The Curriculum Is Being Redrawn. Pupils Should Hold a Pen.

Curriculum reform is often described as a technical exercise: sequence the knowledge, sharpen the assessment, reduce the workload. But a curriculum is also a statement about power. It decides what counts as important, who gets to speak, and whose experience is treated as evidence. On that test, the national curriculum and assessment review now moving into implementation leaves a conspicuous gap. Its terms of reference invite evidence from academics, employers, teachers and parents. They do not require schools to ask the pupils who will live inside the timetable.

That is not a small omission. Pupils are the only group in the school who experience the curriculum continuously, across every subject and every year group. They know where transition jars, where repetition breeds boredom, where assessment narrows the week, and where a well-judged project opens a door. Yet in most schools pupil voice remains optional, adult-controlled and peripheral. At Democratic Education, we argue that this must change in 2026: pupil participation should become a statutory part of curriculum planning, not an enrichment activity that survives only when a sympathetic headteacher protects it.

The limits of consultation

The review, launched in 2024, has rightly taken workload, assessment and subject content seriously. Its evidence base is broad and its consultation has been genuine. But national consultation is not the same as local democracy. A pupil who responds to a survey has spoken into a process; a pupil who sits on a curriculum jury helps to shape the decisions that follow. The first is consultation. The second is participation.

The UK has signed up to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the right of children to be heard in matters affecting them. In practice, schools too often interpret that right as a school council that meets occasionally, raises money for charity and reports that pupils would like better toilets. Useful though those things may be, they are not curriculum governance. The inspection regime asks leaders to know their pupils, but it does not require evidence that pupils helped to shape what is taught, how it is assessed or how the school day is organised. The result is a familiar pattern: pupil voice is praised in principle, marginalised in practice and evaluated by anecdote.

A curriculum assembly in Coventry

Earlier this year, a mixed comprehensive in Coventry tried something different. The school suspended one PSHE day and convened a student curriculum assembly for pupils in Years 8 to 10. Staff did not ask for a wish list. They asked three deliberative questions: what helps you learn, what gets in the way, and what would you change first? Pupils worked in mixed groups with a facilitator and a governor present. They were given a short evidence pack: anonymised pupil survey data, attendance patterns, staff workload concerns and the school's development priorities.

The findings were not revolutionary, but they were specific. Pupils wanted fewer surprise tests and more feedback on drafts. They wanted science practicals earlier in key stage 3. They asked for a quieter space at lunch and for schemes of work to explain why a topic was being taught and how it connected to the next unit. Governors heard the recommendations directly. By the end of the summer term, the school had revised its homework timetable, introduced pupil learning walks and added a short 'why this, why now' section to curriculum plans. None of that required a change in the law. It required a decision to treat pupils as participants rather than recipients.

A curriculum jury for every school

The Coventry example points towards a simple model that could be made statutory. Every school should be required to convene an annual curriculum jury. The jury would be composed of 12 to 18 pupils, selected by stratified random sample across year groups, with deliberate inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, pupils eligible for the pupil premium, pupils with English as an additional language and care-experienced pupils. A facilitator independent of the senior leadership team would run three sessions. Governors would supply an evidence pack covering attainment, attendance, destinations, pupil wellbeing and staff workload. The jury would make recommendations to the governors' curriculum committee, which would publish a written response within 20 school days, including reasons where recommendations are not accepted.

This is not a call for pupil veto. A curriculum jury would be advisory, but it would be formal, evidence-based and public. It would sit alongside professional judgment, not replace it. The Secretary of State should add the requirement to the regulations governing school governance, and inspection should ask schools to show how pupil participation has influenced curriculum decisions. The cost would be modest: training for facilitators, cover for a small number of staff and a commitment to publish the outcome. The benefit would be a curriculum with greater legitimacy, better attendance and a stronger sense of belonging.

Why statute, not encouragement

Voluntary pupil voice depends on the values of individual leaders. That is precisely why it is uneven. Some schools have powerful pupil parliaments; others have a suggestion box that nobody empties. A statutory minimum would not guarantee good practice, but it would make poor practice visible. It would also signal that pupils are not guests in the curriculum but co-authors of it. In 2026, as the review moves from paper to practice, that signal matters. A curriculum written only for pupils will always be incomplete. A curriculum written with them has a better chance of being learned.