Labour’s curriculum and assessment review: too cautious by design?

The party gave hints, from its manifesto onwards, that any change would not be super-radical. But it seems at risk of missing a great opportunity, through a reluctance to offer a deeper critique of its predecessors’ work.

Labour has been widely criticised for limiting its options by declaring, in its 2024 general election manifesto, that it will “not increase taxes on working people”.

The pledge meant possibilities including income tax increases were ruled out, boxing the party in as it faced huge public finance pressures. The argument behind the manifesto pledge, though, had been one of caution: the need not to scare voters who might worry that a Labour government would depart too far from Conservative economic orthodoxy, and hit them in the pocket.

Yet the thought occurred, on looking again last week at the government’s curriculum and assessment review process – with the review’s final report expected in a couple of weeks - that the party might have done something similar in the field of education.

That is, this hugely significant review, which will influence the content of what is taught in schools for at least the rest of this Parliament, seems to have been constrained from the start by a cautious approach which was set in place within the first month of Labour taking power.

Labour manifesto

In its manifesto, despite suggestions within it that the curriculum and assessment regime would be modernised, the party nevertheless dropped a hint that it might accept a key aspect of Conservative reforms.

The manifesto said: “Our reforms will build on the hard work of teachers who have brought their subjects alive with knowledge-rich syllabuses, to deliver a curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive, and innovative.”

The key phrases, here, for those interested in tracking the degree of Labour’s policymaking continuity with its predecessors, were “build on” and “knowledge-rich”.

Stressing the importance of “building on” teachers’ hard work would seem at face value admirable: not forcing staff to spend yet more time on rewriting teaching plans, after years of exhausting reforms under the Conservatives, while the acknowledgement of their “hard work” was also a nice gesture. But it did signal a kind of small c conservativism when it came to the curriculum.

Also, it would be absurd to deny the importance of children acquiring “knowledge” at school. I certainly do not do so. But “knowledge rich” is also shorthand for an educational approach politically associated with the last government, and the work of Nick Gibb, the long-serving schools minister, in particular.

Review terms of reference

When the terms of reference for the curriculum and assessment review were published in July last year– so within weeks of Labour taking power – there was another hint that a limited notion of radical change was envisaged.

This remit document stated, as its opening sentences: “The Curriculum and Assessment Review Group will undertake a review of the existing national curriculum and statutory assessment system, including qualification pathways. The Review will seek to refresh the curriculum to ensure it is cutting edge…”

Re-reading this document now, it strikes me that the key word above is “refresh”.

This suggests the concept of an existing framework which needs a little sprucing-up, rather than something more substantial.

Sure enough, in the interim report of this review which followed, in March, the word “refresh” featured six times.

Under “our findings and analysis,” the review team led by Professor Becky Francis highlighted the fact that “the present national curriculum is a knowledge-rich offer,” citing international test data as suggesting that “the present arrangements have had a positive impact on attainment”.

There was effective praise for the work of both the Conservative and Labour governments of the recent past, the interim report stating: “This success reflects a continued commitment to high and rising standards in state education across the last quarter of a century, as well as the enormous work of education professionals and leaders and engagement of young people and their parents or carers. It is therefore imperative that this timely refresh of the curriculum and assessment system builds on this success.”

I was reflecting on this after hearing a warning last week that the current review risked “baking in” the aims and worldview of the last one, carried out under the Conservative Education Secretary, Michael Gove, which created the current national curriculum in 2014. 

If the fundamentals of the last government’s approach are indeed “baked in,” it struck me on looking back through the documentation, that this is because of the way this review was set up, from the start.

Arguably, this is all a product of Labour’s cautious/don’t frighten the horses offer to the electorate last summer.

But the great shame of this review, despite some of its more radical passages hinting at scrapping of Mr Gove’s English Baccalaureate performance measure and its view/heroic understatement that “the current system is not working well for everyone,” is that it seems to have an over-rosy view of the current state of the system. It thus stands to miss an opportunity for substantive reform for the better, which may not come around again for many years.

For a range of indicators put a vastly different complexion on whether English education policymaking of recent years should be seen as a success. Although international test data do in some cases suggest what are often statistically modest improvements for England, mainly compared to other countries, indicators of young people’s engagement with school, and their overall wellbeing, are dire.

It is extraordinary, for example, that while the interim report mentioned positively the “engagement” of young people in our system, it has not picked up on a statistic from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which found that the proportion of our 14-year-olds saying they dislike school doubled over the years 2015 to 2023. Similarly, the OECD’s PISA international testing study shows UK 15-year-olds faring very badly in terms of their reported life satisfaction, relative to other countries.

Statistics showing rapid rises in the number of children in England being home educated, and rising numbers of pupils getting to the sharp end of institutions’ disciplinary regimes, via suspensions and exclusions, also raise serious questions about whether our schools system is really in good health. And teacher shortages, much higher than previously, are directly impacting on pupils’ educational experiences.

In my view, what was needed was a much deeper, bolder critique, by this incoming government, of the effects of the policymaking of its predecessors. Ironically, although I think the substance of the Conservative reforms needs looking at from a much more sceptical perspective, the strategy through which the 2010-25 ministers went about their work offers plenty of lessons for Labour.

As Mr Gibb’s recent book “Reforming Lessons” makes clear, the Conservatives’ approach was in the works years before it took office in 2010. By contrast, Labour’s version has a rushed feel, with this review due to report, on a hugely complex policy area, within 15 months of the party taking power. That feels too quick.

There are positive aspects of Labour’s education policymaking to be reminded of, following this week’s conference, including free breakfast clubs, free school meals for children of families on Universal Credit and the revival of the Start Sure policy. The curriculum and assessment review itself rightly stated, in its interim report, that “the curriculum needs to respond to social and technological change”.

But overall, with this review’s approach constrained from the start by a cautious pledge which carries echoes of the party’s economic policymaking, within weeks with the publication of the final report it seems likely that there could be a widespread sense of let-down.

In which case, it will be possible to wonder what could have been achieved by something which had asked more probing questions about the record of recent years.