8. What Future for the National Curriculum for England

Schooling the Riotous English

The Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, as depicted by Charles Green, 1896

“Ten days later, the Prime Minister sent for me. He saw me after his afternoon nap and was purring like a tiger.

He began, ‘You have been in the House fifteen years and it is time you were promoted.’ 

I objected gently that I had been there only twelve years but he waved this aside.

‘You have been in the government for the best part of that time and I now want you to go to the Board of Education. I think that you can leave your mark there. You will be independent. Besides,’ he continued, with rising fervour, ‘you will be in the war. You will move poor children from here to here’, and he lifted up and evacuated imaginary children from one side of his blotting pad to the other; ‘this will be very difficult’. 

He went on: ‘I am too old now to think you can improve people’s natures. Everyone has to learn to defend himself. I should not object if you could introduce a note of patriotism into the schools.’ And then, with a grin, recalling our conversation the previous week, ‘Tell the children that Wolfe won Quebec.’ 

I said that I would like to influence what was taught in schools but that this was always frowned upon. 

Here he looked very earnest and commented, ‘Of course not by instruction or order but by suggestion.’ 

Lord 'Rab' Butler recollects a wartime exchange with Winston Churchill in his autobiography The Art of the Possible: Memoirs, 1971, p90, emphasis added 

Most Britons were of course filled with horror at the sight of the riots this summer. These seemed to be motivated by the belief that asylum seekers and immigrants, as well as Britons born of them, are by their very nature an existential threat to the British way of life, especially if they are Muslim. 

The rioters were of course individually responsible for their actions, but they acted in a context mostly fashioned by those who hold political power. During the riots a great many non white Britons experienced directly the “hostile environment” advocated by some parliamentarians in relation to illegal immigrants. 

So when many of us were hoping to catch some rays, and to avoid the inevitable drudgery of home improvement, Britain’s perhaps smug image of itself as a successful multi-ethnic and multi-faith state was set ablaze. 

We witnessed British citizens pulling other fellow citizens from cars, as well as small businesses being burned to the ground, all for no other reason than the colour of the owners’ skin, or the imagined threat posed by their presumed faith beliefs. 

But it is also true that a large number of Britons joined the counter demonstrations and that Prime Minister Keir Starmer probably spoke for the majority when he offered a resolute condemnation of the violence, including that directed at British “Muslims as Muslims”, to use Starmer’s phrase and his emphasis. 

This post will not seek to explain the riots, although they do need to be explained, and it will not offer any specific suggestions as to how the state ought to respond, as this is beyond my competence. 

What I will say, however, is that in my view political parties really ought to keep the promises they make on immigration and they should also take practical steps to improve the lives of all British citizens. The majority of Britons have been through the mincer recently and political lectures and high profile policing will do nothing to address the alienation that is felt by many. 

The state, I also believe, should be adopting ideas, policies and practices that seek to bring the British people together, rather than drive us apart. The sectarian politics of difference and of identity really is a dead end for all of us, in my view.  

Most importantly, I think that citizens themselves need to step up, and take responsibility for their communities. We should all be seeking out points of shared interest and connection. As a polity we of course have our faults, and a chequered history, but we share, I believe, a common commitment to individual freedom, as well as a live and let live culture of tolerance. Both merit our collective defence, both depend on each other. 

I am sure that many ordinary Labour Party members would agree with me on this, and I hope also that in general terms the Labour Party executive that now governs Britain would also agree, although I guess they would part company with me on the use of diversity as a political ideal for the state. 

With all of that said, this blog post is primarily concerned with Labour’s educational response to the riots, as this relates to our discussion of the future of National Curriculum for England. 

Education Cannot Compensate for Society

Soon after the riots, the new Education Secretary was interviewed by The Telegraph and she made the following comments:

“It’s more important than ever that we give young people the knowledge and skills to be able to challenge what they see online.

That’s why our curriculum review will develop plans to embed critical skills in lessons to arm our children against the disinformation, fake news and putrid conspiracy theories awash on social media.”

The Daily Telegraph, 11.8.2024

For me, the Education Secretary’s curriculum proposals raise three important questions: one is big, one is medium sized, and the last one is small. 

The big question is this: 

What is the proper relationship between adult politics and the National Curriculum for England? 

The riots, as I see them, were clearly a problem of the adult world, so I am not convinced that schools are the way to solve them. It is the adults that need to sort this problem out, through frank and open debate and argument. Schools, I believe, really are not the place for fixing this problem. 

In my comment, it might be noticeable that I am drawing a hard distinction between the adult world of politics and the adult-run world of education. As such, I am advocating a boundary between the two. 

In a forthcoming post I plan to introduce the sociological concept of boundaries more formally, but here I will assert that boundaries are important, as by clearly differentiating two spheres of human life, we typically enable both to function more effectively, first apart, and then together. Collapsing education into politics, in this instance, or making politics educational, undermines the proper functioning of the both.  

The medium sized question is this: 

What issues of teacher authority are raised when the National Curriculum is used for political purposes? 

Here, I think we need to acknowledge that there is a real danger that when schools are asked to directly address issues such as social cohesion, at a point in our history in which the adult world is itself divided over this issue, there is a real danger that teachers will be seen as using the classroom to advance partisan politics. This, in turn, could undermine the authority that society invests in teachers as professionals. 

The Education Secretary, for example, raises the issue of conspiracy theories and disinformation, and it seems clear to me that repugnant anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories abound in our our polity today. She also seems to see social media as a key cause of the riots.

But a significant section of the British population does not accept the Labour analysis, and believes, rightly or wrongly, that the riots were a regrettable but perhaps inevitable response to the problems caused by a state policy of mass immigration which has been imposed on the British public against its will.  

So my point here is that one persons’ conspiracy theory, or should I say one teacher’s conspiracy theory, is another parent’s knowing insight into the dark operation of state power. 

Further, who is it, exactly, that is going to arrogantly sit above the demos and judge for them what counts as information and disinformation? Or do so on behalf of parents within schools?    

Finally, the comments of the Education Secretary raise a smaller, but also really important, question, which is:

How might teachers prepare future citizens to become critical consumers of political information? 

I do think we should be giving future citizens the skills they need to be critical consumers of political information, and there might be a role for something like media studies or critical thinking within the curriculum, but at this moment, I don’t wish to rush to judgement on Labour’s plans, as nothing of substance has been published.

However, I do also think that if our wish is to support young people in becoming politically aware and to be critical of political manipulation then we really ought to ensure that all students study modern British political history up to the age of 16. It is my belief that including more political and historical knowledge within the curriculum would be of greater use to the young than teaching media awareness, although this might also be a useful part of students’ political education. 

Respecting Education  

I was first introduced to the quote that opened this post when I began researching the fascinating history of the National Curriculum some years ago. I found the quote in an abridged form in a publication by a left wing academic who was something of an anomaly in so far as they were an advocate of the National Curriculum at a time when the left more generally was vehemently opposed to it. In their essay they made clear that whilst they were for the National Curriculum from the perspective of rationally planning education, they also believed that Thatcher’s reforms of state education, which included the introduction of the National Curriculum, had, overall, robbed teachers of the professional agency they once enjoyed. 

Broadly speaking, I agree, and I introduced the Butler quote at the start to illustrate how far we have travelled, in my view, in the wrong direction. At the time in which Butler and Churchill were having their conversation our heads were literally in the tiger jaw of German fascism, to use one of Churchill’s more memorable metaphors. And yet, in the midst of all this, we can hear a profound sense of respect for education and for the professionalism of teachers. Butler’s conversation shows us, I think, how the relationship between adult politics and education has changed since then. What also seems clear to me is that an important boundary is often transgressed and eroded every time a politician positions education as a solution to an adult problem, such as social cohesion.  

Yes, it is true that in the quote Churchill wishes education to be used for propaganda purposes - tell the children that Wolfe won Quebec! - but at the same time the tone of his comments indicate a relationship between politics and education that is significantly more respectful and liberal than that which we have today. Of course, he adds in his reply to Butler, influence education, but only by suggestion, and not by instruction or order. 

Image taken from Wikicommons and used under the Creative Commons Licence. It can be accessed here: www.mutualart.com/Artwork/THE-GORDON-RIOTS/0B3EC15174672097