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• 27Apr2009

  A new curriculum, a new definition for literacy?

  Posted by Jonathan Douglas

  Sir Jim Rose’s Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum sets the scene for primary education in England from 2011. He has conceived the curriculum as a dynamic concept, delivering both a love of learning for its own sake and the understanding, knowledge and skills required to participate in a constantly changing society. So, the review launches the primary sector not into a new static framework but into a cycle of proactive change, where the curriculum as a whole will be strategically reviewed at agreed intervals.

  Literacy sits at the heart of the report’s recommendation for a renewed primary curriculum. Literacy is explicitly defined as the four strands of language - reading, writing, speaking and listening. While it may not seem radical, this affirmation is incredibly important. Literacy has tended to be defined by reading and writing skills, while assuming speaking and listening will develop organically. It is vital to assert the importance of speaking and listening skills, and the review’s definition of literacy is very positive.

  Speaking and listening skills underpin all learning and are the start of all other literacy skills. By placing speaking and listening alongside reading and writing in his definition of literacy, Rose recognises the importance of the mutuality of the four strands of language. Conversation orders the concepts which are encoded in writing and decoded in reading. Approaches like Pie Corbett’s “Talk for Writing” demonstrate how effective it is to develop these skills together. However, speaking and listening skills are also important skills in their own right. Their absence inhibits not only other learning, but social and emotional development, and later employment opportunities. Yet Ofsted has frequently highlighted that they are not given the same attention or curriculum time as reading and writing in schools.

  The issue is particularly significant for disadvantaged children: Rose cites Hart and Risley’s research which highlighted how children from poorer backgrounds have significantly less exposure to language. Rose also considers last year’s Bercow review which drew attention to how services are frequently failing to support children with special speech, language and communication needs and called for new approaches to support all children’s communications skills. A stronger commitment to speaking and listening skills within the primary curriculum will support all children, particularly those who currently start school with language skills so impoverished that they are in danger of not being able to access the curriculum.

  Along with literacy and numeracy, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability makes up the core of the new curriculum. Clearly the skills required to use ICT will be absolutely vital for an individual to participate in virtually every way in the society of the future. However, the skills described as constituting ICT capability by the review appear to be the deployment of basic literacy skills but through digital media. To distinguish between “finding and selecting information”, “communicating and sharing information” and “manipulating and processing information” through digital sources as opposed to traditional print resources creates a false distinction. Worryingly, it may result in literacy skills becoming increasingly tied to traditional and printed resources and seen as separate to the skills used for digital resources. Ultimately, this could undermine their relevance in a technology-focused world. To avoid this, ICT capability must either relate to a more specifically technical grouping of skills, or to those characteristics that are unique to managing communication through ICT (such as interactivity, the nature of online relationships, the provenance and mutability of content) and the skills required to manage them.

  When the National Literacy Trust responded to the interim primary curriculum review, one of our key concerns was that parents needed to be more strongly recognised as partners in their children’s learning in the curriculum of the future. So we’re very pleased that the final report has strengthened the review’s recognition of the role of parents. However more needs to be done. The research and consultation undertaken with parents to support the review has highlighted that the jargon of the curriculum and education system alienates parents. Those whose support for their children’s learning is most needed are frequently the most alienated. So the challenge of the next stage of curriculum reform is to thoroughly engage parents and families as stakeholders in supporting the renewed curriculum. The review recommends developing a parent’s guide to the new curriculum but there is the opportunity for more creative engagement of parents as stakeholders in the new curriculum. If the drafting of white papers by the Department of Children, Schools and Families, the workforce development plans of the Training and Development Agency and the curriculum support of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is supplemented by a thorough ongoing approach to engaging parents as stakeholders in the new primary curriculum, then one of the most important influences in raising school standards will be powerfully brought into play – parental engagement.
  
  Jonathan Douglas, April 2009

  For details of the Rose review final report visit www.dcsf.gov.uk/primarycurriculumreview/

Tags: Children, Policy, Schools & teaching

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