Special Feature

State schools in England must adhere to the National Curriculum, which is designed to ensure that pupils in primary and secondary schools all follow the same programme. It is divided into four Key Stages, with pupils sitting SATs at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2, and GCSEs at the end of Key Stage 4.

Unlike the rest of the UK, Scottish schools have used the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) since August 2010. Overseen by Education Scotland, the curriculum has just three compulsory core subjects: Health and wellbeing, Literacy and Numeracy.

Beyond these, Scottish schools and teachers are encouraged to decide for themselves what to study. Students in Scotland also have a wider choice of subjects at secondary level, and local authorities retain a much greater control over schools than in England.

The CfE emphasises four “key capacities”, designed to help pupils become:

• Successful learners
• Confident individuals
• Responsible citizens
• Effective contributors

Scotland does not set GCSEs or A-levels, but has its own examination system: this year, thousands of Scottish pupils became the first to sit the new National 4 and 5 exams. Scottish pupils are tested far less frequently over their school careers, with no requirement for SATs as in England, or standardised literacy and numeracy tests as in Wales and Northern Ireland.

All exams in Scotland are overseen by a single awarding body: the government-led Scottish Qualifications Authority. This is another crucial difference, as the profusion of exam bodies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has been blamed for contributing to a perceived fall in standards.

While recent educational reforms in England have tended to focus on diversity of school types and parental choice, Wales remains committed to the community-based comprehensive school model. There are no academies or free schools in Wales, and only a few foundation schools that are exempt from local authority control.

In 2008, a unique new curriculum known as the Foundation Phase was rolled out in Wales. Made for pupils aged three to seven, the Scandinavian-style curriculum has a focus on experiential learning and the practical applications of subjects like Maths and Science. Wales also operates a Learning Pathways programme for students between the ages of 14 and 19, which is designed to focus on the needs of individual learners and provide greater choice and flexibility.

In another major difference from the English model, students in Wales must sit annual National Reading and Numeracy Tests between Years 2 and 9. Introduced in 2013, these tests are part of a new National Literacy and Numeracy Framework meant to drive up standards in Wales.

Students in Wales do not take SATs, although they still take GCSEs and will continue to do so after GCSEs are scrapped in England. Welsh students will also have the option to take the Welsh Baccalaureate.

The National Curriculum in Northern Ireland is similar to England’s, although not identical. Northern Ireland has six compulsory, cross-curricular “themes”: English, Mathematics, Science and Technology, The Environment and Society, Creative and Expressive Studies and Language Studies. Each of these themes has compulsory contributory subjects in each key stage.

As in Wales, students in Northern Ireland sit GCSEs, but not SATs. Between Years 4 and 7, pupils take annual Numeracy and Literacy Assessments during the autumn term, and teachers assign pupils levels at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2 based on how well they have performed in the areas of Cross-Curricular Skills of Communication, Using Mathematics and Using IT.

Overview:

• Students in England sit 4 rounds of compulsory tests between age 3 and 16 (3 SATs, 1 GCSEs)
• Students in Wales sit 9 (8 National Reading and Numeracy Tests, 1 GCSEs)
• Students in Northern Ireland sit 5 (4 Numeracy and Literacy Assessments, 1 GCSEs)
• Students in Scotland sit just 1 (Nationals)

Which curriculums are working?

PISA 2012 scores:

PISA 2009 scores:

In spite of investment in schools and regular educational reforms, the UK has made little progress in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys over the years, regularly placing somewhere in the middle for maths, science and reading. However, some countries within the UK have fared better than others: could this be related to the different approaches each home nation takes to schooling?

In the latest PISA survey in 2012, Scotland outperformed England, Wales and Northern Ireland in maths and reading, while England achieved the best scores in science. Wales has fallen behind the other nations in all three subject areas for some time, and its GCSE pass rates are the lowest in the UK: a phenomenon that may be down to a combination of factors rather than solely a matter of educational policy.

There has long been an acknowledged problem with recruiting and retaining high-calibre teachers in Wales: as far back as 2003, the General Teaching Council for Wales published an action plan to tackle the problem, which persists more than a decade later.

Poor literacy has also been identified as a problem: Welsh inspection body Estyn found in 2012 that two-fifths of pupils in Wales are reading at a substandard level by the time they reach secondary school.

While devolution has allowed Welsh governments to pursue a number of education policies distinct from England – among them the Foundation Phase, Learning Pathways and the abolition of school performance tables – serious problems remain within the Welsh system. The current strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy hopes to rectify this, along with a tougher line on under-performing schools.

Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence is a world apart from the National Curriculum in nearly every way – and while Scotland tends to outperform England in the PISA rankings (albeit only slightly), the system north of the border fares less well in some other metrics. For example, analysis from the London School of Economics last year found that Scotland has a slightly higher percentage than England of 17 to 24-year-olds with no qualifications, while only 23.8% of Scottish 18-year-olds participate in higher education, compared with 28.8% in England.

This may be explained by the modular nature of Scottish Highers, which unlike A-levels can be completed in one year, which might discourage some students to stay on for a second year to get the qualifications they need for university. A higher proportion of Scottish students also study for degrees in colleges of further education instead of universities, which makes direct comparison between the two systems difficult.

As Scotland’s curriculum and education system is already completely separate from England’s, further devolution might not make a huge difference to the way its education is run. However, as long as Scotland remains in the Union, its government has less scope to raise taxes and adjust its fiscal policy to tackle systemic problems such as educational inequality.

Northern Ireland’s GCSE pass rates also lag behind England’s, and it has almost twice the proportion of 17 to 24-year-olds with no qualifications as any other UK country. However, it also has the highest proportion of 18-year-olds in higher education: more than a third, according to the LSE analysis of UCAS figures.

Education in Northern Ireland is not without its problems. Earlier this year, an analysis by The Detail found that 40 per cent of the country’s secondary schools failed to meet a key GCSE results target set for school in England.

Lower levels of attainment were particularly pronounced among pupils entitled to free school meals, a common measure of deprivation. Half the proportion of pupils on free school meals achieved five or more GCSEs at A*-C, compared to those who do not get free school meals.

However, every one of its 68 grammar schools exceeded the target, and there remains a large social gap between grammar and secondary schools in Northern Ireland – a crucial difference compared with England, where grammar schools are proportionally much less common. Nearly a third of secondary schools in Northern Ireland are grammar schools, compared with around five per cent of English schools.

The freedom – to varying degrees – of the home nations to pursue their own educational policies has produced four quite distinct systems. Although England, Wales and Northern Ireland all use GCSEs as a standardised measure of educational attainment, the different journeys pupils take to these exams make it problematic to draw like-for-like comparisons about which system is “working”, and the figures show no clear winners.

In autumn 2015, England will begin implementing the biggest shake-up to the GCSE system in a generation. The changes will apply only to England – Wales is planning reforms of its own, Northern Ireland will not make any major changes, and Scotland will continue with its own curriculum. In time, as the four nations’ systems continue down their separate paths, the results may start to tell more divergent stories.

Greg Smith, head of operations at Oxford Open Learning Trust, said: “The examination systems of England, Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to drift apart, mostly because there isn’t the political will or structure to stop them. With most people agreeing that the main political parties are basically the same, education has become one area where they are ideologically opposed; this will mean that education becomes an even greater political football than it is now.

“Ultimately I think this will mean that the Welsh system, which will benefit from stability, may well catch up with England. Scotland, regardless of devolution, will outstrip us all.”