your reasoning quite funny, but not in a rude way - you are saying that grade 4 is a moving feast which fails 40 percent? i guess anything is possible in today's mad world!) But in all seriousness I think you are wrong, or at least my assumption is that the level is not a moving feast and it is possible even if unlikely that 100 percent of children could get a grade 4 and above.

By the way, if I misunderstood what you said, could you explain what you meant by "roughly 40% are always going to fail to meet the standard"? If you think that 40 percent of any population, whatever teaching is given, will fail to meet the standard you are wrong.

If you are interested in this topic, have a look at Montessor's first school for children who were failing/being failed and her successes. It is really interesting.

No, you are completely wrong about this. You need to read up about the processes around grade boundaries and how they are set - there is historical data around what the grade boundaries are for each subject going back many years. They change every single year. This is a fact. If you think that this is wrong, you clearly know very little about UK education, so I suggest you do a bit of reading and then come back.

It's not just grade 4 which is affected, it is every. Single. Grade.

Have you looked at the grade boundaries for GCSEs?
Have you looked at GCSE results across the country?
There are always a good chunk of people (not always as much as 40%) who can't/won't pass because the grade boundary moves each year to ensure this.

What evidence do you have that it would be possible for everyone to pass?

"because the grade boundary moves each year to ensure this"
so you are saying that it is indeed a moving feast and this is done so that a certain percentage will not pass GCSE? could you link your evidence for this? thank you

I prefaced my comments with the words "my assumption is" - if there was evidence it would no longer be my assumption.

Well I have just googled and it looks as though you are incorrect - the other posters, who you agreed with, have said that the boundaries change so that a certain percentage of students will not achieve the required level, and I said that was unlikely and it seems the government agrees with me - from gov uk:

The difficulty of exam questions varies year to year, even though exam boards try to keep the level of demand consistent. [...] This is why new grade boundaries are set each year – to reflect the difficulty of that particular paper, and to ensure that it is no easier or harder to get a grade in any given year.
[...]
The quality of a student’s work in their exams determines the grade they get and no-one is advantaged or disadvantaged by the year in which they happen to sit the exam. There are no quotas for the number of students who must pass or fail a subject each year, and no cap on the number of students that can get each grade.

I referred to posters from a certain group asserting information which then turned out to be incorrect and this is an example. No idea if you are part of that group, but guessing you aren't a teacher or involved in education.

you are completely incorrect if you think that grade boundaries are set so that a certain percentage of students will not get a grade 4.

Nice strawman. I didn't say that. I said they move each year, which your extract has just confirmed.

Statistically I suppose it is possible that everyone would get a 4 or higher one year for a given subject - but the possibility is vanishingly small.

Actually, I had responded to posters who said that boundaries were changed so that a certain percentage failed - you said I was incorrect and you were implicitly therefore agreeing with the other posters. Who were wrong.

By the way - I took out the reference to gaslighting in my previous post but you did it again with "nice strawman". Both your posts were gaslighting.

Does anyone have any firm details of what proposals are being made to change the curriculum by Becky Francis and others? As I said in my post above, the proposals referred to in the interim report are not detailed or specific, mainly just wishywashy intentions.

Well, it is an interim report. Maybe wait until the actual proposals come out?

And have you now moved away from the alarm over how 'woke' it is all going to be (because GBeebies said so)? Because it's a bit pointless getting into a flap over something that isn't a firm proposal yet.

That’s what everyone was asking you on page one. A lot of the pushback you’re getting here is because you seem sure that “the changes” are an outrage, and must be stopped - but you haven’t been able to explain what the changes actually are. You refer us to the clickbait-y video but you’ve watched the video and you still are asking what the changes actually are.

There’s lots to debate in what’s the best way to teach history in schools, what should be included. Harder to decide what should be left out! Especially as schools only have up till Y9 to cover everything that everyone should be taught, as it’s optional from then onwards.

I agree that the report (one of the documents linked, I read a couple) highlights some poorer quality materials put together by individual teachers. I am wholly supportive of the efforts to reflect black history, Asian history, women’s history, alongside the more British males in charge centric view. Like any other materials that are put together in haste, there’s bound to be some poorer quality worksheets etc. But don’t forget that the reports, as you also noted, said that mostly, history teaching and the state of the curriculum was great and should be commended. If curriculum focus shifts, as it likely will and should through time as we keep thinking about what we should learn about, then better materials and resources will be produced to go alongside them.

I’ve had children going through school history curriculum recently - one just in first year of a levels. He was lucky that the sixth form college ran two different a level history courses so he could pick the combo he was most interested in. (And they did ancient history on top of these 2 options). What I like is that both at a level and gcse, they spend time on a range of topics both in the “broader overview” space looking at eg 150-200 years of change, and other time more in detail looking at a more focussed area over eg a 40 year interval. This means they are balancing different approaches to learning - more detailed sources, more careful examination of nuance, vs a bigger picture approach. It’s just not possible to meaningfully and interestingly cover the whole of all history, while teaching the skills needed by historians. They have to pick and choose. But one of the points that you’ve flagged, I think, that there should be an overview of British history, is already covered by the curriculum, though I’m sure there will be people who would prefer it to be done differently.

FWIW here’s the summary of KS1&2 and KS3 history (primary school through to
before gcse): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-history-programmes-of-study
It does cover from prehistoric times to the present day. It doesn’t cover absolutely everything of course, and there will always be some historians, politicians, commentators who will say “actually they should do it like this instead” or “why don’t they all do This bit or That bit”. But remember it’s not all about facts - it’s about skills and how to develop those critical thinking and analysis skills, how to understand what we know of history, to enable people to keep growing in this area throughout their lives.