Developing a curriculum for the twenty-first century: the experiences of England and Northern Ireland

This article analyzes the common educational challenges faced by curriculum developers in the UK at the turn of the 21st century and the steps taken to address them by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England and the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland. The paper explores how the solutions emerging during the three curriculum review phases of 1998–1999 and 2005–2007 in England and 2000–2004 in Northern Ireland came about largely as a result of collegial working between the two bodies. As well as considering steps taken to develop aims that would drive curriculum change and a curriculum that would address the learning needs of students in the 21st century, the article also considers the lessons learnt about managing and supporting curriculum change. Developments in England and Northern Ireland serve to illustrate that an effective curriculum needs to: articulate clearly the key aims that will shape and drive it; be sufficiently visionary and flexible to allow teachers to respond to the needs of students now and in the future; and provide on-going support to help embed and sustain change. The three are inter-related and successful curriculum development involves considering them together.

Carmel GallagherEmail:

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Ian Colwill   is a freelance educational consultant. Until his recent retirement, he was a member of the executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in England with responsibility for curriculum development. He began his career teaching history in a secondary school in inner London before becoming an advisory history teacher for the Inner London Education Authority. He has since held senior posts in a succession of bodies advising the government on curriculum and assessment development with responsibility for developing and revising the national curriculum and producing a wide range of support materials. Carmel Gallagher   is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the UNESCO Centre, University of Ulster. Until recently, she was the manager in charge of Curriculum and Assessment Development at the Northern Ireland Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), a post from which she has been seconded. She began her career teaching history in a large comprehensive school in West Belfast during some of the worst years of the Northern Ireland Troubles. She was seconded from this post to a number of curriculum development projects before she became the officer in charge of the history curriculum at the newly formed Northern Ireland Curriculum Council (NICC). Soon after this organisation merged with the Northern Ireland Secondary Examinations Council to form CCEA, she took over responsibility for the curriculum review process from 1996–2006, the production of a wide range of support materials and the development of an implementation strategy.