The draft primary national curriculum outlines significant changes across subjects including English, Mathematics, Science, and History, with a focus on specific objectives and content adjustments. Key omissions include the removal of drama from English, less emphasis on ICT in favor of computing, and a new structured approach to the teaching of History emphasizing chronological progression. The consultation period for public feedback is open until April 16th, encouraging responses through various channels.

1. Draft Primary National
Curriculum
What would change?

2. English
What’s out? What’s in?
• Speaking & Listening no • Year-by-year objectives (34
longer appears as a pages)
strand • Required spelling & grammar
objectives & wordlists (16pp)
• Drama is not mentioned
• Priority for phonics in both
• No mention of ICT
key stages
• No method for teaching • Focus on reading for
reading other than pleasure
phonics (i.e. context., • Reciting poetry
etc.) • Priority on transcription

3. English – an example Y5/6 page

4. English – Year 3/4 wordlists

5. English – Grammar objectives

6. Mathematics
What’s out? What’s in?
• Ma1 – Using & Applying* • Yearly objectives (40 pages)
• Mathematical reasoning • Tables to 12x12 by end of Y4
• Communicating maths • Standard written methods
• Focus on fractions
• Data handling in Y1
• Y5 convert decimal→fraction
• Use of ICT
• Telling time in Y2; using
• Use of calculators except Roman numerals in Y3
in exceptional cases in • Area of triangles &
upper KS2 parallelograms in Y6
*Ma1 is mentioned briefly in the aims, but
doesn't appear in the PoS

7. Mathematics – what’s when?
• Multiplication tables:
Y2: 2, 5 & 10 times tables Y4: all tables up to 12x12
Y3: 3, 4 & 8 times tables
• Standard written methods:
Y3: Column addition and subtraction Y5: Short division
Y4: Standard column multiplication Y6: Long division
• Fractions
Y1: Introduce ¼ and ½ Y4: Add + Subtract fractions
Y2: ¾ and 1/3. Find ½ of a number Y5: Use mixed numbers
Y3: Add and order simple fractions Y6: Add & Multiply fractions
• Algebra
Y6: Simple formulae, finding missing numbers, etc.

8. Science
What’s out? What’s in?
• Much less content at • Yearly objectives (34 pages)
KS1: No mention of • Broadly similar to the old
medicines, electricity, QCA units in a slightly
light & dark, or material different order
changes caused by • Continued emphasis on
temperatures investigation across all areas
• No forces before Y6 • Evolution in Y4 & Y6
(except looking at • Classification into kingdoms
simple magnets work) at Y6

9. Art
What’s out? What’s in?
• Evaluating work • A single page curriculum for
KS1-2 combined:
• Requirement to
• Use a range of materials,
collaborate including sketchbooks in KS2
• Develop techniques
• Learn about the great artists

10. ICT → Computing
What’s out? What’s in?
• The name ICT • Changes to “Computing”
• Very little mention of • Largely based around the
presenting ideas or old Control elements, e.g. In
KS1: “understand what
information
algorithms are, how they are
• No mention of cross- implemented as programs on
curricular use of ICT digital devices, and that
programs execute by
following a sequence of
instructions”
• E-safety mentioned at every
Key Stage

11. Design & Technology
What’s out? What’s in?
• No planning / • Healthy cooking to be
generating ideas at KS1 covered at every Key Stage
(with regard to available
• No mechanisms at KS1
cooking facilities)
• No mention of working • Development of repair &
from a brief at KS2 maintenance skills (!)
• No use of ICT required • Understanding of key
turning points in history,
e.g. Industrial Revolution

12. Geography
What’s out? What’s in?
• No investigative • Factual knowledge, e.g.
questioning continents & oceans at KS1
• No KS1 comparison • UK focus at KS1, plus one
non-European comparison
with other UK locations
• Europe & the Americas
• No mention of
covered at KS2
environmental
• Identification of rivers,
sustainability
mountains, etc. in UK
• No African, Asian or • OS four-figure grid
Australasian geography references

13. History
What’s out? What’s in?
• Personal timeline • KS1: Concepts of monarchy,
history parliament, civilisation,
democracy and war & peace
• Historical enquiry skills
• KS2: Strictly chronological
• Britain since 1930s progression through history
• Victorians of Britain from early Britons
• Ancient Egypt, Aztecs, to Glorious Revolution (1688)
Incas, etc. • Requirement to teach
• Diversity in the UK & Ancient Rome & Greece
the world

14. Just work your way through....
Early Britons and settlers, including:
• the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages Plantagenet rule in the 12th and 13th
• Celtic culture and patterns of settlement centuries, including:
•key developments in the reign of Henry II,
Roman conquest and rule, including: including the murder of Thomas Becket
•Caesar, Augustus, and Claudius •Magna Carta
• Britain as part of the Roman Empire •de Montfort's Parliament
• the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
Relations between England, Wales,
Anglo-Saxon and Viking settlement, including: Scotland and France, including:
•the Heptarchy •William Wallace
• the spread of Christianity •Robert the Bruce
• key developments in the reigns of Alfred, •Llywelyn and Dafydd ap Gruffydd
Athelstan, Cnut and Edward the Confessor •the Hundred Years War
Norman Conquest and Norman rule, including: Life in 14th-century England, including:
• the Domesday Book •Chivalry
• feudalism •the Black Death
• Norman culture •the Peasants’ Revolt
• the crusades

15. ... all of this in four years!
The later Middle Ages and the early modern The Renaissance in England, including:
period, including: •the lives and works of individuals such as
•Chaucer and the revival of learning Shakespeare and Marlowe
•Wycliffe’s Bible
•Caxton and the printing press The Stuart period, including:
•the Wars of the Roses •the Union of the Crowns
•Warwick the Kingmaker • King versus Parliament
•Cromwell's commonwealth, the Levellers
The Tudor period, including: and the Diggers
•religious strife and Reformation • the restoration of the monarchy
•the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary • the Great Plague and the Great Fire of
London
Elizabeth I's reign and English expansion,
• Samuel Pepys and the establishment of
including:
the Royal Navy
•colonisation of the New World
• the Glorious Revolution, constitutional
•plantation of Ireland
monarchy and the Union of the
•conflict with Spain
Parliaments.

16. Foreign Languages
What’s out? What’s in?
• Freedom to select • Statutory foreign languages at
any language Key Stage 2, selected
from:French, German, Italian,
• Focus on inter- Mandarin, Spanish, Latin or
cultural Ancient Greek
understanding • Teaching should focus on
• Links to English making progress in 1 language
literacy • Includes a balance of all four
skills and a focus on developing
accurate pronunciation

17. Music
What’s out? What’s in?
• Description of • A single page curriculum
‘elements’ (now called for KS1-2, largely focussed
inter-related on singing & playing
dimensions!) instruments
• Use of staff and other
• No mention of
forms of notation in KS2
collaboration at KS1
• Develop an understanding
• No requirement to of history of music at KS2
respond to listening

18. Physical Education
What’s out? What’s in?
• No evaluation at KS1 • A focus on competitive
games
• No mention of health &
fitness • KS2 Swimming: “perform
safe self-rescue in different
• No specific games at KS1 water-based situations”

19. What you can do...
• Consultation runs until 16th April (i.e. After Easter)
• Complete the form at
www.education.gov.uk/nationalcurriculum
• Write to your MP - could be via:
www.theyworkforyou.com
• Respond to Subject Association consultations, e.g.
• History
• Mathematics
• Geography