Oak National Academy: The future of teaching?

In late December 2019, something happened that is still having global implications to this day. Here in the UK, the education landscape changed in late March 2020, when Boris Johnson announced that educational establishments would close to almost all pupils. Education in its entirety was also suspended, with schools under no obligation to provide a curriculum to pupils of any age group. This shook the entire education sector, whose members have dedicated their careers to developing and furthering the knowledge of young people.

In response to this, Oak National Academy was launched. Initially, it was designed by 80 state school teachers and covered a range of subjects such as maths, English, the arts, and languages, and could be accessed for free by teachers and families at home. Launched in April 2020, it was supported by the Department for Education (DfE) and delivered more than 2m lessons in its first week.

It initially provided a limited number of subjects and content, but these grew quickly and, over time, covered more content. As the head of music at The Macclesfield Academy, I looked at the Oak National Academy music curriculum provided for teachers to see how closely it aligned to my own planned curriculum. The vast majority of the Oak curriculum content mapped directly over my curriculum, so I made the decision to adopt this as my remote learning platform.

What are the benefits?

One of the major benefits of Oak as a platform is its versatility. It can be accessed on any device with a browser at any time of the day, and the resources are easy to navigate. It is a fantastic tool to support single-person departments and ECTs (early career teachers) who are responsible for the curriculum in their schools. I remember all too vividly the challenges of being an NQT (newly qualified teacher) and being responsible for creating a curriculum while still mastering the art of being an educator. Having a resource such as Oak to refer to would have been very welcome. The resources are of a high quality, include opportunities for practical work that is accessible for all pupils, and assessment is inbuilt.

Recently, Oak has started providing CPD for teachers, with one of the most recent relating to the use of effective feedback – ensuring that the good practice identified by the DfE in its partner establishments is shared. You may also use the curricula provided to help you prepare for inspection, as it is a model of a progressive, cumulative curriculum which enables pupils to know more, remember more, and do more over time.

At The Macclesfield Academy, we utilised the versatility, along with our growing use of Microsoft Teams as our virtual delivery model to ensure that we engaged as many pupils as possible in the 2020 lockdown, and then used the resources extensively in the January to March 2021 lockdown. Pupils were delivered the content via screen-sharing and received uploaded recordings of any practical work via our dedicated online homework platform. This allowed me to assess pupils’ knowledge of key concepts and adapt and develop my curriculum from March 2021 onwards to ensure any gaps in knowledge were closed.

Are there any drawbacks?

One of the major criticisms of the Oak music resources is that they provide limited opportunities to perform and create music using traditional methods. This, of course, is a result of the initial intent of the platform, and the fact that, sadly, many pupils do not have access to instruments in their traditional form. This meant that many schools were driven towards electronic means of music making, or the use of body percussion or ‘found sounds.’ Some members of the music education community view this as a barrier to promoting the validity of the subject and its academic complexity. Ensemble performances were also more challenging, although pupils were encouraged to perform along with the video resource. This does not truly replicate the ability to perform with one or more live individuals and develop that innate sense of togetherness through music.

Assessment is inbuilt but is limited to knowledge recall in the virtual lessons – there was limited ability to assess any form of practical work, relying on the use of third-party applications. Initially, the exit quizzes were based in Google Forms, moving to a bespoke platform later in the development cycle. This is a major drawback of the platform, as it is not easy for teachers to see pupils’ scores as a whole, or to compare results across groups or tests.

At The Macclesfield Academy, I converted the exit quizzes into Microsoft Forms quizzes and therefore could set them for pupils via Teams, allowing me to analyse knowledge gaps and re-sequence the lessons and my future curriculum accordingly.

Comparison to statutory and guidance documents

When evaluating the Oak resources, it is useful to refer to three separate pieces of statutory and non-statutory guidance issued within music education.

The current iteration of the National Curriculum was issued in October 2013 and came into effect in September 2014. This removed many of the previous conditions and gave curriculum designers more scope to personalise both the curriculum content and the assessment of knowledge. This led to a lack of clarity over how to assess, with each school developing their own assessment indicators as opposed to the previous levels to which teachers had become accustomed. The assessment opportunities given as part of the Oak curriculum allow teachers to benchmark the knowledge their pupils have in a way that has not been possible before, even within the previous National Curriculum framework. Teachers are used to GCSE criteria, with these being standardised each year, but KS3 assessment has always been less accurate due to teacher variation in expectation.

The Model Music Curriculum (MMC) was launched in March 2021, receiving a mixed reception. It has provided a well-sequenced and aspirational curriculum, in my view, which schools may choose to adopt, although it is non-statutory. The Oak curriculum aims to address many facets of the Model Music Curriculum, with Key Stages 1 and 2 being mainly framed around the elements of music and Key Stage 3 being framed around topics.

The Ofsted Research Review for music, released in July 2021, outlines the literature that informs its view of what a ‘high-quality’ music education looks like. This provided a great tool for quality-assuring the school curriculum – in my school, I completed a review of the music curriculum using the research review and made suitable amendments. In looking at the Oak curriculum, many features highlighted in the research review are found to be present. The initial online delivery model means that some elements – such as the knowledge that pupils had rehearsed and disciplinary knowledge and skills – were harder to evidence from the class teacher's perspective. A development of the Oak resources could include the ability to upload practical work for assessment. This would also allow, with appropriate permissions, schools to moderate each other's assessments, collaborating in a way that has not been possible before.

One particularly concerning aspect of the pandemic has been the reluctance of pupils to return to face-to-face education. In terms of persistent absence, the number of pupils absent in the academic year 2021/22 is currently double pre-pandemic levels – this percentage is even higher when you solely look at pupils considered disadvantaged. Oak National Academy could be a vital resource for continuing the education of those pupils who are unwilling, for whatever reason, to engage in face-to-face education post-pandemic.

Final thoughts

Oak National Academy is a fantastic resource which assisted many teachers in continuing to deliver a well-sequenced, ambitious curriculum. The addition of Oak's resources to the DfE education white paper (March 2022), shows the ambition of the DfE to provide teachers with high-quality, free, adaptable resources to support the delivery of music education in schools. This curriculum will be evidence-based, drawing on the work of the Education Endowment Foundation and Ofsted, along with partner schools with proven track records in educational attainment, and aims to reduce teacher workload and provide stronger subject communities. In short, is Oak National Academy the future of teaching? Only time will tell.

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