Curriculum reform: what it means for your school's staffing strategy
The publication of the Curriculum and Assessment Review this month marks a significant, yet challenging, moment for schools and multi-academy trusts. While the government's proposals are set to raise standards and modernise education, schools face a critical bottleneck: a persistent teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
The government plans to publish the final national curriculum by spring 2027, giving schools four terms to prepare. This window is an opportunity to address staffing requirements for the new breadth of subjects and specialist support needed.
Primary school pressures: Literacy, citizenship, and SEND
The curriculum for primary schools is ambitious. Proposals include:
A renewed focus on strengthening reading and writing assessment, including a tougher writing assessment in Year 6.
Making Citizenship compulsory, ensuring pupils cover media and financial literacy, democracy, and climate education.
Exploring approaches for making primary tests more accessible for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) learners.
The primary reality
These changes impact staffing. Citizenship demands subject knowledge many primary teachers lack, and SEND accessibility requires specialist SEN teachers and SEND support staff.
Teacher recruitment and retention challenges persist. According to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) Annual Report 2025, postgraduate primary recruitment fell short of its target for the third consecutive year. The Gatsby Foundation, survey indicates that 17% of primary teachers report that their school is inadequately staffed with qualified teachers.
To prepare for 2028, primary schools and trusts should be reviewing their training and recruitment pipelines now, particularly in securing specialist support staff who can deliver targeted intervention, including for pupils with complex needs, in line with the SEND accessibility review.
Secondary challenges: STEM, specialist subjects and triple science
At secondary level, the proposed updates are specialised and exacerbate existing subject-specific recruitment shortages.
Reforms include:
Scrapping the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure.
Encouraging a greater breadth of GCSE study in the arts and humanities.
Triple science GCSE for students who want it.
The review recommends a diagnostic test for maths, also in Year 8.
A new qualification for students aged 16-18 in data science and artificial intelligence.
Integrating Religious Education (RE) into the National Curriculum.
Exploring new qualifications in areas including languages.
The STEM squeeze
The move towards triple science and new 16 to 18 qualifications in data science and AI is a bold step towards a future-ready curriculum. Part of this is expected to involve replacing the computer science GCSE with a future-facing computing GCSE.
The STEM teacher shortage presents a major obstacle. Government figures show that, for each cohort since 2010, retention rates five years after entering teaching have been 4 to 7 percentage points lower for STEM teachers than non-STEM teachers.
The National Audit Office (NAO) reported that Initial Teacher Training (ITT) targets for 2024/25 were missed in key shortage subjects like physics (31% of target met) and computing (37% of target met)
The review recommends a diagnostic test for maths in Year 8. This would help teachers to identify and deal with weaknesses before students progress to key stage 4. Yet, the long-standing failure to recruit enough maths teachers is also set to worsen, as changes to university provision reduce the pipeline of potential candidates.
Secondary language
The government also said it will explore a new modern foreign language qualification, which motivates pupils to want to continue studying, complementing existing GCSEs and A levels. However, secondary schools face pressure in this area; despite the offer of tax-free bursaries for trainees, financial incentives alone appear insufficient to address the deep-seated shortage.
The new curriculum will be implemented in full, for first teaching from September 2028, schools need to prepare now. For the first time, the new national curriculum will be digital and machine-readable, to support teachers to sequence their school curricula.
Key takeaways
Start planning staffing now to meet 2028 curriculum
Secure specialist teachers in STEM, maths, languages, and arts
Recruit SEND support staff for targeted interventions
Prepare primary teachers to deliver citizenship and literacy
Review recruitment pipelines for long-term resilience
Strategic staffing: The Holden Knight Education solution
The government’s new curriculum presents a clear-cut dilemma: schools cannot raise standards and increase curriculum breadth without stable, specialist educators. The time between now and September 2028 is a critical window for an overhaul of your school's staffing.
By working with Holden Knight your school can:
Target shortage subjects: Secure specialist teachers in STEM, maths, RE, languages and the arts to meet the new curriculum demands.
Build specialist support: Recruit highly-skilled SEN teachers and SEND support staff to ensure successful implementation of more accessible tests and targeted literacy/numeracy interventions.
Secure primary teachers: Utilise Holden Knight to source primary school teachers who can drive the improvements in literacy and embed the new compulsory Citizenship curriculum.
Ultimately, curriculum reform is a staffing strategy challenge. To deliver the government's vision of raising standards, schools and trusts must partner with experts to build a resilient, specialist workforce.
Contact Holden Knight Education today to discuss how we can support your school's new curriculum staffing plan and secure the talent you need today and for the future.