Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Lucy, you are very welcome to the Committee today. I record my thanks to you for attending at such short notice. We were very keen to hear from you, given the publication of the strategic review of the Northern Ireland curriculum. We are deep into the process of scrutinising the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill, and we do not have a huge amount of space on our agenda, but we wanted to prioritise this evidence session, so we really appreciate your flexibility.

I will let Lucy provide a much more detailed introduction on the work of the review of the Northern Ireland curriculum, but we are looking to understand the brief, the methodology and the results of it. Lucy, I know that you have a delivered a substantial piece of work, but may I ask you to give an initial presentation of up to 10 minutes? We can then move on to questions from Committee members. I will hand over to you.

Ms Lucy Crehan: Hello. I am very pleased to be here. Thank you for the invitation. It is a great privilege to present, albeit in 10 minutes, my work on the review to you all this afternoon. I look forward to your questions.

As you said, Chair, this will be an overview of the big picture. I will talk about my sources of evidence, my key findings and a few high-level recommendations. I welcome your questions on anything further. My remit for the review was to develop a set of policy recommendations that focus on the curriculum's purpose, design, content and implementation. In doing so, I drew from a range of sources. I observed lessons and shadowed students in 11 schools and other education settings, including an education other than in a school setting, and held around 70 focus groups and meetings with stakeholders from across the sector, including teachers, school leaders, young people, parents, business leaders, teacher educators and the wider community. We put out an open call for evidence, to which we received 149 submissions. We also designed a national teacher survey, which was completed by more than 1,400 teachers. In the survey, there were some open-text boxes, which were particularly helpful. We looked at recent evaluations of the curriculum in Northern Ireland and got insights from other education systems. We also drew from research in fields such as cognitive science, particularly on knowledge and the role that it plays in learning.

I used the data and that theory as part of the review process to come up with a working theory on what effects the existing curriculum framework is having in schools in Northern Ireland, with a recognition of how that potentially has different effects in different contexts and in different types of schools. Based on that working theory, I then identified potential changes to the curriculum and related policies that support the curriculum that are therefore likely to address the problems that were raised as part of the data analysis and in the stakeholder group meetings based on that analysis, while also bringing to bear my knowledge of curriculum design in other countries and various cognitive science research, particularly on the relationship between knowledge and skills. That formed the basis of my recommendations. In making those recommendations, I was particularly keen to consider how the existing strengths of the curriculum could be retained. I have built that into my proposed model for a new curriculum framework, which is one of my recommendations.

I will talk about the main strengths and weaknesses of the Northern Ireland curriculum as identified by those stakeholder groups. The key strengths that were identified included an emphasis on skills development, which was seen as being really important for preparing young people for life beyond school; a focus on cross-curricular connections among different subjects on the curriculum; breadth and balance that was inherent in the areas of learning; a focus on playful learning in early years; and flexibility to respond to the needs of children. I considered all those in making my proposals for a new curriculum framework, while again being very conscious and mindful all the time that any proposed changes to the current curriculum framework did not diminish the curriculum's existing strengths. There was a real intention to hold on to those strengths.

Having flexibility is particularly important. At the same time, however, the way in which that feature has been expressed in the current curriculum framework means that it has also been identified as a significant weakness of the curriculum. In other words, there is a lack of specificity in the curriculum. That was identified as being a problem in itself, with teachers saying that they found the curriculum to be vague, and also as being a cause of other problems that were identified as part of the review.

I will therefore go through a few different problems that relate to that lack of specificity. Many teachers and parents pointed to unequal standards in learning opportunities among schools. When a curriculum is not specific, schools and teachers are left to interpret its broad aims on their own. Depending on where students go to school, that can result in very different learning experiences for them.

For example, I had a few discussions with whole classes of year 8s in which I asked them to write down what they remembered learning about various subjects in primary school. In a single class, there were vast differences in what they reported that they had learnt in science and in the extent to which they remembered learning science at all. That is just one example. That leads to difficulties with pupil progression, especially across transitions between Key Stages, and extra especially in the transition between primary school and post-primary school. If pupils do not have a specific, carefully sequenced curriculum, it is hard for them to build on learning from year to year. I spoke to many year 8 teachers in particular who described having to start from scratch in many of their subjects because there was such a disparity between the existing knowledge and skills of students who came from different primary schools.

In turn, that can and has been reported to lead to repetition for some students — they had studied something at primary school only to go over it again, which can lead to boredom and disengagement — and, potentially more harmfully, to omission for others. If there is not a shared agreement on what should be taught and when, there is a risk that some students will miss out on some really important learning that they then need as a fundamental building block for later learning. That is particularly problematic for young people who, for various reasons, may not be able to fill in the gaps with educational support at home. A lack of clear expectations makes it difficult to identify where those gaps in student learning, thus making it difficult to address them.

My final two points are linked to that lack of specificity. It can exaggerate excessive teacher workload. It is recognised that there are many reasons other than curriculum for such a workload, but, especially in the questionnaire, many teachers referred in their comments to reinventing the wheel. They felt that there being so little specificity, and thus commonality, made it more difficult for them to share resources with other schools, and they therefore had to create for themselves a lot of what they did. That contributed to their workload.

Finally, the lack of specificity contributes to another issue that is not solely a curriculum problem, which is a feeling of curriculum overload caused by there not being enough time to get through everything. That was reported by some teachers who felt under pressure to cover everything "just in case", because the curriculum did not prioritise the most essential knowledge and skills.

For all those reasons, one of my key recommendations is that a new curriculum framework be designed that is more specific about the important learning to which all children should have access. It should be specific enough to support common interpretation and therefore common standards across schools.

I will pivot slightly to talk about key features of the proposed new school curriculum framework. It should be purpose-led. One strength of the existing curriculum is that it is clearly purpose-led. It has a name and objectives that are generally well supported, and that feature should remain, albeit I have suggested some small changes that I am happy to discuss later in the evidence session. The curriculum's being purpose-led means including and articulating the capabilities that all young people should develop, thereby retaining that important focus on skills. It is really important that that does not get lost.

Another key feature of the curriculum should be that it is knowledge-rich. That term is often misunderstood, so I will explain what I mean by it. "Knowledge-rich" means being specific and deliberate about the inclusion of knowledge in addition to subject-specific skills and experience. It does not mean that it should be about only knowledge, to the exclusion of other things. It is particularly important to articulate that knowledge, because knowledge underpins subject-specific skills and broader or more general skills, such as critical thinking.

Take critical thinking as an example. We cannot teach children to be critical thinkers in isolation, because that depends on their having a deep, connected knowledge base from a range of subjects. Something that can really help with that, which ties into the knowledge-rich idea, is teaching children and young people the different ways in which the disciplines on which subjects — for example, history or science — are based establish truth claims. In what different ways do subjects argue that something is or is not valid?

Those ways are different, and they look different in different subjects, but the result is that they can support young people to be critical thinkers.

To summarise the knowledge-rich piece, it is about being specific, sequencing knowledge carefully to ensure that there is coherence and including the element of how different disciplines work.

I will not go through all the key features of the proposed school curriculum framework, because I do not want to take up too much time. I will talk about a really important one, however. I will finish here, because I realise that I now have been talking for about 10 minutes. The key feature is that the framework is flexible and inclusive. That it be flexible was a key strength that teachers highlighted in the focus groups, and flexible in two ways, both of which I seek to retain in the proposed new school curriculum framework. It should be flexible over the contexts. In other words, it should be able to link learning to children's lives: to what they already know, to their areas and to their communities. It is really important that that not be lost. In honour of that, to make sure that it remains, I have therefore suggested that the specificity be mainly about the key concepts and the abstract knowledge in different subjects rather than about the contexts through which that abstract knowledge is taught so that there is still plenty of scope for schools to make the curriculum their own and to choose what case studies, which authors, which pieces of music etc they use.

The proposed new framework is flexible and inclusive in another sense, in that it prioritises flexibility over pace. I propose that there be flexibility within a Key Stage around how quickly or slowly a class moves through the curriculum. For children with special educational needs, there may need to be further flexibility over pace so that they are working on the same curriculum content as their peers but perhaps going through it more slowly.

That leads me to my final point for now, which is an acknowledgement that — this is what I heard strongly from the special educational needs sector — the content for some children with SEN in any mainstream curriculum is not necessarily what those young people need or is not the entirety of what they need. The sector would like to see some kind of curriculum design — curriculum strands — that are specifically attuned to the needs of children with SEN, such as life skills. I therefore propose that there can be bespoke additional strands in the proposed new curriculum that are designed by the special educational needs sector, meaning that young people can, if they are able, and if their teachers and parents are able, make a decision about which of the strands, from a mainstream set of strands and also from a set of bespoke strands, they are able to take on to form their own bespoke curriculum.

There is much more to say, as you can imagine, given the length of my report, but I am keen to hear what you are particularly interested in hearing about, so I will stop there.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is brilliant. I appreciate that it was probably an unmanageable challenge to summarise your findings in the time that we have available to us. I therefore appreciate your giving us that high-level overview.

I will start with an issue that you probably anticipated was likely to come up, which is how academic selection impacts on the curriculum. You address it in your report, where it states:

I was struck by that strong phrase —

Is that how the transfer test tends to shape the curriculum at Key Stage 2 in particular? Is it potentially impacting negatively on our children's learning at that stage in their education?

Ms Crehan: In the current situation, yes, it does. As I said, it narrows what teachers focus on. It needs to be considered in the context within which it sits. The context at the moment, as you will know, is that there is no national assessment, or there is certainly no national test. The existing assessment arrangements have fallen away owing to, as you know, action short of strike. The transfer test is not being used across the country, so there is almost a vacuum in assessment and the curriculum.

The curriculum in primary schools and post-primary schools is at such a high level and, in the words of some teachers, relatively vague, so what often happens — this is not a Northern Ireland-specific issue — is that, in the absence of any more specific guidance on the curriculum or a national assessment, teachers are more heavily swayed by whatever assessment exists. In this context, that is the Schools' Entrance Assessment Group (SEAG) transfer test. It is exerting undue influence, on account of its being the only test in the system.

I have not made any formal recommendations in that area, because it is beyond the remit of my review, but I have included a suggestion for the assessment review to have a look at. There is already a suggestion in the TransformED document that there be some sample-based assessments of literacy and numeracy done at the end of Key Stages. That will help, in the first instance anyway, to take some of the focus and weight away from the SEAG transfer test, but, in order to stop it reinforcing the problem of that focus being just on literacy and numeracy or of it pulling towards too much literacy and numeracy to the exclusion of other things, there should also be a sampled-based other subject that is tested at the end of primary school and at the end of Key Stage 3. Finland and Estonia have a similar system, and that other subject is rotated. Each year, literacy, numeracy and then a different subject are assessed each time. In that way, the exclusive pull towards teaching literacy and numeracy at the expense of other subjects can be stopped.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will come on to the issue of why you did not make a very specific recommendation in that space, but, before I do, I want to pick up on one other aspect. One of the things that we hear about the preparation for the transfer test is the differentials that can emerge. There are children who are sitting the test and children who are not, so they may be getting two very different educational experiences. You think that there perhaps needs to be a greater focus on consistency so that children are, by and large, learning the same things. I do not want to oversimplify your recommendations, but, at the end of Key Stage 2, you have highlighted it as happening from as early as year 5, to what extent should it be an issue of concern for anyone who is interested in the education system here that children are potentially having quite different learning experiences based on whether they are sitting a test that is effectively a private enterprise?

Ms Crehan: It is a concern. Again, one way in which to address that is to ensure that there is clarity about what all children need to learn by the end of primary school and that there is an associated test on that curriculum so that there are common expectations across the year group. Children should therefore be learning what they need to learn. I have not fully looked into it, but the SEAG test is supposedly based on the Northern Ireland curriculum. At the moment, because the Northern Ireland curriculum is a high-level curriculum, that can mean a number of different things. If the Northern Ireland curriculum is more specific, and the SEAG test is based on it, there should be no reason that students are learning different things. Under the proposed new framework, they would all be learning the Northern Ireland curriculum, and there would be a sample-based test and whatever the upcoming assessment review recommends.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I maintain a concern that we have effectively privatised that element of it by leaving it up to a private organisation. My question is about the impact on those children who are not sitting the test. Is it possible for you to expand on that? You said that it was not within the remit of your review, but can you help us understand why you did not make a clear and direct recommendation? Your answers today have been very clear, so why did you not go down the recommendation route?

Ms Crehan: My recommendations were all on the curriculum rather than on assessment. That is why I have framed that as a suggestion in my review report, and I expect the assessment review to make a recommendation.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand that, and I agree that we must not conflate the curriculum and assessment. We are always in danger of doing that. It is just that, in your report, you clearly referenced the impact that the tests have on the curriculum and on learning.

I wondered why there was not a specific recommendation that would have carried a bit more weight in how we approach this going forward.

Ms Crehan: First, it was outside my remit to make specific recommendations on assessment, as I have said. Secondly, the independent review looked recently at the bigger picture, including the transfer test, and has already made recommendations. Other than its being acceptable to acknowledge the real impact that it has on the curriculum, I did not think that it was the right place to make recommendations on the specific issue. An assessment or review is upcoming. I do not know what its terms of reference are, but I imagine that that will be a more —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A more appropriate vehicle, perhaps.

Ms Crehan: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will move on. On a connected theme, one of the things that comes through in your review, from stakeholder engagement with schools, teachers and parents, is the concern that, once you move into post-primary, schools can start to feel, in some contexts, like exam factories, and everything becomes funnelled into the GCSE pathway that students are ordinarily on. There was a concern that schools are exclusively measured on GCSE outcomes and that, as soon as post-primary education begins, the curriculum is largely shaped, narrowed and funnelled around that upcoming qualification that the young people will sit. This may be similar to your experience in GB. Do you feel that our qualifications framework disproportionately impacts on how the curriculum is delivered? How would you propose that we address that scenario?

Ms Crehan: Yes, and you can see through your line of questioning that assessment and curriculum are closely related. It is more the case at Key Stage 4 than at any other time. Although there is, officially, a curriculum at Key Stage 4 and there is some content within the continued mandatory areas of learning, most of the curriculum at Key Stage 4 is the qualifications. That becomes an issue.

My review has a combination of recommendations where I feel that content is sufficiently curriculum-related and suggestions within the text where I feel that it is not sufficiently curriculum-related and should be picked up by a qualifications review. I suggest two main things to address that. One is that any future accountability and qualifications review look at reducing the amount of content in GCSE exams. That is important — it is a consistent message that I heard from most post-primary tutors whom I spoke to. They feel that there is too much content in those exams. However, that does not solve the whole problem, because there is so much flexibility in what qualifications young people choose that a minority of students are getting a poor deal in the qualifications that they choose, and future opportunities are not being opened up for them. I have made suggestions around that regarding potential accountability measures. Again, they are suggestions rather than recommendations.

Learning for life and work (LLW) is an important area of learning. I do not want to conflate two issues. Learning for life and work includes lots of important content that young people value and want to learn, but it is not being taught consistently or very well. There is the separate issue of what employers call transversal skills. Parents value those as well. They relate to young people being resilient, being able to communicate, taking the initiative — that type of thing. This is not the same thing, but, on account of the heaviness of GCSEs and the stakes attached to them, there is often not a lot of opportunity in post-primary schools for young people to develop those skills. I heard that from post-primary teachers. To try to create space for that, I have recommended that a natural home for the deliberate development of those skills would be the learning for life and work area of learning. However, so consistently did I hear that LLW is not taught properly that it led me to think that the brand is beyond repair. The contents of it are fundamentally important: employment, citizenship and personal development. Those strands need to be given their due importance, so I recommended that the citizenship strand be reallocated to being part of the environment and society with history and geography and that the other two, at Key Stage 4, form part of an employability and well-being area of learning instead. Sorry, this is a multiple-step answer because it was such a big and important question. That alone is not enough, because post-primary teachers have told me that the reason why they do not give more attention and time to LLW is that there is no time in the curriculum and that they are not recognised for that learning. I have recommended that there be a qualification associated with citizenship, employability and personal development and that there be more project-based learning — meaningful projects — through those strands and an opportunity for students to develop those important skills and also reflect on that learning, which should be certificated. I have also suggested, for future reviews of qualifications, that consideration might be given to taking such a certificate and making it a core part of a new accountability measure, along with a broad and balanced qualifications selection at Key Stage 4.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I appreciate the detailed answer. Certainly, when the Committee was carrying out its inquiry into relationships and sexuality education (RSE), we heard that feedback so clearly from young people: that they felt that LLW was simply not meeting their needs. The content had the potential to do that, but there were issues with how it was delivered, the frequency with which it was delivered and the priority attached to it in their schools. You used the phrase, "the brand is beyond repair", and that may be the case, but it is such crucial content to get right or our young people.

Ms Crehan: It is.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There are a number of other areas that I would like to explore. I may revisit them if we have time at the end, but I want to make sure that other members have the opportunity to come in.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for your presentation and your report, Lucy. During your contribution, you said that there are gaps in the learning of some children that are needed at later stages in their learning; otherwise, they will fall behind. Where are those gaps?

Ms Crehan: Reading is the most obvious one that springs to mind. I do not have the data to hand, but it has been reported to me by post-primary teachers of year 8 that there is a sizeable proportion of young people coming into post-primary without basic reading skills.

Mr Sheehan: Do you have an explanation for that?

Ms Crehan: Yes. No doubt, like everything else, it is multifaceted, but one part of it is a lack of consistent teaching of phonics and the lack of a clearly laid out sequencing of the important knowledge and skills that the children need. How hierarchical those things are differs between subjects, but, certainly, with reading, to do y, you need to know x. At the moment, there is very little detail in the curriculum on reading, to the extent that the curriculum statement will say, "Children should be enabled to read", which is, of course, a very worthy aim, but it does not give teachers much support or help with what the different components of knowledge and skills are that, together, build up to mean that a child can read. More specificity in that area would be helpful to support children, because, once you have that, you are also able, as a teacher, to look at what children are making mistakes on and see whether it is a comprehension problem, a blending problem or that they have not been able to identify particular graphings. Once you have a set of knowledge and skills and know how they can accumulate over time, you are better able to make sure that all children have access to that knowledge and those skills.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that. The last time that I spoke to you, when you were carrying out your work before the report was published, I asked whether you had read the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) comparative study of education systems, North and South. You said that you had the report but had not read it at that time. Have you have read it in the meantime? As I pointed out at the time, the education system in the North lags way behind the one in the South. Far greater numbers of pupils here leave school without qualifications, and far fewer go on to third-level education. In fact, research published just a couple of weeks ago showed that the South has the highest per capita level of people between the ages of 25 and 64 with a bachelor's degree or above. I am talking about its having the highest level in the world. Given that we are so close geographically to that system, surely some learning can be taken from it. Did you include that in whatever research you used to carry out your review?

Ms Crehan: This is a real memory test, is it not? I had a look at the report. I do not recall there being that much specifically on curriculum in it, but I considered the Republic of Ireland's curriculum on account of the difference in outcomes that you mentioned. Specifically, I had a good look at its primary-school curriculum, albeit I know that it is in the process of changing it. Forgive me if I sound a bit like a one-trick pony, but I think that it is significant that its primary-school curriculum clearly sets out what children need to know in each different subject and when they should be taught it. That is a very solid foundation for further study at post-primary level.

Forgive me for not having a more comprehensive analysis of that report and of what I did or did not take from it. I promise you that I read it at the time, along with many other things. I cannot remember the details of it.

Mr Sheehan: OK. I was not expecting you to have granular detail, but one big issue that the report flagged was academic selection. It came up in your discussion with the Chair that academic selection skews the curriculum, particularly when some children in a class are doing the academic selection test and others are not. Although you are saying that it was not specifically within your remit, if academic selection affects the curriculum, surely it would have been important for you to make a more powerful contribution about the damage that it does to the curriculum overall and the education system in general.

Ms Crehan: I think that academic selection causes a problem in Key Stage 2 by narrowing the curriculum, and what I wrote in my report was to that effect. It is a problem, and it exerts a negative impact on the curriculum at Key Stage 2. As I said, a significant solution to that problem is to have a specific enough curriculum that there is a clear expectation of what all children should be learning. Then you would not have a system where some children are learning one thing and other children are learning another. Everyone would have specific high expectations of what they are learning in Key Stage 2, which is tested but not in any kind of high-stakes way. Accountability is a whole other issue for us to talk about, but I certainly do not support or advocate a system in which tests are used to rank schools or students. It would really help to have a national assessment that allows teachers to understand where their students are, what they are and are not able to do and that supports the curriculum and school-level curriculum design.

Mr Sheehan: I will go back for a moment to the ESRI report and your knowledge of the primary-school curriculum in the South. Do you suggest that the curriculum here in the North should move much closer to the model that operates in the South?

Ms Crehan: Yes and no. Yes in the level of specificity, but probably no in the sense that, while I have not done a full analysis that compares the two curriculums, looking at the Republic of Ireland's curriculum, I see that it is quite full. That is the only thing that I will say. One of the things that I have recommended for a new Northern Ireland curriculum is that it be focused. It needs to be specific, but, when you start getting specific, it is very easy to overload the curriculum. The primary-school curriculum in Ireland would need to be slightly slimmer, but any recommendation would have to be based on a full analysis of the relative volume of the two, which is beyond the scope of my six months.

Mr Sheehan: My final question is on the numerous recommendations in the curriculum review on the need for a specific approach to the needs of Irish-medium education. What are your proposals to ensure that those inequality issues are addressed?

Ms Crehan: I heard from the Irish-medium sector that the existing curriculum is not working for it at all. Even in its high-level form, there was not enough flexibility to take into account the differing needs pedagogically of learners who are learning in an immersion context. The sector made really clear in a fantastic exposition why that was a problem and how it needed something different.

I am thinking of a curriculum as strands: within a subject, there will be different strands and domains of knowledge and skill. Some strands will be completely appropriate for the Irish-medium sector, where it can be a case of careful translation or adaptation. However, there will be other areas where it needs to be bespoke and needs to be completely different.

Sometimes, learners learn through a second language, or, sometimes, they learn through their first language, but, later on, they learn through English as well. Therefore, I have recommended that the Irish-medium sector be supported with time and resources to look at the research on immersion education and design bespoke strands in those areas that need to be bespoke and then adapt those strands that do not need to be as different. It all depends on the subject.

Mr Sheehan: Should there be a dedicated task force to take forward the recommendations?

Ms Crehan: It would be part of the existing task force. I envisage the existing task force being inclusive of the Irish-medium sector, and, within that, there would be an Irish-medium-specific subcommittee, or whatever terminology we are using, to take forward that important work of designing those particular strands.

Mrs Guy: Thank you very much, Lucy, for your evidence. There is so much in your report that I do not really know what to focus in on, but I will do my best.

I will start with an area that is of personal interest and that stood out from the report. I speak to a lot of schools, and primary schools have raised the issue of school readiness to a considerable extent. Almost everybody whom I speak to is concerned about the issue, so it was good to see that included in your report. I want to get a sense from you of how serious that issue is. You draw links between the use of devices and screen time for young children and their coming to school unable to learn. I want to hear from you how serious that issue is.

Ms Crehan: I heard that consistently from teachers in the Foundation Stage and from practitioners in preschools and nurseries. Similarly, in the submissions, there was a view expressed that a more significant number of children were at lower levels of development than had previously been the case and that that problem was getting worse.

Children are coming in physically less developed and unable to do some fairly basic things that teachers would previously have expected four-year-olds to be able to do. Their language is delayed, and teachers are seeing more social and emotional issues and difficulties in children coming in. I have alluded to my hypothesis being that it is linked to screen time.

I cannot prove that increasing levels of screen time is leading to that difference, but we see it in similar reports across the UK, not just in Northern Ireland. There is evidence, which I set out in my report, of the harms of screen time for young children, so it is a reasonably robust hypothesis, but, for the record, I must say that I cannot prove the link.

Whatever the cause, teachers are reporting it. There is evidence from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists in Northern Ireland, which did a big survey recently. It found that a large proportion of practitioners said, "Yes, this is an increasing problem, and it is getting worse". That is pretty fundamental. It is a ticking time bomb. Those children will move through school with all sorts of difficulties and needs, so it is a problem for them and for society in the longer term that really needs to be addressed. I have recommended early identification as a way of doing so, separate to the more general recommendations that I have made about the curriculum being specific and carefully sequenced. Having an early years framework will help, so I have recommended having an early years framework that sets out expected levels of development, not by assessing a child and saying, "We expect you to be at a high level" but by everyone having a common understanding of what, roughly speaking, we might expect a child who is coming in at a certain age to be able to do. In that way, practitioners will be able to identify where a child might need some extra support or intervention. I have recommended that funding be targeted at supporting better staff-to-student ratios, the specifics of which need to be considered carefully to be taken forward, to allow teachers and practitioners in those settings to undertake training to do those interventions themselves or, in more severe cases, to get external support from specialists to do some intensive intervention with young people and give them any additional support that they need in order to develop.

Mrs Guy: It sounds as though those are urgent interventions, if you have to get these kids —.

Ms Crehan: I think so.

Mrs Guy: If children are to engage with the rest of the curriculum, they have to have those baselines.

Ms Crehan: Exactly. It is fundamental. This is not how I usually think about young children, of course, but there is also an economic imperative. The more that you invest in children by addressing those needs early on, the more benefit that will have in the longer term or, in essence, the more damage that you will prevent in the long term that would have been caused if those children were not helped in the way in which they need to be helped.

Mrs Guy: Lucy, you are saying things about early intervention that we have heard so many times, but you have been specific about the need for school readiness.

I am going to talk to you about a specific subject. The subject-specific feedback from teachers included feedback on PE. We are probably in a bit of a crisis here when it comes to PE in our schools. Statistics suggest that around 8% of primary-school children and 20% of post-primary-school children get the recommended two hours of PE per week. You have not made any recommendations on PE, however. Why?

Ms Crehan: I have made recommendations on subjects in the context of asking whether the curriculum fundamentally needs to be structured differently, but I have not made recommendations on the specific content or time allocation of any subject. My approach with PE is consistent with that for the rest of my recommendations. It is not that I think less of PE — it is fundamental — but my remit did not extend to making subject-specific recommendations about the content of PE. I have not recommended that there be a fixed amount of time that all schools have to spend per subject. That should still be up to schools.

When it comes to the implementation of the curriculum, however, I have suggested that, in the design of curriculum content, it is really important that there is not too much in the curriculum. That comes back to the point that I made when I was talking to Mr Sheehan about Ireland. In national curriculum design, there is a tendency for specialists in every subject to think that their subject is the most important and put in loads of stuff. That just leaves teachers feeling overwhelmed and not enough time for the curriculum, which means that subjects such as PE are often deprioritised. It might help if some guidance was given to the curriculum design teams during the curriculum design process to say, "Look, this is a fair distribution of time in a curriculum. You can put in only the amount of content that can be taught in that amount of time". That might help schools to have time for PE. It would still be up to schools to decide how much time they spent on something, but it should, with regard to the content in that curriculum framework, encourage a genuinely broad and balanced curriculum that includes PE.

Mrs Guy: You are not going to let me in again.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): No, I think that we are probably going to be pushed for time for a further question, so I will bring in Cheryl.

Ms Brownlee: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Lucy, for the report. It is very good and contains a lot of detail.

I want to touch on careers education. In the report, you say that the review heard that it is inconsistent and underdeveloped. The Public Accounts Committee also looked at the skills gap here in Northern Ireland. The Youth Assembly said that careers education should start earlier. Most of its members were not aware of any of the skills needs in Northern Ireland. As part of your assessment of careers education, do you have any thoughts about its timing — basically, whether it is early enough — and its quality and consistency? Do the skills that are being taught align with what is required here in Northern Ireland?

Ms Crehan: That is a multi-part question. I will do my best to answer it in a reasonably short time.

As regards what I heard in the submissions about careers education, I was not asking specific questions about specific subjects, such as careers education, so I was relying on what people told me were the biggest issues with the curriculum. Careers education did come up. One issue that I heard, mainly from teachers and parents, was that careers education was not consistent and that teachers did not feel as though they had sufficient resources or support to deliver it properly. I have recommended that there be more guidance and resources around careers education. I have also recommended that careers education is tied in with data on the needs of the economy, as you suggest, and destinations data from the different qualifications that young people choose at Key Stage 4, because, as I mentioned earlier, some young people are not getting sufficient advice or careers guidance to inform them that the qualifications decisions that they are making on what courses to take will not prepare them or set them up for the kind of careers that they have in mind. Young people do not always have the knowledge that they need to make the right decisions for them depending on what it is that they want to do. I have recommended that the Careers Service sets that out, using data on where young people go after they have gained certain qualifications and matching that up with actual careers, so that young people can see it clearly and say, "Right, I am coming to my Key Stage 4 choices. Here are all the different options and all the different branches that I could go down, and these are the different types of careers at the end of it".

On the second part of your question about whether it is actually preparing young people to work in areas of need in the economy, the biggest place where that is probably not happening — I know that it has been a focus for some time — is in the area of STEM degrees, tech and the knowledge and skills that are required for the software sector. I have made two recommendations that relate to better preparing young people for that area. One is around making sure that science is consistently taught in primary schools by splitting the world around us area of learning in two, because there were reports that science and technology was getting lost amidst the history and geography.

With regard to digital skills, again, there is a two-part answer. One is to actually introduce digital technology as a strand in itself with a specific curriculum, knowledge and skills, because it is taught very inconsistently. At the moment, the only place where it is coming in in the curriculum is through the cross-curricular skill of using ICT. Again, that is very broad and does not give information about what we are actually teaching students at different stages that will allow them to build up the kind of skills that they need to work in any sector. It is important to address that if you want more young people to go into the tech sector.

Finally, I have recommended that, at Key Stage 4, all young people continue to have access to digital skills teaching through the employability strand and that there should be partnerships between the software sector and schools to help deliver that. One of the problems with technology is that it changes very quickly so it is quite difficult for schools and curricula to keep up.

Ms Brownlee: I appreciate that there is a lot there. It is good to hear because obviously the skills gap is a major concern. It is great to hear that there is proactive work and collaboration, even through data sharing between Departments.

It might be beyond your scope, but one of the things that was raised with me was the social perception of the academic and vocational choices that are made. Is there anything incorporated early in the curriculum that will improve the mindset so that we value and recognise academic and vocational choices equally?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): As briefly as you can. It is a good question.

Ms Crehan: Having clear progressions will really help with that because if young people can see all the different careers that they can go on to and the high-level qualifications — at levels 3, 4 and 5 — that they can attain through a vocational route and through FE, many more of them will be encouraged to do so. At the moment, that is not visible to them. They see it as either you do A levels and university or you stay on level 2 courses in FE and do not continue any further. Therefore, mapping out all the exciting and wonderful careers that you can do through a vocational route, and what that will look like regarding level 2, 3 and 4 qualifications, will help.

Ms Brownlee: I appreciate that. Thank you, Lucy.

Mr Baker: Lucy, thank you very much. Your report mentions inclusion and flexibility but contains limited discussion on the pastoral and emotional needs of pupils. How does your proposed framework support schools in embedding well-being and mental health in the curricular priorities?

Ms Crehan: Partly, it does not, to be frank. I see that there is a curriculum element and a whole-school element that goes beyond curriculum as I articulate it. The part that is within the curriculum is through the personal development strand of the employability and well-being area of learning. Like anything else, I have not made recommendations on the specific content of that, but, like everything else, there needs to be a relook at that. Knowledge and skills are very broadly defined, but children and young people's understanding of how to manage their emotions, for example, is the kind of thing that might be taught through a lesson in the area of personal development.

Beyond that, mental health and well-being are beyond the curriculum that I have been asked to review. It is a really important part of school life, and I see it as being part of the work of the pastoral team and whole-school activities, the way in which they manage their assemblies, and the way in which they manage behaviour in a school. Schools are doing lots of important things. I did not speak much to that because I was asked to review the Northern Ireland curriculum, meaning the technical framework of the curriculum —

Mr Baker: I get that.

Ms Crehan: — that specifies knowledge and skills, rather than the much wider conception of curriculum at a whole-school level. Mental health and well-being are fundamental.

This answer feels like a little bit of a cop-out, but I will say it because it is true: when children know things and are able to do them — for example, when they are able to read — their well-being improves. It is unsurprising that young people are sometimes disengaged from school if they are not able to access the learning because they have big existing gaps in their learning. That can be a real problem with children's well-being. Therefore, curriculum affects well-being, but I recognise that there is so much more to well-being than what is in the technical framework of a curriculum.

Mr Baker: That is what worries me. Others have talked about academic selection but that warps the whole curriculum. By the age of 14, some 15% of children are already dealing with mental health issues. A lot of that comes from anxiety due to schools being test factories, which the Chair referenced. We test children at a very young age. We are not investing in early interventions, and that is the case for all our children, including those with special educational needs. What really concerns me about the review and the reform process is that it is almost like there is a top-down approach. How do we then ensure that reform is co-produced by children — pupils — the schools and the community?

Ms Crehan: That is a really important point. My answer to that is that the approach is not top-down; I would not call it that at all. There are some things that need to be decided at the Northern Ireland level because it is important for consistency, but that is only half of the picture — less than half of the picture, if you include the whole-school programmes and things like that. My proposal is that what is in that national curriculum framework is specific but about the key concepts and abstract ideas rather than the fully fledged, well-rounded and contextually driven schemes of work or units that schools might teach. It is about the teachers, students and community having an input, so what you will see in schools will be different depending on the community, while the fundamental bit — the key ideas and key skills that children need in order to make progress — will be the same. There is some scope; it is both tight and loose. Some things are fixed for consistency and coherence to allow students to progress, especially from primary to secondary, but other things are loose to allow for, as you just mentioned, input from the school community.

Mr Baker: I appreciate that, Lucy, but you will appreciate where I am coming from: we have a Minister who will not discuss and completely bypasses the harm that academic selection does to our children. I do not feel that there will be flexibility in it. That is why I asked my first question about pastoral care. My fear is that we will move even further away from that pastoral care for our young people and closer to our schools being, as the Chair said, test factories.

I have one more wee point.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Briefly, Danny.

Mr Baker: It is about special educational needs. You mentioned a different approach to the curriculum and having flexibility, but we have a problem with placements. There are so many children who have many additional needs and should be in a special school but are placed in specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS). Those children who would have benefited from what in the past was called "a unit" — they may have dyslexia or a mild learning difficulty — are being put into mainstream settings without that additional support. How would this fit in flexibility for their needs? A big problem is being created now to try to create places for children. The Education Authority is playing a numbers game rather than looking after the care and education of our children with additional needs.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I appreciate that it is a big area, but please answer as briefly as you can again, Lucy.

Ms Crehan: Sure. The two models that I suggested for how flexibility in the curriculum could work best for children with special educational needs function slightly differently, but both can be used in a mainstream school setting. I make no comment on whether that is a good or bad thing; of course, it depends on the child. Even within mainstream classes, rather than SPiMS, flexibility over pace can be accounted for in lessons. Teachers will need support with that in the form of resources and guidance, as well as through professional development. There is, however, scope for children who are in the same mainstream class to be working on the same strand but to be at an earlier stage of that strand. That is the benefit of mapping it out along strands that are based on progression in a certain domain.

There is slightly more flexibility in SPiMS, because the teacher is not teaching those children at the same time as a whole mainstream class. SPiMS could use those additional strands that are specific to SEN — although we will not call them "SEN strands" — and are designed by SEN community professionals and would include things such as life skills. That would need to be done in conversation with a psychologist in cases in which a child has a diagnosis and a statement; we could not just disapply any child who is not doing well in school from the curriculum, but there would be the option to have the flexibility in SPiMS to choose from different strands in order to best suit the needs of the young people who are in them.

Mr Baker: Will I get a follow-up question?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are fast realising that the breadth of the issues will, perhaps, mean that we will struggle to get through everything in this evidence session. We would be pleased to hear from you again, if that was an option. With the independent review of education, it was not clear how long the remit of the review's author would last following completion of the review. We could be in the same situation with this review. We may pick up on that at the end. Peter, I will bring you in for the final question.

Mr Martin: Thank you, Chair, and thanks for the evidence this afternoon, Lucy. I have only one question. It picks up on a recurring theme from a lot of the questioning: reading, which you just mentioned, how we teach it and phonics, in particular. A range of phonics systems is available — it is generally agreed that there are four, but there could be more. Do you accept that different systems can work better for some children than they do for others? Or is it your view that just one type of phonics system should be employed for every child?

Ms Crehan: I will start by saying that I am not a reading specialist. That, as well as the fact that it was beyond my remit, is why I have not recommended specific types of schemes in my review. That decision needs to be made by the reading professional community. I heard evidence from reading specialists. Based on what they said, systematic phonics is important, and there needs to be a consistent approach in schools across the country, but it might be the case that children need to be taught in additional ways rather than instead of systematic phonics. That is preferable to having a complete mix of schemes across the country. I defer to reading specialists on that. You have many such specialists in Northern Ireland, some of whom I have met. My main point is that there needs to be more specificity and guidance around what you teach and when, rather than me recommending any particular approach.

Mr Martin: I might squeeze in one more question, because that was very short.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): To be fair to you, you have time, Peter.

Mr Martin: I know that. You reference smartphones at paragraph 11.22 of your report. You say:

I am not going to read out those reasons, but you will know where in the report I am talking about. In the previous paragraph you say:

We sometimes hear as a defence of pupil-use of smartphones in schools that teachers have embedded smartphones in how they teach certain subjects. For example, they might say, "We're going to do something in geography. Everyone get your smartphone and find where Hawaii is". That calls for every child to have a smartphone. Do you think that the curriculum is big enough? Or does it need to be changed so that we do not need to use smartphones to effectively teach it?

Ms Crehan: We do not need smartphones in any area to teach a curriculum effectively. I can understand why teachers might sometimes use them if every child in a classroom has one, but the harms of every child having a smartphone, or there being an expectation that every child has one, outweigh any benefits that come from finding out where Hawaii is instantly and without using an atlas. That is my view.

Mr Martin: It happens to my view as well. Thank you very much. Back to you, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We like concise answers like that in this Committee, Lucy. That was great. That brings us to the end of the session. There are many, many other strands of this that we would be keen to pick up or expand on. Perhaps, through the Clerk and her team, we could reach out on the possibility of another briefing session after recess, if members are agreed, but I am not clear, formally, on how far your remit extends beyond the completion of the review. Perhaps we can follow that up in correspondence. I was clear that I wanted to hear from you directly rather than have the Department advising us on what your review said. It was important to hear that from you, and there may be another opportunity to do that, if members agree. I do not hear any dissent. Thank you for your time; it is very much appreciated.

Ms Crehan: You are very welcome. Thanks for having me.