National Curriculum and Assessment in England and the continuing narrowed experiences of lower-attainers in primary schools

A considerable body of global educational literature has examined how schooling policy based on measuring and managing performance has narrowed children’s access both to curriculum breadth and to diversity in pedagogy. This article approaches these curriculum dilemmas within the global concern for children’s wellbeing and social justice. In particular, it focuses on the experiences of children designated by this system as lower-attaining, which is a much under-researched aspect of these concerns. Based on an innovative five-year life-history study of 23 seven to 12 year-old lower-attaining school-children in the English system, this article examines how these children themselves depicted their schooling experiences. We conclude, drawing on term-by-term experiences narrated by these children, that the current curriculum and assessment arrangements narrowed their opportunities for participation in engaged learning, especially in comparison to higher-attaining children; which undermined their wellbeing and brought social justice into question. The children highlighted the negative impact of curriculum emphases on mathematics and English rather than on non-core and outside-school curriculum areas for lower-attaining in particular; and the emphasis on attainment rather than participation in learning. They had few opportunities to have their specific preferences validated, leading in some cases to these lower-attainers being excluded from participation in school-learning.