The voices calling for educational reform are growing in number and becoming more insistent. The drum is getting louder.
Recent announcements from Bedales School and Latymer Upper School that they will move towards a 2 GCSE only model over the next few years sparked much debate. They will design and assess the remainder of their curriculum. Is it fair that independent schools can use their freedom to deliver a bespoke experience fit for the future, whilst other schools are constrained by Progress 8 and Ebacc measures, binding them to a homogeneous diet of GCSEs?
Of course it’s not fair, but nor would it be right for independent schools to stick to the current regime simply because others are lumbered with it. Rather, they are exercising admirable leadership to the schools sector as a whole by showing what is possible when teachers and school leaders are given autonomy. Where they lead, we can only hope the government follows.
Bedales and Latymer are not the only ones at it. A group of more than 30 schools, independent and state, have joined together under the banner of the School Directed Courses Consortium, started by my own institution, King Alfred School. Our shared purpose is to enable as many schools as possible to benefit from the liberating experience of designing and assessing a curriculum appropriate to the institution and the age we live in. A series of reports have highlighted the inappropriateness of a narrow, exclusively exam-based experience. The inventor of GCSEs, Lord Baker, has long been calling out the fact they were designed for a different age, and are no longer fit for purpose.
