17th September 2014 8:00
By Blue Tutors
English school children are beginning the new curriculum brought in by the government starting this September. The curriculum is designed to be more rigorous, and will include more traditional subject matter in addition to more difficult exams. The government has said that they want all children to leave school with the skills most demanded by universities and employers, ensuring that all students are prepared for “life in modern Britain”. The plans have been met with opposition from schools, who say that the timetable for bringing in the changes is unrealistic and will cause disruption to children’s learning.
Local authority primary and secondary schools will begin teaching the new curriculum this September, although many have said that they are not adequately prepared to do so. Schools have complained that they have not been sent adequate information, and that the proposals require young students to cram in too much knowledge too young in order to prepare for new exams to be taken at primary school. A further issue is that the changes are not compulsory for academies, leading to a criticism that struggling ‘bog standard comprehensives’ will suffer the most from the changes.
The new curriculum requires primary school students to learn mathematical modelling and computer programming, whilst secondary school students will have to study at least two Shakespeare plays for their GCSE English exams. The National Association of Head Teachers have said that whilst schools were working hard to prepare for the new curriculum, there would be problems especially in Maths where students are being asked to learn more advanced ideas from a young age. The association of head teachers criticised the plans to implement the new curriculum all at once from this September, leaving schools with little time to prepare. They also voiced concerns that children will now be expected to cram in a lot of information, meaning that they will have little time to learn concepts before being moved on to new ones.