We need more curriculum clarity

Ed Balls has inevitably had to give ground on his sex and relationships education plans in the Children, Schools and Families Bill, despite his protestations to the contrary today. But there is a far bigger problem with the ludicrous attempt to impose a lengthy personal, social and health education curriculum on every school and academy up to age 16, at a time when languages, design technology, history and other subjects are at the discretion of schools at Key Stage 4. The decision to abandon Key Stage 3 tests has meant the abandonment of Shakespeare at Key Stage 3. Today's predictable climbdown in the face of church lobbying obscures the confusion at the heart of the Government's approach to the curriculum. Instead of a piecemeal approach to different subjects, we need a much clearer sense of the essential knowledge and skills that young people should acquire between the ages of 11 and 16, with schools and academies able to develop their own programmes to provide them and other subjects they choose to offer in ways that work with their students.

Government must be clearer about its curriculum priorities

Today's news that Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is to become a compulsory part of the curriculum in both primary and secondary schools shouldn't trouble the majority of schools which provide such lessons in any case. And the fuss over sex education is overdone: the government has been at pains to point out that lessons should be age appropriate, placed in their proper moral context and developed in consultation with parents. Indeed, schools minister Jim Knight has framed the arguments in an exemplary manner.

However, there are two issues where ministers must be clearer.

The first relates to the relative importance being given to different subjects. There is a danger that primary schools that already offer sufficient lessons will feel obliged to offer more, and that literacy and numeracy will suffer in the process. The government must set priorities, or it will repeat the mistakes made when the Primary Strategy was first introduced, which led many schools to downgrade the 3Rs. When Jim Rose produces his review, he should be explicit about this; otherwise his own excellent phonics report could be downgraded. With the recent abolition of Key Stage 3 tests, there is also a danger that some secondary schools could do the same.

And the second relates to parental choice. Will parents still have a right to withdraw their children from sex education lessons they consider inappropriate because of their own religious beliefs? Those lobbying for compulsion have always argued that they shouldn't have this right: but if they don't, won't this just mean more are home schooled in a totally insular environment or sent to mediocre independent religious schools?