DfE seeks consultants for £500-a-day work to rewrite England’s national curriculum
Department for Education: lacking subject expertise? Image: iStock/Getty Images
Invitation to tender document also reveals that ministers expect much of the detailed programmes of study work on the curriculum to be completed by next summer. But the instruction to consultants is: you must not use AI.
The Department for Education is seeking individuals whom it will pay to draft the detail of England’s new national curriculum and GCSE and A-level syllabuses, at a rate of £500 per day - and with an instruction that they must not use AI.
In a development, which three sources suggested could lead to controversial appointments and one said spoke to a lack of expertise within Whitehall, the government is set to pay outside consultants to work on the contents of these key documents, which will be written over the coming nine months.
The move, for which interested parties need to apply by next Tuesday, comes with England’s curriculum and assessment review, the full detail of which this work will flesh out, also due to report next week.
The new information is set out in an “invitation to tender” document, which also states that the bulk of the detailed development process for the national curriculum and associated qualifications is expected to be completed by this coming summer – only two years after Labour launched its review.
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By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 8 October 2025
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We have seen before (some of which you outline above) that favoured bodies are selected for such work, or serving on committees etc... The document bid time is very quick and my first thought was "who has been pre-briefed?" The completion dates of "September 2025 -Summer 2026" also suggest (given it is already October 2025) that there are people / organisations that have already worked on this. All smells fishy.
Thank you for this very useful piece. I have been curious about the date for release of the final report for some time now. You have uncovered some vital points about the processes of writing the revisions of the national curriculum. These are not trivial matters because as anyone who writes a lot knows, it is impossible to separate the processes from the interpretation and specification of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Also the expertise and views of the people writing the revisions will have a material impact on the specifications. My other concern is the extent to which the approach to analysis of responses to the call for evidence, and indeed the responses themselves, will be transparent and open access so that more independent minded people can comment on the processes. And if the NC report does not include full exploration of, and citation of, robust critiques of current policies then people will question its independence.