Many elements of required SEND Reform lie outside of Curriculum and Assessment. But many also lie within it. The Final Report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review offers hopeful messages around what evolutions to our system could mean for pupils with SEND and their families.
A National Curriculum for everyone
An excellent curriculum widens opportunity for all pupils, and particularly helps those who would otherwise be poorly served.
Deliverable
Deliverable is about having the right volume of content; depth of understanding is limited, when a curriculum is too broad.
The Review’s report recognises that the volume isn’t right in many phases and subjects. This makes it ‘challenging to explore topics in sufficient detail’, likely to limit mastery for pupils who might need a bit longer to learn, and to restrict depth and application for those that find a subject easier. Too much content can then have a knock-on effect for non-assessed subjects in both primary and secondary phases. The Report calls for an appropriate volume of content.
Deliverable is about giving schools space. In some cases, this will mean space to go beyond the National Curriculum, by surpassing or deepening it, or enriching it with locally-relevant content. In other cases, it will provide space for schools to repeat, to consolidate and to teach adaptively, based on pupil needs. In both cases, the opportunity for pupils with SEND to thrive is increased. The Report calls for space.
Representative
Following extensive stakeholder engagement, we’re calling for greater representation across the National Curriculum. One of the things this can mean is positive representations of disabled people within the curriculum, removing deficit-led narratives and showcasing the achievements, contributions and therefore full potential of disabled people.
Applied knowledge and skills
Many stakeholders in SEND argue for greater life skills education on the National Curriculum. As such, we are recommending that applied knowledge and skills will run through curriculum development, for example around oracy and financial education, including a new Oracy framework. We’re also recommending Citizenship becomes statutory in primary schools, so that all pupils can access a curriculum teaching healthy lifestyles, personal safety, good relationships, resolving differences, managing risk and more.
A focus on progression
Progression is multi-faceted. It’s dependent on a number of things. But well-designed curriculum pathways give the greatest chance for all pupils to make progress from their starting points.
Well-sequenced curricula
Progression isn’t always linear, but a well-sequenced curriculum has coherence and supports pupils sensibly as they move through education. We’re recommending coherence as a key curriculum principle, both vertically (in one subject, from one year to the next) and horizontally (across subjects within the same year), to benefit all pupils but to particularly benefit learners who might face additional barriers to learning. This is particularly important in the transition from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3.
Greater choice at Key Stage 4
Our recommendation for the removal of EBacc is about opening up choice for pupils. While many will be well-served by the broad academic portfolio of EBacc, many will be served better by increased flexibility, choosing more of the subjects that inspire and motivate them, and which play to their strengths as learners.
Improved 16-19 pathways
We still believe progression in Maths and English is vital at post-16 for those without a Grade 4+ at GCSE, but we recognise the failings of the current GCSE retakes approach. For pupils without a grade 3+ in Maths or English, we’re recommending stepped Level 1 qualifications, which can close gaps in foundational knowledge and increase confidence and competence for pupils who are not yet GCSE-ready.
We also believe in the importance of high-quality vocational pathways, recommending the introduction of high-quality ‘V Level’ qualifications that will sit alongside A Levels and T Levels.
Assessments that work
We have made several recommendations that look to address inequities in our current assessment system.
The right content
We recommend amending the GPS test in Year 6, so it better assesses writing composition and applied grammar and punctuation, with an increased focus on writing fluency, without some of the highly technical aspects that characterise the current test.
We’re recommending that assessment methods match the core aims of a given subject. Where a pupil excels as an artist, musician or actor, it is right that the assessment methods of those subjects play to that pupil’s strengths and allow them to showcase their talents.
The right volume
We’re recommending a reduction of at least 10% in the volume of assessment for pupils studying GCSEs. Pupils must have the best chance to show what they know and what they can do, without an unnecessarily burdensome volume of assessment.
The right support
For non-verbal and pre-verbal pupils, we think the Phonics Screening Check can still be an essential method of tracking the progress of pupils, but not as it is currently administered. We think this can be done better. We think the Multiplication Tables Check is useful, but that additional adaptations should be explored for pupils with processing speed differences.
For all pupils, we think accessibility must be at the heart of developments to both curriculum content and to their corresponding assessments. For example, within assessment, we outline the potential of digital assessments to maximise inclusion through their design.
The right information
We think secondary teachers can be better supported to understand what the Key Stage 2 SATs results tell them about pupils’ gaps in learning, so they can look to close those gaps in year 7.
We think a diagnostic test of English and Maths – not used in performance tables – can help schools to spot weaknesses in learning, so they can look to close those gaps by the end of year 9, before GCSE study begins.
Support to get it right in practice
We know that skilled teachers bring the National Curriculum to life for the pupils in front of them. However, we have heard from teachers about the challenges in doing so for some pupils with SEND.
We are therefore not looking to change the autonomy of specialist, AP and other settings to appropriately adapt the National Curriculum, and in certain cases in specialist settings, to disapply it.
However, we are recommending that all settings are provided with guidance and exemplification that supports high-quality curriculum adaptation, to guide schools’ work for those pupils with SEND who may need it.
The full report is now available on the GOV.UK website.
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