Andy Burnham’s Education Secretary has signalled plans for changes to the school curriculum, while criticising Conservatives for prioritising academic learning over technical education.
Writing in The Times, Lucy Powell said schools were stuck in a “straitjacket” of being forced to prioritise academic subjects such as English, science and history, leading to a million young people not in formal study, training or work.
She said she planned to take a “fresh look at what we are teaching our children and whether we are equipping them for their lives ahead”.
Last week, Burnham promised to put technical qualifications on a par with academic ones to “value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap”.
What has Lucy Powell said?
Powell said young people had been “let down” by the reforms of Michael Gove, who was education secretary during the Tory-Liberal Democrat Coalition government that came to power in 2010p. hildren from poorer backgrounds with “stubborn and entrenched disadvantage”, and those with special educational needs, were particularly let down, she added.
She said a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education did not suit all children, including those who had talents and skills beyond academia, such as in “creative subjects, technical or skilled work or more practical application”.
What could change?
Last week the Government announced that pupils aged 14 and older will be offered more technical subjects alongside academic exams, and will do work experience with local businesses.
The scheme, modelled on the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate that Burnham implemented as mayor, will be rolled out from September 2028.
Writing in The Times, Powell criticised a lack of practical education available for children, saying “it’s leaving our young people seriously unprepared for the modern world”. She suggested that young people were not “work ready” as “only pen and paper exams prevail” – while real-world employees need skills like such as delivering presentations, planning projects and collaborating with others.
Earlier this week she described the spelling test for Year 6 pupils as “too obscure” and said she would consider changing it.
The Government has already been developing changes to the curriculum that were proposed in a review by Professor Becky Francis last November. The Francis report recommended that teenagers take fewer GCSE exams because of concerns they are being taught to the test, and becoming stressed.
Powell is understood to want to go further in allowing children to concentrate on technical subjects at an earlier age, The Times reported.
Cutting back GCSE exams
The Francis report recommended cutting three hours from the total length of GCSE exams, and reducing the course content of several GCSE subjects including history and the sciences.
“Some of those other really precious and important things that schools do around enrichment, life skills, support for young people’s confidence – those things are being squeezed by the sheer volume of content in the national curriculum at present,” Francis told The Guardian last year.
The review also called for a 10 per cent reduction in exam volume at Key Stage 4. Following it, Sir Keir Starmer’s Department for Education (DfE) confirmed it would reduce the time pupils spent in GCSE exams, and accepted many of the recommendations.
The DfE, then run by Powell’s predecessor Bridget Phillipson, announced it would end the English baccalaureate (EBacc) introduced by Gove, which steered students towards more academic subjects at GCSE, and would revise Year 6 SATs to cut testing of fronted adverbials and similar grammatical concepts.
The curriculum will also be changed to help teachers adapt their teaching for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) as the Government moves towards including more of them in mainstream rather than special schools – but further details have not been spelled out.
New subjects and qualifications
V-levels, a new post-16 qualification for students following a vocational route, will be introduced, and a new flexible language qualification could be developed to be taken alongside GCSEs, the DfE has previously said.
The computing GCSE will be broadened, with a new level 3 qualification in data science and AI possibly being introduced.
The curriculum will also include an increased focus on financial education, media and digital literacy.
All schools will offer biology, chemistry and physics as GCSEs, and pupils will be given more choice of subjects, with the arts encouraged.
Citizenship lessons will be compulsory in Years 1 to 6, the importance of two hours a week of physical education will be reinforced, and climate and sustainability education will be improved.
A new compulsory reading test in Year 8 will be introduced to identify pupils who need extra support.
Last week, the Government said technical subjects that could be offered to pupils aged 14 and over would be based on local industries, and could include advanced manufacturing, digital and technology, clean energy, life sciences, construction, health and care, or the creative industries.
Starmer’s Government had said the new curriculum would be published in spring 2027 and implemented from September 2028 – but its publication has been delayed.
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