To think the British educational system is all wrong?

I also did gymnastics, archery, self defence, skating and yoga in PE as well as team sports. We had PE every day in high school, which was very valuable. I may be wrong but I don’t think British schoolchildren have most of these opportunities.

Too much team sports can be very off-putting for some for sure (though others enjoy them very much). In primary school here they do a bit of learning the skills of team sports with little competition (except baseball, which they do have proper matches in) but mostly pe is playground game type things, gymnastics, orienteering, swimming, skiing and skating, so not so off-putting. Upper school has some team sports but it's again not so much, they go to the gym, go for walks (to certain points in town), go to the skate park, things like that, as well as skiing and skating. Much less off-putting to most. And the optional course in pe does things like self-defence, shooting, archery, downhill skiing, and other activities the students request, as well as some team sports. I'm pretty jealous of DD's PE experience in school, much better than mine!

The problem isn't the subjects themselves, it's the way they're delivered.

Especially with games/PE which is mostly about team games, so those who are poor at it are set up to fail, not to mention being set up to be bullied. There should be more "solo" kind of sports/activities options where the pupil is simply getting more exercise for well being, and maybe challenging themselves to improve rather than knowing they'll never be able to compete with more able sporty pupils.

Same with music and art etc - the kids who don't have the skills to play an instrument, sing, or create an original piece of art are compared against all the others who can, whether it's performances in the classroom, posters on a wall etc. They may not be "marked" as such, but the poor pupils know they're poor compared with the brilliant classmates.

But most dc do play with friends. I cannot understand why not. Leaving school at 3.20 we were home 10 minutes later. Sometimes with another child. The dc played until tea and after tea the play friend was collected. We then did reading and whatever else - bit usually more play! I don’t agree that the homework should be lengthy or that schools should change because dc live 45 mins away. That’s excessive. Sometimes dc had clubs like brownies and swimming and dc 1 Aldo did strings orchestra at the music centre. Later on a choir too. She liked all of this and loves her singing even now. Parents can set up playing if they want to . They just need to look at their lives and make adjustments. Even dd2 at a very well known prep has friends to play in y4.

@TizerorFizz yes I do realise many DC don't read for pleasure and don't have books in the house and I agree with you about school setting expectations about reading. However, I think at the very least, DC should have time to play with their friends when not in school. Everyone is different.

@dizzydizzydizzy You do realise many dc have no books and just have games on tablets? What reading for pleasure? I would prefer dc to have an expectation to read set by the school. What schools set holiday witk? Never seen this in private or state sector.

@mids2019 Just because a pupil won’t be a musician, that’s no reason to abandon music. Or Drama. Performing helps with confidence. It’s not about being the best it’s about taking part. Should sport be abandoned on the same basis? Only a few will be really good. Or do we accept it has wider benefits? As does music.

Yes, I agree with you OP. We start our kids at school very young in the UK.

I think much the same about homework for primary school children, especially in the holidays . It is just stopping them reading for pleasure and doing other important activities.

@CookiePlough NO homework is mandatory. You are, frankly, a bit nuts spending that long on stupid posters. Stop doing it. Have you read your homework policy? I’m assuming this is a state school so should have one! What is the aim of the homework? I bet a poster every weekend doesn’t meet the aims of the policy. The reason you are getting posters is to make you think it’s mandatory but who is marking it? How is it enhancing subject learning? Difficult to say probably. It’s hardly ast if it’s the same every week.

At infants, my DC always had the core subjects in the morning and all the others in the afternoons. Sometimes integrated into core learning in the morning. DD1 had instrument lessons from y1. Recorder then violin from y3. In many ways the afternoons were too short for everything!

I'm a primary teacher and I totally agree we start formal learing too early. Many children are still starting with mark making at 4 and cannot yet draw a circle - yet the first letters we expect them to write are S (easy) a (hard) and t (cross aspect is difficult). Reception should just be about social skills, building communication concentration and vocabulary, learning how to regulate emotions to some extent, and fine and gross motor skills. Once children have these skills, they will learn so much quicker in Year 1 - which should be continuous provision.

Arts, technology,sports etc. Should not be optional as too many underestimate their importance, so I don't think that would be a good idea at all. I think one of the strengths of the Finnish system is that these subjects have never been downgraded - a lot of school time has always been devoted to them, and technology/handicrafts is especially good, I mean the oldest students are doing things like building boats and sheds

And when I was at primary school in the 70s and early 80s a wonderful broad curriculum of sport, music, arts, crafts, maths, English, history, geography was implemented every day. And school was enjoyable and busy. No SATs no national curriculum.
Something changed in the 1980s and certain subjects got devalued.
School wasn't perfect, teachers could be very sadistic, kids still bullied but there were stick cupboards full of paper until July and felt tips pens paint pencils and exercise books in abundance!

Learning basic craft skills like how to use a paintbrush, how to lay out a poster, how to stick one thing onto another thing are perhaps more useful and relevant to most people's lives — in home and in work — than many other subjects. In any given day I'm more likely to be putting together a powerpoint, painting the hall, fixing a broken toy than doing trigonometry (which, I should stess, is also worth knowing).

With some very recent posts... I wonder if some posters would like a system in lower primary at least, where the pupils did 9.00-13.00 on "core subjects" such as reading, maths, science... then an optional afternoon for arts, technology sport etc so the few who wanted their children in for short days could have it, but those who wanted an all round education or needed to work could have that option too?

Singing is an important collective, bonding activity.

All year 7s sing (to a good level) in my school. It's part of their "broad and balanced education".

You have an extraordinarily reductive idea of education.

Art and music are important not because of potential jobs related to them but because how studying them affects the brain and the cultural knowledge and value they bring to the classroom.

Music again should not waste school resources and curriculum when again it is only the very few brilliant people who can make a realistic career out of the subject. The brilliance of musicians is often shown at an early age and is something possibly imate and therefore difficult to teach to a truly brilliant level.

It's like asking how many elite athletes did GCSE PE? Even if they did the subject of probably made very little difference to their careers. Similarly with music.

You could suggest art is promoted by schools but there should be questions whether it is a subject that can be marked objectively when it is really very subjective. What is Dmain Horse had cut up his shadow at the wrong angle, how do you judge?

It's a real shame because I know some technically good people who can draw but is drawing an art form and who judges now? We don't have the society to produce or find art as in the renaissance.

The most successful in arts, music, etc., often have no actual schooling/qualifications - the artists creating multi million pound artworks usually don’t even have a gcse in art. Likewise some of the most successful musicians/singers/songwriters can’t even read sheet music and have had no formal training. And it’s only the tiny minority of probably 0.0001% who hit the big time. There is very little correlation between formal arts/music qualifications and Worldwide acclaim/success. The vast majority of those who get qualifications in the arts don’t use them beyond hobbies.

Art should n be able to be dropped fairly quickly in a curriculum imho. If you can get 15 million dollars for taking a banana to a wall I think you really need to question where art is a human skill in 2025. Modern art at least is very much subjective and children do get confused about the artistic merit of modern art as opposed to the great masters. Indeed what is art?

art primarily is a hobby as very very few children will make a living directly from something artistic and even then the salary paid is very much dependent on the centuries of the market (look at van Gogh at the time).

it's often a subject that if a child does not have some outstanding talent can be no need at GCSE and in my opinion should be earlier to make way for focus on maths, English and STEM if need be.

my children aren't great artists and I haven't been worried since they brought back plethoras of paintings in reception class. In no way does it make you non academic if you can't produce great art.

When I hear what homework is like in primary schools these days (as opposed to my day, when the only homework we got was timestable practice, in year 6), with things like making posters, build a model tudor house or iron age village or various other models, I'm thinking maybe they don't have the time (with the ridiculous curriculum these days) or resources in the schools to do art properly or as much as they need to, so they're outsourcing it to home? Art and creative activities are important subjects so they need to be done, but they ought to be done in school, where they should have the resources necessary, but with budget cuts maybe not.

Agree with OP. My strong willed youngest son has been ejected from the uk system at age 5. I'm just realising how bloody clever he is, we've had to follow a different path and much as I've fought everything while championing him I'm just coming around to realising that forced home ed is the best thing for him (why they label us as elective I've not idea). My oldest went through the independent system with no issues. My strong willed soul is never going to be a sheep and therefore the system is irrelevant to him, I can only admire that, I fully expect him to thrive. The uk education system? Not so much.

@Catsnap We avoided the waste of time they seem to be. Parents should ask what the value of the homework is. A good homework policy should be clear what a child should gain. Posters seem like directed art at home.