3 hours weekly of English and maths compulsory?

[Hennightpanic]

Apparently this is coming in from September? Does anybody know anything about this?

[Spinaroo]

Is it not already? In Scotand it is four periods a week in most schools- so probably about 3 hours 20.

Why do you ask? Are you surprised/concerned?

[Hennightpanic]

It is leading to quite a fundamental change at the school and I an surprised - it will make the curriculum narrower and I don't see the need as it's a high achieving school

[IHeartKingThistle]

Every school I've ever worked in has had that anyway.

[titchy]

I can't believe any school does less tbh, and if it does then it's frankly failing it's students. 3 hours of maths and 3 of english still leaves 19 a week for other stuff.

[Caronaim]

It is far less than is done now, this must be seen as a legal minimum?

[jeanne16]

There will be a new legal minimum number of lessons from September which means pupils should get an extra lesson each week of Maths and of English. This applies to the State sector but it is not clear whether all private schools will follow. No one seems to know where all the extra teachers will come from!

[Stillwishihadabs]

I'm glad. Ds goes in yr 7 in September. They do an hour of each every day now (y6). Three hours a week doesn't seem much. I saw a current year 7 timetable and was horrified by the lack of core subjects tbh. I also think the school should be longer,so more room for everything but that's a whole other thread.

[Stillwishihadabs]

School day should be longer

[Hennightpanic]

Jeanne do you have a link to where this is written down?

[Hennightpanic]

Local superselective grammar school does only 2 lessons of English a week...

[Spinaroo]

They're probably very lucky that the children's language development would be heavily supported by parents who can model and will expect a certain standard of spoken English, as well as encourage reading. Not all children are so fortunate. The school will probably also be able to argue ( and I know it may be slightly different than in Scotland but thinking of the way our curriculum is organised) that many language/literacy outcomes are developed and even perhaps formally assessed through a variety of other curricular area.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Is that for ks3 Hen? It would be challenging for gcse to squish two exam subjects (lit and lang) into two hours I'd have thought.

[prh47bridge]

I would also like to see a link. I am not aware of any new legislation in this area. As of today there are no statutory requirements for the time allocated to subjects.

[Hennightpanic]

This is at ks3

[MissMillament]

Our KS3 pupils get 7 hours a fortnight and 8 at KS4. They still manage to fit in a wide range of other subjects. Less than three would be ridiculously little imo.

[noblegiraffe]

I know Gove suggested an extra hour a week of maths would be required to get to grips with the new, harder GCSE but I've certainly not heard about it being compulsory.

[roguedad]

I can't quite get my head around the idea that anyone would think that it is a lot, let alone an unacceptable narrowing thing. Most school curriculums are full of inane peripheral twaddle these days, and need more focus on core skills.

[BellaBearisWideAwake]

We already do that in y7-11 (over four lessons). If it is going to increase any further (for example post 16 compulsory maths) the big question is where are they going to find the extra maths teachers?

[lljkk]

Sorry, is that 3 hours combined or 3 hrs each?
5 hours/fortnight in DC schools' KS3-4 for each subject (fortnightly timetable). Extra for bottom set pupils.

[Hennightpanic]

3 hours each

Which bits of the curriculum would you drop then?

[NaiveMaverick]

Hennight - I'd gladly drop / reduce RE, citizenship, dance, textiles, design tech, drama, French for more maths and English and science.

I'm fairly sure DD already gets 4 hours a week of both Maths and English but I'd drop any if the above for her to get 5 hours a week, like they do in primary.

[Hennightpanic]

Hmmm... I'm with you apart from French and RE

Dance, textiles, drama not done anyway at the school

[NaiveMaverick]

DD has to do an hour a week of dance! (On top of 2 hours a week of PE.)

And an hour a week of drama.

That doesn't seem like the best use of her time.

[TooHasty]

we have a 5 x 40 minute sessions of maths a week and the same of English already.