Pendeen Yes, it's easy to understand in that it's not nuclear physics, but what would most parents do with the knowledge? It doesn't help parents give children a head start. It's a planning tool. As is the PF.
So for example this is from KS1 History.
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Chronological understanding
- Pupils should be taught to:
a. place events and objects in chronological order
b. use common words and phrases relating to the passing of time (for example, before, after, a long time ago, past).
Knowledge and understanding of events, people and changes in the past
- Pupils should be taught to:
a. recognise why people did things, why events happened and what happened as a result
b. identify differences between ways of life at different times.
Historical interpretation
- Pupils should be taught to identify different ways in which the past is represented.
Historical enquiry
- Pupils should be taught:
a. how to find out about the past from a range of sources of information (for example, stories, eye-witness accounts, pictures and photographs, artefacts, historic buildings and visits to museums, galleries and sites, the use of ICT-based sources)
b. to ask and answer questions about the past.
Teachers use this to make sure that across a half term planning the children have the opportunity to learn, practice and apply these skills but what, as a parent, does it actually tell you?
Within our own families we do discuss these sorts of things anyway when talking about the way TV used to be, what toys we played with, visiting castles and stately homes, looking at different hair/clothes etc in photographs, looking at how we have changed, discussing how our children have changed and will continue to do so... We don't need the NC to tell us to have these conversations with our children. They're just natural.
A lot of parents want to know what they can teach their children before starting school, to give them a bit of a head start. Having access to the NC won't really help with that and whilst parents can give their children a good foundation by providing interesting experiences and opportunities, etc. understanding how the education system works or what the NC/PF says about something, how many weeks should be spent on a certain topic and in which order they should be approached (which is what the PF does) won't really help.