New curriculum offers political points to Tories

The funny thing about the new National Curriculum, published today, is that after all the fuss of the past few months, particularly over the history curriculum, it’s probably the last ever national plan from the government. As more and more schools convert to academy status, and more free schools pop up to compete with poorly-performing schools, there will be fewer and fewer who must conform to this: the rest have been given freedom to teach what they judge is best for their pupils. Michael Gove’s critics like to argue that he is a great centraliser, dictating the curriculum from Westminster while claiming to give schools freedom. But he only remains a centraliser where schools remain subject to centralisation and local authority control.

But today’s announcement gives the Conservatives a number of attack lines. The first is the inevitable ‘global race’ line, with the curriculum being sold as an attempt to bring this country’s school system into line with the best-performers in the world.