How are topics decided in schools?

[Vaselike]

Children go to separate infant and junior schools, which although co-located, are not closely linked. Separate entry, about 95% of children go to the juniors from the infants, with only those who have moved in/out of catchment affected.

So Year 5 child is about to do the (local interest) topic that was previously done in the other school for a term in Year 1. Summer of Year 2 and Autumn of Year 3 saw trips to the same location (think: the difference between seeing a historic railway and studying a historic engine) on a similar topic, but of course, different schools so teachers may not cross over at all. Etc.

In a primary school would this be different? Would I be forced to endure another term of (local interest) topic x in Year 5 having studied it in Year 1? Would there be consecutive trips to the same place? Or would it be more coordinated across the school?

Idle curiosity for a Saturday night having found out the topics for the year.

If you're in England, schools follow the national curriculum. Y5s would go I to a topic in far more depth than Y1, say.

I work in an infant school and most children go to the nearby juniors.

We are two entirely separate schools despite being next to one another. We don't consult one another regarding topics and trips.

We all follow the national curriculum but we, at least in infants anyway, can choose our half term lay topic focuses within the NC constraints. So long as we can meet the NC requirements we can choose. We have less restrictions to follow than the juniors I think when it comes to this.

Even if they do cover the same or similar topics I don't think this is necessarily an issue. Chances are they will have different focused, and obviously in juniors esp higher up the school, the topics will be covered in more detail and consider different things aimed at the older age group.

You'll also find that some topics and also some books will be revisited in secondary school. By the time of her exam I think DD had studied MacBeth three times!

Oh, and our staff don't cross over at all either. There are many junior school staff I've never met or heard of. I'd imagine that's the same for the junior staff when it comes to us in infants.

We have a whole separate staffing structure from headteacher to teachers to support staff.

The only member of staff who works a little in juniors, but is mainly infants, is our overall caretaker who lives on site.

Yes I thought (and expected) it would be that separate. I went to a junior school that shared a building with an infant school but had different heads, governing bodies, etc so remember that! I just guess I was curious whether this would happen in a primary school. And yes, slightly selfishly the repeated topic makes me go “really?! again but i also remember death by repeated studying of WW2…

In a through primary we try hard not to replicate topics, texts and experiences.

It’s a focus at the moment that schools should liaise with each other to ensure topics aren’t replicated. We’ve scrapped topics that our feeder infant school does and changed English planning when the children say they’ve done the text before. Mention it to the school because they probably aren’t aware. Do it now though so they have a chance to amend their topics for the year.

I did the Tudors at least three times in a through primary, so even when it's all one school, there's no guarantee the topics will be thought through. I can tell you a lot about Tudor life though....

Older year groups may return to similar topics but they should be coming at it from a different angle with different learning objectives.
Local interests will be popular for trips as they’re easy to access and cheap!

It's unlikely to happen in a good, well established primary, but it could do if there is a change of leadership / poor leadership / curriculum shake up. Sometimes trips deliberately repeat if there is a different focus.