The Curriculum and Assessment Review: What Changes for Your Child

England's Curriculum and Assessment Review, published on 5 November 2025 alongside the government's response, is the most significant look at what children learn and how they are tested in over a decade. It leads to a new national curriculum from September 2028, slightly shorter GCSE exams, a statutory reading test in Year 8 and the end of the EBacc as a school measure.

None of this happens overnight. The changes are spread between 2027 and 2032, so whether they touch your child at all depends mostly on which year group they are in now.

What the review was asked to do

The government commissioned the review in July 2024 and asked Professor Becky Francis CBE to chair an independent panel. Its brief covered the national curriculum from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 4, the national tests children sit along the way, and qualifications for 16 to 19 year olds.

Its final report, Building a world-class curriculum for all, was more measured than some headlines suggested. The panel concluded that much of the current system works and recommended adjustments, not an overhaul. Its main proposals were refreshing subject content, cutting the volume of GCSE exams, giving reading and writing more weight, and loosening the pressures that had narrowed pupils' subject choices. The government accepted most of it, and its formal response is on GOV.UK.

The timeline

Anything after 2028 should be read as a plan. The start date of the Year 8 reading test, for one, has still not been confirmed.

Primary school: reading, writing, talk and citizenship

The primary changes are less about new subjects than about doing the basics more deliberately. Children will still learn phonics, grammar and times tables, but the emphasis shifts towards using those skills fluently.

Citizenship becomes a statutory part of the primary curriculum for the first time, covering money, media literacy, climate education and how democracy works. Children will be taught to recognise misinformation online, and a new oracy framework will set out how their speaking and listening should develop by the end of Key Stage 2.

In English, the grammar, punctuation and spelling test is being reviewed, and some of the more technical grammar terms may move up to secondary school. The thinking is that ten year olds gain more from using a subordinate clause well in a story than from naming one in a test. Year 6 writing assessment will also put more weight on fluent, controlled writing.

Maths content is being resequenced, especially number work, with more problems where children have to decide which method to use. The Year 4 multiplication tables check stays, and stays timed. The government has also set an ambition for 90% of children to meet the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics check.

Secondary school: a Year 8 test and leaner GCSEs

The Year 8 reading test

For the first time since SATs for 14 year olds ended in 2008, pupils will sit a national test in Key Stage 3. The Year 8 reading test will check fluency and comprehension. Schools will see their own pupils' results and share each child's results with families, but school-by-school figures will not be published. Ministers had hoped to start it in the 2028 to 2029 school year. Schools will also be expected to assess writing and maths in Year 8, using assessments of their own choosing.

Updated GCSEs

GCSEs remain the main qualification at 16, but the updated versions arriving from 2029 will look a little different:

• total exam time cut by around 2.5 to 3 hours for a typical student taking eight or nine GCSEs

• GCSE Computer Science replaced by a broader computing GCSE

• triple science offered to any pupil who wants it, once schools have the teachers to provide it

• a set literary canon in English, including at least one Shakespeare play, one 19th-century novel, poetry, and fiction or drama from the British Isles written since 1914

• a review of whether students still need to memorise certain maths formulae

• arts GCSEs given the same standing as humanities and languages

Students currently in Years 8 to 11 will sit the GCSEs that exist today.

The end of the EBacc measure

Schools are no longer judged on the English Baccalaureate, starting with the 2025 to 2026 results. Progress 8, the main measure of how much progress pupils make, is being redesigned after a consultation that closed in May 2026. The intention is that a school should not be penalised for steering a pupil towards music or design and technology when that suits them better than a second humanity.

After 16

A Levels stay. Updated AS and A Levels in national curriculum subjects are planned for 2031 and 2032, according to the government's post-16 pathways implementation plan. Alongside them come V Levels, new vocational qualifications the same size as an A Level. The first three, in accounting and finance, digital systems and data, and education, will be taught from September 2027. A Level 3 qualification in data science and artificial intelligence is also being explored.

What it means by year group

To put that in practical terms, a child in Year 6 this year will start Year 7 under today's Key Stage 3 curriculum and move onto the new one in Year 8. They may be among the first to sit the Year 8 reading test, and they will take updated GCSEs in 2032. A child in Year 9 will be largely untouched.

Preparing without waiting for 2028

Almost everything the review strengthens is something families can support now. Regular reading at home builds the fluency the Year 8 test will check and that every GCSE depends on. Short pieces of writing that your child checks and improves mirror the new emphasis in Year 6. Quick recall of times tables and fractions makes the reordered maths curriculum easier to follow. Even a conversation over dinner about whether a news story can be trusted is media literacy in action.

If you are choosing GCSE options in the next few years, keep an open mind. With the EBacc measure gone, some schools may offer combinations they would have discouraged before.

Where there are gaps in English or maths, it is usually easier to close them early. Merit Tutors offers KS2 English tuition, KS3 tuition and GCSE tuition across our three East London centres, and a free assessment will show where your child stands today.

Common questions

When does the new national curriculum start?

The revised curriculum is due to be published by spring 2027 and taught from September 2028.

Are GCSEs being scrapped?

No. They are being updated, with less exam time and some new content, but they remain the main qualification at 16.

Does my child need to revise for the Year 8 reading test?

The government describes it as a snapshot of reading ability and does not expect pupils to revise. A steady reading habit is the best preparation.