by Dr Daniel Stavrou, Council for Disabled Children
The Curriculum and Assessment Review Call for Evidence carried a promise to focus on the most significant areas for improvement, with particular concern for supporting children and young people who are from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, those with a special educational need or disability (SEND) and those who are otherwise vulnerable. From a SEND point of view this statement is, of course, all important.
However, the wording in the very first paragraph of the same forward from the Review Chair, Prof Francis, also demonstrates some of the conceptual challenges we face. In that opener, she commends the commitment to high standards and excellence, drawing a link between these and ‘international league tables’. While no one would object to ambition, or the concepts of excellence and high standards, I would question whether these league tables are a measure of, say, high standards of inclusive practice, or excellent pupil engagement. Rather, they typically offer a limited, one-dimensional, quantitative picture of ‘academic success’. Not unimportant, but certainly a partial picture, and one that does not speak at all to the severe challenges we face in our schools around SEND and vulnerable groups: the increasing numbers of pupils missing education, and the mental health crisis to name two. In fact, related to the latter, PISA results show that pupils in England reported lower life satisfaction and sense of belonging than the European average. Surely, we must ask how a reformed curriculum might begin to address this.
In the Special Educational Consortium’s submission to the Call for Evidence we included a whole raft of evidence and recommendations, including moving away from the rigid age-related expectations currently in place which, we believe, perpetuate a misleading assumption that all children do, and should, learn at the same pace. We also called into question the over-reliance on one-off, high-stakes examinations which disadvantage certain pupils (not necessarily SEND), promotes a narrow version of academic ‘success’, and is surely feeding into the mental health crisis we are seeing unfolding in our schools.
We also referred to the ambition as set out in the SEND and AP Improvement Plan, to create a more inclusive society. Notice the explicit reference to society as opposed to school. This aspiration requires us to consider the fundamental question of the purpose of education. Here, we have the opportunity to consider how a curricular framework might in time change societal attitudes outside of schools. In short, if we get this right, we will be ‘inducting’ a generation of ‘inclusive citizens’. So, how might we achieve this lofty aim? SEC recommends beginning by listening carefully to disabled children, young people and staff. Secondly, we have heard directly from disabled young people who wish to see positive representations of disability in the curriculum. This too must be done with disabled children, young people and staff leading the way; it must be done in a way that avoids simplification and stereotyping. You might think of this as a process similar to the one undertaken in respect of other marginalised groups: the curriculum needs to undergo a process of recognising and challenging any ableist aspects within it.
Outside of the SEC response, here are some of my own reflections on curricular reform: I have attended a good number of conversations around the curriculum review and have noticed the absence of much reference to the sociology of education, and in particular questions about who gets to decide what is and what isn’t to be learned. I think this question is crucial to the framing of representation of disability as discussed above, and the aim of creating a curriculum which will be ‘emancipatory’ (see Apple, 1993; 2004) in the context of SEND.
While I will not even attempt to explain Bernstein’s (2003) theory of the pedagogic device, I might allow myself here to simply say that there is significant ideological power at the hands of those who do. The fields of the pedagogic device, as Bernstein articulated them, typically include higher education institutions, Governmental departments, and schools and colleges (For those wishing to attempt Bernstein’s notoriously impenetrable work, Singh (2002) offers a relatively reader-friendly sketch of its salient points). It is generally accepted in the sector that ‘child / parent voice’ is important in any reform. Seen from a sociology of education perspective, this stance applied to curricular reform would mean that children and young people had a role in deciding what knowledge is translated into ‘classroom talk’. If we managed to affect this change, it would be a ‘disruptive’ – and potentially emancipatory – move.
And lastly, to a question which I think should be on the mind of anyone considering curriculum reform in our era: the changing nature of knowledge. I’ll return to this specific point in a moment but will first attend to what is quite commonly referred to as a main aim of education and schooling: preparation for adulthood. To my mind, this framing is too neutral and, in a way, weak. It appears to me, that we should be preparing young people for crisis. It seems clear that ecologically, politically, and socially we are swamped by news of crises. We are probably in the midst of these, and it is all but certain that (in particular the climate breakdown) these crises will shape the future of our children and young people. We must consider, then, the mental load they are and will be carrying. This isn’t a SEND-specific issue, but as we’ve learned from the Covid crisis, vulnerable groups (e.g., disabled people) are disproportionately affected by the fallout of crises. To address this, we require a curriculum that supports and promotes resilience.
And back to knowledge, and what I believe can be seen as an epistemological crisis. Being decidedly a layman in the area rather than a philosopher, I am referring here simply to what we all witness in the explosion of ‘fake news’ and the erosion of trust in long-established sources of public information. Without being partisan, I’ll point to the contested claims made during the election in the USA, and its outcome. Singh (2002: 4) pointed to the ‘knowledge paradox’ which is another aspect of this crisis: While the capacity of the human intellect to grasp new knowledge is limited, the volume of knowledge available for processing continues to rise exponentially.
So, what might this mean for curricular reform? I’d argue it calls for a pivot from a content – heavy, memory-based approach to learning, towards one that fosters critical thinking, and drives at creating well-informed citizenry. It means, I think, that the curriculum and assessment framework needs to support pupils’ abilities to assess the provenance and quality of information (not accumulating more of it) and consider the implications of knowledge-forms on their own safety and on social cohesion.
The Review Chair was clear about the commitment to evolution, not revolution. However, it must be recognised that the starting point is one where schools appear to be lagging behind societal changes and entrenching, rather than mitigating inequalities. The forceful overthrow of the current order (revolution) might not be desirable. But a gradual development of the curriculum and assessment framework (evolution) must be an ambitious, accelerated one – and one that is uncompromising about social justice.
Apple, M. W. (1993). The politics of official knowledge: Does a national curriculum make sense?. Teachers college record, 95(2), 222-241. Accessed at: https://web.stanford.edu/class/educ232b/Apple.pdf
Apple, M., & Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum. Routledge.
Bernstein, B. (2003). Class, codes and control: The structuring of pedagogic discourse (Vol. 4). Psychology Press. Accessed at: https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781134413461_A24507501/preview-9781134413461_A24507501.pdf
Singh, P. (2002). Pedagogising knowledge: Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device. British journal of sociology of education, 23(4), 571-582. Accessed at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27464168_Pedagogising_Knowledge_Bernstein’s_Theory_of_the_Pedagogic_Device
Thanks for this very strong argument and perspective about the current curriculum review that is both and SEN/D specific. I would consider going further than ‘creating well-informed citizenry’ by thinking about the whole curriculum and culture of schooling aspromoting democratic citizenship skills and virtues. This is about the curriculum as about head, heart and hand that could embody inclusive practices into the structure and functioning of schools.
Thank you Dr Stavrou for your very pertinent reflections on the Curriculum and Assessment Review. The well-documented conflict between inclusion and the standards agenda is indeed as relevant as ever and I completely agree that we should seize the opportunity to push for alternative and more diverse indicators of success.
I welcome the association drawn with the ambition of the SEND and AP Improvement Plan to ‘create a more inclusive society’.This plan also promises ‘greater clarity on evidence-based support’ and it would be judicious of us to explore the nature of the evidence-based support which will be used in reviewing the curriculum. Are we talking about evidence based on standardised assessments or use of approaches and resources informed by knowledge of specific needs, for example syndrome-specific approaches?
I also welcome you raising the question of how curriculum reform might support a more inclusive society. In this respect, I would argue that curriculum reform needs to go further than teaching about diversity, but that the curriculum should (like assessment) meet the diverse learning needs of children and young people in inclusive settings. To move towards a more inclusive society, young people need to grow up living and learning together, rather than continuing the typical-different dichotomy through a segregated system.
As a parent of a child with SEND in a mainstream secondary school; a former governor and a researcher of vulnerable groups with SEND, the points above accurately reflect the concerns and aspirations of children, parents and practitioners. I would add that any reform of the curriculum has to incorporate understanding of structural inequalities by including the input of those in our society who face multiple and interacting forms of disadvantage, and discrimination. For example, BLAM would be able to advise on the discriminatory factors at work in the (lack of) identification and support of SEND in young black pupils. These include adultification, criminalisation, lack of teacher training in anti-racism/ cultural awareness/ identification of SEND / young people’s SEN rights and obligations and black parents fear of acknowledging SEND in their children based on historical discrimination of black people with SEND in our school system (including special provision).