Education leaders shared their optimism about the Curriculum and Assessment Review at Cambridge OCR’s packed fringe event at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

“There’s rarely been such a critical mass of sound, evidence-driven, pragmatic and bold ideas for reform,” said Myles McGinley, Cambridge OCR’s Managing Director.

Myles was joined by Helen Hayes MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee, former Education Secretary Charles Clarke, and Natalie Perera of the Education Policy Institute.

Farihah Alam, Vice Principal of the Buile Hill Academy in Salford and Liv Marshall, campaigner for Teach the Future, articulated the views of teachers and students.

They discussed how to get curriculum and assessment reform right for young people, touching on exam and curriculum reform, careers advice, climate education, rethinking how English is taught, the ‘GCSE resit crisis’, and AI in the classroom.

A key point was reducing the volume and intensity of exams at 16, following the recommendations in Cambridge OCR’s Striking the Balance, which were cited in the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s interim report.

Myles said: "GCSEs are over-burdened with content in places that gets in the way of developing deep understanding. Too many 16-year-olds are failing to achieve the level of maths and English they need for future study and life. And, in many places the curriculum is outdated and irrelevant and doesn’t reflect changes in society, the impact of digital technology, or the growing need to respond to climate change.”

Prioritising reform

Myles McGinley said: “Now’s the time to make tough decisions about what to prioritise. Where can we have the greatest impact?”

“Visiting schools, listening to students and teachers, and having the luxury at Cambridge of working with some of the leading experts in this field, it’s clear that we have to start with English and maths.”

Charles Clarke saw the interim report as a reason to be hopeful that the final review will recognise the “enormous evidence that the assessment burden is wrong and disproportionate” at GCSE in England.

“I think this is a real moment when the curriculum and assessment regime will be set for the next 10 to 15 years. We should think about how we can make that change succeed,” he said.

Helen Hayes MP agreed that “the curriculum has become overloaded.” She reflected concerns that Cambridge OCR has amplified that in GCSE English “instead of fostering a love of learning, children are being put off learning”, because of - as one teacher told Myles McGinley - “there’s an ‘unremitting drudge’ to parts of the English curriculum”.

“We need to broaden the curriculum and we can do that by reducing the overload onto some subjects,” added Helen Hayes.

Climate education and inspiring with English

Teach the Future’s Liv Marshall made the case for “working towards a curriculum that includes climate education at its core across all subjects.” Right now, “the climate crisis is barely included in the curriculum,” she warned.

Farihah Alam of Buile Hill Academy said: “Curriculum and assessment are lofty words and they’re abstract nouns as an English teacher but they mean a lot to a lot of people.” She shared her positive experience when being taught poetry, including the way John Agard’s ‘Half-Caste’ touched her. “From the day I heard that poem, I stopped worrying about what my mum wore to parents’ evening.”