Ownership of the curriculum and appointment of the head are the two cardinal rights of governance! Abandon these and boards will be quickly adrift. And yet in their obsession with compliance and budgets I see many governors finding little time and opportunity to influence the first of these. For much of the twentieth century the UK curriculum was static with “matriculation” giving way to predictable diet of “O” and “A” levels eventually arriving in the simplistic age of league tables. Sir Keith Joseph’s “national curriculum” was the last fling of this monolith with additional fine-tunings from Messrs Adonis and Gove. Alternatives such as the International Baccalaureate were viewed with suspicion and adventures into vocational education have never succeeded in shaking the inner elitism of our leading schools and universities. But the world is now changing! Most positive is the identification of well-being as a prime purpose of education. Mental health programmes, stress-coping strategies, and finding the right place for spiritual development are no longer the preserve of Guardian readers. And now President Trump has added “fake news” and “post-truth”, or rather how to mitigate them, to the curriculum agenda. At a time of cyber-attacks and super-trolling the really clever architects of tomorrow’s curriculum are going to need to plan a learning framework which goes beyond anything we have so far imagined. Much will depend on it…like the future of our civilisation! Curriculum 2020 here we come!!
Anthony Millard
Executive Chairman and Director
