Industry News
Government defends new curriculum
Posted on 16th July 2007
Plans to allow teachers greater freedom in the classroom over what is best for their pupils have been defended by government schools minister Lord Adonis.
The government supports the idea to personalise education for individual children, which could lead to secondary school pupils learning subjects as diverse as Mandarin and financial management.
By providing modernisation and lessening the burden of regulation on schools, it is hoped that the plans will encourage schools to diversify their teaching to address wider issues such as climate change and healthy eating.
Lord Adonis said that "greater emphasis on life skills like financial capability, managing your own money, cooking, environmental studies" can have a place in the curriculum alongside traditional subjects.
"Do we want to see our teachers freer to teach a broader curriculum and less prescription from the centre, which is of course what people have been calling on us to do for years? Yes … we can use the judgement of the teachers to decide what is best," he added.
In the new secondary curriculum which was unveiled last week, up to a quarter of the school day was freed up to enable teachers to give more help to pupils struggling to master the basics in English and maths.