A shattering failure for our masters

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-shattering-failure-for-our-masters-789310.html

Friday, 29 February 2008


The latest reports for The Primary Review - the independent Cambridge
University-based study - provide the most alarming findings yet regarding
the state of our primary education sector. One report identifies "a decrease
in the overall quality of primary education experience by pupils because of
the narrowing quality of the curriculum and the intensity of test
preparation". Another report condemns the "state theory of learning", which
is based on the idea that repeated "high-stakes testing", a national
curriculum and "mandated" teaching methods are the only way to raise
standards in schools.


The criticisms of the intensive testing regime imposed on children since
1997 are by now familiar. Few outside the Department for Education defend
it. But the attacks on the national curriculum and centrally mandated
teaching methods are less common. Yet as these reports make clear, their
effects are every bit as damaging to the educational process.

The idea of a core national curriculum, as established by the 1988 Education
Act, was a good one. There was to be a list of subjects that every child
could be reasonably expected to have studied before leaving education. Most
of our European peers have long had something similar in place. But, like
national primary school tests, another sensible idea when devised by the
Government, the project has been abused.

At the heart of the problem is the meddling of successive education
secretaries and various Whitehall departments in the curriculum, and the
ever greater demands being made of teachers. Consider the evidence of this
week alone. We learned yesterday that the Association of Police Officers
wants schools to play a role in defeating the domestic terrorism threat. The
day before, the Government suggested that schools be rated by Ofsted on the
quality of their anti-drugs lessons. And a few weeks ago we learned of the
Culture Secretary's "aspiration" that all pupils should be subjected to five
hours of culture a week.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these proposals, and indeed
they are the sort of things schools ought to be doing. But the imposition of
this sort of thing from above removes responsibility from teachers and
heads. And as these reports make clear, it helps to demoralise schools.

Schools must be free to innovate. At the moment, they are being used as
political battlegrounds by ministers. It is time for the Government to lay
out (briefly) what standards it expects and the subjects it believes ought
to be covered, and then let schools get on with delivering them.



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