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What Works In Schools – Academic Rigour And Accessibility – The Challenge For Subjects

The Prince’s Teaching Institute Second Headteachers’ Seminar

The PTI held a Head's Conference in January 2010, on how a balance can be struck between the academic rigour demanded by Higher Education, employers and teachers on the one hand, and on the other the need to provide a curriculum that is accessible to pupils of all abilities.  A report of the proceedings and conclusions of the day is being published today.  (available for download here)

Some of the views of the headteachers attending the conference were:

• In the past 20 years, there has been too much encroachment of politics into education, with schools being asked to mop up all kinds of social problems
• As a result of pressure from performance tables, traditional academic subjects like History and Modern Languages are becoming more and more the preserve of independent schools, with a potential detriment to social mobility
• The more rigorous inspection regime may have raised standards of teaching but has created an environment where all that matters is compliance with regulations
• The habit of personal reading can no longer be taken for granted - the comparative impoverishment of children’s language means that they find many forms of literature difficult to understand even at a basic level

Bernice McCabe, co-director of the PTI, said that the conference had highlighted how education is caught up in a conflict of many differing ideologies and how heads feel that they have to battle against the system to avoid disenfranchising their pupils.

‘The discussion highlighted a tension between the aspirations of headteachers to provide a challenging academic curriculum and the imperative to work within a culture of what was felt to be narrow accountability and compliance,’ she said. ‘There was wide agreement that many issues that dominate current thinking about the function of schools are more concerned with a social rather than education agenda, and that the dissemination of subject knowledge to the next generation is being diluted as a result.

‘Because of the emphasis on skills and techniques, like “Learning to Learn” and the inclusion in the curriculum of so many imperatives like health and social skills, children leave school knowing less and are less well prepared for the world of work and higher education.’

The seminar, held in January, brought together headteachers from a wide cross-section of secondary schools all over the country as well as representatives from the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority, National College of School Leadership, Department for Children, Schools and Families, The Geographical Association, the Institute of Education and other educational and employment organisations.

Discussion centred on the place of subjects and accessibility to academic rigour; the national curriculum; education policy-making; leadership; and competition and collaboration.

Mrs McCabe said that she hoped the views of the professional educators who had attended the seminar would give cause for reflection and provide food for thought for policy-makers.

Media enquiries to Sheila Thompson or Charlotte Cornwell at Brown Lloyd James (0207 591 9610) – sheilat@blj.co.uk or charlotte@blj.co.uk