So has anyone else heard the rumour about the govt's plans for the National Curriculum

[oneofsuesylvesterscheerios]

No more levels.
No APPs.
No National Curriculum full stop.
Freedom for each Head to decide on the KS3 curriculum, rather like the private sector.
No more SIP (those in the know will know what this is)
No more SEF (ditto)

oh and the probable end to PGCEs as we know them.

amongst other things...

We'll get it confirmed next week if it's all true.

Where are you getting this from? Not really sure how I feel about all this - the NC was a Tory invention in the first place!

Interesting
Not sure about necessity of end of the SIP, surely it is just a document which shows which areas the school wishes to improve. Even if it was removed, some other document would take its place.

Feel it unlikely that a Conservative govt will end the NC, but we will wait and see

No, I presume this is a wind-up?

However, if it is true, it will be to make sure that our kids have no urge to compete, or to better themselves and make sure that everyone is the same so as not to hurt anyones feelings.

It will be to ensure they have no ambitions, no drive, no enthusiasm etc.

If no-one is assigned levels for their knowledge skills then they will have equal opportunities for jobs - but they wont have the skills to be able to do the jobs.

I think levels are important because it allows students to learn and be challenged at their own level of pace.

A standard curriculum means all children should learn the same basic knowledge.

SIPs and SEFs are probably just as important for schools.

Where did you get your info from?
(will you have to kill me if you tell me??!!!)

The SEF has gone already hasn't it? We are still doing one, of course [hmm

And the KS3 curriculum is pretty much up for grabs now too, now there are no SATs. Many schools do a 2 year KS3 in my subject (Science).

Some of that sound s eerily like the new Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland.

Yep, sounds like it's following the zeitgeist.

Came from the horse's mouth.
At a lunch for invited Heads in London with His Nibs on Thursday.

Think it will pave the way for KS3 diplomas, on the same lines as the international baccaulaureate for middle years. The exam boards are already creating their end of KS3 accreditations in readiness.

excuse spelling of baccalaureate. I blame the beer

A thought has just occured to me.

This clears the decks for the Govt to take on the teaching unions?

No SATs to disrupt so no leverage for the strikers and the threat of unqualified teachers and TAs can be brought in without PGCEs and who do not have to know the national curriculum to replace any strikers.

It will promote the idea of total freedom for Heads... but then they will be completely accountable if/when it goes tits up and the govt can say 'well, it has nothing to do with us'

the need for excellent leadership in schools has never been greater

Yes, all responsibility goes on to the school. And as there is no curriculum, the teachers have to write that in their spare time. Very inefficient, of course, due to the repetition of the same work going on in every school.

I was on a Dept for Education inset last Friday and we were told pretty much this....deconstruction of the NC - freedom from prescription in that regard, gone is the SEF, haven't heard anything about the SIP, loss of league tables (unless the media take the published information and create their own)...

fgs

Whilst I want to allow schools to move forward without being hindered with red tape, there is a major problem here. That is that the assumption is being made that all heads and SMT are wonderful and are good leaders. That is plainly not always true.

The very schools that are forced to do a SEF and a SIP by the current regs etc and do it poorly and under sufferance are exactly the schools that will not do them at all in the future. That will not make them a better school it will make them a worse school.

Now if someone (Ofsted if they have also not been abolished) comes along and says this is a rubbish school you are failing and the head / SMT / Governing Body is sacked in its entirety then that is OK but I am not convinced that is going to happen.

SEF is navel gazing
SIP is box ticking
OFSTED worry more about "safeguarding children" (but nobody knows what from) than dealing with poor teaching.
NC means that teachers C&P lesson plans off the net.
All children pass every exam with 50% of students getting A grades in some subjects (A level Chemistry last year)

A bit of deregulation and open competition will allow teachers to teach rather than churn and will highlight the good teachers.

BUT
I'd still like the basic results and VA figures to be published as it keeps everybody on their toes

the interesting missing statistic is how the top 50 kids at every school did
THEN you would see a leveling between comps / grammars and private

Being in the catchment for a secondary whose management is already very anti-academic and whose GCSE results are appalling, I am not happy about this. It will just give them free hands, since they clearly don't care about what happens to the students after KS3. I went to their Open Evening when the new regime took over and it was all about making school less threatening for parents and pupils who do not enjoy academic subjects. Not a hint that academic subjects might actually be good for anything. It was clearly their attitude that going to university is not something people from our area should be doing.

It is easy to say, choose another school- but that depends on there being spaces at other schools. Ds tells me not a single pupil in his year has put the catchment school on their application form, even as a third choice- but of course the vast majority of them will end up having to go there, because it's the only catchment school and all the neighbouring schools are ridiculously oversubscribed.

It's pointless saying that they will have to change their ways when things go tits up: pupils still have to go to the school because there is no alternative, the other schools do not have spaces. If there is nothing to be measured against, who is going to tell them they are failing? (until everybody fails to get into university because they only have hairdressing and media studies in their GCSEs and no maths and English- by which time it will be too late for those students).

The only thing that has been keeping some sort of order in our local school has been the National Curriculum and the fear of Ofsted. Remove that, and children from our ward will simply not be going to university.

It is the first time I am glad my children are disabled, because it is their only chance of escaping this place.

Hmmmmm...I'm not a fan of the NC or the stranglehold the state seems to want over the curriculum. I feel it hampers excellent teachers and bores many kids.

Certainly independent schools appear to do very well without its strictures.

So in theory I will be glad for somehting far less prescriptive, and to allow teachers to do what they do best.

However, as Cory says, bad teachers will now have little to keep them in check.

What teachers do best is teach, not write a curriculum.

Presumably there will still have to be a prescriptive curriculim but not a national curriculum. The nat curr was to ensure that all children were learning same stuff at same time so if you moved schools you wouldn't repeat or miss out .

When I was moving schools every 2 years as RAF brat I would have to do same stuff sometimes and prob missed out on some stuff.I still passed 11+ (the real deal old stylee one) and went to grammar school and got a good degree.

Surely the change is not about a change of standards as such except to allow them to improve ?

I think you presume wrongly, cammelia. No prescriptive curriculum here. I wish.

Certainly independent schools appear to do very well without its strictures.

No, Independent schools do well because they select by academic ability and commitment to parental involvement (to the tune of over £10k per year)
If you put Eton's teachers and systems in charge of Yob Central down the road from me, they'd not last five minutes.

Independent schools also do well without the strictures because, in the case of independent schools, market forces apply the strictures.

As cory says, there are no such forces in place for not-so-great state schools. Someone has to go there. There is very limited "choice", and voting with your feet is not a real option for many.

Are free schools going to step in and fill the gap of pressure? Some yet-to-materialise body of altruists willing to put in masses of effort in a not-for-profit venture? Or vast bodies (as opposed to a few hundred) of energetic, determined, and qualified/suitably-skilled parents going to leap into the gap?

Somehow I doubt it. I think I share cory's worries.

Pointydog - are you in Scotland? The CfE sounds like utter madness to me and I'm fuming that my son is going to be subjected to it. The English govt (so far as education goes) would be crazy to follow suit.