The ‘Knowledge Turn’ in the National Curriculum.

Paul Cornish February 2012

Skills or Knowledge?

“A school shouldn't start with curriculum content. It should start with designing a learning experience and then check it has met national curriculum requirements.” (Guardian)

Mick Waters, QCA (2010)

Learning for what Purpose?

Learning can be trivial, dangerous or wrong. It is essentially a technical process – it emphasises skills that can be honed and practised, and accelerated, as if this were an end in itself.

Lambert (2010)

• Equity: “Outside looking in” (Wheelahan)• Loss of traditional academic subjects- skills for a knowledge economy promoted• Playing exam system• Pupils ‘learning’ without teaching

Destined to Fail

The current turn toward knowledge follows three decades of the marginalisation or turning away from knowledge in UK education. (Mitchell, 2011)

Return to Base Camp and try again?

External Factors • Move to 2 year KS3. (Weeden & Lambert)• Focus on the ‘Pedagogic adventure’ without knowing destination (Lambert)• Emphasize values over knowledge (Civitas)• Promote personal responsibility (Civitas)• Knowledge not high on Ofsted agenda • Exam league tables- playing the system. • Learning Pathways (Weeden)• Spatial distribution of outstanding teachers• Poor knowledge from Primary Schools

Internal Factors • Lack of subject specialists at KS3• Poorly written curricula – lack of understanding of curriculum making• Move away from textbooks• Focus on teaching exam technique over acquisition of knowledge• Lack of understanding as to what is essential core knowledge in subject area• Move to sexy topics (amazing places, geography of extreme sport) without a knowledge base

The National Curriculum should set out clearly the core knowledge and understanding that all children should be expected to acquire in the course of their schooling. It must embody their cultural and scientific inheritance, the best that the past and present generations have to pass on to the next.

DfE The Importance of Teaching (2010)

Return to Base Camp and try again?

Gove- Importance of Teaching (DfE 2010)

Prince’s Teaching Institute

Hirsch- Core Knowledge

Michael Young- Bringing Knowledge Back In

Ofsted

Who’s in the Team?

Future 1: Govian Elitism

Future 2: A Knowledge Society

Future 3: Objective Knowledge

Three Futures

Govian Elitism

A ‘Knowledge’ Society

Objective Knowledge

• Number of people to attempt to climb Mt. Everest: approximately 4,000. • Number of people to successfully climb Mt. Everest: 660. • Number of people who have died trying to climb Mt. Everest: 142. • Height: 29,028 feet, or 5 and a half miles above sea level. This is equivalent to the size of almost 20 Empire State Buildings.• Location: part of the Himalaya mountain range; straddles border of Nepal and Tibet.• Named for: Sir George Everest, a British surveyor-general of India.• Age: approximately 60 million years old.• Other names: called "Chomolungma" by Tibetans and Sherpas, which means "Mother Goddess of the Earth."

Mere Facts?

The accumulation of fragmentary facts as an end to itself is like learning a language by simply learning lists of vocabulary: you may know lots of words but you still cannot speak the language. For that you need grammar. By the same token, you cannot speak a language by only knowing some of the grammar! You need some vocabulary. Lambert (2011)

Mere Facts?

I will argue… for a knowledge- based theory of the curriculum that recognises the distinction between the type of knowledge that can be acquired at school, college or university and the common sense or the practical knowledge that we aquire in our every day lives.

Michael Young

Mutualistic relationship between literacy and knowledge

Hirsch: Knowledge Deficit

Subject Knowledge

The basic elements that students must know to be acquainted with a discipline or solve problems in it. a.Knowledge of terminologyb. Knowledge of specific details

and elements

Kn1 Core Knowledge

The interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure that enable them to function together. a. Knowledge of classifications and categories b. Knowledge of principles and generalizations c. Knowledge of theories, models, and structures

Kn2 Content Knowledge

How to do something; methods of inquiry, and criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods. a. Knowledge of subject-specific skills and al-

gorithms b. Knowledge of subject-specific techniques

and methods c. Knowledge of criteria for determining when

to use appropriate procedures

Kn3 Procedural Knowledge

…how well teachers use their expertise, including their subject knowledge, to develop pupils’ knowledge…

(Ofsted 2012)

Implications: Ofsted

• Reading aloud in class• Reading subject specific material (reading lists for KS3/4/5)• Comprehension tasks

Implications: Literacy

• In every major KS3 assessment include aspects Kn1, 2 and 3• New KS3 assessment (to replace levels) will be designed around knowledge• Kn1, 2 and 3 targets in books

Implications: Assessment

Implications: Curriculum Making

Student Experiences

Subject SpecialismTeacher Choices

Underpinned by Key NC Subject Concepts linked to Content knowledge

Subject- Specific Knowledge: Core- The Vocabulary. Content- The Grammar. Procedural- Investigation/ enquiry

Learning Activity- to assist in the acquisition of knowledge. How does this use procedural knowledge?

How does this take the learner beyond what they already know? Not just every day knowledge from the world outside the classroom (Young)

Knowledge Focused Curriculum Making

Implications: Curriculum Making

Internal: Pedagogy, Skills, Data, L&M

External: Subject Associations, PTI Events, Universities, Subject Specific Master’s Courses

Implications: CPD

“Only when the knowledge you possess transforms the mediocre into the excellent can what you know truly become both powerful and insightful”

(Charles Swindoll)

“Not knowledge of the powerful” (Young)

Powerful Knowledge

The ‘Knowledge Turn’ in the National Curriculum.

Paul Cornish February 2012