ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the role of the National Curriculum is not clearly a direct cause for increased exclusion and that instead of a means for exclusion, the National Curriculum could be interpreted as a powerful tool for increasing social justice in English schools and society. It reports a research that agrees with some of the positive adaptations of a national curriculum in his research, as a tool for inclusion and opportunity, rather than purely an exclusionary pressure. The chapter suggests the ways in which teachers, to deliver more equitable outcomes for their pupils have already adapted the National Curriculum. The teachers that participated in this research project were circumspect about the role of the National Curriculum in exclusions from school. When asked to point out the major changes in the past ten years that could have caused an increase in exclusions from school, none of them suggested the National Curriculum.
