National Curriculum (Hansard, 13 January 1989)

§ Mr. Kenneth Baker

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I are establishing forthwith a working group to make recommendations on attainment targets and programmes of study for history within the national curriculum in England and Wales.

The working group's terms of reference are set out in the table. I have also sent supplementary guidance to the group's chairman, a copy of which I have placed in the Library. We are grateful to Commander Saunders Watson, until recently the president of the Historic Houses Association, and currently the chairman of the Heritage Education Trust, for agreeing to chair the history working group. The other members are: Mr R M Guyver, Wembury primary school, Plymouth; Mr J Hendy, Director of Education, Stockport; Mr H Hobhouse, author; Mr P Livsey, adviser in history and geography, county Durham; Mrs A Low-Beer, Bristol university; Dr A Prochaska, secretary and librarian, Institute of Historical Research; Dr J M Roberts, Merton college, Oxford university; Mrs C White, Garth Hill comprehensive school, Bracknell; and Dr G Elwyn Jones of University College, Swansea, who will also be a member of the History Committee for Wales announced today by my right hon. Friend. The group will begin work at once. It will give interim advice by 30 June 1989 and final advice by Christmas 1989. This will enable attainment targets and programmes of study in history to begin to be introduced in schools from the autumn of 1991.

Our outline timetable for the development as appropriate of attainment targets, programmes of study and guidelines in other foundation subjects, and for their implementation in schools, is as follows:

Geography: working group to be established, Easter 1989; implementation to begin in schools—autumn 1991.

Modern foreign languages: working group to be established, July 1989; implementation to begin in schools—autumn 1992 at the latest.

Music, art and physical education: arrangements set up for considering the content of guidelines—June 1990; implementation in schools—autumn 1992.

This timetable will secure that either agreed requirements, or proposals, relating to the full national curriculum are publicly availalbe by mid-1991. National Curriculum Working Group on History: Terms of Reference

Background 1. The Education Reform Act 1988 provides for the establishment of a National Curriculum of core and other foundation subjects for pupils of compulsory school age in England and Wales. The Act empowers the Secretary of State to specify, as he considers appropriate for each foundation subject, including history, that there should be clear objectives—attainment targets—for the knowledge, skills, and understanding which pupils of different abilities and maturities should be expected to have acquired by the end of the academic year in which they reach the ages of 7, 11, 14 and 16; and 752W to promote them, programmes of study describing the content, skills and processes which need to be covered during each key stage of compulsory education. Taken together, the attainment targets and programmes of study will provide the basis for assessing a pupil's performance, in relation both to expected attainment and to the next steps needed for the pupil's development. 2. Both the objectives (attainment targets) and means of achieving them (programmes of study) should leave scope for teachers to use their professional talents and skills to develop their own schemes of work, within a statutory framework which is known to all. It is the task of the Working Group on History to advise on that framework for history.

The Task 3. The Working Group is asked to submit an interim report to the Secretaries of State by 30 June 1989 outlining and, as far as possible, exemplifying:

(i) the contribution which history should make to the overall school curriculum and how that will inform the Group's thinking about attainment targets and programmes of study;
(ii) its provisional thinking about the knowledge, skills and understanding which pupils of different abilities and maturities should be expected to have attained and be able to demonstrate at key ages; and the profile components into which attainment targets should be grouped;
(iii) its thinking about the programmes of study which would be consistent with the attainment targets provisionally identified; and
(iv) the key elements within those programmes of study that it considers to be essential at each key stage for children throughout England and Wales, bearing in mind the need for a balanced history curriculum for all pupils and, in Wales, the need to allow room within that curriculum for appropriate attention to the history of Wales.

4. By Christmas 1989 the Working Group is to submit a final report to the Secretaries of State setting out and justifying its final recommendations on attainment targets and the programmes of study for history.

Approach 5. In carrying out its task the Group should consult informally and selectively with relevant interests and have regard to the work of other subject groups, in particular those on English, Welsh and, in due course, on geography. Additionally the Group should take account of:

(i) the broad framework for assessment and testing announced by the Government on 7 June 1988 and subsequent development of it in the light of advice from the School Examinations and Assessment Council;
(ii) the contributions which history can make to learning about other subjects and cross-curricular themes, and which they in turn can make to learning in history;
(iii) best practice and the results of any relevant research and development;
(iv) the work of the History Committee for Wales (HCW); and
(v) the issues covered in the supplementary guidance to the Group's Chairman.