This article outlines reasons for creating the Excellent Futures Curriculum at Stanley Park High School, Carshalton, the strengths of the curriculum, and its subsequent development.

Stanley Park High School, Carshalton, was designated a Building Schools for the Future "One School Pathfinder" in 2006 and charged with being innovative in all aspects of schooling. At a time of increasing compliance in schools, with an unwillingness to deviate from centrally controlled orthodoxy for fear of falling foul of…

Whereas the previous government, regarding education primarily as a means to an end, showed little interest in questions of curriculum content, Gove's counter-revolution involves the enforcement of a deeply authoritarian politics of knowledge. An adequate response to such cultural and curricular conservatism needs to expose the falsity of Gove's…

Our current curriculum and qualifications framework is a "fragmented mess" according to many of those who teach in, and lead, our schools. How can we change it with minimal disruption, particularly after four years of often destructive meddling from above? A number of individuals and groups at school level have been working to develop a…

In this article the author suggests a number of measures and policies that should be part of a socialist education manifesto. These specific suggestions address curriculum and assessment issues such as an anti-discriminatory curriculum for equality, funded education outside the school, the development of critical thinking and democracy in schools,…

In this article it is argued that the development of young people's skills in using spoken language should be given more time and attention in the school curriculum. The author discusses the importance of the effective use of spoken language in educational and work settings, considers what research has told us about the factors that make group…

Here, at "FORUM's" invitation, is the text of the 2014 Godfrey Thomson Trust public lecture at the University of Edinburgh. Its backdrop is the centralisation of educational decision-making in England since 1988 and the power and patronage exercised by the Secretary of State. Taking as examples recent policies on childhood, curriculum…

This article gives an account of the way an opportunity has been taken to draw together ideas for a curriculum for the common school and beyond, during the writing of a new edition of the "Index for Inclusion; developing learning and participation in schools" (Booth & Ainscow, 2011). I discuss the way thinking about the curriculum…

A century ago Edmond Holmes, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Elementary Schools from 1905 to 1910, made a major contribution to educational debate through his widely quoted and much disputed "What Is and What Might Be" (Holmes, 1911). In a previous article (Richards, 2010) his criticisms of what was then contemporary policy and practice…

The author argues that the decisions primary teachers make about the curriculum need to be informed by well-developed expertise in the subjects they are planning and teaching. This expertise is necessary when teachers are exercising professional autonomy in areas such as curriculum design, securing breadth and balance, and managing curriculum…