Do GCSE subjects need to be rethought?

Loads of Americans print, even very educated ones. Did you see the close up of Brett Kavanaugh's notes? One of the smart US PhD students I knew printed everything in block capitals. Cursive or joined up writing is useful and quick, but it's not essential.

Anyway, it is a particular bugbear of mine, as both my sons have mild dysgraphia. Because they were able children, at primary school it was assumed they were messy because they weren't trying and they got so many dispiriting comments about the appearance of their work rather than the content.

Ontopofthesunset

I disagree. Cursive writing is an underpinning for fast, accurate writing without reliance on tech.

Yes, I said in my post that children need to learn to write legibly as it is still a necessary skill. I think that fast, accurate typing is also a necessary skill, and more important than neat handwriting.

might be more useful

Education is not just about 'usefulness' - how many times has this been said on this thread?

No doubt, spending the only years young people will spend in free, full-time education could be more usefully spent teaching them to scan items on a supermarket checkout, to apply a fake tan, to groom a dog, since those are jobs a large percentage of them might, realistically, end up doing.

But where do the astronauts then come from?

Thisreallyisafarce
Not only that but the idea of 21st century skills and preparing kids for jobs that don't exist yet has been regurgitated my entire teaching career. I'm not entirely what these 21st century skills are.

When I was in school a big deal was made about how handwriting wouldn't be needed because now schools have some computers handwriting will be obsolete and everyone will type everything and all exams will be typed etc. Still not come true. People still need legible writing.

I was out for lunch yesterday with a few friends. They started talking about how amazing it is that telephones take your voice and pass it along a wire and make it come out of the other end. None had absolutely any idea how they work and it was agreed that telephones are clearly magic. Mobile phones even more so, because they pass your voice through thin air! Except they aren't magic at all, and how they work is covered on the physics GCSE. No maths required for the explanation either.

I know I'm biased because I'm a physics teacher, but actually physics is hugely important - and increasingly so in the modern, technology based, world.

Personally, I think poor physics teaching is a serious problem which absolutely needs to be addressed. I don't know the solution though - perhaps better working conditions would be a good start in helping to retain decent teachers.

Ontopofthesunset

And what about annotating a text? What about writing when their computers don't work anymore, or they don't have them, in another country or if they can no longer afford to purchase technology?

Writing quickly and legibly by hand is a fundamental, irreplaceable skill. We dispense with it at our peril.

As a secondary teacher I can assure you that there’s no evidence that the primary curriculum is dedicated to teaching kids to write in beautiful cursive.

I would rather my DD2 had been taught to touch time in y6 than taught some of the grammar in the new curriculum.

I disagree about the touch typing, having two sons who both use computers for written work. 12 year olds can type more quickly than non touch typing 60 year olds, but they can't type as quickly and accurately as 12 year olds who've been taught to touch type - as my sons were. I'm not saying it should necessarily be taught in school, but I do agree that the focus on handwriting is ridiculously Victorian. Children need to learn how to write legibly if possible as writing by hand is still a part of life - notes, postcards, shopping lists, cheques. But actually more and more of those things are being replaced by emails, apps and online interfaces. They're not going to need to write in beautiful cursive in their working lives. Taking notes at a lecture is much easier when touch typing, so you can watch the lecturer/screen without looking at your laptop or notebook.

DiaryStrife

I think if I tried to teach touch typing to 12 year olds they would laugh in my face. They can do it blindfolded. Curriculum time no more needs to be spent on that than it needs to be spent teaching them how to scratch their undercarriages.

@thisreallyisafarce...you don’t think the workforce need to touch type? My work is greatly increased helping out older members of staff who are still typing with two fingers whilst staring at the keyboard. The staff with typing skills are much more productive!

Technically, Gnomme, your DB’s argument that you need to learn Maths before starting learning Physics does not make much sense. Heavy maths are necessary in Physics only at a very advanced level. The Theory of Relativity for example is pretty much pure maths but you can’t start learning your Physics from there. You need to walk before you run. To advance to the level of Physics where you need to use serious maths, you need to lean most fundamental Physics concepts first. You need to learn those fundamentals early on and step by step as a way to develop a sound way of thinking in a ‘scientific’ way even if you are not a scientist. That was the achievement of the Enlightenment. As someone said upthread, Physics is the first discipline children encounter when they start to play with physical objects. The best way to start is with manual common sense experiments, like dropping a ball, using a magnet with some iron dust to see the magnetic field, stuff you do in primary school. It would be all but impossible to develop a sound scientific mind, the proper systemic analytical thinking, and make it to university having started Physics after Maths GCSE. It just doesn’t hold water.

Well Gnomme, I am confused because it is really incongruent. It does not hold together for you to say you DC discussed over dinner how MFL is pointless while at the same time learning Japanese in their own time, "for the challenge of it". The argument that MFL is pointless and is too challenging/ not engaging does not stand if you quote the example of your DS finding value in challenging himself, and learning something so non-basic. If it's good for your DS, than surely every pupil should have the same opportunity to challenge themselves, to expand their mind in a similar way?

At what point in life your DS was ready for that is down to his individual circumstances, surely not the basis to hollow out secondary education for the whole country.

Chosennonetosurvivethenight
Any school with a sensible curriculum design can offer vocational options.
Most schools in my area have vocational pathways still (they're just a bit more purposeful than some of the poor quality game playing old vocational).

Year 9 in most sensible schools is about preparing skills for GCSE. There's always a point between taking options and starting GCSE courses.
If staff choose to waste ks3 then that's their poor decisions.

Why isn’t touch typing on the curriculum?!

Because it isn't 1940?

I’d like to know why the government are still insisting kids are taught cursive writing like we’re churning out Victorian clerks. Why isn’t touch typing on the curriculum?!

The new Gcses are really unfair on non academic students. The time spent trying to push/support/cajole them to get a 4 is ridiculous and must be so disheartening for students to try so hard and get a grade 1-3. We really do need a return to more practical, skills based options for some children without creating a 2 tier system. The PP who mentioned the level 2 functional skills hot the nail on the head. Basic literacy is needed for every single GCSE now, including PE, drama and tech! Some kids just can not age as these new courses!
IMO a lot of year 9 is a waste and a babysitting exercise, particularly when students have taken their options by January!

There's also a profound lack of imagination about it. "I can't see why anybody would ever want to study X...because I don't."

I had naff all interest in design and technology at school. I was shit at it. I could see the possible practical applications but it failed to engage my intellect in any way and I used to dread those lessons. Does that mean it should have been removed from the curriculum? No.

Likewise, just because you personally have no interest in Latin, Physics, Theology or what have you, that doesn't mean nobody else does.

People just think it's a sad, soulless and reductive view of education, I suspect.
Pretty much.

I'd sooner leave teaching than be complicit in a total dumbing down of the curriculum to the lowest denominator.
A utilitarian version of my subject would mean transactional writing and basic reading skills.
Meanwhile in top private schools students already get a richer English curriculum than I'm allowed to offer. I don't want the gap to get even bigger in the name of 'engagement'.

He is a young adult, long past GCSEs he isnt learning Japanese for any exam purpose, he is learning it for interest.

It just proves that youth is wasted on the young.

The thing I have found dispiriting on this thread has been how offended some people have seemed to be that I had the effrontery to ask the question

Hardly effrontery. People just think it's a sad, soulless and reductive view of education, I suspect.