John Rumm wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Sure, any curriculum can be stuffed up.

What was being discussed tho was whether its viable to
let teachers teach anything they like any way they like.

That would seem to be a misinterpretation entirely of your creation however.

Says he carefully deleting from the quoting where Mark said just that.

There were plenty of real world pressures on schools prior to the NC to provide a rounded and useful education.

So it was never left to the teachers as Mark wanted to see.

Some were guided by education authorities,

So it was never left to the teachers as Mark wanted to see.

others by the particular needs of their (often carefully selected) students. Schools in different areas were able to
alter the balance of the education they provided to fit better with the needs of the local community.

And then the world moved on, just like it always does,
and we saw a lot more mobility by the parents and that
local community stuff became less and less relevant except
with areas that came to be dominated by immigrants etc.

And a properly done NC can handle that fine.

These can be things that are hindered rather than helped by an overly prescriptive national curriculum.

All that means is that a national curriculum
should be done right and not stuffed up.

Yes, the downsides with stuffing up an NC are
much greater than when its left to the local authority,
but so are the benefits when you get it right too.

Now, I am not even suggesting that we wind the clock back 20 years and go back to having no NC.

Mark was doing just that.

For some schools it has proved it has a benefit, much as it has also proved itself pointless or indeed worse for
others.

That will always be the case with something like that.

That does not however mean that it shouldnt happen.

When it needs is the flexibility to recognise and adapt to the needs of the school.

And any properly done national curriculum will do that.

If yours doesnt, thats an argument for doing it better instead,
not for Mark's line about letting teachers do whatever they like.

I'm not saying we should have a free-for-all but teachers
do not a lot more about education than government ministers.

Govt ministers dont write the national curriculum.

Shame no one seems to have told them...

Your national curriculum wasnt written by govt ministers.