To think primary school children are smarter than we were in the 1980's?

[Littleideasbigbook]

After observing zoom lessons for two weeks and supporting my DD with her school work, I am pretty impressed with the cognitive abilities of 9 year olds in this country tbh.

There is definitely a spectrum of children in DD's class, of both demographics and ability, (Yorkshire village but next to a big industrial town that has a high index of social deprivation) so not all of them are super performers but the baseline level of applied knowledge, problem solving, analysis, socialisation, literacy, speech, presentation and grasp of technology is not that far off what I see at work if I am honest.

The way they are introduced to a new concept and then build their knowledge in stages, contextualise it then relate it to other subjects is amazing. They did a geography lesson on climate and biomes (they all knew what a bloody Tundra was!) and had a class discussion on different biomes in relation to the equator. One boy said 'Oh Miss C, is that an arid climate because of the angle of the sun?' and the teacher (cleverly) linked in with previous learning in science and maths. Don't get me started on their literacy either...they are amazing! When I was 9 I remember being bamboozled by Jesus feeding 5k people with 2 loaves and a few fish (catholic school) but it didn't occur to me to question it and say hang on, the maths doesn't add up here. I hear loads of people slag off the curriculum (and I don't doubt it is a pain to work with btw) but whatever schools are doing to translate it into practice, they are doing bloody well. The collaboration between the children is much better than I remember from my peers too - lots of feedback and peer marking, respectful. I wonder if better nutrition has helped? The internet? Parental involvement? Better quality teaching? Children's rights? I remember being leathered with a wooden spoon by the nuns and disliking school for that because I was a timid, tiny little girl. Maybe learning is helped by a lack of fear?

YABU - the primary aged kids I am in contact with are rubbish in comparison to my generation

YANBU - I have noticed that primary children seem much more able than in my day.

They seem to ask more of them, earlier
Some of the maths that DD is doing at 7, I didn’t do until 9 or 10 (1980s) and she is ahead in literacy too. We dabbled in french at junior school, she’s already got a decent grasp of french vocab
Next week’s maths is around data analysis, I’ll look forward to that 😳

This is an intetesting insight into adult literacy in this country:

literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/what-do-adult-literacy-levels-mean/

Kind of backs up that education, not cognitive abilities of the children themselves, is better. Although, you have to take into account that processing abilities in the brain decline after the age of 21, so that may impact on literacy levels.

Academically yes. I'm sure I spent most of my time in Infants playing whilst my DC is doing 'proper' work. Life skills such as being streetwise, mending things etc -not sure.

@WorriedMillie I wonder if they are using the same Maths book as my DD is data analysis next week too! My work life is data analysis (researcher) I am dreading DD asking me something and I don't know it and the zoom lesson teaching me any gaps haha!

As an ex primary teacher, I can tell you that children are not ‘smarter’ today but what might give you this impression is the expectations of the curriculum.

In recent decades, and especially since 2014 (when Gove in his wisdom - ha - changed the curriculum) what primary children are expected to know/learn has been massively increased. I can’t speak for secondary schools but I’m guessing it had the same knock-on effect.

So for example, ten years ago, something that children were expected to know age 11
(such as all their times tables up to 12x12 or how to find equivalent fractions) they now have to know age 9.

KS1 children have to learn times tables that didn’t used to be in KS1, same with certain grammar structures.

Another reason is that many more complex grammatical concepts (such as the subjunctive tense, expanded noun phrases etc) and higher mathematical concepts (such as algebra) were brought into the primary curriculum.

When I was at primary school in the 80s, these weren’t taught.

The reason this IMO creates a wider gap is that those children today who are ready for such concepts, cope really well with this and thrive. Conversely, those who aren’t ready sadly get left behind.

It’s become a bit of a race. Often when children get to secondary school today they don’t have the proper grounding in understanding because schools are under so much pressure to get boxes ticked and to cover so much ground.

My dd is yr1 state school and now I have to do homeschooling for her, I am surprised by the content of the curriculum for a 5/6 year old.

Recently the teacher wanted pupils to label medieval armour using words such as cuisse, sabaton, poleyn, rerebrace. I don't understand what the point of spelling these words was, other than getting them to practise handwriting in general.

Also the technical language the children are expected to use especially for maths and phonics. Words like avatar, algorithm, phoeneme.

Some children still leave some schools with poor literacy skills:

readingagency.org.uk/about/impact/002-reading-facts-1/

Statistics from 2014 show that one in five children in England cannot read well by the age of 11.

Further research, conducted in 2015, found that similar percentages of 15-year-olds across the UK do not have a minimum level of literacy proficiency: 18% in England and Scotland, 15% in Northern Ireland and 21% in Wales.

Students are less able to learn other curricula if they do not develop sufficient reading skills by the middle of primary school.

Only 35% of 10-year-olds in England report that they like reading 'very much'. This lags behind countries like Russia (46%), Ireland (46%), New Zealand (44%), and Australia (43%).

By the final year of compulsory schooling in England, the reading skills of children from disadvantaged backgrounds are on average almost three years behind those from the most affluent homes.

I have to admit I spent a lot of time with our children's reading prior to later primary schools years because it was obvious if we didn't they'd be left to suffer and not catch up - I do wonder if that's behind the difference in affluence and reading levels the reliance on the home environment/money to plug any gaps.

The reason this IMO creates a wider gap is that those children today who are ready for such concepts, cope really well with this and thrive. Conversely, those who aren’t ready sadly get left behind.

Our children are summer borns so some of the youngest in school years- so yes they may have not been ready for some concepts so we helped a lot at home as we had time, money and knowledge to do so.

I was at school in 78-93 in Scotland and whilst IT went from non existent through BBCs to Apple mac's and was really not taken seriously. So obviously kids are more competent in IT than my generation but everything else has gone down hill.
Kids aren't taught history or the classics just ask any of them about homer or any of the great philosophers and all you get is blank looks. Same with the industrial revolution, ww1, the suffragettes, the great depression and how it lead to the rise of the nazi party and ww2.
Critical thinking and debating have gone too.
How many kids actually know how to do long multiplication or division without a calculator?
Yet they all the rights of the child and Queen theory.
Yes things are better for SEN kids (if only because its acknowledged) dyslexic people (like me) are nolonger abused by teachers, but really things should be better

[quote Littleideasbigbook]@WorriedMillie I wonder if they are using the same Maths book as my DD is data analysis next week too! My work life is data analysis (researcher) I am dreading DD asking me something and I don't know it and the zoom lesson teaching me any gaps haha![/quote]
Ex academic researcher here, I’m half looking forward to it and half dreading it

I was at school in the 80s and 90s but in inner London.

My primary school education covered English and Maths plus things like circuit boards, basic statistics and computing. Subjects like History, the Arts and Science involved sometimes being taken on trips to local streets, parks and commons so our local environment was used as a tool for learning.

(I only realised I learnt basic statistics because every time I have taught someone certain concepts I find I start with what I was taught with from age 8. )

In regards to English grammar we were only taught the very basics and it wasn't touched again until English GCSE.

Anyway helping various children I know out now, I noticed that they cover a lot but particularly in Maths have no understanding of the concepts they are being taught. My friends brought up abroad notice this issue more.

Wonder if this is what I am observing - a big breadth of knowledge but a lack of depth.

But in regards to long multiplication and division. The 9 year olds in DD's class definitely do know how to do it. Been watching them all week!

I was born 72 so educated 70’s and 80’s going from a state primary and comp to Oxbridge, first generation to go to University.

Education is better now. Values taught in school are (IMHO of course!) better than in my day. And hurrah for all that!

Teachers follow a curriculum which they didn’t when I was in school, they are inspected and checked regularly. In general, they are child centric, positive, encouraging and inclusive. There are positive reward systems and children don’t live in fear of being casually assaulted, mocked or humiliated as a form of control. I went to a primary where as Pp mentioned too, religion took up a big slice of time. I went to a secondary where the teachers were extremely negative about what we could achieve. I’m so glad my son is in school now.

Oh and also kids aren’t just taught facts, they are taught strategies to learn and do well in exams.

Certainly at DDs school there's more emphasis on inclusion and lots of help to access the curriculum.

Definitely.

I think learning is more advanced at a younger age. But I personally think their imagination and free thinking is not as good.

I agree. I think a lot of it is down to parenting though - parents are more driven in educating their kids these days. I guess the jobs market being more competitive and degrees being the only route in to certain professions where it wasn't previously required in the 80's might be urging parents to provide more education at home and expect more from schools. I think parenting was much more laissez-faire in the 80's than now, so parents putting pressure on schools is likely to result in schools upping their game more.

Schools and nurseries are more scruitinsed now too. I knew a lady who used to smack kids in my nursery in the 80's . My primary was an absolute shit hole of deprivation, but we had a new headmaster who really turned it around. It fell to bollocks again and closed for a while, before it was reopened again with a similar headmaster who made it an outstanding primary. Does anyone know how schools were inspected/rated in the 80's?

Pedagogy has come on a long way. A lot of emphasis is put on the soft skills that we value in the corporate workplace. The problem solving is more important than the right answer

I’d agree that most schools are more child centric as a general rule. Kids are valued as people more today. Teachers can’t bully like they used to. Safeguarding is rightly here to stay. There’s more positivity and encouragement but on the flip side there is a different kind of pressure on kids. Academic pressure.

The fact that schools are inspected more is a double edged sword. It keeps children safer and schools more accountable but it keeps them TOO accountable in my opinion. There is so much pressure on schools which is put on teachers which in turn is put on children.

I do feel though as a child who went school 80's and a little 90's that we had more free time and funtime outside ,regular school plays in assembly and cooking lessons and I don't remember too much pressure or exams in primary. Other than weekly spelling test ( spelling words often in a tobacco tin- that would go down well now )
Content seems more and I remember my boys coming home with spelling words of which they never knew the meaning , and couldn't use in a sentence , so
I couldn't understand why ?
Times tables is so much better although we had a scottish teacher at primary who wrote a rhyme fpr time tables which helped ( well said he wrote it but could of been anyone)

I think the general baseline of teaching is far superior than it used to be - across the board.

DH and I are degree educated professionals but I’m actually getting nervous that when DS starts school I won’t be able to help him as it’ll be so advanced!

The national curriculum has helped hugely, as has Ofsted. I know everyone complains about Gove and the demands on the modern teaching profession (I can’t speak to the rights and wrongs of this) but something somewhere is going right of standards are far higher than they used to be.

I was at primary school in the late 1960's to mid 1970's. It was different then but I think part of the reason for that is down to the requirements of the NC. When I was at primary school, it was expected that you would learn to read, write and whatever maths was considered appropriate then. That doesn't mean we didn't over history, geography, science etc. But they were more a vehicle for honing our writing skills. The endless projects, which are the subject of much derision, I think were actually very valuable. A good project involved research, so maybe a trip to the library or writing a letter to someone/somewhere with a particular knowledge of the subject. Our final.projects often included some sort of a report, maybe a piece of persuasive writing, a balanced argument, lots of facts and figures and had to be presented to the class. Many of those skills are now taught, but sadly, I feel that very often we spend so.much time on the technical elements for writing, that children don't have the same opportunities to write creatively now.
We definitely learn a lot of maths earlier than I did - many things we now learn in years 5 and 6, are things I didn't learn until I was at secondary school (I passed 11+ and went to grammar school though the LA changed all our local schools to comprehensive while I was there).
On balance, I don't think today's children are any more or less able than we were in my day, it's just that they are taught differently now and learn some things earlier.

Not more intelligent no . Their parents have become more competitive so will invest more heavily in their children’s education.
I think exams are easier than they were in the 70’s and 80’s .

We are leaning towards a population who are book smart but lack many of the basic life skills .