To think the primary school curriculum in the UK is too advance

[Kerry987]

I think the primary school curriculum in the UK is too advance for the majority of children. I think it it is OK for kids who are very academic and self learners, bright, but I think at least half of the kids struggle to keep up with it and need lots of support at school and home.

What do other parents and teachers think?

I had a meeting with the special needs person at my daughter's school a couple of years ago and she told me that I would be surprised to find out how many kids need help and support. This got me to think there is something wrong with the curriculum if so many kids need extra support.

Why are we overloading with so much information? We have been home schooling and there are things that my husband and I didn't see until secondary school

I also despair at lack of homework - I think this is a major differentiator between state and private. At least with Homeschool I can help my child with what he’s struggling

One of the top private schools in the country is near me. We went to the open day when my eldest was about to start primary. Their attitude was they didn’t give homework until the senior school. They said that they wanted to promote a love of learning and they had the children for 6 hours per day and if they couldn’t teach them what they needed to know in those 6 hours then they would consider themselves as having failed.
They said that family life was sacrosanct and they didn’t want to encroach on that time with homework.
It must work as there results are always in the top tier when it comes to GCSE and A level results

I think it is far too narrow and English in particular seems to be distilled into a technical exercise of identifying elements of types of text, etc and then recreating them. Pretty boring.

Aside from English and maths, the other subjects are just given passing reference almost like preparing for a general knowledge quiz. Yes, there is topic work, but it is so disparate in the timetable that the kids have really forgotten about what they did the last time they encountered it so it doesn't flow.

I should also add that DS has just spent ages learning about how to recognise and write an informal letter. The last question on that topic was asking why no-one sends informal letters anymore! Effectively just telling them that they have wasted their time learning this stuff at the end.

@IHateCoronavirus

After living overseas I think our Maths is behind/too simple, and our ability/expectations in foreign languages very low. My high, ability GCSE child is learning basic conversational Spanish. He wouldn’t be able to hold a meaningful conversation with a Spanish speaking person. Primary school children learn English to a higher degree overseas.

This just gave me flash backs of my French trip where we had to ask someone the time And we were all screwed as not one person gave the answer in the format we had been taught. So we didn’t understand it at all.

I sometimes feel feel that it is up for the children to learn what they need to pass the tests they take instead of encouraging a love of learning.

I found it too easy for dd1 and about right for dd2. Certainly not advanced. Dd1 could ready properly at 3, school then wanted her to learn letter sounds at 4 - what did they think preschool was for?

I think we are too quick to move onto teaching other subjects and don’t make sure everyone knows the basics..
A shocking amount of children leave school without being able to read and write. Something is going wrong somewhere

Having had 2 children go through the system my view is in primary there is a race to get to where the teaching is more in depth geography, history etc but it fails to give a solid grounding in the basics of maths reading and writing
In secondary school compared with my school work it is definitely less advanced.
One of my teachers in primary said that their job was to make sure everyone left with the foundations of maths and literacy and secondary was there to expand your knowledge of the world.
I think now the foundations aren’t there so for a lot of pupils they can’t meaningfully take part in the lessons and the teaching has to be made simpler than if the primary education had done its job in the first place

One of mine was in the higher maths group and the maths was so simple compared to what the old O level was.

@Catplanter

Is it really too advanced for reception aged children? My son aged 4.5 is in reception and learning how to count to 20 and what sound "G" makes. He could do that before he started.

@Catplanter for some kids, like yours, reception will be a recap of what they've learnt so far. But working in reception, I've met many children who can't count to five, don't know what a pencil is and are still in nappies. There's a big range.

I don't think standards are too high. I think our education system is poor. Teachers aren't respected by the public and aren't trusted by the government. Ridiculous pressure leads to teaching to the test with little time to encourage a love of learning or learning for learning's sake. Endless new (often pointless) iniatives keep that pressure high. Behaviour is generally poor (often unchecked by parents). Children start school with vastly different abilities, some with very little experience of being actively taught, some with confidence issues, many with a poor attitude to learning.

Teachers know their students and how to help them but there's so much in the way. There are also terrible standards everywhere as PPs have said (newspapers etc.) and the celebration of stupidity (e.g. many reality tv personalities) is probably unhelpful.

I disagree with those who suggest parents should help with homework though. Teach your children by all means, but studies suggest homework is best carried out independently. Homework should be something a student is able to do without help and any struggles should be addressed by the teacher.

@LarryUnderwood
Re: fronted adverbial etc. What on earth is wrong with learning the grammar 0f the language you speak? Genuinely don't understand the resistance to this.

There's a psychological element to it. The people who show the biggest resistance to learning grammar are the people who attended school during the period where grammar wasn't taught. It starts from the "I didn't learn that and I'm alright" mentality and that makes it different to understand why learning that stuff now can be useful.

@Jangle33
Every single teacher I know despairs at the English curriculum, certainly at the key stage 1/2 point. The teaching of literacy in particular seems to have been designed to take any kind of joy out of learning about the written or spoken word. They have turned literacy into maths, with far too much emphasis on made up grammar. It’s destroying any semblance of a love of learning.

That's not my experience at all and if teachers are chosing to deliver dry, uninspiring, language-poor lessons then that says more about the teacher than it does about the curriculum. I've taught Year Six for years, arguably the year group which requires the most grammar to be taught or reviewed, and our English lessons are still focused around the love of language and the power of imagination. The only difference is that the kids actually know how to use that imagination in a way that makes sense on the page and allows them to affect the reader's experience of their piece.

I remember one Mum being surprised the dc were learning to read straight away. I had already taught my dc to read and DS found it very easy and could use an index before he went to school. So it’s not just ability it’s parental attitude to education.

@Ikora

I remember one Mum being surprised the dc were learning to read straight away. I had already taught my dc to read and DS found it very easy and could use an index before he went to school. So it’s not just ability it’s parental attitude to education.

Quite right. I taught mine to read before he started school, and to write, a bit of arithmetic, etc. We cannot just rely on the school to do it all. My parents weren't all that great but I could read and write a bit before school too. Other things too - drawing and painting, puzzles, making things, finding out; it's fun to do that at home.

Not all children are ready for reading and writing before school age. I have one ds who was reading fluently at age 3, my other ds had no interest in letters or numbers until he was 5, youngest is 4 and reading simple sentences. All children are not ready at the same time no matter what parents are doing at home.

I remember one Mum being surprised the dc were learning to read straight away. I had already taught my dc to read and DS found it very easy and could use an index before he went to school. So it’s not just ability it’s parental attitude to education

I too tried to teach my son how to read. He wasn’t interested. It is about how willing your child is to sit down and learn or just to absorb words that are pointed out to them. Add to that dyslexia and ADHD and it doesn’t matter how great your parental attitude to education is your child is going to struggle to read and write before they get to school. By the time something clicks and they want to learn the schooling has moved on and they are left behind.
My son didn’t read till he was well into his teens. Homework which had to be done even if he couldn’t read made sure he was put off learning anything at school.
He is an adult now and he learned nothing going to school. He was written off.
The hyper focus that comes with ADHD means he can teach himself all sorts of things. He works from home now doing something that he taught himself to do and has started to learn another language.
He is definitely not a write off but school for him because he wasn’t taught to write in primary school was a complete waste of time and if anything wrecked his self esteem.
I tried to teach him but it was incredibly slow progress.

@Ikora I had already taught my dc to read and DS found it very easy and could use an index before he went to school
Your ds will not achieve higher results in his GSCE’s because you taught him to read before he started school. All you have done is taken away play opportunities from him.

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]**@Ikora* I had already taught my dc to read and DS found it very easy and could use an index before he went to school*
Your ds will not achieve higher results in his GSCE’s because you taught him to read before he started school. All you have done is taken away play opportunities from him.[/quote]
Rubbish. Reading and writing can be fun and play and there is plenty of time in a day to run around and play games as well as learning to read.

@Thesearmsofmine

Not all children are ready for reading and writing before school age. I have one ds who was reading fluently at age 3, my other ds had no interest in letters or numbers until he was 5, youngest is 4 and reading simple sentences. All children are not ready at the same time no matter what parents are doing at home.

If they are not ready, they won't do it and certainly shouldn't be pushed. However, I think most like learning to do a bit of reading and writing before school starts.

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]**@Ikora* I had already taught my dc to read and DS found it very easy and could use an index before he went to school*
Your ds will not achieve higher results in his GSCE’s because you taught him to read before he started school. All you have done is taken away play opportunities from him.[/quote]
Utter nonsense. The confidence boost alone is a huge advantage.

I could read well before I went to school. I was reading the newspaper at 3.5.
I failed everything
It means nothing

@Bythemillpond

I could read well before I went to school. I was reading the newspaper at 3.5. I failed everything It means nothing

I don't agree. It means something at the time and instills confidence. Many kids don't achieve much in school (I didn't, achieved more later on), but at least you started off with a bit more than the basics.

However children will only learn to do things if they are interested and it isn't a competition.

I'm sure there will always be individual exceptions based upon individual circumstances. However, if we are discussing the impact of reading, we need to point out that the studies show that a child who reads regularly (averaging out at around 100 minutes per week) does significantly better than their peers when it comes to GCSE.

On top of that, a child who reads regularly like that encounters, on average, over 1.5 million more words than a child who doesn't per year. With how that widens your vocabulary and understanding of the world, that's the sort of thing that has an impact for life.

@Catplanter for some kids, like yours, reception will be a recap of what they've learnt so far. But working in reception, I've met many children who can't count to five, don't know what a pencil is and are still in nappies. There's a big range.

An entire year 'recapping' is enough to put a lot of children off school, particularly when it's combined with the physical limitations of having to sit quietly for increasingly long stretches.

The lack of physical and mental stimulation in reception led to my otherwise reasonably able son really struggling with motivation and enthusiasm for learning because he just saw it all as one boring slog.

I don't know how teachers can reasonable be expected to cater for the needs of an entire class to be honest, particularly in reception. There were several children who have gone on to have one-to-one support who were obviously in need of assessment at that stage, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day to complete observations, engage the outliers and introduce the wide variety of new skills needed at that stage of schooling. I think lack of meaningful investment in education is more problematic than any other aspect.

I found as a secondary foundation subject teacher that general, breadth of knowledge tends to be weak and frequently lacking in basics because so much of the curriculum is geared towards passing SATs. Some schools were better than others, and some curious, motivated students did have that base. But you couldn't assume a basic knowledge of something such as key places around the UK. Meanwhile you're being judged by their progress on their starting point from the English SATs which may be inflated at the cost of a range of subjects. Within my subject, the assesment cycles reached the point of covering a third of the curriculum time with very little space left for breadth. Topics were dropped with the end result of y9s writing in a lot of depth about very little and many lacking general subject context. I left at the point that many Gove era changes were being implemented (what a farce!)

My experience of homeschooling from y2-y5 is that English is painfully dry and dull. Add in a child with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD and it's torturous. I'm supposed to be doing that Jane Considine stuff with them; it's impossible for them to follow and on totally the wrong wavelength. Instead, I'm using Bitesize as a bit of a structure and gradually getting them to write a story based on Minecraft to tap into what they like and get them interested enough to write sentences, then we can work with it.

I'm not against grammar, but the curriculum is the wrong way round for many pupils. Children start school being able to verbally construct a sentence having spent their early years building up their vocabulary. They are then expected to write in a very prescribed checklist way, often before they have gained confidence in writing in a fluid way. Putting the grammar in at that stage is a hurdle, not an enhancement. Great literature texts use these gramatical techniques but not to a formula. Dumping in the fronted adverbials, alliteration, onamatapeia, similies etc often overloads the writing and impairs creativity and expression. People write best out of expression and creativity and the KS1 & KS2 curriculum tramples over that.

As a literature and language lover, I see the value of grammar but there is a disconnect in the arrangement of the curriculum between excessive use in the primary curriculum and where it becomes genuinely useful in the secondary years.

Understanding a subordinate clause is handy in A-level MFL, but not so handy to a 7yo who struggles writing a paragraph.

God, no. UK standards are almost the worst in Europe.

I think that in general , children suffer from lack of challenge in their lives - not necessarily just at school but in wider life. Lots of posts where people think a five year old can't walk a mile a day, or where they can't be toilet trained before school.

We often underestimate children's abilities.