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The continued use of the original PSHE and Citizenship Primary curriculum from 2002

Important advice about the proposed Primary curriculum

Many Primary schools and local authorities have already begun preparing for the curriculum changes and a wealth of new support materials have already been produced for teachers by QCDA and DfE. All the details of the Rose Proposals can now be found on the national archive website at Primary subjects

ACT suggests the following may be useful:

1. The existing Primary curriculum remains in law and teachers should ensure that they continue to provide quality teaching and learning for the non statuary PSHE and Citizenship education as they have done since September 2002.

2. There is nothing to prevent schools from making use of the Areas of Learning (AoL) approach to curriculum planning. The law does not dictate the way the curriculum should be organized. The AoL helps with thinking about a more creative approach to the curriculum, to teaching and learning and aides progression. It provides a more coherent Citizenship education experience for pupils and enables stronger cross curricular work to be developed whilst retaining the rigour that subjects deserve. The Rose Review AoL approach also realigns the Primary curriculum with that of the Secondary.

3. The Historical, Geographical and Social Area of Learning has much to commend it as an approach to strengthening Citizenship education - both as a single subject and also as part of a thematic approach. Teachers should take this opportunity to exploit this new thinking in order to re-evaluate the position of Citizenship education in schools and better articulate the subject with pupils and parents.

4. There is a wealth of new resources from QCDA to support the proposed curriculum including both film and paper resources. Teachers should make use of these new materials in their planning. The resources were sent to schools in February 2010.

5. The 8 Level Scale for assessment does not now apply to Primary BUT undoubtedly using this will help with assessment and therefore help pupils understand their own progress. The 8 Level Scale provides a set of national expectations for Citizenship education and can be useful in planning progression in Citizenship education and provides a single line of conversation with secondary colleagues.

6. Many subject associations like ACT have developed resources and support to enable teachers to begin their planning. ACT will continue to develop materials to complement the AoL approach in response to demand by teachers.

ACT hopes that this initial guidance will help teachers to take the opportunity from the Rose Review and the AoL approach to Primary curriculum planning to develop a creative curriculum and continue to improve the provision of Citizenship education in Key Stages 1 and 2. We commend teachers and school leaders to be bold and take this opportunity to renew the curriculum.

Additional information and advice will be forthcoming from DfE and QCDA once the intentions of the Coalition government are publicised.

For links to the latest information go to

The Primary Curriculum

Areas of Learning-Disciplined Innovation in Primary curriculum planning

Exploring this approach to curriculum planning

A significant change was the recommendation from Rose that primary teaching be divided into "areas of learning" which group subjects together.

How an areas of learning approach works

Each area of learning contains essential knowledge, understanding and skills from a range of subject disciplines.

It begins with an importance statement, which explains the distinctive contribution of the area to a child's development. This is similar to the secondary curriculum and helps conjoin the two, showing clearly where Secondary progresses from Primary.

Essential knowledge describes the big ideas children need to know and understand and key skills set out what children need to learn to do to help them to make progress

The breadth of learning describes the range of contexts and experiences within which children learn. Curriculum progression gives an overview of what children must be taught at early, middle and later primary stages, to help teachers plan.

Cross curricular studies set out the opportunities children should be given to enrich and enhance their learning and make connections with other parts of the curriculum.

Case Study

Children at Halterworth School have been learning about the Earth's resources and climate change. Working with a local sustainability group, the children launched a campaign to reduce the use of plastic bags in their community. Inspired by the children's work, teachers developed the project as a focus for geography and citizenship in the curriculum. Children went on to design bags and commission a fair trade company in the Pondicherry region of India to produce them.

Halterworth Primary Citizenship education film from the QCDA from Association for Citizenship on Vimeo.

A film describing the active Citizenship education work on pupils at Halterworth school. This film was made for the QCDA resources to support the introduction of the Rose Review curriculum.