Curriculum design is a domain that infrequently forms a discrete element of initial teacher training, or continuing professional development for music teachers in English secondary schools. Classroom music teachers, teaching Key Stage 3 (KS3) learners (11-14-year olds), are, however, required to design their own curriculum. Teachers are…

We are concerned by evidence of 'curriculum narrowing' in English primary schools. Inspection reports shed little light on the current situation, so we conducted a small qualitative study exploring breadth of curriculum provision. Eight teacher interviewees described eight different ways of organising and implementing the curriculum. While English…

In 2018, the Department for Education (DfE) launched the Curriculum Fund, to help teachers deliver the more challenging National Curriculum introduced in 2014, while reducing the workload associated with curriculum planning and resourcing. As part of the Curriculum Fund, the DfE set up the curriculum programme pilot, a £2.4m grant allocated to…

This paper focuses on how physical education (PE) teachers interpreted and implemented a new, minimalist and traditionalist National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) in England. Utilising a single-method, cross-sectional design, 43 teachers participated in semi-structured interviews which explored their approach to teaching the new…

This research explored the extent to which secondary school history teachers in England willingly engaged with a series of concurrent curriculum reforms, and the factors that shaped their level of agency in the process. The curriculum has been the target of sustained reform by many governments, and accountability measures are frequently used to…

In these early stages of implementation of the English computing curriculum policy reforms, there are uncertainties with regards to the intentions of computing to young people. To date, research regarding the English computing curriculum has been mostly concerned with the content of the curriculum, its delivery and surrounding pedagogy. In…

This article draws on an inquiry into the design and implementation of the curriculum in a case study urban primary school in the north of England. In response to the introduction of the revised National Curriculum in September 2014, teachers and the school head engaged in a critical discourse around their perceptions of students' attainment and…

This introductory article accompanies three further articles forming a case study research project undertaken to describe the experience of four urban secondary schools implementing a competence-based curriculum for students in their first year of secondary education. The nature of such competence-based curricula is discussed in the context of…

We report on a three-year study of teachers' experiences of a major reform of the science National Curriculum for 14- to 16-year-olds in England. Teachers' responses to this curriculum reform were guided by: "personal" aims and biography; "internal" features of their workplace such as departmental collegiality; and…

A number of universities in the United Kingdom (UK) have launched institution-wide initiatives recently to embed inquiry and research more firmly into the student experience. Among these, the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences (CILASS) led a five-year development program at The University of Sheffield (TUOS) between…

School change is always local and dependent on the kinds of resources that are available. In this paper we explore the notion that knowledge is an important resources for vernacular educational reform. In order to explore this contention, we use the lens of cross-curricular changes undertaken by English schools in receipt of funding from Creative…

This paper suggests that, in contrast to the great reports such as Crowther, Newsom Robbins and Plowden, recent government papers relating to education in England pay little attention to values that should shape the standards to be achieved, the knowledge to be transmitted and the virtues to be nourished. Whilst legislation over the past 60 years…

The year 2007 saw a discrete yet significant development in the sphere of "international education" in England: a doubling in number of state-funded schools offering the International Primary Curriculum. This curriculum had been developed in 2000 for the Shell Company Group of Schools. It first emerged in England in 2003; two years later…

The five papers in this collection consider a range of important issues in relation to the English national curriculum assessment system (NCA). In responding to these articles, Jannette Elwood considers some of the issues the authors have raised generally in relation to a revised English NCA, but also more specifically she considers them from a…

While all comparisons are difficult, a consideration of the English national curriculum may offer some insights about the Australian version. In this paper, I suggest that there are some important similarities between the two approaches. I query the stated purposes of the Australian national curriculum and its adoption of a notion of equity which…