chris French wrote
Rod Speed wrote
John Rumm wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Mark wrote
wrote

We have a stream of pupils some of whom attend colleges doing
different level btec courses, run btec courses in house and the
engineering diploma these number about 100 out of a yeargroup of
400 students - its a right b*gger to schedule i know !!
Unfortunately the present education dept well michael gove is now
against this type of education despite much support fro large
manufacturing companies. Education here is a political footbal.
In the 22 years I have been in it we have changed course about 5
times - it takes an average of 5 years to get changes through
(due to the nature of students growing up) so the system is in
effect constant flux

Very true. I just wish they leave alone and let the teachers do their job.

I'm not convinced that you'd get a very viable result that way.

Historically there was a time it worked very well...

I dont believe there ever was.

And bugger all kids were in formal education at that time anyway.

In the UK, he National Curriculum is a relatively recent was introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with
1988 Education Reform Act.

Sure, but there were curricula before that, it wasnt left to every teacher
to decide what should be taught and how it should be taught.

We had had compulsory education for children for a while by that point.

And didnt let every teacher decide what should be taught and how it should be taught.

Upto that point the curriculum taught in schools was down to individual school and local authorities.

And not left to the teachers.

The above of course applies to state schools, public schools are free to teach whatever they want.

But the teachers in them arent.

The introduction of the NC was probably as much to do with political control of education, the introduction of
national testing and the idea of 'parental choice' in the allocation ofschool place,s as much as any thing to do with
education per se.

Its actually part of a general trend towards standardisng curricular in countrys.

There was never a time when every teacher could
teach anything they liked any way they liked.

No probably not, well leastways not for many, many years.

Yeah, thats what I meant.

but certainly say 40 years ago there was a lot more
flexibility available to teachers as to how/what they taught.

I dont believe there was with individual teachers.

And there was also the very pronounced split in the
types of schools available to kids at roughly age 11 too.

And certainly at a school level there was.

Sure, but we were discussing teachers, not schools.

Despite all the political rhetoric all parties
have micromanaged schools via their policies.

Thats what national curricula do.

Indeed, which is an argument against them IMHO.

There is no viable alternative to curricula.

I would expect every school to have a curriculum. That doesn't
necessarily mean it has to be a nationally proscribed curriculum.

Sure, it doesnt have to be, but there are certainly advantages
in national curricula, if only for kids whose parents move
around much more than they did in the past.

Corse now that you lot can move anywhere in the EU you like any
time you feel like doing that, it gets even more complicated again.