Global education in perspective: fostering a global dimension in an English secondary school

This article considers the issue of global education in schools by focusing upon the case of one particular English secondary school and exploring the pedagogic and curricular perspectives of its staff and students. It recognizes the strong normative and holistic dimension to global education and the challenges it faces in, and presents to schools. The sometimes mixed pedagogic and curricular messages of global education are characteristic of other adjectival and interdisciplinary educational forms working within the framework of the National Curriculum (11–16). Whilst raising more questions than it answers, this article goes some way to articulate the debates, tensions and dilemmas being discussed in the field of global education—a field including teachers, schools, non‐Governmental organizations and Governmental officials working to promote a global dimension in schools.     

The Struggle for Culture: a sociological case study of the development of a national music curriculum

The article presents a case study of the development of the National Curriculum for music in English schools. This illustrates a relatively rare phenomenon, whereby the content of academic debates within the sociology of education, music education and musicology attain national importance through widespread coverage in the media. It is argued that the very public nature of the debates concerning what should count as school music exemplify an ideological struggle concerning the nature of ‘Englishness’ and what should lie at the heart of English culture. The analysis suggests that the precise role which institutions or the State play in the maintenance and reproduction of societies is contradictory and elusive. It also illustrates the ways in which the unintended consequences of government intervention in the educational process may provide outcomes severely at odds with their ideological intentions.     

’Equal Opportunities’ and Local Management of Schools — what happens now?

The introduction of the 1988 Education Reform Act in Britain marks the beginning of the most substantial changes to the system of State education since the 1944 Education Act. Many have argued that the rationale for these changes rests on the introduction of the principles of ‘market forces’ and represents an attempt to create an internal and external educational market. Already some research has begun to examine the ideology behind some of the measures introduced by the Act such as the National Curriculum and the likely effects of the testing and assessment which accompanies it on issues of ‘race’, gender and class. However, as yet, little work has focused on another measure introduced by the Act which threatens ‘equal opportunities’, that is local management of schools (LMS). It is my argument that central to all these measures is an ideology that sees education as performing a certain function, State schools as certain types of institutions and teachers and pupils as certain types of people. Indeed, just as it is often argued that the National Curriculum rests on an assumption of a specific type of educational knowledge and a certain type of educational practice, so it is my contention that local management assumes a specific model of pupil, school, governor, teacher and parent. Both the ideology behind the 1988 Education Reform Act and the measures flowing from it seek to create a market in education. It is this tenet in the recent reforms which theatens the continuance of ‘equal opportunities’. The creation of this educational market aims to replace the notions of quality of opportunity which in one form or another have represented the British post‐war educational consensus with the rhetoric of choice, standards and differentiation which have been the hallmark of British domestic social policy since 1979.     

A Comparison of Music and Science Education

This article develops the argument that students of science in the UK are currently given inadequate opportunity to both critically appraise competing theories and imaginatively construct their own. Support for this idea comes from a comparison of science with music. Both contemporary science and music are the result of an historical development and both involve the production of novelty. Music in the National Curriculum provides students with opportunities to develop their listening and appraising as well as their performance and compositional skills. The parallels between music and science show ways in which music in the National Curriculum can inform changes to science in the National Curriculum in order to provide more opportunities for students to theorise and evaluate competing theories     

Models of Language,Models of Childhood in the English National Curriculum

This paper explores the versions of language and of childhood which implicitly underpin the official National Curriculum for English at Key Stages 1 and 2. It considers the politically charged context of debates about ‘grammar’ and ‘standards’ within which a standardised curriculum is imposed, and the assumptions about language, learning and children which are involved in assessing children's talk. Finally, the article draws on an empirical study of the informal talk of six 8‐ and 9‐year‐old children to present some alternative perspectives on children, language and learning.     

How linguistically‐informed are phonics programmes?

Successive UK government policies have strengthened the phonics element of the National Curriculum for English in England. The policies have included inviting publishers to submit completed self‐assessments of their systematic phonics programmes. The self‐assessment criteria focus on what is deemed to be ‘high‐quality provision’, as defined in the Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading chaired by Jim Rose. The programmes whose self‐assessments were judged to be accurate by small panels of independent evaluators have been subsequently listed on a central government website. The authors have acted as independent evaluators in this process and, between them, had the opportunity to inspect the content of over 100 phonics programmes. They have noted that many of these programmes (most of which did not meet the Rose criteria) contained numerous linguistic inaccuracies, particularly in relation to the English spelling system and its grapheme‐phoneme correspondences. The existence, number and range of these errors jeopardise policy implementation and National Curriculum delivery and pose risks for the quality of teaching and learning. The article suggests some reasons for these findings in related published debates and in policy documents, and that phonics programmes need to be more linguistically‐informed. The article concludes with some implications for practice.     

Creativity as a twenty-first-century competence: an exploratory study of provision and reality

Recently, creativity has begun to be talked about as a twenty-first-century competency [UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). 2006. The World Conference on Arts Education: Building Creative Capacities for the 21st Century: Working Document, Lisbon, Portugal, 6–9 March 2006. Lisbon: UNESCO]. Several government-endorsed publications have also stressed the importance of fostering creativity in the classroom [Robinson Report. (1999). Great Britain Department for Education and Employment. Department for Culture, Media and Sport. National Advisory Committee on Creativity and Cultural Education. All Our Futures: Creativity and Culture in Education. London: DfEE; DfES. (2004). Excellence and Enjoyment: A Strategy for Primary School. London: DfES; QCA. (2005). Find It! Promote It! London: QCA]. This study aims to explore opportunities to foster creativity following the new National Curriculum’s introduction (DfE (Department for Education). [2013a. National Curriculum for Art & Design. London: DfE; DfE. 2013b. National Curriculum for History. London: DfE; DfE. 2013c. National Curriculum for Science. London: DfE]). It explores provision and attempts to go beyond this into daily classroom practices by interviewing teachers. Analysis indicates a wide variation in terms of in-school provision. Certain schemes of work may be more successful at fostering creativity and that relying purely on the National Curriculum can hinder opportunities for creativity. Teacher responses indicate that they value creativity but find it hard to accurately describe incidents of creativity being fostered and teaching creatively is often confused for teaching for creativity. Training has been designed to address this, although a pervading emphasis on schools’ performativity will mean creativity is not embedded into daily learning to the extent it can be a twenty-first-century competence unless there is a major policy change.     

School English,literature and the knowledge-base question

This article takes up questions about knowledge and the school curriculum with respect to literary studies within subject English. Its intention is to focus on literary studies in English from the context of current waves of curriculum reform, rather than as part of the conversations primarily within the field of English, to raise questions about the knowledge agenda, and the knowledge-base agenda for teaching and teacher education. The selection of texts and form of study of literature within the English curriculum has long been an area of controversy. Without assuming a particular position on knowledge in this area, this article shows that important questions of what knowledge-base teachers are expected to bring to their work are elided both in current regulations and debates, and in research on ‘good teaching’ in this area. If ‘literary studies’ (as a discipline or university major) is itself an unstable and changing field, what kind of knowledge does a good English teacher bring to their work? This paper takes up these questions in the context of the Australian Curriculum and standards for teacher registration, but it also points to the way these issues about knowledge are of broader relevance for researchers and teacher education.     

Bottom: A Case Study Comparing Teaching Low Ability and Mixed Ability Year 9 English Classes

This article takes the form of a case study which compares two Year 9 English groups ‐ one mixed ability, one a low set ‐ and the different approaches used to prepare the pupils for their SATs. The focus of observation has been on the differing opportunities made available to a mixed ability set, contrasted with a bottom set, and identifies clear implications that lower set pupils are offered a significantly limited range of teaching strategies in the delivery of the National Curriculum. The article indicates that the benefits of selective setting in English are for adults rather than children, and argues that placement in a low set has a detrimental effect on pupils rather than providing an appropriate learning environment. Finally, the article draws attention to the long‐held anomaly that whilst setting continues to proliferate in the UK education system, there is no clear evidence that it has any positive impact on pupil performance.     

试论国家课程的作用与特点－－以英格兰国家课程为例

英格兰正在实施的新国家课程力求对国家课程自开始之日起就纠缠不清的几个问题进行梳理和明确，以使教育适应21世纪对自身提出的挑战。它给予我国正在进行的新一轮基础教育课程改革的启示在于：1.国家课程要想取得成功，必须使学校既能从长计议，形成和提升学生恒久性的价值观念，又能对现实中出现的经济和社会变迁积极应对；2.新的国家课程在形成过程中应有教师的高度参与，教师须持有清晰的课程理念；3.跨学科学习主题应在国家课程中有所体现。     

Editorial

The National Curriculum of primary schools in England and Wales sets out the statutory and non-statutory requirements for teachers. It describes the aims and goals it aspires to achieve and the content of its subjects. In this article I suggest that the statutory and non-statutory guidelines of the National Curriculum present conceptually different goals in relation to the holistic development of a student. The first section discusses the two basic aims of the curriculum, their recommended implementation and the implications they have upon the curriculum. I specifically emphasize that ‘statutory’ guidelines represent information-based knowledge and that the ‘nonstatutory’ guidelines treat value-based issues. This division of roles creates difficulties in implementing the non-statutory part of the curriculum. In the second section I demonstrate this division by using education for sustainable development as a focal point. I conclude by highlighting important issues for education and, more particularly, for education for sustainable development.     

The use of assessment in the development of higher-order thinking skills

Abstract

In an increasingly complex and specialised society, it is imperative that individuals think critically and creatively. This kind of thinking is also required to achieve the critical outcomes as stated in the Revised National Curriculum Statement for South Africa. It seems, however, that higher-order thinking is unlikely to occur unless learners are engaged in activities that deliberately promote this kind of thinking. They should also be guided on how to engage in these complex thinking tasks. The aim of this article is to reflect on the use of assessment to promote learners' higher-order thinking skills. The role of assessment has implications for the nature of teacher training programmes. If lecturers model the way assessment can be done to develop higher-order thinking skills, it is hoped that teachers will have little difficulty in adapting it to their unique classroom situations. Examples from language modules of an in-service teacher training programme are used to show how assessment can be implemented to help learners develop higher-order thinking skills within the framework of outcomes-based education and the Revised National Curriculum Statement.     

The Climate Emergency and the Transformed School

Education in frugality is less important for young people in the climate emergency than pressurising governments to act. Schools can help in this directly, as well as indirectly by passing on the necessary understanding. This understanding is interdisciplinary as well as disciplinary, but schools in England at least have always been too attached to the latter – as shown by the meagre attention given to climate change in the National Curriculum. A wider problem has been the teaching profession's attachment to traditional ways, a problem shared by other professions. Internet learning, for instance, is challenging the traditional assumption, also found mutatis mutandis in law and medicine, that teaching is face-to-face. The urgency of climate change means that significant changes in traditional professional attitudes may first occur in education. One way young people in England can act is by campaigning to take the National Curriculum out of ministers’ hands and setting up a National Curriculum Commission. On climate change, we might expect it to favour a mix of (1) disciplinary and interdisciplinary, (2) face-to-face and internet-based, (3) top-down and collaborative learning and (4) whole-class and personalised learning.     

Accuracy of Measurement in the Context of Mathematics National Curriculum Tests in England for Ethnic Minority Pupils and Pupils Who Speak English as an Additional Language

Research has suggested that inappropriate or misfitting response patterns may have detrimental effects on the quality and validity of measurement. It has been suggested that factors like language and ethnic background are related to the generation of misfitting response patterns, but the empirical research on this is rather poor. This research analyzes data from three testing cycles of the National Curriculum tests in mathematics in England using the Rasch model. It was found that pupils having English as an additional language and pupils belonging to ethnic minorities are significantly more likely to generate aberrant response patterns. However, within the groups of pupils belonging to ethnic minorities, those who speak English as an additional language are not significantly more likely to generate misfitting response patterns. This may indicate that the ethnic background effect is more significant than the effect of the first language spoken. The results suggest that pupils having English as an additional language and pupils belonging to ethnic minorities are mismeasured significantly more than the remainder of pupils by taking the mathematics National Curriculum tests. More research is needed to generalize the results to other subjects and contexts.     

Representing Shakespeare: critical theory and classroom practice

Discussion about the place of Shakespeare in education has been given new impetus by two recent developments ‐‐ one, the unique place given him in the National Curriculum, and the other, the rise of critical ‘theory’. The question ‘why Shakespeare?’ is not one which can be avoided these days, but equally it cannot be separated from the question of what is meant by ‘Shakespeare’ in the context of the school. Educational, as well as literary and cultural theories, are involved. Publishers have responded to the National Curriculum require‐ ment with a spate of new or re‐issued editions and resource books. This article reviews the range of approaches to be found in them and so goes some way not only to clarify the questions raised specifically by the use of Shakespeare in schools, but by extension about the value and purpose of teaching literary texts. I have taught Shakespeare in schools, further education, and higher education institutions and to adult groups and am at present responsible for courses on Shakespeare for students preparing to teach in the primary school sector.     

课程内容选择的反思——新课程改革背景下的一个案例分析

教育的中介是课程,课程内容的选择是课程论中一个中心问题,直接关系到教育是否能够良性发展。通过引入委托一代理理论对上海二期课改中语文教材删除《狼牙山五壮士》进行了分析,清楚地说明了课程内容选择主体之间的关系,为课程论提供了新的视角,并希望能对新的课程改革有所启发。     

Mathematics in Transition

Including pupils with special educational needs within the National Curriculum calls for substantial changes in content and approach in all subjects - including mathematics. Alec Williams, formerly headteacher of Stokesbrook special school, Gloucestershire, and tutor to special education diploma courses in Hull and Lincoln, reports and reflects upon the changes. He seeks to retain and enhance that which is best from traditional practice, within the requirements of the National Curriculum.     

‘Multicultural’ science in South Africa's National Curriculum Statement

Abstract

South Africa's Revised National Curriculum Statement for Further Education and Training (FET) is premised on the view that there are competing perspectives and worldviews from which to make sense of phenomena. Accordingly, elements of indigenous knowledges have been integrated into the discursive terrains of all subjects that form part of the National Curriculum Statement. This policy statement invites several critical questions, some of which are addressed in this article in relation to science education. These include questions as to whether seemingly disparate perspectives of ‘the world’ are competing or complementary and whether science (education) is universal or multicultural. A universalist position holds that Western modern science has superior explanatory powers of understanding the natural world to those of indigenous knowledges. A multiculturalist position holds that science is culturally produced and that cultures have disparate ways of understanding the natural world and that different ways of knowing should be recognised as science. This article discusses critical questions arising from much contestation about the nature of science as a consequence of different perspectives on science held by universalists and multiculturalists. Some of the implications this discussion has for science education in contemporary South Africa are also examined.     

‘Really useful ideas’: building users' powers of persuasion. A response to the discussion of the Learning Outcomes Theme Group from a practitioner in the post-compulsory sector

Taking as its starting point the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the failings which that case has demonstrated in justice and the judicial system in England, this article questions the extent to which current models of citizenship education address the reality of young people's lives. The critique focuses particularly on the proposed revisions to the English National Curriculum to be implemented in 2001. It is argued that unless citizenship education provides an opportunity to study the reality of contemporary experience, including the injustices and inequalities which continue to be features of that experience, it will be an ineffectual exercise. There are also severe dangers of the citizenship curriculum being overcrowded with factual knowledge at the expense of opportunities for experiencing democratic processes and playing a part in the formation of learners' identities. Some examples are given of effective work based on the principles outlined in the article. In conclusion, an agenda for research and curriculum development is described.     

Rethinking role play in the Reception class

How to monitor and raise standards of educational attainment generally were issues addressed by the British Government in 1988 when the National Curriculum was introduced into all state‐funded primary schools in England and Wales: ‘There is every reason for optimism that in providing a sound, sufficiently detailed framework over the next decade the National Curriculum will give children and teachers much needed help in achieving higher standards.’ This paper assesses the value of looking closely at successive reading scores of cohorts of children in order to monitor reading attainments over time. The reading attainments of seven cohorts of Year 2 children from five randomly selected primary schools within one local education authority (LEA) (N = 1,329) are analysed to see if standards of literacy have changed since the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1989. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were used in this cross‐sectional study. The reading attainments of each of the seven cohorts of Year 2 children, as measured by the are presented. Headteacher perceptions of the effects of the National Curriculum on the teaching and learning of reading in their schools were collected through interviews. Examination of the means of the standardized comprehension scores for each cohort reveals no statistically significant differences in attainment between any two cohorts. It was noted that the distribution of the reading scores was skewed towards underachievement in all seven cohorts. The relative stability in reading attainments contrasts with the aspiration that the introduction of the National Curriculum would raise standards. Headteachers saw this stability as the result of key stage 1 teachers working at an intense rate to safeguard the teaching and learning of reading against the pressures exerted by the introduction of the National Curriculum and assessment procedures.