The years between 11 and 14 have long been the dark ages of schooling in this country. They fill the gap between primary education and the start of GCSE courses but there is little consensus as to what should be taught and how. As a consequence, many children, but especially boys, seem to drift and to lose interest in their studies. Many of them never regain that enthusiasm.
That institutional failing is an argument in favour of revising the curriculum offered during this crucial period. The case for change has been redoubled, though, by the decision to legislate to raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18. If pupils are bored at 11, then seven years of compulsory education is a long stretch of classroom imprisonment. Ministers need to ensure that schooling between 11 and 14 leads on smoothly to vocational courses that are of real and transparent value to such anomic students.
The broad thrust of the proposals set out by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority yesterday is reasonable. The existing curriculum has become too cluttered and inflexible. It does not identify priorities with enough vigour. It is sensible to place the maximum weight on the basics English, maths and science and to encourage children to consider Mandarin, as well as French. To allow schools more freedom is rational but it reinforces the case for retaining national testing at 14 so that progress can be measured and sensible comparisons made.
There is also no reason why lessons should always be taught in blocks of 35 or 40 minutes. The concept of “five-minute lessons” would be bizarre if it were to be regarded as a teaching norm, but as a device for short, sharp refreshment or testing it could have merit. Experimentation, coupled with accountability, has virtue.
There are, nevertheless, risks associated with this strategy. In providing additional time for more “contemporary” and “relevant” themes alongside traditional lessons there is the danger that too much attention will be paid to matters that are fashionable but faddist. The principle of teaching pupils personal finance is unobjectionable, even desirable, but in the wrong hands it could become a device for bashing business, not boosting personal awareness. The new curriculum for geography, which aspires to “inspire pupils to become global citizens by exploring their own place in the world”, is to include climate change, sustainable development and the workings of the European Union. This agenda sounds more like a Liberal Democrat manifesto than an intellectual prospectus. The Royal Geographical Society welcomed this plan yesterday. It might check the detail more closely.
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Ministers need to be engaged as the details of this curriculum are established. Experience suggests that what appears to be a sound skeleton is undermined when the wrong sort of flesh is placed on it by the specialists. The phrase “trust the professionals” is much in vogue across the political spectrum at present but there is also the need for politicians to represent the best interests of pupils and parents who will sometimes have to be protected from the so-called experts.
This means placing a mastery of numbers and words before anything like a course in political correctness. A true “back to basics” approach would be welcome. A return to the teaching ethos of the 1970s would not. A curriculum should seek to be interesting and stimulating for children. Interesting and stimulating are not the same notions, however, as “cool” and “trendy”.