Monday 23 July 2007

New National Curriculum for Secondary Schools in England

QCA offficially launched the new secondary national curriculum on 12th July 2007. The new programmes of study (PoS) aim to give teachers a less prescriptive and more flexible framework for teaching, creating more scope to personalize the curriculum to meet the needs of individual students.

Ken Boston, Chief Executive of QCA said:

"QCA is pleased to be launching the new secondary curriculum. The consultation was widely supported by education professionals, parents, employers, industry experts - in fact, anyone with an interest in education. The opportunity to create an exciting and stimulating curriculum that includes classroom activities and out-of-hours learning, as well as a solid foundation in the basic subjects, has been greeted enthusiastically.

"Our aim has been to increase flexibility. The new curriculum builds on the best of the past by maintaining the discipline of subjects, but at the same time offering greater opportunities for personalised learning, addressing the major challenges that face society and equipping young people with the skills for life and work in the 21st Century.

"By mixing tradition with a more creative approach to the curriculum, we will achieve our objective of producing successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens."

The new programmes of study for all subjects can be downloaded from:
http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_12195.aspx

The specific links for the mfl PoS, also including level descriptors, are:
http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_12218.aspx
http://www.qca.org.uk/libraryAssets/media/MFL_KS3_PoS.pdf

The programmes of study will be laid before Parliament and schools will receive them in September 2007 for teaching from September 2008. The new secondary curriculum website will be launched in September. There will then be a three-year period from 2008-2010 for schools to implement the new programmes of study.

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