How subject teaching time has changed since 2011

A number of different forces have influenced secondary schools’ allocation of curriculum time between different subjects over the last five years, including policy changes and a changing labour market for teachers. Three key forces have been:

Disentangling what effect each of these factors has had on the curriculum is a challenge because all three have been happening together. There have also been other relevant changes, such as the introduction of a new curriculum and changes to exam specifications.

Researchers at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) have analysed what changes schools have made to the amount of curriculum time they allocate to different subjects, using data from the School Workforce Census. We attempted to infer what the different impacts have been by considering what affect we might expect policy changes to have through the incentives they create.