Northern Ireland's Curriculum Review

From Lucy Crehan's LinkedIn page:

After 6 months, 70 focus groups, 149 submissions and 1432 survey responses I am thrilled to be sharing my report on the strategic curriculum review:

 
"A Foundation for the Future: Developing Capabilities Through a Knowledge-Rich Curriculum in Northern Ireland"

In this report, I set out the case for a new curriculum framework for Northern Ireland, that is:

• purpose-led
• knowledge-rich
• continuous and coherent
• specific and focused
• inclusive and flexible

This seeks to build on the strengths of the existing curriculum while addressing its weaknesses, to ensure that future reform does not represent a pendulum swing back to the inflexible, content-heavy curricula of the past, but instead moves practice in NI's schools, and the conversation, forwards.

Northern Ireland benefits from a highly committed and skilled workforce and an education community that is deeply invested in the success of its learners. The process of reform will be enabled by this skill and commitment and the obvious shared desire to improve outcomes for all children and young people.

You can read the report and various related documents here.

I was also interested to see that Christine Counsell is involved in the process too.

The focus on capabilities is something that is interesting, given my previous work on the 2nd phase of the GeoCapabilities project and my work with Richard Bustin - whose book I've mentioned quite a few times.

And of course we are still waiting for the next stage of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) by Becky Francis.

What place will there be for Climate Change and Sustainability Education in any new curriculum?

Lizzie Rushton and Nicola Walshe have written a piece for the BERA website - reflecting on the fact that curriculum is being reviewed across the UK at the moment.