Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Report for Information

1) Purpose of Report:

1.1. This report provides SACRE with a brief summary of the recently published review of the primary curriculum produced on behalf of the government by Sir James Rose. Issues selected in this report are those that will impact on RE within the curriculum in the primary phase.

2) Contextual Issues:

2.1. This paper supports the Corporate Strategy (maximising well being) by ensuring children's provision in religious education is secure.

2.2. The Review of the Primary Curriculum was commissioned by the government and carried out by Sir James Rose and published at the end of 2008. The full report is available on http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk . The overarching purpose of the Review is to put forward recommendations for what primary children should learn in a curriculum, taking account of what is already known about how learning is advanced through high quality teaching.

2.3. Those who wish to respond to the report should do so by 28^th February 2009. The final Review is due in spring 2009. QCA will provide programmes of study and guidance ready for implementation in September 2011.

3) A Rationale for the Curriculum

3.1. The rational is derived from the Children's Plan.

3.2. The curriculum should be dynamic rather than static and subject to well managed, periodic review in response to national and global change.

3.3. Reviews should become pro-active whereby the frameworks supporting children's learning, including both the statutory curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage are reviewed as a whole.

4) Curriculum design and content.

4.1. A design for the curriculum is proposed which promotes challenging subject teaching alongside equally challenging cross-curricular studies.

4.2. Six areas of learning are proposed to give schools optimum flexibility for planning cross curricular studies and ample opportunities to teach essential content discreetly and directly. These are:

Understanding English, communication and languages

Mathematical Understanding

Scientific and technological understanding

Human, social and environmental understanding

Understanding physical health and well-being

Understanding the arts and design

4.3 Secure progress which builds on children's prior learning is a

central curricular objective. Expert groups are being consulted on

the essential content of the curriculum and progression towards

understanding key ideas for the primary years.

5) Personal Development

5.1. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 places duties on schools to promote the spiritual, moral, social , cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. The Review is working towards a framework for primary children's personal development that takes account of these duties and builds on existing good practice.

6) Provisional recommendations

6.1. A National Curriculum should be retained as an entitlement for all children

6.2. The revised primary curriculum should be underpinned by a statement of aims and values.

6.3. Neither discreet subject teaching nor cross curricular studies must disappear from primary schools.

6.4. For the purposes of planning for continuity and progression, the QCA should investigate whether it would be help schools if the new primary curriculum were set out in three, two-year phases (i.e. year 1-2, year 3-4, year 5-6)

6.5. When National Strategies next review their materials they should look to further strengthen curricular continuity between KS2 and KS3

7) The potential impact on RE in the primary phase

7.1. The report makes no specific mention of religious education, or a number of other subject areas, but it makes reference to maintaining the "statutory curriculum" of which RE is a part.

7.2. RE can be identified within a number of the areas of learning, but specifically within "human, social and environmental understanding".

7.3. Schools in Hampshire can be encouraged to develop current effective practice of teaching RE as both a discreet subject and within cross-curricular themes.

7.4. High quality RE teachers in Hampshire are being encouraged to send QCA effective units of work for RE, planned according to the concept led approach of Living Difference.

8. Recommendation: that SACRE notes the report.