Curriculum & Assessment Review: A Doorstep response

• • The Guardian highlighted the 10 key recommendations of the review here.
  • You can read Arts Council’s press release in response here,
  • The Campaign for the Arts did a summary update here.
  • Cultural Learning Alliance response here.
  • You can read Lizzie Crump’s savvy analysis here from the What Next movement.

Oracy (and Drama)

In looking through the above, you may note the specific recommendation that there will be a new oracy framework and the clear acknowledgement that drama skills are seen to be valuable in honing oracy as a life skill.

The Government Response report states: ‘A new oracy framework will support primary teachers to ensure their pupils become confident, fluent speakers and listeners by the end of key stage 2, and our new secondary oracy, reading and writing framework will enable secondary teachers to connect and embed all three of those vital skills in each of their subjects as part of a whole school strategy.’

As Teaching Artists who have been working for drama to be seen as vital within the primary curriculum for decades, this focus on oracy is a big big breakthrough announcement and well worth celebrating. From the government response (which can be accessed here), Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, draws out oracy in the first breaths of her top headline synopsis of impact on children, proclaiming, ‘A mastery of listening, speaking and writing will help them express their thoughts, present their ideas and find their voice’.

This breakthrough moment is also testament to trail-blazing partnership delivery projects like the Torbay-specific Talking Turns project (2022-24) and the Embodied Literacy project (2019-2021), so well done to all those in the arts and education sectors who have been flying the flag for this through years of proving, brave pilots, modelling tireless work which demonstrates drama support for oracy, working so hard to bring about this kind of moment. These models of outstanding partnership practice will now be vital road maps and templates for a way forward.

It’s a welcome shift to hear a widening out of literacy beyond just a narrow concept of reading/writing, and instead encountering the more complex, dynamic and vivid worlds of emotional literacy, listening, confidence in the power of your own voice, embodiment of ideas, and the craft of effective collaboration. These are all vital skills that are badly needed in the modern moment. Drama/Theatre Teaching Artists are uniquely placed to do this work of supporting implementation, contributing to training, and introducing practical tactics into both primary and secondary education to support oracy.

Broad and Balanced

Bridget Phillipson states, ‘For every child, we must shift from a narrow conception of what they need to know, to deliver a breadth of knowledge, skills and opportunities that sets them up to achieve and thrive.’ This word thrive is striking – we can see evidence of an endemic failure of the current education system to support children to thrive – and this change is urgently needed.

This acknowledgement of of the need for a balanced and diverse curriculum is a welcome change of rhetoric from the direction of travel over the past 15 years. For the creative subjects, this is a life-line thrown at a point of extreme crisis after years of systematic decimation – and immediate work will be needed to support their recovery. The impact this will have on student wellbeing, joy, and the breath and life this will offer back into the national curriculum will be transformative.

Assessment: Exams

The language around exams is less refreshed and renewed in the review, and it is clear that GCSE and A-Level exams will continue largely in their current form, albeit somewhat minimally reduced for time/length. With regard to exams, the government responses states: ‘Working with the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), we will ensure we retain the rigour of exams whilst reducing the amount of time pupils spend in GCSE exams by 2.5-3 hours on average.’

I’ve written before about the unfairness and inaccuracy of seated and written exams as a means to test authentic learning, particularly for creative subjects but also generally across all education, so the fact that there wasn’t further reform of the exam system was disappointing news. However, the review had always promised that it would be an ‘evolution, not a revolution’ in its remit around assessment.

Enrichment

Also compelling in both the review and the government’s response is the focus not only on the curriculum but also the importance of extracurricular enrichment. Phillipson states, ‘The enrichment which has for too long been the privilege of a lucky few must now become the entitlement of a whole generation. A revitalised arts offer will spark their creativity. Access to sports, culture and nature will expand their horizons. Civic engagement will stretch their abilities beyond the classroom and prepare them for our democratic and inclusive society – not just speaking up and speaking out but listening to the voices of others too.’

The work we do at Doorstep has, since the beginning, been a battle for equity of access, to ensure that children who are growing up in socio-economic deprivation and in geographic isolation limited by access barriers and limited transport infrastructure can still find ways to take part in outstanding cultural arts experiences.

In her introduction, Phillipson acknowledges the importance of this work, stating, ‘For too long, too many have been trapped in a cycle of poor outcomes and rising disengagement. White working-class children, children with SEND, the children who are bright but bored – these are the children with the most to gain from an ambitious, future-focused curriculum.’

If this new Curriculum Review is indeed, in Phillipson’s words, to ‘take these children from forgotten to included’, then it must begin a path to actualisation now with ambition, commitment and real financial investment. Limited infrastructure and skeletal investment in regions like Torbay means that there is no magic wand to wave to fix years of austerity and challenge. The only way to manifest this vision powerfully and effectively is to invest it in with adequate financial resource and to build sensibly and efficiently from already existing partnership and infrastructure.

Enrichment is vital, and currently access and entitlement to it is profoundly unequitable, so this is a big fix and again will require significant investment and staffing to ensure that this requirement doesn’t fall on teacher’s shoulders with no further funding to make it happen. It was interesting to note the the specific note that Ofsted will now be considering how schools are meeting enrichment expectations when judging the personal development grade.

Where are we now?

We await announcements about the specifics of the new Enrichment Framework (and I would expect and demand we would also need to hear parallel announcements of the necessary funding being allocated for its effective implementation) and we wait to hear the result of the tendering process for the delivery of the new National Centre for Music & Arts Education. Having participated in a number of consultations and focus groups around this, I do have concerns about the shortness of time frames – the Centre is due to launch in Sept 2026 and very little information has been issued to date.

It is vital that the new national centre connects with the live work happening regionally, ensuring that the existing ecosystem of LCEPs and cultural education providers which are already embedded in regions are able to hit the ground running to bring this set of changes to life. For us here in Torbay, the work of the past 5 years has been integral in building toward this, and the resources and partnerships we’ve developed will be key to work from. (See TASN’s shared menu resource here, read about the June 2025 Symposium here, see the illustrations of conversations here).

I know from my work chairing the Torbay Arts in Schools Network (also a Family Arts Network) that we have a rich array of skilled and experienced artist-educators in this region. Whatever national announcements, directives and funding are announced, I am hopeful that this will mesh efficiently and effectively with the existing regional-specific landscapes, leadership and partnerships already in existence.

Next Action Steps:

School senior leaders will need to make sense of how to deliver this between now and 2028 – we are looking at ways to host critical (and hopeful) conversations and to hold spaces to begin dialogue and planning around this at regional levels.

Staffing and training will be a major consideration of the implementation – we are working to ensure that visibility and clarity of regional networks is as ready as it can be to ensure education sector partners and creative arts/cultural partners can work effectively together on this.

Want to get involved at a Torbay or SW level? Drop me a line – erin@doorsteparts.co.uk.

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‘Our task is to prepare our young people to be not just the skilled employees of tomorrow, but the citizens: the artists and scientists, teachers and campaigners, entrepreneurs and trade unionists, match-goers and museum-goers, carers and parents.’

(Bridget Phillipson)