ASE response to the publication of the Curriculum and Assessment Review

By ASE Communications Team Wednesday 05 November 2025

News icon

ASE welcomes ambitions of the Curriculum Review but focus on Triple Science risks widening inequality unless backed by significant investment in teaching capacity and resources. 

The Association for Science Education (ASE) has welcomed the broad ambition and many strengths in the Curriculum and Assessment Review final report published today (5/11/25). The Review’s findings reflect many of our own responses, rightly aims to create a more coherent, equitable and future-focused curriculum, and includes several important recommendations that reflect long-standing ASE priorities for improving science education. 

ASE particularly welcomes: 

  • A focus on improving coherence, progression and status in primary science 
  • The recommendation to reduce unnecessary content in GCSE science and to strengthen teaching around core disciplinary concepts, creating space for deeper understanding and practical learning 
  • The Review’s recognition that high-quality practical science needs renewed focus and greater clarity of purpose 
  • Commitments to strengthen climate and sustainability education across science and geography 
  • The principle that all students should have fair access to future STEM pathways 
  • Proposals to strengthen the computing curriculum, digital and media literacy, reinforce strong mathematical foundations and introduce a new national oracy framework.

Government response 

ASE also welcome the Government’s constructive response which includes a strong recognition that science remains a vitally important core curriculum subject and makes commitments to improve primary progression and practical science, address curriculum overload and embed climate education.  The alignment between the Review and Government response is a positive and meaningful step forward.  

'Entitlement to study Triple Science as standard'

Whilst ASE supports the ambition to widen access to Triple Science so that every young person regardless of their circumstances has the opportunity to reach their potential and notes the Government’s commitment to schools to meet this expectation over time, we are concerned that introducing the Triple Science entitlement as standard is problematic for several reasons:  

  • ASE has long supported a single equitable route through the sciences at GCSE - in part because such an approach would help to maximise both equitable access to science education and optimise limited resources. A unified route helps to ensure all young people have equitable access to a high standard of science education regardless of whether they wish to pursue sciences academically or not.  
  • It will be important to ensure that the focus to expand the entitlement to Triple Science in the small minority of schools that currently don’t provide that option, does not obscure the continued inequalities in access and participation in Triple Science within and between schools that already offer the qualification. It is unclear how the new entitlement would address this issue and could risk detracting from or hiding it further. 
  • Further detail is required to understand how the entitlement would work in practice – for instance (i) how will the entitlement go beyond an equality of opportunity approach in order to meaningfully support equality of uptake and/or outcomes? (ii) how will schools be encouraged and supported to ensure their offers are high quality, fair and attractive to students? How will schools that are constrained by resources but are required to cater to a potentially very low level of demand, be supported to provide a feasible, attractive and equitable quality offer to students?  
  • Although the Review argues that entitlement could reduce inequality this can only be achieved if all schools are able to deliver the offer. Some schools may not be able to adequately resource the provision of high-quality Triple Science particularly where specialist teachers are in short supply. In addition, not all schools may be able to accommodate every student who wishes to take Triple Sciences without significant additional resources.  
  • Channelling resources into a Triple Science offer may result in lower quality of teaching of Combined Science which remains the route taken by most students. 
  • Prioritising Triple Science risks sending an unintended signal that Combined Science is a second-tier qualification, despite being rigorous, chosen by the majority of students and still an appropriate route for those students wishing to study science post 16.  

Professor Louise Archer, President of the ASE, says “Focusing narrowly on an entitlement to Triple Science risks missing the wider opportunity to address and improve inequalities in science participation more broadly. Entitlement as a form of equality of opportunity is not the same as equitable provision and outcomes, and without the teachers, time and resources to deliver it, this policy could deepen the very inequalities it aims to address.” 

Lynn Ladbrook, ASE CEO says “No curriculum reform whether in science or any other subject will succeed without sustained investment in the workforce needed to deliver it. That means recruiting and retaining specialist science teachers, supporting existing staff through high-quality professional development and recognising the vital role of science technicians in delivering practical work safely and effectively. Without addressing the growing shortages in both teaching and technician staffing, even well-designed reforms will struggle to translate into reality.” 

ASE notes the Government’s commitment to deliver improved programmes of study for science and to support schools and teachers in providing an effective and impactful science curriculum as a result. ASE looks forward to working with the Department for Education and others on implementation, including on how the Triple Science entitlement can be delivered equitably, without potentially weakening science provision elsewhere in the system.  

Further information 

Members are invited to share their views on the Curriculum and Assessment Review with ASE via email to info@ase.org.uk