Express Yourself
QCA, the body that oversees and regulates pretty much everything that is taught in the UK, has just got the ball rolling on their Secondary Curriculum Review.
The Secondary Review will look at refreshing the curricula for all standard subjects (including Maths) in Key Stages 3 and 4 and the QCA have started a public consultation, inviting opinions and feedback from anyone and everyone with an interest in secondary school learning and teaching.
You can get involved.
The QCA is planning to structure the new subjects around curriculum ‘lenses’, perspectives on the learning material and process. There will be a ‘curriculum aims’ lens, a ‘personal development’ lens and a ’skills lens’.
The Department for Education and Skills is also very keen on ‘personalisation’ of learning - encouraging learners and schools to adapt curricula to their own needs. These considerations will all feed into the new plans, and whilst the learning content might not necessarily change, the ways it is presented and taught, might. If you think these ideas are good, bad or just plain indifferent, you can have your say online.
The QCA has setup an online questionnaire here, which should take about 10 minutes to fill out, and it’s open for teachers, parents and students alike. Schoolchildren complain they don’t often enough get the opportunity to choose what (and how) they are taught, so if you’re a student, now’s your chance!
If you feel so inclined, you can also comment on the quality of the supporting materials that accompany the Secondary Review here. The consultation period ends on the 30th April, when the QCA will presumably take these opinions into account as it draws up the new standards.
In the Autumn the new Secondary curricula will be finalised and teachers and schools will have to start changing their timetables and teaching plans to reflect them. We’ll be following the curriculum review with interest because we’re developing much of our new Key Stage 3 material at the moment. When the review is completed we’ll be incorporating any changes in our updated Maths-Whizz plans not long after.