Michael Gove creating 'neo Victorian' curriculum for ... · Goodbye Granite, Hello To Fresh...
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Michael Gove creating 'neo Victorian'curriculum for primary schools, says professorwho led massive review into sector
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The man who headed the most comprehensive inquiry into primary
education for at least four decades has dismissed the Government's
new national curriculum as "neo Victorian" and "educationally
inappropriate" for the 21st century.
Robin Alexander argues core subjects of English and maths would befavoured at expense of arts and humanities
RICHARD GARNER EDUCATION EDITOR
Tuesday 24 September 2013
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Ads by GoogleProfessor Robin Alexander, of Cambridge
University, argued that the new primary
curriculum would mean a "two-tier
curriculum" favouring the core subjects of
English and maths at the expense of the
arts and humanities.
"Such stratification is both educationally
inappropriate and pedagogically counter-
productive," he argued in a lecture at the
British Academy to mark the setting up of
a new trust to promote the findings of his
inquiry.
"The two-tier curriculum undervalues not
just the true cultural and economic worth
of the non-core subjects but also the
evidence from research and inspection showing that learning in one
area enhances learning in others," he said.
"Without deflecting attention one jot from the absolute imperative of
literacy, the Cambridge Review (his inquiry team) argues for a
primary curriculum whose core includes essential knowledge, skills
and experience drawn from all subjects, not just three of them.
He took ministers to task over their claim that the job of primary
schools was to make their pupils "secondary ready".
"Of course children leaving primary school should be ready for what
follows but education also resides in the quality of the here and now.
Anyway, what follows year six (the final year of primary school) is
life, not just year seven," he said.
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"While primary schools must and do insist on the foundational
importance of literacy and numeracy, they should also lay those
other foundations - in science, the arts, the humanities, in physical,
emotional and moral development and in lived experience - that in
their way are no less important for young children's future learning,
choices and lives: foundations, we might suggest, that will make
children more truly 'secondary ready' than if they do the three Rs
and little else."
He was also critical of the dismissive attitude show by the
Government to critics of their plans, arguing "the bearer of evidence
which is questionable but ideologically compliant is hailed as the only
true expert while the bearer of evidence that is sounder but politically
unpalatable is pilloried".
"Thus, those who in March (in a letter to The Independent) proposed
an alternative national curriculum vision were denounced as
'enemies of promise' and 'Marxists hell-bent on destroying our
schools' and those who this month raised perfectly legitimate
questions about the kind of early years' experience that will help
children to thrive educationally were accused of 'bleating bogus pop-
psychology', dumbing down and lowering expectations.
"It's proper to ask whether heaping public abuse on those holding
different views is what government ministers in a democracy should
be doing."
Professor Alexander recalled that his original report - which
advocated a broader curriculum and less emphasis on tests and
league tables - recalled that the previous Labour government had
refused even to discuss most of the evidence with the inquiry team
and had misrepresented its findings to the media. At least with thePROMOTED STORIES
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and had misrepresented its findings to the media. At least with the
present government, he added, the criticisms were more "cultural".
However, he argued: "Policies have little meaning until they are
enacted by schools." Much of the review's time was spent help
schools to "domesticize" or even subvert government initiatives to
their own particular circumstances.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said: "It is utterly
unacceptable that so many children leave primary school without a
firm grounding in the basics of English, maths and science. That is
why our rigorous new primary curriculum focusses on these vital
subjects.
"Of course we expect primaries to teach beyond just English, maths
and science. That is why we are giving teachers more freedom than
ever before, allowing them to shape lessons to meet the needs of the
pupils they know best."
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