National Curriculum Review
The Crafts Council submitted evidence to the Department for Education National Curriculum Review on 14 April. We responded to selected questions from the review; read our comments below.
Read the National Curriculum Review here
SECTION A: ABOUT YOU
The Crafts Council is incorporated by Royal Charter and is a registered Charity. It is England’s national development agency for contemporary craft.
As the national development agency for contemporary craft, the Crafts Council works to raise the profile of contemporary craft through critical debate and by building an evidence base that demonstrates the nature and value of craft. It supports makers’ professional development, builds the market for contemporary craft by running fairs and promoting export, and works to encourage participation and learning, promoting opportunities for interaction and informal engagement with craft.
SECTION C: GENERAL VIEWS ON THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM
6 a) What do you think are the key strengths of the current National Curriculum?
Comments:
The Crafts Council believes that all students must be equipped with literacy and numeracy skills and that only qualifications which meet stringent quality criteria should be offered in schools.
The Crafts Council also believe that students should receive a strong grounding in a range of areas and that it is helpful to support these through some form of minimum required standards e.g. Programmes of Study although it is possible that these could be more flexible/less prescriptive
6 b) What do you think are the key things that should be done to improve the current National Curriculum?
Comments:
The Crafts Council believes that as part of a balanced education, pupils should have access to rigorous teaching in a broad range of subjects to age 16, and that a variety of skills should be recognised and valued in the schools system.
We agree that numeracy and literacy skills should be taught in schools to Key Stage 4. We believe that, by comparison, practical skills, including craft knowledge and skills, should form an integral part of the National Curriculum to Key Stage 3.
We support the inclusion of Art and Design and/or Design and Technology, under which craft skills currently fall, as a statutory requirement in the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1-3. We would welcome recognition of craft as an independent subject in the curriculum with distinctive learning benefits.
Craft fosters creative thinking and innovative learning, and provides children with a firmer grasp of the 3-D world. In addition, craft skills also feed into a range of professions including manufacturing, medicine and software design. Craft skills also have cross-curricular benefits, as well as important behavioural and cultural impacts.
7 b) Do you think that the proportion or amount of lesson time should be specified in any way in the National Curriculum; eg for particular subjects and/or within particular key stages?
Comments:
The Crafts Council firmly believes in the importance of balanced education and we support greater freedoms for schools and teachers. We agree that adequate lesson time must be apportioned to teaching numeracy and literacy, to ensure that all pupils are given the opportunity to develop robust skills in these areas.
However, in the interests of a balanced education the Crafts Council also believes that adequate time must be apportioned to other subjects and would advocate for a regular amount of time for Art and Design and Design and Technology at KS3 including craft while accepting that the quantum must be the subject of discussion.
8 Please use this space for any other comments you would like to make about the issues covered in this section.
Comments:
The Crafts Council welcomes the new Government’s position on practical learning and the increasing recognition from business ministers of the vital social and economic contribution of practical skills, including craft. The Government has a vital role to play in translating dialogue into policy by addressing hierarchical distinctions between academic and practical learning and restoring the opportunity for skills and practical learning to the National Curriculum, encouraging the development of craft knowledge in young people and the recognition that craft is a viable, entrepreneurial career.
To harness the important benefits of the craft sector young people need to be engaged in craft in schools. Craft teaching throughout the education system plays an important role in developing a pipeline to the sector and ultimately to unlocking its economic and social potential. The craft sector is an important economic driver and has significant social impacts. It produces a turnover in excess of £3bn each year and is part of a vibrant cultural and creative sector in the UK, which contributed 5.6% of the UK’s GVA in 2008 (source: DCMS).
Largely made up of self-employed makers and owners of SMEs, the contemporary craft sector employs nearly 35,000 people and in 2009/10 was growing more rapidly by employment than any other creative sector.
Craft graduates also have important technical and entrepreneurial skills. Recent research by the Crafts Council Crafting Futures, commissioned as part of the wider Creative Graduates, Creative Futures survey, found that craft graduates typically work independently in an ever-changing landscape of micro-businesses and freelance work which characterise the craft sector. Findings also showed that in the early years of their careers more than one in three craft makers have worked freelance and one in five run a business, with double this proportion aiming to run a business as their careers progress. Research also showed that craft graduates are ‘socially mobile’, and networking, collaboration and ‘portfolio work’, combining for example teaching and making, are important aspects of their careers. In addition, craft graduates are adaptable in an economic downturn, proactively exploring new markets, maintaining demand for services and strategically cutting costs.
In contrast to the increased emphasis on skills from Business ministers recent measures in school age education embed a heavy weighting of priorities in schools.
Art and Design
14 a) Art and design is currently a compulsory National Curriculum subject, with a statutory Programme of Study, at Key Stages 1-3. In future, do you think art and design should continue to be a National Curriculum subject?
Yes
14 b) If yes, please tick all key stages to which this should apply.
- Key Stage 1 (5-7 years)
- Key Stage 2 (7-11 years)
- Key Stage 3 (11-14 years)
Comments:
At present, the teaching of craft skills falls under art and design and design and technology subjects, our comments on craft and the National Curriculum will therefore be covered in this section.
Underlining the importance of craft in schools and the reintroduction of craft to the curriculum are major strands of Crafts Council activity. Our interest is in ensuring that craft is properly taught and recognised as a statutory subject on the National Curriculum to Key Stage 3.
Learning craft skills has a range of educational benefits; it fosters creative thinking and innovative learning, and the development of haptic skills aids cognitive development. Craft skills also provide children with a firmer grasp of the 3-D world. This in turn develops problem-solving skills which feed into all manner of professions including manufacturing, medicine and software design.
Practical learning, including craft, can have positive impacts on behaviour and engaging pupils in schools and evidence shows that pupils who are positively engaged in learning are less likely to have behaviour problems. Reintroducing craft in the National Curriculum would contribute towards helping to unlock the economic and training potential of the sector by creating a pipeline to HE and FE courses and craft apprenticeships.
Whilst the Crafts Council recognises that this review aims to slim down the National Curriculum and that schools will still be able to teach subjects which are not statutory alongside the National Curriculum their exclusion from statutory education may threaten the provision of balanced education in schools and the important benefits derived from practical learning; sending a message to pupils, parents, schools and employers about their relative value.
14 c) If you think art and design should not be part of the National Curriculum at one or more key stage, do you think it should be compulsory for pupils to study the subject, but with the content of what is taught being determined by schools and colleges?
No
14 e) For any Key Stages in which you think art and design should not be a part of the National Curriculum, do you think the Government should produce a non-statutory programme of study, to be used by schools as guidance?
Yes
14 f) If yes, please tick all key stages to which this should apply
Key Stage 4 (14-16 years)
Comments:
The Crafts Council supports the inclusion of subjects which cover numeracy and literacy skills on the National Curriculum to Key Stage 4. Whilst we do not believe that craft teaching should be compulsory at Key Stage 4; when craft is taught at Key Stage 4 it should be accompanied by a Programme of Study to provide proper guidance to schools.
We are concerned that recent initiatives in school age education including the focus of this review, the introduction of the E-Bac and proposals in the Wolf Review, signal a paring down of the National Curriculum to a core of academic subjects and may threaten the provision of practical and cultural learning in schools – sending a message to pupils, parents, schools and employers about the relative value of these subjects at Key Stage 4.
SECTION H: HOW CHILDREN LEARN (Q29)
29 What research evidence on how children learn provides the most useful insights into how particular knowledge should best be sequenced within the National Curriculum Programmes of Study?
Comments:
Craft education is important to children’s development. Engagement with materials and developing the associated skills can inform and enhance other areas of education. This is one of the key principles of the Crafts Council programme Firing-Up which is a major national education initiative. Firing-Up aims to reintroduce craft skills into schools, and is a replicable, scalable example of how pupils can gain skills and understand career opportunities.
The Firing-Up programme is also a vehicle for cross-curricular learning, lending itself to integration beyond the parameters of the art department both in terms of staff involvement and links to other National Curriculum subjects. In the case of science for example, observing firing processes and glazes on clay can assist understandings of chemical changes in everyday situations.
Beyond the classroom, craft can help to create links between school, home and work and between generations and communities. Pupils who learn specific craft skills, become more aware of the origination and characteristics of materials and develop more general, transferable skills such as coping with problems and finding that ‘things don’t always go right’, but that they can learn from this. This increases pupils’ sense of autonomy and control, which can have positive impacts on their personal and broader academic development.
Crafts Council research also indicates that developing craft skills can assist in the inclusion of hard-to-reach learners. The Graffiti*d project in Stoke, profiled in the Crafts Council Making Value, Maker Profiles report 2010, worked with 13–16 year old boys deemed to be NEETS on a ceramics and graffiti project supported by Unity as part of (and funded by) the British Ceramics Biennale. The project was designed and run by CJ O’Neill, a designer, artist and educator based at Manchester Metropolitan University, who worked with participants to assemble an installation of wall-mounted plates which they spray graffitied. The work was made public by widespread media coverage which also revealed a strong sense of pride in participants about how they and their work would be represented.
