National Curriculum ?

[mrz]

www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/NCR-Expert%20Panel%20Report.pdf

[TheRoundTable]

Lol for a minute there I thought you were asking a question and I thought, 'oh dear, who can help?'

[IndigoBell]

Wow! Just wow.

I like the idea of splitting KS2 into 2 keystages.

Cortina will like the refernce to Carol Dweck :)

[mrz]

We already split KS2 into upper and lower and upper works very much on a secondary model with subject teachers and children moving to different rooms for different subjects. I just wondered how others felt

[hocuspontas]

Have only read halfway but already like the mention of discouraging early GSCEs and only 'counting' those achieved in year 11. Keeping a broad curriculum until end of KS4 is good (e.g. Ebacc + arts ) for academic children but no mention is made of those children who are benefitting at the moment from a more vocational KS4.
The splitting of KS2 and having specialist teaching in 'Upper' KS2. How would that work staff-wise?

[mrz]

At present our Y5 teacher teaches literacy to both classes and the Y6 teacher teaches all maths and we have a science teacher who teaches Y5 one afternoon a week and Y6 another MFL works in a similar way

[Panzee]

Thanks for this. I'll settle down to read it soon.

[hocuspontas]

So these are part-timers who just teach their subject? Sounds good, as PPA can be taken at these times I suppose.

[mrz]

The science teacher is PT the other teachers are FT class teachers and work with other classes while their children are taught science and MFL (English and Maths are a straight class swap)

[lljkk]

They want a new KS between the current 1 & 2.
Doesn't that just mean yet MORE standardised testing & pressures on teachers? Or is it not possible to exert any more pressure.

And KS3 to end in y8...

I like the talking up oral language skills part.

"Attainment Targets in the presently established level descriptor form should not be retained." I gather that means no more "Level 4b", etc., but I'm fuzzy on what would replace it in the reports; it sounds like you might get a long series of statements of core concepts (say in English) and a scaled grade (say from 1 to 5) of how well your child understood each core concept.

Also, they keep going on and on about how, I think, the whole class would be unable to move on from a learning objective until "all" pupils had grasped key concepts. Wouldn't suit the needs of many.

"there would no longer be statutory Programmes of Study for such subjects. In addition, we recommend that subjects that retain statutory Programmes of Study should have their content specified in less detail." I think that sounds very good, but depends how implemented in practice?

Seems to be carrying on about a risk of too-strict year-by-year curriculum esp. in maths, which they admit wouldn't suit the highest or lowest ability pupils at all. I don't see how it would suit in English or science either...?

What happened to the so-called "creative" NC?

[IndigoBell]

I think splitting KS2 into 2 will help schools, because trying to achieve something over 4 years is harder then trying to achieve 2 smaller tasks over 2 years each.....

I know teachers are under lots of pressure all the time etc, but a moderated assessment point at Y4 will keep SLT etc focussed on all years. Because some schools do put a disproportionate amount of their energy into Y6.....

And when a child is failing in Y3 I think schools don't always take it very seriously as they feel like they have plenty of time to catch up..... (Well I've certainly been told that lots :) )

[Feenie]

What happened to the so-called "creative" NC?

The Tories got in!

[IndigoBell]

BBC take on it.

Good point about it being obsolete before it's even implemented, as most schools will be academies by 2014 :)

[Joyn]

Just got to the end of it, (haven't read anything like that since my uni days, - a couple of years ago ). I have to say the chapter 8, scared me. Basically stating an end to in class differentiation & focusing on bringing all pupils up to a certain level of understanding before moving on. How on earth would this work in practise? I would have thought it'd be very disheartening for the more able dcs & what about average kids in a group with a lower than average cohort. And the focus on facts - do they think kids in primary school are too young to be learn how to think? Surely Im not the only one who thinks that's one of the most important lessons in life?

[EcoLady]

Joyn I'm with you! After two decades of trying to implement AfL and "start from where the learner is", thsi seems to propose a shift back to "all get to pass this test then we start the next chapter, no matter whether the bright ones are bored sh*tless and others haven't really got it at all".

[startail]

I'll tell you what able children will do. They will get bored and mess about. Their parents will complain. Those who can afford it will bale to the private sector and five years later they will review it again
Fortunately my "able" DD2 will be doing her GCSEs

[Appuskidu]

Brilliant! Well done, Gove-this sounds like another superb plan...

Do we no longer have to teach RE and MFL at KS1, then? I only skimmed through it and lost the will to live with basic/non basic curriculums!

[mrz]

RE yes MFL no

[Panzee]

startail and the ones left behind will be forced into Academy status...

[mrz]

and I know lots of people like to kid themselves that children mess around because they are bored but the most frequent cause of messing about is because the work is too difficult rather than too easy.

[hockeyforjockeys]

It's going to take quite a large change in the national psyche for keeping the class working at the same level to work, both from teachers and parents. As it says in the report in this country we believe that people have a set level of capability and schools need to adapt their curriculum to meet that level for each child. In countries that keep children working at the same pace, they believe that everybody has the ability to achieve that level, even if it means extra classes/tutoring. It could work, but the report does acknowledge that this approach needs to be assessed in relation to the needs of children with SEN and G&T children.

At the moment our school is trying to do something similar with maths, the focus is on extending them sideways (by problem solving etc.) rather than vertically (it does give me some brilliant mental images though whenever SLT start discussing it!). At the moment I teach Year 6 top set, where all the children are high level 4s or level 5s. However I have one who is level 6/7 and instead of trying to teach him more advanced maths, I use what I am teaching in more complex and abstract problems and investigations for him. Both he and his parents seem very happy with the situation (and he certainly relishes the challenges I set him), but he does have a tutor once a week outside of school who teaches him higher level maths. Again his parents seem completely happy with the set-up, but I know there are some who wouldn't be. I guess this is what I mean by a shift in culture - everybody being happy with this sort of set up (including not having a child like this being tutored).

[mrz]

I don't think having a class working at the same level has anything to do with national psyche.
When children enter reception there can already be a huge range of ability and cover a wide spread of developmental stages. I've had children from the 18 month level to the 6years+ in the same group. That developmental gap exists and has nothing to do with whether the teacher believes every child has the ability to achieve a certain level but is simply where the class are at that point in time.
I believe every child will get there but for some the journey will take longer than it will for others and they may not all reach the destination on the same day, week or term. A good teacher will ensure all children move forward (not treading water waiting for others to catch up and not falling further behind) and will do everything in their power to close the gap as quickly as possible.

[hockeyforjockeys]

I agree with you mrz about the spread of developmental abilities children have, and that it takes some longer than others to reach the 'destination', but it is true that some countries have a different way of looking at the situation. For example in France all children are expected to be working on the same thing at the same level as it is considered to be 'fair' and 'equal' to all children, whereas it isn't seen as acceptable practise at all in the UK. I think this is what the report is pushing towards:

8.6 A distinctive feature of some of the high-performing systems that we have examined in the course of the review appears to be a radically different approach to pupil progression and to differentiation. Crude categorisation of pupil abilities and attainment is eschewed in favour of encouraging all pupils to achieve adequate understanding before moving on to the next topic or area.
Achievement is interpreted in terms of the power of effort rather than the
limits of ability. The emphasis on effort is particularly marked in the Confucian-heritage countries such as China, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The assumption here is that deep engagement with subject matter, including through memorisation where appropriate, leads to deeper understanding. In Western countries, especially in the US and England, the assumption has often been that capacity to learn, and achieve, is determined by innate endowment of fixed intelligence (ability). This assumption ? that there are limits on what children are capable of learning ? has had negative influence on expectations of achievement and how learning and assessment is organised

It then goes on discussing the various pros and cons to this approach (and having read it a second time I'm not sure what the overall conclusion is!) but then says this which is interesting:

For example, ?holding the group together? is a key feature in Singapore, where around one quarter of children enter primary school with no experience of formal pre-school settings. These children are frequently assigned to special classes of between five and eight pupils, and are taught by highly skilled and qualified specialist staff with the aim of bringing them up to a level of understanding which enables them to be re-integrated into mainstream groups as quickly as possible, giving a more even spread of attainment in teaching groups.

Not sure if this is a good approach or not, but it is interesting! As I said there are cultural reasons underpinning why we currently differentiate as much as we do in England, and believe it to be good practice to do so. I actually don't know that moving away from this would lead to higher levels of achievement across the board - I think all the other factors in other countries that supposedly do better than us have just as much impact.

Sorry for the long waffle, finished doing my masters but I still enjoy mulling over these sort of issues, and this seems a good outlet!

[mrz]

hockeyforjockeys we have actually tried that in the UK and it was an absolute failure. You can't teach multiplication to a class is some children can't count to 10 or you are failing those children just as you can't teach the class to count to 10 if some can already count to a 1000 or you are failing those children.

[mrz]

My personal belief is the children who are falling behind need additional input from a teacher rather than what often happens and they get input from a TA instead of what the rest of the class have been taught ... so the gap grows

[hockeyforjockeys]

Too young to have been teaching then (just out of interest when was that as I remember differentiated work back in late 80s/early 90s and obviously was what I was taught to do when training mid 00s) so don't remember!

Completely agree with you on that point - but I suspect the way it is going to to go is Ofsted/government expecting all children to be counting to 1000, and if they can't it is our failing as teachers. As I said if they want to change to this approach they are going to have to change the beliefs of a huge number of teachers and parents!