The School Curriculum Ten Years Hence - UCET: Universities ...

the teacher, always bearing in mind that pupils benefit from verbal
interaction with the teacher.
There is a further complication: part of the teacher’s plan should be
to cater for different levels of ability. This is difficult, as Neville
Bennett (1987) and HMI have observed. One of the most sterile
arguments in the last twenty years has been the debate about the
advantages and disadvantages of setting and streaming by ability.
This debate misses the point: it is not enough to have a class set for
ability - what is needed is a much more complex pattern of
organisation and pedagogy to cater for a range of individual
differences. In 1993 the National Commission on Education (NCE)
recognised this and devoted a whole chapter to “Innovation in
Learning”. It was particularly impressed by ‘flexible learning’, where
pupils learn to take some responsibility for their own learning
programmes. The Report recommended that by the age of about
14, pupils should be equipped to work independently in a flexible
learning environment. It goes without saying that the flexible
curriculum demands flexible assessment - it is also necessary to
avoid age-related testing.
4. Moving from academic or vocational to integration of both
aspects of experience
We need to overcome the false and sterile opposition of academic
and vocational (see Richard Pring, 1995). Many outside education
have complained about this characteristic of educational thinking.
This is by no means an English phenomenon, but we have the
problem intensified because our social structure is so dominated by
class. Curricula should be designed with a view to eliminating the
distinction between academic and vocational: young people need
aspects of both traditions, as suggested by the IPPR (1990), the
National Commission on Education (1993) and Richardson et al
(1995) Learning for the Future. We need a curriculum which gets
beyond thinking in academic and vocational terms: this will not be
easy because the two concepts are deeply embedded, and
segregated, in our culture. All pupils need more social and moral
education.
5. Moving from a national curriculum 5-16 to life-long learning
We have at last reached the stage where most young people stay
on in education beyond 16, but although much lip service is paid to
the idea of life-long learning, very little thought has been given to
relating the national curriculum 5-16, or education 14-19, to
providing related opportunities throughout the whole of working life
and beyond. Not only because most people will need to change jobs
four or five times, but because they need to have opportunities to