to wish the school would change their curriculum occasionally?

[Potatosaladfiend]

Sort of lighthearted as I pour a (large) glass of wine.

We have three children, two year gap apiece. Lovely village school. We enjoy supporting learning at home.

The school seem to rotate their curriculum on a year A/year B basis.

This means that, for example:
Child 1, yr 2 topic, 4 yrs ago was the Crimean war.
Child 2, yr 2 topic, 2 yrs ago was the Crimean war.
And (you can see where this is going!), child 3 is in year 2 this year, surprise surprise, it’s the Crimean war.

It’s the same every year, every topic is identical to what the elder child studied at the same age. We’re hitting the same topics three times over.
I don’t blame the teachers for this at all, I understand that it saves time on planning, they’ve obviously found some fantastic resources as the same ones appear every time.

But I’m sick to death of the same subjects; the kids have heard it all before and surely (surely?!) the teachers must also be completely fed up with teaching the same things over and over again.

I know IABU and this is the consequence of having three children but lord give me strength for another year of Florence Nightingale. I really wish they’d switch it up a bit and let us loose on the Romans or the Egyptians, or basically any other topic!

@WheelieBinPrincess

Wait till they get ti GCSE, An Inspector Calls is still on the curriculum after about 20 years.

32. I did it at GCSE in 1989.

Mind you, how long has Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth been on the exam specs? Bet that's longer.

Where I work there's no pounds and no pence to resource more varied schemes of work.

Our school doesn't repeat topics enough. So that Roman costume for DD1 isn't needed for DD2, instead she needs to dress all in yellow or similar. To be fair, I wouldn't give a shit about their topics if they could just stop with the dressing up requests. It's the thing I hate most about primary school.

In the spirit of the lighthearted nature of the thread YANBU - it's boring for us. But realistically, there is only so much that teachers/examining board/can cover and it means they know their subjects well...

As a previous poster said - wait till you get to GCSE...

I am in my later forties and studied Macbeth, Animal Farm and An Inspector Calls. DH did the same (year later) but swapped out Macbeth for A Christmas Carol.

DD did GCSE last year and studied Macbeth, 1984 and An Inspector Calls.

DS in Year 10 and they will be doing Macbeth, Animal Farm and A Christmas Carol.

We practically know Sheila Birling now.

But in all honesty, the whole curriculum is a bit nonsense to me now. I can't really get my head around how little it has changed since I was at school, given the advances in our world.

I did the Fire of London three times Bloody pro by the end!

I can’t believe An Inspector Bastarding Calls has been on there that long- twice as long as I thought.

He needs to stop calling.

My sons both used exactly the same Latin text books and course as I did, only 32 years apart!

Please let that be Ecce Romani!

I teach the same topics every year as far as possible because not only does it save me hours in planning, I get better at it each time because I know whatever worked last time. Also I spend a considerable amount of my own money on resources and don't want to keep buying new. There are so many ongoing changes and focus in schools that nothing is ever entirely the same even if taught twice. The thought of having to plan and resource all new topics every single year makes me want to cry. Planning from scratch takes forever.

I had to study Antony and Cleopatra for GCSE, A level, & my degree.

All English depts seemed to be obsessed with it.

Fraid not!
Caecilius est pater. Metella est mater, Quintus est filius. Clements est servus.

And don't get me started on Cerberus!

But the fact that they don’t change their curriculum is what ensures that children don’t do the same topics more than once? So if Year 2 always do Florence Nightingale/Crimean War, and Year 3 always do Romans, Year 4 always do Tudors, Year 5 always do Egyptians and Year 6 always do WW2 then there’s no repetition for the children. However if the teachers said “actually I feel like changing it up and doing Egyptians in Year 3 instead”, then what happens when that group of children then reach Year 5 where they were meant to do Egyptians? Or if more than one teacher does the same history topic two years running? There needs to be a whole school overview of which year groups do which topics and this needs to be stuck to to ensure coverage. This will also be in line with the National Curriculum for History, which although doesn’t prescribe which year groups topics should be taught, it does prescribe topics to “key stage 1” (years 1 and 2), “lower key stage 2” (years 3 and 4) and “upper key stage 2” (years 5 and 6). In the History National curriculum there are some statutory things which must be taught and some non-statutory that are guidance. It can be read here:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239035/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_History.pdf

Clemens not Clements- honestly autocorrect clearly didn't study the same course😇

@spanieleyes

My sons both used exactly the same Latin text books and course as I did, only 32 years apart!

Latin hasn’t changed in over 2000 years so probably no change in the past 32 years

Ask the school if they mention Mary Seacole when doing the Crimean War. If they don't, ask why.

Actually I do feel your pain at having to repeat the flaming Biff, Chip and Kipper books with my children, that’s painful!!

Caecilius pater est, surely? 🤣

@llansannan11 I bloody hope they do- we did the Crimean war at gcse and did loads on MS.

Given that Mary Seacole ( and Florence Nightingale) are both specifically mentioned in the National Curriculum, why wouldn't they!

My DS's teacher asked the class for ideas on what to do as their next topic, rejected some outright, then picked the most popular of the rest. I was impressed. Though maybe 7yos are predicable enough to make it a safe enough gamble.

I realise that by a certain age the children need to be covering certain topics as a foundation for later learning. However, I do think it should be child led as much as possible, especially at that age.

@Cocomarine
No, definitely Caecilius est pater.
Mind you, that was only Stage 1- by the time I did O level, I could translate Virgil's Aeneid, Book 2 by memory!

I wish I'd studied the crimean war at all! I'd heard of Florence and Mary but didn't have any idea what the crimean war was until I looked it up a few weeks ago after an episode of Dr Who. I would consider myself pretty educated as well

I actually don't remember doing any history at primary except Egyptians. I learned everything from my Horrible Histories books, guess they didn't have one on Crimea.

It's the same because the school have to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum. In some areas, there's very little choice about what to teach, even down to the specific lessons so that all objectives can be covered in time. In others, there's barely any guidance at all and too much freedom. History falls into the former group.

And, yes, Mary Seacole is covered in Year 2.

I feel your pain! I was bored stiff of hearing my brother grumping about Animal Farm and pissed off when I had to do it myself. The unchanging curriculum does seem utterly bizarre as a PP said when believe it or not quite a few decent plays and novels have been written over the past 50-70 years.

Ah of course I know I’m being unreasonable, I did say it was lighthearted.

I come from a teaching family and I get it. I know it saves time and energy and I’m really grateful.

I think what’s impacting my, ahem, lack of enthusiasm this year more than ever is that we’re hitting the 2020 homeschooling topics again.

We do discuss school topics quite a lot at home and they are set particular reading, worksheets and projects every week. I will of course put on my enthusiastic face when I’m being told all about the same things, and helping with same projects, again.