ABSTRACT
The national curriculum – or, more accurately, a national curriculum – is here to stay. It is hard to envisage a political or even an educational reason for abandoning it. There are fears, too, that as so often happens when people take fright at change, that ministers will begin to nibble away at it, to reduce it to a shadow of what was originally intended to be broad and balanced. The pressures to change teaching methods – a euphemism for a return to the formal approach – have not been inspired by the nature of the national curriculum. The changes have also thrown the two issues of class sizes and specialist teaching for 10- and 11-year-olds into stark relief. While class sizes continued to decline, however slowly, little attention was paid to the additional demands of the new curriculum. The changes will emphasise the terminal feel which this type of examination generates, especially when externally marked.
