National Curriculum (Hansard, 25 January 1990)

§ Mr. MacGregor

I am today inviting the National Curriculum Council and the School Examinations and Assessment Council to undertake a number of tasks designed to help secondary schools accommodate the curricular needs of pupils in the last two years of compulsory education. I am also today setting out in a speech to the Society of Education Officers the flexibility which will be available to schools in planning the curriculum in these years. A copy of the speech has been placed in the Library and the texts of the letters are as follows:

Duncan G. Graham, Esq. CBE
Chairman and Chief Executive
National Curriculum Council
15–17 New Street
York YO1 2RA	25 January 1990

Dear Duncan, In my speech today to the Society of Education Officers I am making a statement of general policy on Key Stage 4 in the 786W National Curriculum. I enclose a copy of the speech. I recognise that the education service has had a number of anxieties about Key Stage 4 which need to be addressed now. What I have to say benefits from useful advice which I have received from you and your colleagues and from the School Examination and Assessment Council. Much of the planning for Key Stage 4 needs to be carried out by individual schools, using the various flexibilities that I am describing in my speech. But there is also preparatory work to be done at the centre, and I hereby invite NCC to undertake some of that work. I am writing similarly to Philip Halsey about the work that I want SEAC to undertake, and I expect your two Councils to keep in touch with each other and with my officials in carrying out the work. The tasks that I wish NCC to undertake are threefold. First, I believe that it would be of value to schools to have illustrations of curriculum planning for Key Stage 4. Schools must make their own planning decisions, but it would help them to see various possibilities illustrated in a booklet. It would be especially valuable to give examples of planning based on the thinking of actual schools. I ask NCC to work on a draft booklet with the aim that it should be published in the Summer of this year. The second task concerns the curriculum for pupils who will not take a full GCSE course in non-core foundation subjects of the National Curriculum. I suggested in my response to the interim report of the Geography Working Groupt that the Group might consider how schools might be enabled to select a range of content, still within the statutory requirements, from the full curriculum for Key Stage 4, so as to preserve the depth, vigour and challenge of geographical studies up to age 16. I now confirm my view that schools should be able to select from a range of options for pupils who do not take a full GCSE course in single National Curriculum subjects, and that there should be scope for schools to combine these options, or parts of them, with each other or with subjects outside the National Curriculum to form a GCSE course. The draft attainment targets and programmes of study for technology are, I believe, flexible enough to accommodate a range of courses at Key Stage 4 and to be combined with other subjects inside and outside the National Curriculum for GCSE purposes. I ask NCC to give attention to these possibilities in writing non-statutory guidance for technology. For all future foundation subjects, I shall ask NCC to give particular attention during the statutory consultation process to the arrangements for those not taking a full GCSE course in the subject at Key Stage 4. You will see from my letter to Philip Halsey that I expect Examining Groups to develop proposals for combined GCSEs and submit them to SEAC; and that SEAC will need to work out procedures to ensure that such GCSEs are rigorous and conform to the requirements of the National Curriculum where appropriate. I should be glad to know, however, if you feel NCC can make any further contribution in this area in addition to relevant material in non-statutory guidance on particular subjects. I am considering the arrangements that might be made to allow a small number of pupils, exceptionally, to drop certain subjects before the end of Key Stage 4. I do not intend, however, that any pupils shall be able to drop English, maths, science, technology, and a modern foreign language. Arrangements will be needed for pupils who obtain a good GCSE in one or more of these subjects before the end of Year 11, or who have already reached level 10, and remain in Key Stage 4. You have given me some preliminary thoughts on this in relation to the core subjects, but you then noted that more work needed to be done. I now ask NCC, in consultation with SEAC, to advise me on the curricular options and associated examination arrangemens that should be available for such pupils. I would like this advice by September of this year. For modern foreign languages I expect advice in the first place from the Working Group which is now considering attainment targets and programmes of study for modern languages in the National Curriculum. I am copying this letter to Philip Halsey at SEAC and Hywel Evans at the Curriculum Council for Wales. Yours sincerely,

John MacGregor

787W

Philip Halsey Esq. CB LVO
Chairman and Chief Executive
School Examinations and Assessment Council
45 Notting Hill Gate
London W 1 1 3JB	25 January 1990

Dear Philip, In my speech today to the Society of Education Officers I am making a statement of general policy on Key Stage 4 in the National Curriculum. I enclose a copy of the speech. I recognise that the education service has had a number of anxieties about Key Stage 4 which need to be addressed now. What I have to say benefits from useful advice which I have received from you and your colleagues and from NCC. Much of the planning for Key Stage 4 needs to be carried out by individual schools, using the various flexibilities that I am describing in my speech. But there is also preparatory work to be done at the centre, and I hereby invite SEAC to undertake some of that work. I am writing similarly to Duncan Graham about the work that I want NCC to undertake, and I expect your two Councils to keep in close touch with each other and with my officials in carrying out the work. I am reaffirming today that there should be a single framework of assessment with 10 levels of achievement on the National Curriculum scale for all pupils; and that at the end of Key stage 4 the GCSE will be the main form of assessment. SEAC already have work in train to develop revised GCSE National Criteria embodying the statutory attainment targets and programmes of study for the core subjects; and new GCSEs will similarly need to be developed against revised National Criteria for each of the other foundation subjects. I would hope that the revised assessment instruments thus developed could also be used to assess attainment against the National Curriculum levels within a narrower range of knowledge, skills and understanding than required to obtain a full GCSE. But I am also concerned that there should be flexibility in the development of GCSEs that combine parts of two, or conceivably more, foundation subjects, or that combine a foundation subject with a subject outside the National Curriculum. It will be for Examining Groups, with LEAs and schools, to develop proposals for such GCSEs and submit them to SEAC. But I would like to be assured that there will be machinery in place to scrutinise such proposals carefully, and to consider their curricular implications. Such GCSEs will need to be rigorous and to confirm where appropriate to the requirements of the National Curriculum. I ask SEAC to work out procedures for their consideration, in consultation with NCC, and to report to me by the end of this year. I am also declaring today that I expect the vocational examining bodies to be able to submit for approval qualifications covering parts of the National Curriculum. I ask SEAC to work out principles for the guidance of the vocational examining bodies, consulting NCC, and to report to me on this also by the end of the year. I am copying this letter to Duncan Graham.

Full-time mainscale teachers in MNPS in 1988 by LEA and Incentive allowance
	Incentive Allowances	Total with allowance	All main scale teachers	Per cent. with allowance
	None	A	B	C	D	E
Barking	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—
Barnet	1,317	61	402	3	192	65	723	2,040	35
Bexley	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—
Brent	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—
Bromley	826	48	425	14	203	71	761	1,587	48
Croydon	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—
Ealing	1,240	35	392	—	176	47	650	1,890	34
Enfield	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—
Haringey	1,039	1	285	3	165	43	497	1,536	32
Harrow	680	53	289	5	84	35	466	1,146	41
Havering	1,033	47	412	6	189	36	690	1,723	40
Hillingdon	757	42	392	10	192	45	681	1,438	47
Hounslow	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—
Kingston	497	30	186	3	85	25	329	826	40
Merton	434	145	262	6	128	7	548	982	56
Newham	672	140	442	5	152	59	798	1,470	54
Redbridge	787	56	354	7	129	41	587	1,374	43
Richmond	489	27	140	1	55	25	248	737	34

788W

Yours sincerely,

John MacGregor

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will be writing to the School Examinations and Assessment Council and the Curriculum Council for Wales shortly about the involvement of the CCW in this work.