School standards inspectorate Ofsted has today published a report on the primary curriculum.

The report found that it is possible to meet the requirements of the national curriculum and still have an appropriate emphasis on literacy and numeracy.

Forum Response: Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Gwen Evans, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, told ePolitix.com: "There are two lessons to be learned from this. One is for schools who know their curriculum is unduly narrowed - to be bold, courageous and trust their professionalism following the examples contained in the report.

"Lesson two is for the politicians - effective change takes time. Hurry endangers good results.

"If schools can learn one lesson and politicians the other, there is a real chance that the government can face the country when the next election comes around."

Nansi Ellis, primary advisor for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, told ePolitix.com: "We have previously expressed concerns about the narrowing of the primary curriculum, so we are pleased to see that Ofsted is encouraging teachers to use their professional judgement to plan a broad and balanced curriculum that reflects the needs of children."

Forum Response: Professional Association of Teachers

Jean Gemmell, general secretary of PAT, told ePolitix.com: "We have been telling our members for an extremely long time that literacy and numeracy strategies are not statutory in the way they are implemented. We are very pleased that Ofsted's report reiterates the fact that schools can implement literacy and numeracy programmes without restricting creativity.

"This has always been the case. Some schools have had the confidence and conviction to act in an innovative manner, whereas others felt they needed to restrict their autonomy in a way which they perceived was running the curriculum by the book.

"Literacy and numeracy guidelines were never statutory but were perceived by certain schools as such. Primary schools which had unassessed schemes would however have been foolish not to have implemented literacy and numeracy guidelines."