ABSTRACT
The unexamined rhetoric for change associated with the National Curriculum is relatively seductive to the concerned lay person. There is now a new language around which talks of strengthening standards, common goals, attainment targets, transferability, student profiles, assessment, parental rights, opting out, and teacher appraisal. It all appears to offer a new deal to the educational consumers, but it is teachers who must deliver the new programmes, and it is they and the schools who will be responsible for creating the sorts of circumstances in which the requirements of the National Curriculum will be met. The pressures are substantial, so it is no great surprise that in many contexts the curriculum is being pruned and pared to ensure that maximum attention is devoted to satisfying those curriculum requirements perceived as urgent, important and immediate.
