Understanding ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’ and ‘powerful knowledge’ in England’s Curriculum and Assessment Review: a case for educational and curriculum thinking

For over two decades, competency- and outcomes-based approaches have shaped curriculum reform internationally. England’s continued commitment to a knowledge-rich, subject-organised national curriculum represents a distinctive position within this context. Following the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review, this commitment has generated renewed debate about the meaning of a knowledge-rich curriculum and the role of powerful knowledge. This article argues that understanding these concepts requires a more adequately developed form of curriculum thinking capable of systematically relating educational purposes, knowledge, and teaching within the national curriculum. It develops a conceptual account of the national curriculum as an institutional educational undertaking operating across policy, programmatic, and classroom domains. On this basis, it reconceptualises knowledge-rich curriculum and powerful knowledge as curriculum concepts whose meanings are constituted through their relation to educational purposes, subject organisation, and classroom enactment. Drawing on Didaktik and related educational scholarship, the article makes a case for educational and curriculum thinking in understanding and developing the national curriculum. It concludes that England’s knowledge-rich orientation represents a distinctive approach to curriculum and offers an important alternative perspective on contemporary curriculum reform internationally.