To say primary dc are more clever now

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My dc absolutely amaze me with the math they know, grammar they use and general knowledge.

I can't remember knowing any of this and I was considered bright at primary. End sats results were two 4s and a 5. The schools were aiming for 4s when I was in year 6 but my dd (not a stealth boast) was level 4 in most things and a 5 in English in year 4.

Or maybe the schools are ten times better then what they were.

Maybe all the testing and inspections has made schools be better instead of coasting.

i spent pretty much the whole of my time at infant school playing

Which is exactly how it should be.

I am dead against setting targets for points of grammar in creative writing. Grammar needs to be taught explicitly and corrected in creative writing but setting writing tasks with lots of structural criteria is pointless.

Children only spend around 25% of their waking hours over a year in school. I don't think it's unreasonable that, even in infants, some of that time should be spent on something other than play.

Lots of small children are bored silly by playing all day and are hungry to learn.

Agree, Bobochic. Even in tribal settings, where there is no formal schooling, children play in mixed aged groups from around age 3 to age 12, so that the younger children learn from the older ones. The idea that corralling younger children together in same-age groups for free play is the "natural" way for them really isn't correct.

I very much agree that, kesstrel. Interestingly, in France older and younger children are very much expected to play together and get on with things. One of the issues I have with English children is that they tend to stick together in age-related groups.

The most vivid memory I have from age 4/5 was of being involved playing outside in a mixed aged group led by older children in our neighbourhood. They had made up a highly elaborate imaginative game, involving travelling through various fantastical ettings, and performing various tasks, in order to rescue children stolen by a witch. It was hugely exciting and inspirational to my own creative imagination, and a model for what imaginative play could be. There is no way I could have thought up anything remotely like that at such a young age.

Agree, lots of dc absolutely love learning. What's wrong with a ks1 learning reading/writing/math.

If infant school is spent doing absolutely nothing but playing, then all that will happen is that the gap between kids from middle-class, educated families (who get taught by their parents at home) and children from low-income, low-education families (who generally do not) will just get bigger and bigger over time.

Kids spend loads of time playing. It's absolutely fine to spend some time teaching them as well.

As for comparisons with 30 years ago....?

In some ways the standards have been pushed a bit higher, but one problem is that the curriculum has been narrowed. I think children's knowledge of areas like history and geography is far worse than it was 30 years ago. I remember studying history systematically in primary school. My nieces get a a hodge-podge of oddly-selected scattered topic-work units (a bit of Guy Fawkes, then a bit of the Egyptians, then a bit of Mary Seacole.... etc. etc.). Neither of them can find more than about 3 countries on a map, or seem to know the most basic stuff about the world.

My ds1 (aged 7) amazes me with his general knowledge. He's a bright kid but not a genius and the things he knows often outstrips dh and me.

We did a pub quiz on holiday a couple of weeks back and he answered the most random stuff correctly - song artists from the 70's, A Prime Minister from yonks ago, the name of the first hospital in the UK (or something like that).

Is it bugger to do with school. His favourite thing to watch on TV has been game shows for nearly the past two years (he grew out of cartoons pretty early). I attribute his general knowledge to The Chase and Pointless, not teachers.

People in general seem to have a horror of TV for kids, but used appropriately, it's one of the best educating tools available IMO.

Yes, my 16 year old daughter is now old enough to be embarrassed by the huge gaps in her knowledge of history and the countries of the world and their peoples. She asked me the other day how the Roman Empire turned into the British Empire! (This is after getting an a* in GCSE history).

I can remember being taught about the sweep of world history at the age of 10/11, starting with Mesopotamia and Phoenicians. I still remember what I learned then. It was an excellent basis for more detailed exploration of historical periods.

What worries me is that I believe that memories are more retentive at a younger age - I seem to have forgotten much more of what I learned at a later age. If this is true, then I wonder if my daughter will ever "catch up" with all that knowledge that she missed out on learning at a younger age.

"Just stories and poems". I don't think anyone is disparaging stories and poems, or thinking they aren't important. But there are other forms of writing that are important too. There are plenty of adults out there who wouldn't be able to post a coherent argument on a forum like this, because they simply never had enough exposure to any form of writing except stories and poems, and never learned how to construct a coherent sentence, because grammar was believed to be something people just "picked up", and so wasn't taught.

Also, not all children are keen on writing or reading just stories and poems. Boys in particular sometimes prefer non-fiction. Some children aren't neurotypical. And anyone who is interested in academic work, or in getting good GCSEs, or even in writing a letter applying for a job needs to know how to do essay style writing. I had to teach both my daughters how to do that when they reached GCSEs, because the curriculum doesn't cover it. That worked out fine for them, but what about children whose parents don't know enough to teach them themselves, and who can't afford or don't understand the need to hire tutors to teach them?

Exactly, Kesstrel.

I loved writing stories and poems as a child, but a lot of children couldn't care less or just aren't the creative types. But those kids will still need to be able to do practical, formal writing. It's important that kids are taught how to compose proper English for all kinds of purposes, not just stories.

"I remember being bored all the time in primary. I used to watch the clock going slower and slower everyday. My dc actually have fun in school."

When you were at school, there were probably DC in other schools who weren't bored. But parents didn't really know what was going on in schools then (the 'secret garden'), so couldn't really compare.

But I think most of the change to primary level education came from the 1980s reforms. Before that (and to some extent on the first years of roll out whilst they bedded in) there was no way of knowing how your DC was doing, ditto in the following comprehensive. So the first time that a parent might realise that their DC was not doing fine was at 16+ exams.

The better time your DC are having is the intended effect of what started in the 1980s and continued by every administration since. An expectation that schools will be good, and accountability that they are.

Chrome100's mention of maths workbooks is interesting: "We had 35 kids in our class and just did workbooks which were dull. I remember finishing my maths book and just not telling the teacher because I didn't want to do another."

This method of "individualised" teaching of primary maths via workbooks was widespread in the 90s. It was dreamt up by education academics who were opposed to whole class teaching, having the teacher standing at the front and talking, and learning maths facts by heart, because they wanted children to be "in control of their own learning" and "learn at their own pace". There was never any proper evidence base to show that these new ideas would work well.

That's why the labour government brought in the National Numeracy Strategy in the late 90s, to counter this trend and force schools to use methods that had more of an evidence base. (And yet many schools still use dubious methods for maths teaching that don't take account of working memory issues, for example.) Just as many schools still use "mixed methods" for teaching reading, in spite of evidence that they are at best a waste of time, and at worst positively damaging to the most vulnerable children.

If infant school is spent doing absolutely nothing but playing, then all that will happen is that the gap between kids from middle-class, educated families (who get taught by their parents at home) and children from low-income, low-education families (who generally do not) will just get bigger and bigger over time.

Indeed. And that gap is already vast.

The children are not smarter they are just taught what they needs to pass tests. Passing a test that is all you've ever studied is not hard.

Children won't learn taxes/managing bank account/sewing/house maintaince/cooking like what my grandparents did at school.

School don't tech some of the most basic but needed things like they used too, sure they do cooking but how much of that is now bring in a premade sauce/pre made pasta etc my grandad built bookcases etc in his wood work, I got to make a wooden stick man

*Passing a test that is all you've ever studied is not hard"

Which is why everyone passes their driving test first time, presumably.

I don't think people leaving school now are either more or less intelligent than they were 30 years ago. However, I do think that more people now come out of university with very poor writing skills. This is very noticeable in my profession where an ability to write well is extremely important. A lot of the new graduates I supervise these days have real trouble writing in a clear and comprehensible manner. Can only assume that the fact they weren't taught basic skills in school is largely to blame.

I think it depends on the school. When I was in primary school in the 70's some of my teachers were very rigorous e.g. stand in front of the class and recite your 12x table in yr4 and others less so. If you wanted to learn then there were opportunities to do so and materials available, if you didn't want to then teachers were less bothered because there were no external tests.

Each generation is different. There was more rote learning years ago, but sometimes that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think that general knowledge is regarded as less important these days and I agree that children know things they need to know for the tests they take. They are coached for the particular test. Years ago, when the 11plus was more widespread, there was little or no coaching for the test- there was no difference to the general syllabus, so there was more emphasis on innate ability, rather than teaching to the test.

AnthonyBlanche Not only were they not taught basic skills, many of them also had almost no exposure to reading actual models of essay-type non-fiction, because of the wholesale abolition of textbooks. Someone with a good ear can pick up the conventions of non-fiction prose writing through reading plenty of it (although some children will also need more explicit instruction), but the decision that textbooks were too old-fashioned deprived many children of that avenue of learning writing skills. (I speak as one who would never willingly have read any non-fiction at all as a child!)

Foxyloxy you are right about knowledge being devalued. The 2007 curriculum specifically focused on skills as being more important. The argument is that in an Internet age you can always look things up. But to be able to use skills properly, or to think deeply about an issue, you need to have subject knowledge as well.

Reading comprehension, in particular, suffers if the reader hasn't got enough general knowledge. You can coach for SATS and GCSE English Language reading comprehension skills all you like, but if the subject of a piece of writing is unfamiliar due to lack of general knowledge, or a child's level of vocabulary knowledge is low, they will struggle to comprehend.

Maybe for secondary there is more coaching for tests but I don't feel it's like that in primary.

My dc have a really good grasp of the basics plus really good IT skills, general knowledge and are not held back having to read the same old biff and chip book reading out loud one page at a time going through the whole class.

They do interesting things and as for history they know far more then I ever did at their age. I hadn't even heard of the mayans or any Chinese history apart from Hong Kong when at primary. We did the tudors, romans, ww2 and Egyptians at primary in the 90s and that was it. My dc can talk about loads of historical events and different cultures histories. They really are more educated then I was at their age.

For example when doing the romantic topic the detail was amazing of what they learnt. Dress, food, superstition, traditions, gods, Christianity and then they got to dress up as romans and live a day in the life as one.

Their school isn't even an outstanding school it's a bog standard primary and when they started the school had been put in special measures and the head sacked. The knowledge my dc have is astounding to me.

Maybe all the testing and inspections has made schools be better instead of coasting.
You may just be right.
How nice to see something positive for once, although I notice the 'lack of creativity' tribe are in full flow.