Curriculum and Assessment Review: keeping to the subject
03 December 2025
Lucy Carey, Stakeholder Relationships Manager
The Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) has left government with a long to-do list.
You will no doubt be familiar with many of the headlines from the final report of the review. Recommendations included, among many others: reducing assessment, introducing reading tests at year 8, reducing content in various subjects, the development of entirely new post-16 vocational qualifications called V Levels, modernising the curriculum, a new computing GCSE and a post-16 qualification in AI, and integrating climate education throughout the curriculum.
But as a teacher you may be wondering: how will this affect my subject? That’s a question without a definite answer at the moment, but one we will be helping you to answer over the coming months.
The scale of the challenge
Despite the length of the list of to-dos, some will feel that the reforms should have gone further and delivered more fundamental change. At the same time, many in the sector will be relieved they won’t have to find the time and resources to implement more radical reforms. This contrast of views illustrates the scale of the challenge that Professor Becky Francis took on with this review, charting a course between so many different and contradictory priorities.
And the publication of the report is really just the beginning: delivering those recommendations will require a great deal of planning and collaboration. This will be no mean feat, and it will be vital that all involved keep an eye on the key principles set out by the review team – such as the social justice lens, ensuring education serves all equally; and balancing achievable evolutionary change with genuine reform of the biggest priorities.
Crucially for teachers, it is in this implementation phase over the next few years that we will find out how the reforms will affect your subject specifically. While many of the headlines have been about bigger picture changes, it’s the individual subject reforms, focusing especially on GCSEs, that will be of particular interest to teachers. You will rightly want to know how the CAR will affect your students’ experience of your subject.
The answer to that question will only become clear over the next few years as recommendations are implemented, but Cambridge OCR will be there to guide you along the way – starting with subject-specific explainers that we’ll be sharing soon.
How we will be supporting you through reform in 2026
The new national curriculum will be published in 2027 and GCSEs will be introduced in two phases – core GCSE subjects are likely to be first teach 2029. The DfE says it has no plans now to make any changes not already named in the CAR.
Key Stages 3 and 4 are explicitly discussed for reform, but A Levels are discussed in the sense that they will be reformed as part of the natural progression after GCSEs have been reformed.
There are lots of ways you can keep track of the changes to your subject and your qualifications. Look out for our subject-specific blogs, written by our subject teams, that will detail what the Curriculum and Assessment Review and the government response means for your subject.
Keep an eye out also for the subject-specific webinars launching in the new year. Join these to hear what is happening in your qualification and ask any questions about curriculum and assessment reform and what it means for your school and your students. We will be keeping our Curriculum and Assessment review pages updated, to make sure you have all the new advice, support and information you need.
What has Cambridge OCR said about the need for reform?
Throughout the process of reform Cambridge OCR has aimed to give a voice to teachers and students. Since we published Striking the Balance, which was itself informed by consultation with over 2,000 students and teachers, we have continued to listen and engage with stakeholders, teachers and students. Throughout our conversations we have called for the following priorities:
- A reduction in the volume of assessment at GCSE
- A reduction in the size of the GCSE curriculum
- Urgent reforms to maths and English
- A more relevant curriculum that provides skills and knowledge needed by students in the twenty-first century workplace, particularly oracy, financial education, digital and media literacy, and sustainability.
Many of the priorities that we identified were echoed in the independent CAR written by Becky Francis. We have written a short policy news article summarising the CAR and on the day of its publication we published our initial response to the review’s final report.
We will continue to listen to teachers and students, and use your feedback to inform how the recommendations of the review are implemented.
Stay connected
At Cambridge OCR we’re committed to making assessment straightforward and are here to support teachers and students at every step of the way. Contact us if you have any specific questions about the CAR, or what it means for you and your students. You can always join our teacher panels to help us shape the development of these qualifications as we go through reform.
You can keep up to date with all the latest policy developments on our policy website and @OCR_Policy on X (formerly Twitter).
If you would like more news about education policy and the plans for education from the new government, you can sign up for policy updates.
About the author
Lucy joined Cambridge OCR in September 2017 after a career in teaching and school leadership. In the Policy and Stakeholder Relationships team, Lucy leads on engaging with the sector on Curriculum and Assessment reform in projects related to Future of Assessment and student voice. In her spare time she enjoys scuba diving and eating mince pies!
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