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Curriculum, assessment and qualifications

 
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NAHT is working to ensure that the curriculum supports the learning, progress and success of all pupils. NAHT supports the principle that a broad and balanced curriculum promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.

NAHT is campaigning to: 

Support schools to provide a broad and balanced curriculum for their pupils

  • Challenge the government policy, including EBacc, which may narrow the curriculum
  • Enable and support schools to successfully deliver statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education
  • Lobby for improvements to government policy which supports schools to deliver inclusive education and fulfil their responsibilities under the public sector equality duty
  • Support schools to deliver effective careers education for all pupils
  • Support schools to deliver high-quality Religious Education to all pupils
  • Provide guidance, materials and information to support schools in educating pupils about environmental issues.

Ensure a valid and proportionate approach to statutory assessment in primary schools

  • Lobby the government to reconsider the introduction of the multiplication tables check
  • Lobby the government to ensure changes to the Early Years Foundation Stage and Early Learning Goals are appropriate and relevant for the early years sector
  • Influence the development and implementation of the reception baseline assessment
  • Support members to implement the new statutory assessment for pupils with SEND
  • Identify and challenge the STA over any impact on members of the contract change to deliver statutory assessment in the primary phase
  • Engage with the STA to influence changes and improvements to statutory assessment including moderation and maladministration
  • Campaign for KS2 SPAG to be made non-statutory and oppose any additional statutory testing in the primary phase
 

Ensure the KS4 and KS5 qualification framework and examination system is fit for purpose

  • Press the government, Ofqual and exam boards to ensure that reformed qualifications, both academic and vocational, meet the needs of all pupils and schools
  • Explore the issue of grade reliability, identifying solutions and improvements which are supported by members and pressing the government and Ofqual for appropriate action
  • Inform members of the latest developments in secondary assessment through engagement with Ofqual, JCQ and awarding organisations. 

Pre-key stage standards for use in 2018/19

From summer 2019, teachers must use the new pre-key stage standards to make statutory teacher assessment judgements at the end of key stage one and key stage two for pupils who are working below the national curriculum teacher assessment frameworks, and above P scale four.

The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) has released a video where Diane Rochford and Janet Thompson explain more about the pre-key stage standards, which you can watch here.

If a pupil is working below these standards, teachers should report their outcomes using P scales one to four.

NAHT worked closely with STA in the review and drafting of the pre-key stage standards, and we are pleased more positive terminology has been adopted that better captures the positive achievements of pupils.

Commenting in the Department for Education's press release, NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: "Every child has the right to see their progress properly recognised in school. NAHT supported the Rochford Review's principle that the assessment for pupils working below the standard of the national curriculum should align with the new national curriculum, and we endorsed the decision to undertake a review of the pre-key stage standards, involving curriculum and assessment experts from the special and mainstream sectors.

"The new standards are an improvement on what we had before. They offer a more inclusive statutory assessment system, where all pupils are able to transition onto the national curriculum if and when they are ready."

Last updated 01 March 2019

First published 01 March 2019
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