Has anything changed at your primary with the new curriculum?

[cantthinkofanewnameatall]

Can't see anything has at ours.
Do your children have targets yet?

[littlequestion]

No. Are they supposed to? Are parents supposed to know what they are?

[CocktailQueen]

Nope, it's all been a bit of a non-event. Still using the nc levels.

[ReallyTired]

dd had a homework on number sequences. She was expected to fill in missing numbers for series like

22,24,26,..,...32

17,22,...,...32

I feel that such home work is over ambitious for most year 1 children who have barely mastered simple addition and substraction. I feel that children would achieve more if they spent more time with malipulatives and counting. Maybe some mumsnet superbrain can do such home work, but the majority of year 1 children are not ready.

Dd has also been learning her 2,5 and 10 times table. (ie. by counting in 2s, 5s, 10s) Maybe she can be taught these things by rote, but whether she understand is another matter.

My daughter can't be that thick as she managed to get exceeding expections for every area of her reception report. If she finds the maths too difficult then I am sure she is not alone.

[redskybynight]

School has stopped using setting and now uses whole class teaching for everything.

Children are now supposed to pick the level of work they want to tackle from a range, rather than having it prescribed.

Much more emphasis on mental maths (all maths homework has been working on instant recall) compared to older DC 2 years ago.

[cantthinkofanewnameatall]

Oh yes that was another question - what are your schools doing for assessment? Nc levels still? Have they said?

[cantthinkofanewnameatall]

Moving to that at ours too redsky but I don't think it is part of the new curriculum, more a trend in teaching at the moment. How is your dc finding that?

[AmazonGrace]

Ds class has been completely mixed up. Teacher explained she's adopted a 'kagan'? approach to teaching.

[Thatssofunny]

The Kagan model has nothing to do with the new NC. It's simply a way of mixing children of different abilities and using different approaches to make them work together more effectively.
That said, we use Kagan structures, but I certainly haven't changed how I teach my core subjects. Had a conversation with a colleague at a different school, who claimed they were using it for everything. Nonsense. They just sat them at mixed ability tables and then pulled out focus groups to work with. The kids still did different work from their partner most of the time. That's not what it's meant to be like.
I mostly use it for humanities or Science subjects, some mental maths or problem solving tasks. It's also good for team building activities. Has been bouncing around a few years already, though.

[3pigsinblanketsandasausagerole]

Our spellings homework has changed

Used to be ten words of look cover write check

Now all children have a list of about 350-400 words to practice and mark off when they know them

Tbh I think it's better

[StripyBanana]

Oh I'm glad our primary still sets (mixes up children across all 3 classes fir numeracy and literacy.)

I think we've had counting in 10s and number square work but no homework like the one above. (No homework in fact, another reason we like the school.)

[Feenie]

Practise - since we are talking about spelling

[3pigsinblanketsandasausagerole]

Pah

[Feenie]

Ah - I see you are also first-cup-of-coffee-grumpy, sorry.

[Makinglists]

Seemed to have changed history. Y4 in past years have done the vikings/celts/saxons at the start this year Y3 and 4 are doing WW2 together. In the past WW2 was only a Y4 topic. Seems to be a bit more focused on times tables otherwise much the same.

[3pigsinblanketsandasausagerole]

Fourth cup of tea grumpy I am afraid

[Feenie]

[Galena]

I know what is happening in our school only because I am a governor. Levels have gone, except for y2 and y6. Assessment all being done against new NC descriptors. DD in y1 says she has a target in maths, but wasn't sure about literacy. And she's already 'moved up the ladder' on maths targets which means it's been assessed and completed.

Parent meetings next week, so may find out more then.

[AmazonGrace]

Thatssofunny, ds and others in his class go to a different room for their Maths (mixed year classes) but from what I'm lead to believe everything else apart from music is done this way.

I will probably find out more at parents evening in a few wks with regards to this and the new curriculum.

[AmazonGrace]

Literacy is done within the kagan groups as far as I'm aware.

[rocketjam]

It's difficult to judge, we have parents' evening next week and I'll be able to judge this better. I have two children, in year 3 and 4, so i'llbe able to check what my year 3 ds is doing in comparison with DS1 last year. But they have different teachers, and DS 1 is average (sorry DS) where as DS2 is above average and working to much higher targets. His teacher is definitely differentiating his maths homework though, he is working at a higher level than DS1 last year.

[LooseAtTheSeams]

Y5 at the moment seems to be mixed tables instead of sets. There are opportunities to do more advanced maths problems for the children who want to attempt them and the teacher is keeping an eye on those who opt to do the 'easy' route just because they can't be bothered! I think they are holding onto NC targets for the time being but won't know more until parents evening - certainly haven't heard a word about any alternatives. Would be interesting to know what sort of alternatives are being talked about.

[cantthinkofanewnameatall]

Losing the NC levels as compulsory has left a void in our school. They were never very good with targets (often didn't get them for half a year, then not updated again etc.) but now there's nothing and no way to gauge progress unless something is introduced soon. Head must surely be on the case with this as Ofsted will freak out should they come calling.

[Thatssofunny]

We are one-form entry, so no sets for anything. It doesn't tend to be an issue. Giving children the chance to choose their task and the level of difficulty is also nothing new...I've been doing this for the past decade (even when teaching at a different school, which had sets).
The only subject I group by ability in is Maths. I've got two groups. One follows the normal curriculum for the year, the other follows an accelerated and more advanced route. Children can switch between these two groups, depending on the topic area. For most other subjects, I don't think it matters much whether they are at mixed or ability tables. Kagan just means that the teacher has split the class into four attainment groups and put a child from each group at a table of four.

[Pippidoeswhatshewants]

Not sure what's happening in class, but we've just been told that school are adopting a new assessment system and that they will not share levels with parents any more (they were not shared willingly before, either), parents will only be given verbal descriptions.

As if that will make a difference. Afaik they are just replacing one system of levelling with another. Or am I missing something?

[cantthinkofanewnameatall]

Wow so you will get no idea of how they are progressing in the school's view apart from in year 2 and 6?