Jonathan Savage

I thought I would post a series of six posts on cross-curricular teaching and learning. This has been the topic of a book that I’ve put together for Routledge over the last few months (Cross-curricular Teaching and Learning in Secondary Education). Whilst I want you all to go and buy the book (!), these posts will be a summary of some of the opening ideas that I’ve been considering.

I’m starting today with a brief historical overview of issues relating to cross-curricular teaching and learning from a UK-perspective. It would be great to get feedback on these ideas, particularly from those of you reading outside the UK who have faced different sets of policy/circumstance than over here. So, here we go.

Recent educational policies, initiatives and resulting curriculum frameworks all have a history. It is interesting to take the longer view and consider how these current initiatives have emerged from, or perhaps are distinct from, previous ways of thinking or working. In this section, we will briefly consider a range of issues drawn from literature surrounding the implementation of the National Curriculum in the early 1990s. As we will see, some of the questions and issues being raised then have an interesting parallel to issues being considered today.

The implementation of the first National Curriculum in 1992 was encompassed by an extensive range of discussion amongst educators and politicians about a range of issues. Amongst this discussion, the inclusion within the National Curriculum of what were referred to at the time as ‘cross-curricular dimensions, skills and themes’ was hotly contested. Some of the arguments will be familiar. Dafour, writing in 1990, stated that:

‘Education’ and ‘curriculum’ have not been defined in any previous Education Act, although the Education Reform Act, 1988, which is about both, does depart from this tradition by providing a definition of the curriculum along with a prescriptive list of subjects that must, subsequently, be taught. (Dafour 1990, p.1)

One can sense the tumultuous political arguments that are raging beneath his prose. Within, and beyond, this ‘prescriptive’ list of subjects there were winners and losers, e.g. music was included, drama was not; physical education is there in its own right, dance was not, etc. The sense of politicians ‘meddling’ in the construction of a curriculum was very real at this time. One could cite numerous examples of how individual subject content was changed in response to Government ‘interference’, even at the level of individual Government ministers (Verma and Pumfrey 1993, p.21). Dafour goes on to say that:

While the status and context of different forms of knowledge will continue to be influenced by political and ideological considerations, political partiality should not be allowed to influence the final choice and status of particular subjects and cross-curricular themes for the school curriculum. The only question that should be asked is an educational one – how can all the subjects and themes fit together into the curriculum? (Dafour 1990, p.11)

Unfortunately this was not, and perhaps has never been, the case. Politics and education have a long and troubled history. But as one can see from the second part of this statement, alongside the inclusion of certain subjects, cross-curricular themes were also included within the curriculum framework. The National Curriculum Council defined these themes as:

… elements that enrich the educational experience of pupils. They are more structured and pervasive than any other cross-curricular provision and include a strong component of knowledge and understanding in addition to skills. Most can be taught through other subjects as well as through themes and topics. (NCC 1989, p.6)

These cross-curricular themes included topics such as economic and industrial understanding, health education, environmental education and citizenship. But in addition to themes, the inclusion of cross-curricular skills such as communication, numeracy, problem solving, information technology and study skills were implemented. Writing in 1993, a year after the introduction of the National Curriculum, the prescribed subjects and these various cross-curricular components, Pumfrey commented that:

The sheer rate of change that is taking place in education is unprecedented. The volume of paper reaching schools and requiring responses is daunting, even to the most committed professional. The core and other foundation subjects are currently centre-stage. Unless teachers and schools are vigilant, the benefits of cross-curricular themes could be adversely affected.

At present, the National Curriculum is far from fully in place in schools. The way in which various subjects are cross-curricular themes have been introduced into the secondary school syllabus has not been of the highest order. Too little preparation and consultation have led to controversial changes. (Pumfrey 1993, p.21)

As we will go on to see, in respect of implementing cross-curricular elements within a wider curriculum framework, little has changed in twenty years! The position facing teachers today is that the inclusion of cross-curricular dimensions within the new secondary curriculum is non-statutory. Given the raft of other new initiatives, this sends a strong message to teachers about where their priorities might lie. Crawford (2000) considers the role of policy makers and their relationship to practitioners in a fascinating study. At the level of the individual teacher who in the early 1990s, as we have seen, was struggling to make sense of these monumental changes in curriculum policy and design and had to side-line cross-curricular themes in favour of core subjects, he quotes Ball who stated that ‘teachers were reduced to agents of policies which were decided elsewhere’ (Ball 1990, p.171). Perhaps there is nothing new there either. But more generally, whilst Crawford’s belief is that the then Department for Education and Science was not against the principle of whole curriculum initiatives (i.e. an approach that blended together subjects with cross-curricular themes), his concluding thought is that ‘the debate over the whole curriculum is representative of a conflict over the strategy of curriculum implementation’ (Crawford 2000, p.628).

In summary, this tumultuous period demonstrated many things. Firstly, the marriage of subjects and cross-curricular themes within the curriculum is not an easy one. Secondly, the imposition of large changes in curriculum design often mean that teachers will focus on what they know, i.e. their subject, and not make the wider links that might have been envisaged by a ‘whole curriculum. Finally, although the benefits of a cross-curricular set of themes and skills were recognised by politicians and educators, the practical implementation of the curriculum itself meant that opportunities were missed and creative links were established between subjects or between subjects and cross-curricular themes.