Before the Easter break I had a talk with Thulani about his final professional inquiry looking into introducing more arts in how work with primary children in schools. His was talking about policy…it is due to change for art and design.
An article form the Guardian started me off this morning after this discussion...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/21/government-arts-schools-michael-gove about the importance of arts in schools.
Right now it is unclear what the changes will be but Thulani said this year schools have been able to disapply from the art subject area.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130904095025/https://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/primary/b00198792/art
10. We want to ensure that schools are able to prepare for a smooth transition to the new national curriculum which will be introduced from September 2014. Disapplication of the current national curriculum in this way means that schools will still be required to teach the statutory subjects but will not have to follow the centrally prescribed programmes of study (and associated attainment targets and assessment arrangements) from September 2013. They can choose to continue teaching the current programmes of study if they wish but will have the freedom to use the flexibility that disapplication offers to plan and prepare for the introduction of the new programmes of study from September 2014.
So what is the new curriculum going to be?
I found this from the Arts Council
p. 7
The arts (comprising art and design, music, dance, drama and media arts), design and technology, the humanities (comprising geography and history) and modern foreign language are not compulsory National Curriculum subjects after the age of 14, but all pupils in maintained schools have a statutory entitlement to be able to study a subject in each of those four areas.
p. 8 The statutory requirements in relation to the entitlement areas are:
•Schools must provide access to a minimum of one course in each of the four entitlement areas (arts, design and tech, humanities, languages)
•Schools must provide the opportunity for pupils to take a course in all four areas, should they wish to do so
•A course that meets the entitlement requirements must give pupils the opportunity to obtain an approved qualification.
p. 17 Arts subjects within the National Curriculum
•There is no guidance on Drama and Dance as stand alone subjects or Film or Creative digital media – but these will continue to be offered as GCSEs and will be revised alongside all GCSEs from 2015
•Schools can continue to offer these subjects – but this is not required – it’s about how schools choose to define their offer within the entitlement areas
•Dance is mentioned in the PE curriculum and drama is part of the English curriculum
Can anyone help me understand this better? I think there are some informative final inquires coming up...
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https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-primary-curriculum
Art and Design is on page 176 for the National Curriculum for Primary… physical education is on page 198.
I found this blog as comment on the National Society for Education in Art & Design (NSEAD) http://www.nsead.org/curriculum-resources/nc_england.aspx
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Also found this http://www.napta.org.uk/index.html
The National Association of Professional Teaching Assistants (NAPTA) is a membership organisation that works with schools and other education settings to realise the potential of support staff, whatever their role. It provides its members with a range of specialist services to help individuals develop as professionals and to deliver whole-school improvement.
An interesting and increasingly worrying post, in particular to the evident lack of funding and shortfall in school budgets. On a practical and personal level this has seen redundancies of teaching and support staff in my school, with a very clear message that more will follow. Teachers are currently being asked to pick other 2nd choice subjects to teach from a prescribed list of core subjects (ie English & Maths). Some vulnerable subject areas are bound to be affected, it now appears much easier to do.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I will be looking at the NAPTA organisation site that you mention Paula, for some inspiration