Accord responds to National Curriculum review

The Accord Coalition has made a submission to the Government’s current review looking at what the scope of a revised National Curriculum should be. Accord has urged that Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education and Religious Education (RE) should be added to it, while the current standing of Citizenship education in the curriculum should be strengthened.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain said ‘RE must be taught in schools, but is not in the National Curriculum. Consequently some schools can teach narrow and instructional RE, while others teach RE according to a locally determined syllabus, which can be overly prescriptive – some are longer than the National Curriculum itself. We believe making both a flexible and concise RE syllabus part of the National Curriculum, as we have suggested, would help to deal with these problems.

‘Similarly, many pupils currently leave school without having received good quality PSHE, which includes Sex and Relationship and the curriculum should tackle this failing. A survey by the UK Youth parliament of over 20,000 young people found that shockingly 61 per cent of boys and 70 per cent of girls aged over 17 reported not receiving any information at school about personal relationships.

‘Lastly, the positive effect of Citizenship education should not be overlooked. Taught well it helps pupils become responsible citizens, who in turn make a more positive contribution to society. We believe one of the best ways to improve its standing would be to make it a statutory subject at the primary level as well.’

‘It is vital that the National Curriculum helps ensure that pupils have knowledge that prepares them for life in our increasingly diverse society, allows them to make informed choices and encourages them to act in responsible ways and it is on this basis we make our recommendations.’

Notes

The UK Youth Parliament’s survey results report can found in its report Are you getting it?.