History is littered with instances of people – politicians included – scratching their heads and asking, ‘How on earth did we wind up here?’ So with education today, where we have ended up with the very curious position of having a national curriculum, but one no school needs to observe. In short, we seem to be in danger of carelessly downgrading or jettisoning the national curriculum.
This situation is not a good one. In 1988, after decades of anxiety about the variability of educational opportunities and outcomes around England, our first national curriculum emerged. After six years of knowing it was too packed (After all, it was our first stab at having one!), Sir Ron Dearing did an excellent job of refining it. Further tweaks followed in 1999, and further refinement took place between 2010 and 2014 to avoid the pitfalls of the truncated 2008 version. And it seems to have worked in improving equity and attainment.
