The ongoing curriculum and assessment review presents a significant opportunity: a chance to finally replace the vague, nebulous framework of the current national curriculum (NC) for English with a more codified, meaningful map of the discipline.
For years, the existing curriculum’s lack of substance – its failure to clearly articulate essential knowledge or to sequence its acquisition – has hampered coherence and depth across the key stages.
This review, guided by the ambitions outlined in its interim report for a ‘rigorous’, ‘knowledge-rich’ and ‘sequenced’ approach could potentially rectify this long-standing weakness.
However, such opportunities are never without risk. The challenge lies in navigating the complexities of reform to ensure the outcome genuinely elevates the subject.
To do this, it must avoid pitfalls such as mandating a curriculum that is weaker than established best practice, or failing to achieve the delicate balance required for genuine improvement.
This risk is sharpened by the context of significant curriculum innovation already taking place within academy trusts. Many, exercising their soon to be outlawed autonomy, have developed precisely the kind of coherent, knowledge-led English programmes the current NC fails to mandate, often investing heavily in disciplinary expertise and resource development.
The fact that we know the review’s eventual outcome – the new national curriculum – will be required for all schools, including academies, places a significant burden of proof upon the review.
To justify replacing bespoke excellence, potentially built over years, with central direction, the forthcoming curriculum must demonstrably surpass not only its inadequate predecessor but also the best of current practice in the academy sector.
Anything less risks the opposite of high and rising standards. Addressing the weaknesses of the current NC is therefore paramount for the review.
The homogenising ‘pre-19th century’ requirement, for example, fails to build structured understanding of literary history or cultural context. It impedes the ‘effective transitions’ the review targets and directly contributes to the ‘huge variance’ in provision.
The task demands careful calibration
The new curriculum must rectify these shortcomings if it is to provide a genuine national entitlement. But how?
A promising route lies in structuring key stage 3 (KS3) chronologically – exploring literature’s unfolding dialogue across time.
This approach inherently fosters the deep, contextualised understanding lacking in the current system. It systematically builds students’ cultural capital and critical awareness by showing how literary traditions evolve and why certain texts resonate through history.
This directly tackles the challenging ‘balance between breadth and depth’ highlighted in the interim report, prioritising meaningful connection over superficial coverage.
By tracing intertextual links – analysing Pope’s engagement with Milton or Shelley’s response to Wordsworth – students gain the foundational knowledge and analytical skills the current vague requirements obscure.
Crucially, such a framework allows for a more sophisticated engagement with diversity and representation, moving beyond simplistic binaries often seen in curriculum debates.
An intertextual approach – a concept introduced by Julia Kristeva to describe how texts inherently absorb and transform one another – permits the study of canonical works alongside contemporary responses, illuminating both tradition and adaptation.
Consider Patience Agbabi’s Telling Tales alongside Chaucer: students can analyse enduring archetypes reimagined for modern Britain, engaging the canon’s legacy and its vibrant reinterpretations simultaneously.
This method fosters genuine comparative analysis and demonstrates how diverse voices actively engage with and reshape literary heritage, and does so in a way that is true to the core impetus of storytelling.
An intertextual, chronological core would facilitate the deeper analysis and more meaningful KS3 assessment the current system often precludes, moving beyond superficial coverage towards genuine mastery. If a pupil does not understand the ways in which texts speak to each other, we can never expect those texts to speak to her.
The review process holds the potential to replace the flawed current curriculum with something genuinely powerful.
Embracing structure, chronology and intertextuality offers a path towards achieving its ambitions. But the task demands careful calibration. The review must navigate the complex interplay between knowledge and skills, consistency and innovation, stakeholder demands and disciplinary integrity.
This requires a ‘Goldilocks’ solution – neither too timid nor too radical – that truly elevates the subject for all students, justifies its place as a national requirement, and crucially, learns from, rather than ignores, the best practice already established in the sector.
This article is the latest in our series of sector-led, experience-informed recommendations for the Francis review of curriculum and assessment. Read them all here
