There is unhappiness with the National Curriculum by both children with ASD and their parents and teachers.
1. Does the NAS respond to public consultations about educational reform - such as the GCSE and A Level reforms a few years ago?
2. Is the NAS legally allowed to openly criticise the National Curriculum or suggest changes to better accomodate children with ASD?
Kerri-Mod said:More widely on the national curriculum, we work with other disability charities through the Special Educational Consortium to make sure that those with a range of special educational needs are able to access the curriculum.
Although it has to be stated that an increasing number of parents of teenagers with ASD are losing interest in the secondary school National Curriculum. Accessing the full curriculum was the sort of thing there was strong public interest in around 2000ish but in more recent years emphasis has moved more towards life skills and social skills (that almost all mainstream schools cannot teach) after mastering the primary school basics. This is in response to an increasing numbers of young adults with ASD who have good GCSE grades, because the efforts whilst they were at secondary school was directed towards academics, but they fall down badly in employment and everyday life because they lack essential social skills and life skills. Their parents see their GCSEs as just a piece of paper that wasn't worth the efforts to obtain. They also think that the vast majority of what secondary schools teach is irrelevant in everyday life and most employment.
Hi Arran,
Sorry for the delay in responding to your questions.
Of course the NAS comment on and criticise Government policy when we don’t agree with it. And we respond to lots of consultations every year. In some cases we will decide to run public campaigns on something. There are lots of things that we can work on and so we have to prioritise what we work on to make the biggest difference. This film does a good job of explaining how we make decisions on what we prioritise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no9RvKoOY3s
In terms of GCSEs and A levels, we have been trying for quite some time to get the Department for Education to look seriously at how adjustments can be made to examination processes to make them more autism friendly. As a result, this year the Autism Education Trust will be producing guidance for schools and exam boards.
More widely on the national curriculum, we work with other disability charities through the Special Educational Consortium to make sure that those with a range of special educational needs are able to access the curriculum.
And in terms of autism specifically, we had a huge success last year, where on the back of our Every Teacher campaign, the Government has made training in autism a compulsory part of initial teacher training. This will start for the new intake from Sept 2018. http://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/media-centre/news/2016-07-12-teacher-training.aspx
You may also like to see our news story on implementation of the new SEND system: http://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/media-centre/news/2017-02-07-send-reforms.aspx
Hope that all helps.
Regards,
Kerri-Mod
I'm a critic of coursework myself. It has a place in some subjects such as art or music or design & technology but other subjects are better suited to being all exam. I celebrated the day when it was announced that coursework was dropped from the mathematics GCSE.
Some parents think that kids with AS often struggle with coursework because it requires organisational and presentation skills whereas exams are quick and simple affairs. Other parents say that kids with AS often freak out in exams but would benefit from continual assessment in a more relaxed environment.
I'm not too sure about the boys and girls preference to exams or coursework, but I am informed that parents of south Asian origin tend to be more critical of coursework and in favour of exams than indigenous British parents are. I'm not sure whether is has anything to do with the exam system (IGCSEs) taken in the Indian subcontinent or not which doesn't have coursework for most subjects. There is some evidence that children who don't speak English as their first language tend to have problems with coursework and do better under an all exam system.
Parents have defended ICT because they think it is a useful life skill whereas computer science is a technical subject that is above and beyond everyday life and could be too difficulty for all but the highest ability children.
I find it a bit strange how ICT is the most prominent life skill taught in secondary school but it's one that most children easily learn in their own time. Why don't schools, outside of Northern Ireland, teach anything to do with driving?
The reason that ICT teachers are against the changes is because their knowledge of computers is limited. It's not uncommon to find ICT teachers who are actually English or history teachers with no formal education in computers apart from very basic courses in things like Microsoft Office. Computer science requires teachers who have at least a level 3 qualification in the subject.
NAS15840 said:I can't answer on your first point, but on this one yes they can, legally anyone can criticise any part of government policy of which the National curriculum is a component. The curriculum though is less about how things are taught and more about what is taught, that it must cover certain subjects and elements within those subjects. There is guidance from various parts of the government on certain teaching trends (think the decade long obsession with phonics and the current obsession with fractions over decimals), though not all schools are bound by these.
The National Curriculum covers both subject content and methods of teaching. It even restricts the textbooks which are used and prevents schools from using 'third party' books even if they cover the same material. This point regarding textbooks has been raised by people from communities where English isn't the first language in that children would benefit from bi-lingual textbooks but schools are prohibited from buying them from unapproved publishers and the approved publishers are not interested in creating them.
What children with ASD need is changes to teaching and possibly changes to the testing system, although in the interest of everyone being on a level playing field and the results needing to be comparable then everyone does have to take the same exam in the end.
There are four exam boards operating in England although some subjects are not offered by every one of them. Some children in independent schools or are home educated take IGCSEs. Therefore not everyone takes the same exam.
During the time when I was at secondary school every GCSE had a coursework module. The government was ideologically committed to coursework as they believed that it was fairer than all exam as well as the progressive approach to education.
In recent years coursework has been dropped from several GCSE subjects and they have reverted to being all exam.
My own experience was that the NAS defended coursework during the time when I was at secondary school although feelings from parents were mixed. What are the views of the NAS of the recent educational reforms to GCSEs? Do they just go along with the government or do they have anything critical to say?
Another change is that ICT has been scrapped and replaced by computer science. For those who don't already know, they are completely different subjects. Does the NAS have anything to say about this?
