‘Bloated’ GCSE curriculum must be reduced, say education experts

Schools should be allowed to drastically cut content in subjects to reduce the burden of a “bloated curriculum” on pupils, a report says.

The Social Market Foundation, a think tank, claims there is too much rote learning in non-core subjects, such as humanities, arts and science.

The Labour Party has promised a wholesale curriculum and assessment review and is under pressure to add new topic areas, such as financial education and mental health. However, teachers and other education experts say the existing curriculum is already too full and too reliant on rote learning. Some teenagers take more than 30 GCSE exams across 10 or 11 subjects. GCSE and A-level exams begin this week.

A paper by the cross-party SMF says there is scope in the curriculum by reducing content in specific subjects, such as history. More than half of history teachers would like the curriculum to be “significantly” pared back, compared with 17 per cent of maths teachers. The wish to lessen content is also the case for 35 per cent of languages teachers, 31 per cent of geography teachers and 29 per cent who teach science. Many more teachers across all subjects want to see a slight reduction.

Educationalists also want to address the amount of time pupils spend preparing for GCSEs, largely on rote learning. They say the huge amount of content leads to teachers skipping through it too quickly. Teachers also spend far too much time preparing pupils for exams rather than teaching new concepts or a deeper understanding of subjects, they say.

The foundation is calling for a reduced emphasis on major exams at the age of 16, which could be replaced with more regular and “lower-stakes” testing that would “significantly” improve the overloaded curriculum and improve teaching efficacy.

It also wants reforms on a periodic basis, divorcing them from the political cycle, such as a review of the curriculum every ten years, bringing England in line with Finland and Japan.

John Asthana Gibson, researcher at SMF, said: “The importance of GCSEs to schools, and the sheer amount of time dedicated to them, is worsening the quality of education in secondary schools.

“Unfortunately, that’s how the system is set up. The importance of exam results to school leaders and teachers encourages them to focus on maximising these results, and this objective often takes precedence over developing students’ genuine comprehension of subjects.

“The inordinate amount of content students have to revise for, typically across nine or ten subjects, only serves to compound this problem, exacerbating the pressures teachers face to deliver rote learning in classrooms.”

However, Gibson added: “There are ways to rectify this problem. Doing so involves slimming down GCSEs, both in terms of the content assessed and importance to schools. This will reduce the amount of time and energy going to the wrong places and redirect it to facilitate productive teaching. It should be the focus of any future curriculum and assessment reform.”