My Baccalaureate

This area of the site contains the National Curriculum for England at Key Stages 1 and 2. It includes programmes of study and attainment target level descriptions for all Key Stage 1 and 2 subjects.

The content on these pages is about the existing National Curriculum. View the draft new National Curriculum that will apply from 2014.

From September 2013 the current national curriculum programmes of study, attainment targets and statutory assessment arrangements will be disapplied for English, mathematics and science for pupils in years 3 and 4 and all foundation subjects for pupils at key stages 1 and 2. This means that schools will still be required to teach the relevant subjects, but will have the freedom to adjust their curriculum to help prepare for the introduction of the new national curriculum from September 2014. Further details are available on the GOV.UK website.

Earlier this year the department published proposals to reform the national curriculum so that it is slimmer, focused on essential subject knowledge and which, especially in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science, compares favourably with the curriculums taught in the most successful education jurisdictions in the world.

Since then we have conducted a public consultation on those proposals and have given careful consideration to the views of those individuals and organisations that responded. As a result, we have made a number of revisions to the national curriculum framework document and the draft programmes of study.

You can now view the government’s formal response to the consultation exercise, and the summary report of responses.

You can find the new framework document and programmes of study, along with the consultation document on the legislative Order for the new national curriculum and details of how to respond on the consultation page on GOV.UK. The consultation will close on 8 August.

A formal consultation on the national curriculum for key stage 4 English, mathematics and science will follow in the autumn in line with the timetable for the reform of GCSEs in these subjects.

The government has also previously confirmed that the majority of the current national curriculum will be disapplied from September 2013, in order to give schools more scope to prepare for the introduction of the new national curriculum from September 2014.

The teaching of all national curriculum subjects will remain compulsory, but schools will be able to choose to either follow the existing programmes of study or adjust them to support transition to the new national curriculum. The regulations which will bring this change into effect have now been laid before Parliament and will come into force on 1 September 2013. More information about disapplication can be found on GOV.UK.