I endorse the youth-led recommendations for education reform
Department for Education
Endorse the Shadow Curriculum and Assessment Review’s Final Recommendations
The Shadow Curriculum and Assessment Review (sCAR), led by young people and supported by leading youth organisations, has published a powerful set of recommendations to reform education in England.
These recommendations reflect the voices of thousands of young people across the country — calling for an education system that is more inclusive, equitable, future-facing, and empowering.
The recommendations call for:
- Guaranteed time and resources for all students to access enrichment opportunities
- Enhanced integration of citizenship skills and "life skills" across the curriculum and all key stages
- Reduction of unnecessary exams in both primary and secondary education
- Ensuring exams are not solely terminal, closed-book exams and that non-examined assessment and teacher observation-led assessment make up a higher proportion of assessments
- Introducing a national youth wellbeing measurement programme and supporting schools to deliver safe and effective mental health and wellbeing education
- Integrated solutions-centred climate change and sustainability content and developing a connection with nature across subjects and key stages
- Making Citizenship an essential, statutory subject for all key stages
- Ensuring the national curriculum represents the full diversity of society, throughout history and at present
- Making the assessment system more adaptable to support students’ needs as they arise, and shift over time
View the report for the full recommendations.
By signing, we endorse these recommendations in full, and call on the Department for Education and the Curriculum and Assessment Review Panel to adopt them in the Review's final report and implement them in the following education reform processes.
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By signing, you are standing with young people and supporting a more just, relevant, and future-proof education system.
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On behalf of the Youth Shadow Panel, I urge the Curriculum and Assessment Review Panel to fully acknowledge the voices of young people by integrating the Shadow Curriculum and Assessment Review's recommendations into their final recommendations. In addition, I call on the Department for Education (DfE) to accept these recommendations and implement them over the coming years.
Young people must be included in policy making on decisions that directly affect them. Their views and needs should be one of the foremost considerations in the Curriculum and Assessment Review as they know firsthand what does and doesn’t work in the current curriculum.
The Youth Shadow Panel's recommendations call for:
* Guaranteeing time and resources for all students to access enrichment opportunities
* Enhancing the integration of citizenship skills and "life skills" across the curriculum and all key stages as well as making Citizenship an essential, statutory subject
* Reduction of unnecessary exams in both primary and secondary education
* Ensuring exams are not solely terminal, closed-book exams and that non-examined assessment and teacher observation-led assessment make up a higher proportion of assessments
* Introducing a national youth wellbeing measurement programme and supporting schools to deliver safe and effective mental health and wellbeing education
* Integrated solutions-centred climate change and sustainability content and developing a connection with nature across all subjects and key stages
* Ensuring the national curriculum represents the full diversity of society, throughout history and at present
* Making the assessment system more adaptable to support students’ needs as they arise, and shift over time
Read the full report at: www.shadowpanel.uk/about/final-report
It is my sincere hope that the Review and the DfE understand the significance of this report and take the recommendations within it seriously.