Exclusive, I think: Oak National Academy said to be being given key role in planning how national curriculum cd be taught. Email sent to members by British Suppliers Assn suggests Oak central to national discussions about “curriculum sequencing” in schs. https://www.educationuncovered.co.uk/news/146316/oak-national-academy-to-be-given-keyrole-in-planning-how-the-national-curriculum-could-be-taught.thtml

Email suggests Oak is leading a group, other members to include Ofsted and subject associations, to “develop a series of curriculum ‘maps’ outlining a format for teaching national curriculum from reception to year nine”. https://www.educationuncovered.co.uk/news/146316/oak-national-academy-to-be-given-keyrole-in-planning-how-the-national-curriculum-could-be-taught.thtml

These “maps” would then go out under “a DfE banner”. This comes after an FOI response saw the DfE describing Oak as “assisting the State in carrying out its educational functions” during Covid-19. FOI also shows start-up funding, initially said to be 300k, is now at 500k.

As discussed in my piece,this seems lot of influence to be giving an organisation which only began work three months or so ago. This development seems in striking contrast to how curriculum-related advice developed in past. M Hood also led another start-up given millions quickly.

This story on Education Uncovered builds on coverage this morning by Schools Week: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/oak-academy-will-create-10000-lessons-for-next-year-with-4-3m-dfe-funding/

As Schools Week reported, Oak has now been allocated approaching 5 million in total by the DfE, with again this funding not subject to tender, DfE citing Covid (tho as I’ve been reporting, Covid seems to have had little effect on other areas of DfE work, notably academisation).