Subjects and themes in the secondary-school curriculum

Although the 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a National Curriculum for England and Wales defined in subject terms, the National Curriculum Council suggested that schools should also concern themselves with a number of cross-curricular elements. It offered non-statutory guidance on the implementation of five cross-curricular themes - economic and industrial understanding, careers education and guidance, health education, citizenship (community understanding in Wales) and environmental education. In Northern Ireland, six similar educational themes were specified in the 1989 Education Reform Order. This paper reports on a study of the implementation of these cross-curricular themes in secondary schools in England and Wales and in post-primary schools in Northern Ireland. It draws upon a postal survey of these schools and intensive fieldwork in a subsample of ten schools. It identifies differences in the ways in which the various themes have been implemented and suggests that those themes that did not have a significant presence in schools prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum have generally lacked status and resources. Using concepts drawn from the sociology of Basil Bernstein, the paper explores some of the tensions between the cross-curricular themes and a subject-based secondary-school culture reinforced by the National Curriculum. It points to particular difficulties in meeting the requirements of Section One of the Education Reform Act through a permeation approach to the teaching of the themes, but also recognizes the disadvantages associated with alternative provision via personal and social education. Both the survey data and the fieldwork revealed that the majority of schools made little systematic attempt to evaluate or assess cross-curricular work separately from procedures employed in relation to individual subjects. A lack of clear assessment criteria for work associated with the themes is identified as a major problem and the authors conclude that cross-curricular work now needs to be given a higher priority in rethinking the National Curriculum and its associated modes of assessment.