 |  |
| |
HMI: Curriculum Matters 1 English
|
Curriculum Matters (1984-9) HMI Series London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1984-9
Notes on the text Historical context
They covered most areas of the school curriculum - though, strangely, not science. (For a statement of mid-1980s thinking on school science, see Science 5-16: a statement of policy published by the DES in 1985). The Curriculum Matters booklets were published as Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government was preparing the ground for the 1988 Education Reform Act, which was to impose the National Curriculum on schools. (The Prefaces from booklet 9 onwards indicate what was happening). The booklets refer to the years of compulsory schooling in secondary school as years 1 to 5. Since the introduction of the National Curriculum these have been designated Years 6 to 10. The booklets all had similar covers (the last is shown above) and were known - in my school at least - as 'raspberry ripples', since the colour was reminiscent of a type of ice cream popular at the time. All their titles included from 5 to 16 except for Modern foreign languages to 16 - presumably because it dealt only with the years from 11 to 16.
The booklets online Each booklet is presented in a single web page. I have corrected a few printing errors.
The above notes were prepared by Derek Gillard and uploaded on 13 June 2011; they were revised on 30 October 2012. 
|
Curriculum Matters was a series of 17 booklets published by HMI between 1984 and 1989. They were intended as a contribution to the 'Great Debate' about the nature and purpose of education which Prime Minister Jim Callaghan had called for in his 