Steve Rollett, Deputy Chief Executive, Confederation of School Trusts
"It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” warned Bilbo Baggins. "You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Hobbits and wizards know a thing or two about adventures, and the Curriculum and Assessment Review could do worse than listen to such sage advice for its journey ahead. Indeed, it already seems to have done so.
When the Curriculum and Assessment Review was first announced, expectations varied widely across the sector. Some anticipated radical reform, while others feared disruptive changes could destabilise an already pressured education system or take us into troubled curriculum waters.
My view was that we needed a considered approach from the Review – one that didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and, in Bilbo’s language, allowed the Review to keep its feet amidst the inevitable currents of curriculum debate. I think we’ve seen this in the interim report that’s just landed.
It’s easy to become suspicious of well-worn phrases like ‘evolution not revolution’, but its meaning is not trivial: evidence-based, child-centred, workload aware. These things matter.
It’s clear the Review has drawn heavily not only on the available quantitative data about curriculum, achievement and so on, but also on the views of respondents to the call for evidence. This means that it’s setting off from a good base, even if the direction ahead is not yet fixed.
Curriculum is such a contested area that there was never going to be a final answer or a single way ahead. But there is a big difference between treading judiciously forward feeling the edges, shining a light where you can, and jumping into the dark. If the result is a report without a clear list of policy recommendations at this stage, that’s probably a good thing: survey the landscape in detail first.
And while some will say the shape or ambition of reform remains unclear, the interim report has alighted on a number of important issues. It’s not hard to imagine that many of these will see reform in due course. As Gandalf wisely said, "not all those who wander are lost.”
One of the most pressing concerns CST raised in our initial response was the issue of curriculum overload, particularly at primary level and within GCSE specifications. We highlighted concerns from leaders who reported struggling to balance breadth and depth effectively, with some curriculum areas feeling excessively crowded, making it harder for children to master the content. The interim report explicitly acknowledges this tension and commits to a deeper, subject-specific analysis of how curriculum content can be better balanced.
We emphasised the importance of retaining and strengthening the knowledge-rich curriculum, but with an increased focus on inclusivity and responsiveness to societal and technological change. The interim report’s commitment to precisely these points is encouraging. It explicitly recognises the importance of foundational subjects such as mathematics and science, but also highlights the necessity of equipping young people with the knowledge and skills to navigate an AI-enabled and rapidly changing world.
Assessment and accountability were also central themes of our submission. We raised concerns about the volume of assessment at Key Stage 4, suggesting that careful consideration was needed to avoid curriculum distortion and undue pressure on students and teachers. The interim report mirrors these concerns, acknowledging the potentially excessive volume of GCSE assessments. Importantly, the panel agrees on the need to carefully evaluate the potential for incremental, evidence-informed changes to assessment practices.
The interim report also acknowledges stakeholder concerns about the EBacc's influence on student choices and subject breadth. While the Review has not yet provided definitive direction on the future of EBacc, it does feel like there is a building momentum for reform signalled in the report.
Similarly, it recognises the issues around post-16 education, including GCSE resits, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see some more substantial reform in this area too.
That the Review hasn’t gone charging off with a raft of reform policies based on a few months’ work is not a weakness.
As a staging post for the bigger journey ahead, the interim report has done a good job. It has identified a compelling set of issues to be grappled with and a solid plan for where to go next.
In the words of Gandalf, "Home is now behind you, the world is ahead.”
