Curriculum and Assessment Review and Government Response Key Points

Below we have also provided a summary of the Government’s response to CAR, with overall points as well as those specifically responding to the science section. We have already published our initial response to the recommendations. 

For science education, CAR recommends that the Government: 

  • Ensures more cohesion and consistency across the primary Science curriculum, including clearer guidance on what should be taught, to what depth, at each stage. 
  • At all key stages, bases the Science curriculum on the fundamental concepts of each individual discipline so that students develop deep scientific and disciplinary knowledge and skills. In light of this, the Government should consider where content can be streamlined, especially at GCSE, without affecting rigour or the subject’s knowledge-rich focus. 
  • Ensures that the curriculum more clearly articulates the purpose and expectations of high-quality practical work in supporting the building of substantive knowledge and the development of important skills and procedural knowledge. 
  • Ensures that, in relevant areas, the Science curriculum explicitly develops students’ understanding of the scientific principles that explain climate change and sustainability and the global efforts to tackle them. 
  • Introduces an entitlement to Triple Science at GCSE, so that any student who wants to study Triple Science has the opportunity to do so. 

Government response to CAR (science focused):

The DfE published a detailed response to the CAR, in which they.....

  • Welcome the Review’s recognition that it is vitally important that science, as a core curriculum subject, is made accessible to all pupils and provides them with the knowledge and skills they will need to be active and informed citizens, while also giving them the best opportunity to be able to pursue careers in STEM. 
  • Welcome the Review’s recommended changes to the curriculum and GCSE and will reform the programmes of study to reflect these. As recommended, changes will ensure more consistency and cohesion in primary science, ensure that the purpose and expectations of high-quality practical work are more clearly articulated and reduce the unnecessary content duplication and complexity that leads to overload in the subject while maintaining, and in many cases, strengthening the rigour and depth of what is taught. As with maths, as part of this work we will evaluate the formulae and equations included in the GCSE content to determine whether pupils should still be required to memorise them or whether they can be provided in the exam. 
  • The Review also highlighted the lack of scientific principles leading to climate change in the current programme of study, as well as the effects of human behaviour on the environment. We will review this and update the content so that the greenhouse effect, as well as carbon emissions, burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are more explicitly understood in the curriculum as contributing factors towards effects such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events. 
  • We support the Review’s recommendation to introduce a triple science entitlement. We believe that all pupils who can benefit from studying triple science should have the opportunity to do so. To make this a reality, we will work with schools to understand the barriers to entry for triple science, including workforce challenges, and support schools to develop a triple science offer, ahead of introducing a statutory entitlement. 
  • We will also continue to invest in tackling physics teacher shortages through the Subject Knowledge for Physics Teaching programme.

Access the Government’s press release with overall summary response, across all subjects, to CAR.