High-quality textbooks and teaching methods are needed to ensure
children from all backgrounds receive the rigorous education they
deserve, says a major new report by Policy Exchange. According to
the report, Completing the Revolution: Delivering on the
Promise of the 2014 National Curriculum in
Schools, inadequate materials for teaching the National
Curriculum are holding back pupils in England and increasing
teacher workload. Working in collaboration with respected
institutions like the British Museum, the Government should
support the creation and take-up of world-leading curriculum
materials.
The report highlights that:
- · only
10% of teachers use textbooks in more than half their lessons,
and even fewer expect to be doing so by 2020;
-
· Teachers
have been trained to believe that they need to make as many of
their own resources as possible, adding significantly to their
workload;
- · Many
teachers rely too much on unregulated and free online resources,
many of which are poor quality.
The implementation of the 2014 National Curriculum has stalled.
Without rigorous curriculum materials, there is no guarantee that
all children will receive the broad and balanced range of
learning promised by the law. This damages social mobility by
denying children from poorer backgrounds the best education
possible and holds back the economy by failing to equip our
future workforce with a command of the basics.
It is not for government to produce curriculum resources for
schools; Policy Exchange believes that confidence is likely to be
higher in the quality of the materials designed by high-status
institutions such as museums, the Royal Societies,
high-performing multi-academy trusts or respected academic
publishers. The recommendations in Completing the
Revolution include:
- · The
government’s £7.7 million curriculum fund should be used to
provide seed funding for rigorous ‘oven-ready’ resources by
trusted institutions already involved in education, and for a
“match-making” exercise for teachers who may wish to expand the
reach of their own high-quality resources.
- · The
Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund and the Strategic School
Improvement Fund should be merged into a single “School
Improvement Fund” with a curriculum strand from which primary
schools and schools in Opportunity Areas could bid for funding to
deploy resources.
- · Ofsted
should include assessment of curriculum quality in its new
framework – due for review in 2019.
-
· Achievement
of Qualified Teacher Status should require teachers to
demonstrate that they can create small scale resources, but the
majority of teaching by newly qualified teachers should be based
on material created by others.
- · All
schools judged to be “coasting” or “requires improvement” should
be compelled to use externally-provided resources.
Policy Exchange’s Head of Education and Social Reform John Blake,
who wrote the report and is a former teacher, said:
““A knowledge-rich curriculum benefits children of all
backgrounds. The new National Curriculum was much needed, but is
in danger of not delivering its promise because too many teachers
aren’t using the best resources.
“Workload is one of the major issues for most teachers and
producing resources is one of the major sources of that workload.
We shouldn’t be expecting teachers to make all of their resources
for every lessons themselves and it’s madness that teacher
training promotes this as routine. Countries like Singapore,
where learners excel, use textbooks much more than English
schools and report higher achievement and lower teacher workload.
The teaching unions have resisted textbooks and other effective
materials for purely ideological reasons, which harms both
children and their own members.
“We need to ensure that classroom teachers have the most
effective tools available to lead their students’ learning, not
expecting them to produce everything themselves. Government
shouldn’t be developing curriculum resources – institutions like
museums, school groups and publishers should.
“There are government funds already earmarked for curriculum
development and school improvement which should be joined up to
fund experts to develop the best possible resources. This will be
good for pupils’ education and rebalance teachers’ workload
to make teaching a more attractive profession. This is an
opportunity for the new Secretary of State to improve the quality
of education for England’s children and ease the workload of
teachers.”
