Ken Boston of the QCA revealed the new national curriculum for England on Wednesday 11th July, with similarities with the Scottish “Curriculum for Excellence”, in its more emphasis on teaching topics than traditional timetabled subjects.

This will enable students to research subjects in much greater depth and make learning more relevant to the big issues of the day, Boston thinks. He argues, for example, that because global warming straddles two subjects, science and geography, it should be taught as a topic in its own right. Pupils will be able to use what they learn about global warming in each of the subject areas later..

Boston, however, is adamant that teaching through topics makes sense in today’s world. “There is nothing ‘New Age’ about these proposals,” he says. “Books will still have to be read, and history will still have to be studied to give people a sense of their own culture and other people’s.”

There will also still be a list of authors that pupils should study in English at the key stage four (age 14 to 16). “For should, read must,” says Boston, showing that he believes it is vital for young people to study the literary canon.

This year, he is adding to the national curriculum a list of authors from non-English cultures and traditions whom the QCA believes children should be able to study. These include Chinua Achebe, Maya Angelou, Benjamin Zephaniah and Meera Syal The great classical writers and poets are still there, from Jane Austen to John Keats. The idea is that this approach will help teachers develop a personalised learning programme for each pupil, one of the key objectives of the Government.

To reflect the growing influence of China and the importance of the Middle East, the modern languages offering has been changed. No longer will young people between the ages of 11 and 14 be confined to studying only European languages. This reform should pave the way for an increased take-up of languages such as Mandarin and Arabic.

In history, there will be an increased emphasis on British history, and history students will have to take a topic described as “the development of political power from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, including changes in the relationship between rulers and ruled over time: the changing relationship between Crown and Parliament and the development of democracy”.

Next year will see changes to A-levels, including the new A* grade, awarded to pupils who start their courses next September and score 90 per cent on their exams in the summer of 2010. The number of modules going to make up the A-level will be reduced from six to four.

Exam boards have also been told to make their questions much more open-ended, to encourage pupils to use their creative thinking skills.
Boston, and the Government that has given the green light to his blueprint, will likely be attacked by those who argue that his changes mark a return to child-centred learning. Boston goes on the attack. “Why shouldn’t learning be child-centred?”, he asks.

“The old days when the teacher came into the room, delivered the syllabus as scripted to a row of seats and left at the end of the lesson without knowing whether learning had taken place are gone. In the future, you may still have a day where children are learning the pluperfect at 10 o’clock, doing quadratic equations at 11, going to lunch at 12, coming back to science at 1.30 and studying the cause of the American civil war at 2.30 – but that won’t happen all the time.

According to Boston, that kind of fragmentation of the timetable will not always be beneficial. If you introduce more topic-based work, children will still be learning, he says.

.The art of developing a valid pedagogy for ITC in schools is to marry technical expertise with a meaningful philosophy of education.  Education should be about engaging with ideas, being creative and learning how to think; technology needs to enhance this and not to become the focus of interest itself. David Hargreaves has called for a change in pedagogy altogether; which can only be achieved by a new approach to learning, in which students learn faster and/or learn more than one thing at a time (a richer curriculum) at the hands of more skilful teachers (a better pedagogy) supported by a reformed approach to assessment (assessment for learning). This inevitably entails changes to the structure and culture of schools, ones that are needed to provide the conditions for a better curriculum for learning and pedagogy for learning. There are those who argue for a paradigm shift in education, using IT as the engine for change, while others have genuine reservations about the “IT revolution.

Thus the HMIe

“The ever increasing pace of development in ICT presents the education system with a challenge to develop a capacity for change that will ensure quick and flexible response to new opportunities. The effective use of the wide range of facilities offered by ICT opens up unprecedented opportunities for invigorating learning and teaching in our schools and improving pupils’ attainment in coursework across the whole curriculum. Indeed, our thinking on the nature of the curriculum itself is likely to be challenged as the use of ICT becomes more effective and widespread. Skills in using ICT provide the potential for access to lifelong learning opportunities that can empower all learners to develop their own unique intellectual capacity and operate as effective members of a digital society. In the longer term, the very nature of schools and learning communities is likely to be altered radically by the influence of ITC” 

 (source: “The Use of ICT in Learning and Teaching: A Report by HM Inspectors of Schools” 

In similar vein, an article in McKinsey Quarterly felt that ”Technology has the potential (to make) education more interactive. When linked to clear educational objectives, IT can enable students to master traditional skills, prepare them for work in a technological age, and—perhaps more effectively than other means—help them to think creatively, solve problems, and make decisions” Significantly, much support for ITC delivery in schools comes from business and management sources. Coburn in “School Planning and Management” states that:   “technology is the backbone that will support the transition from didactic instruction to a project-based curriculum… (it) can facilitate a new kind of learning experience: children engaged in the active construction and use of knowledge, not passive  receivers of decontextualized facts” 

(Source:  “School Planning and Management, Dec 1999 v38 i12 p5.Technology on the Horizon. Author:  Janet Coburn) 

The alternative view is well expressed by Gertrude Himmelfarb who is concerned that the computer screen is, ”… too fluid, too mobile and volatile, to encourage any sustained effort of thought. The emphasis on computer technology in schools is overrated”, she continues “because whatever students learn is obsolete by the time they are working. Computers are more suitable for training than for education.” Sociologist Mark Brosnan considers the tendency of ITC to reinforce typical gender and social patterns of inequality when he discusses the issue of technophobia, a major problem among many teachers. Such teachers either avoid using computers with their class or they pass on their negative views to their pupils. Brosnan also notes that girls are less confident or have less access to computers and they are less likely than boys to have or use computers at home. A management issue that arises is that girls prefer to work collaboratively on the computer rather than on individualised tasks. From “Technophobia: the psychological impact of information technology”(Mark Brosnan;  Routledge 1998)  Computer and business guru Alan November makes the cogent remark that school ITC plans need to recognize one over-riding point: Instead of asking teachers, “What technology do you need?” ask them “Which concepts are the most difficult to teach and what information would help you teach these concepts?”