The Francis review can already claim a major achievement  

The interim report from the curriculum and assessment review is a genuinely landmark document. It differs from previous curriculum review documents of the past few decades in a series of very important ways.  

Sir Ron Dearing’s reviews of the 1990s were masterclasses in responding to teachers’ concerns about content overload, assessment burden and the place of national qualifications.  

Dearing was the ‘Great Fixer’; everyone in government knew that he would calm nerves and gain consensus around practical changes. He proposed changes which would make the national curriculum more manageable and yet still deliver on the educational and moral commitments behind a ‘curriculum for all’.  

Interestingly, every person involved in the review work at that time talked of ‘entitlement’ of young people – entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum.  

In the Dearing era, no meeting seemed to pass without ‘entitlement’ being used repeatedly, even though the word itself does not feature prominently in key legislation on the national curriculum.  

The review I chaired from 2010 resembled the Dearing reviews in that it tackled pent-up domestic problems: the deep issues of ‘levels’, the vexed questions of methods of early reading and primary maths.

Where it differed from Sir Ron’s work was in its very strong international focus. The commitment to a ‘knowledge-rich’ model, to ‘fewer things in greater depth’ in primary, to careful sequencing in the programmes of study all drew on meticulous scrutiny of high-performing systems.  

This was careful ‘policy learning’, not the crude ‘policy borrowing’ which occurs too frequently around the world.  

Building on strong foundations

The current review fits with international practice in being a thorough review of the curriculum after ten years of implementation. Doing this isn’t enshrined in some kind of international law, but it is a common approach across many nations.  

But the review also differs from Dearing’s reviews, which prioritised fixing serious weaknesses, and the 2010 review, which laid down new principles and benchmarked the curriculum internationally.  

This new interim report focuses clearly on building on the solid foundations set by its predecessors, and looks intently at the extent to which the system in its entirety – curriculum, assessment and performance measures – is delivering attainment and equity.   

It shouts: ‘Remember the aims, focus relentlessly on evidence, and introduce change only where it can improve attainment and equity’.  

For a teaching professional whose nemesis is the pendulum swing in policy – invariably accompanied by escalations in workload – this is surely very good news. And for anyone following or engaged in policy making, it looks like good statecraft.  

What better way to bring everyone along? Recognise where prior policy has worked; engage in scientific accumulation rather than ideological tampering; fine-tune accountability measures;  and cautiously adapt subject curricula and assessment requirements.  

Driving improvement

England is not alone in reviewing its national curriculum and its assessment arrangements. New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Poland and Sweden all are looking hard at their arrangements.  

It’s not that they have simply reached some kind of 10-year deadline. In key instances, nations have been more than alert to the fact that while their educational standards have stagnated or declined, England’s changes from 2010 resulted in an improvement of its international ranking.  

The review’s interim report lists clearly the specific things in which they are interested: a knowledge-rich approach that provides the foundations for skills development; periodic assessment and ‘checks’ that support equity; national assessment that maintains standards and enjoys public confidence.  

The report also rightly mentions ‘unfinished business’ from the 2014 review, such as under-specification of content in some areas, over-specification in others. It notes that content in some subjects is dated and needs refreshing.  

But in this the interim report has avoided a pitfall which is all too prominent in curriculum review and reform around the world: the ‘policy is practice’ mistake.  

Actually, it’s really easy to make policy changes to a national curriculum and to qualifications. You just draft some new specifications. They are words on a page. What is genuinely difficult is ensuring that the policy’s implementation is effective and leads to its intended results.  

Ultimately, a national curriculum needs to be turned into a school curriculum. It has to be enacted in the classroom, minute by minute. To know if that’s the case, we need dependable information on attainment at key points in primary and secondary education. 

If national assessments and accountability measures are designed well, they can inform national policy and provide valuable information for teachers, pupils and parents. And we know that if they are designed poorly, they can drive perverse incentives and become a barrier to improvement. 

All eyes on England

In short, assessment and accountability drive systems, and consistently driving them in the right direction requires periodic fine-tuning. This is something Scotland, Northern Ireland and Sweden are looking at with intensity and urgency.  

Elsewhere around the world, educators are looking with huge interest at England for the details of what has been achieved, step by step, since the 1990s.  

But those engaged in international comparisons know that it’s vital to look at data on variation between schools and variation within schools. In particular, these variations highlight differences in quality of provision and differences in life chances which are linked to social inequalities.  

Rather than assume sweeping changes to the national curriculum and a recasting of national qualifications will address these serious practical challenges, I welcome the meticulous approach of the review to date: analyse the data, understand the problem, recognise all of the factors in play, and judge carefully whether a change is required – in policy, in practice or in support.  

This will not be an easy message for ministers; changing words on a page is far easier than committing to addressing entrenched inequalities and variability of provision. So it is laudable that the report doesn’t run from this difficult message.  

Taking on trade-offs

I know full well that an interim report of this kind doesn’t land with an unannounced thump on ministerial desks. Government machinery will have processed draft after draft; implications, possibilities and options will have been wrangled and examined. 

And I recognise full well that this is an interim report. It signals the broad sweep of change and highlights the precise points for the next stages of detailed scrutiny and development.  

But what we have so far is very well grounded in the reality of our education system and our society. And the aims which drive its recommendations on ‘direction of travel’ are consistent with what our national curriculum has always focused on: equity as well as achievement. 

Critical readers will be rightly suspicious at this point. I have been singularly positive about the report, and we are visibly nearing the end of my article. There must surely be a ‘but’.  

There is, but my ‘but’ simply repeats the report itself: the hard graft of really effective policy is all for the next phase.  

For now, the direction of the proposals is looking well-grounded in evidence, well-considered and focused on exactly the right issues. 

But there are hard trade-offs between breadth and balance, between assessment and workload, between updating subject content and overloading the syllabus, and between broad policy aims and subject specificity.  

The report represents significant progress in the review. Now the difficult work begins.  

This article is the latest in our series of sector-led, experience-informed recommendations for the Francis review of curriculum and assessment. Read them all here