This curriculum isnt required at private universities is it?
This is for secondary schools, high schools in US terms (I think. Pupils up to age 16, anyway). And yes you are right, state schools (public schools in US terms) are obliged to follow the national curriculum, public schools (private schools in US terms) are not.

Although the AQA ia an examination board. If you want your pupils to get its GSCE in physics, then obviously you have to teach to its sylabus whether or not you are legally obliged to follow the national curriculum.

This story depresses me profoundly. I don't have any difficulty with an exam in scientific reasoning, or something similar (although the letter does a good job of showing that this exam is no such thing). But not at the expense of exams for those who might actually, who knows, want to learn some science.

I believe that anyone who doesn't understand at least some form of science to a reasonable level (ie A level, or school leaving exams at age 18 in generic terms) simply doesn't understand about one of the the most important factors affecting all our lives. They are, and on the evidence of this letter it is not their fault, ignorant.

And ideally government would be made up entirely of biochemists. But maybe that is just me.