ABSTRACT
The idea of a perfect curriculum in terms of coherence, theory and testable outcomes is not only deep-seated in the National Curriculum, but closely linked to the assumption of traditional values and beliefs. The National Curriculum in its introduction and continuance was never really thought through. It was seen to be pragmatic. The National Curriculum might be monumentally prescriptive but it depends on the ways in which teachers interpret it. One assumption about the implementation of the National Curriculum is that any falling away of standards is not so much due to the National Curriculum itself as to the resistance to it by teachers. The National Curriculum is powerful not only in its detail but in the shift of emphasis. To understand its effects is to explore the subtle and complex experience of schools from the participant's point of view; the teachers and the pupils rather than the inspectors.
