ABSTRACT
In the late 1980s the proposed introduction of a subject-based National Curriculum aroused considerable opposition in some quarters as contrary to ‘good primary practice’ or not in tune with ‘primary school philosophy’. It was contrasted to approaches based on wide-ranging topics or themes drawing in, and interrelating, a wide range of subjects. In other quarters it was warmly welcomed as a counter to what was seen as woolly-minded policy and practice involving ‘a magpie curriculum of bits and pieces, unrelated and ephemeral’ and lacking both the structure and progression to be found in a subject-based curriculum. However, both sets of protagonists based their arguments on inadequate knowledge and understanding of contemporary practice, and both failed to acknowledge that separate subject work could be taught in a variety of different timescales, each with advantages and disadvantages in terms of meeting National Curriculum requirements. In reality, subjects were much more engrained in contemporary organization, planning and practice than either the positive or negative rhetoric suggested. In the event the vast majority of primary schools fairly soon found a modus vivendi with the subject-based National Curriculum as Chapter 10 illustrates-though not in the way either the protagonists or antagonists of wide-ranging topic work advocated.
