What changes would you make to the national curriculum if you ruled the world.

[reallytired]

I would scrap all homework in reception/ keystage 1 except for reading.

I would allow plenty of play based learning in year 1 and year 2.

I would start children when they were ready rather than an arbitary birth date.

I would allow more flexiblity in the secondary school curriculum. The special school I used to work at had skills groups with mixed age classes. A child was weak at particular area like hand writing or PE or social skills then they could have 5 lessons in their area of weakness a week. I am sure that skill groups could be used to challenge gifted children as well,

I would teach boys that no means no.

... and girls that they don't have to be polite to knobs who make remarks about their tits/arses etc. Tell them to fuck off.

I would greatly expand the teaching of MFLs. At least 2 compulsory, more optional. And start the first MFL from Reception.

Oh, and I agree that flexibility regarding the age of entry would make much sense.

Everything in the OP. Ditto MFL.

I would also drop most of the IT stuff (they don't need to learn Word, PowerPoint, etc, at primary, and certainly don't need to be rainwashed into thinking that IT=Microsoft).

I would work more on presentation skills: handwriting, recitation, public speaking, music, dance, performance.

I would replace the IT stuff with proper IT. Ie. learning about the parts of a computer (Ie. take a desktop apart and show the children what a hard disk is)
Teach computer programming and HTML. Teach the children about the existance of different operating systems and the basics of computer networking. I agree that spending hours pissing about with microsoft office is pointless. Children need to use their brains and learn how to solve problems. However most of the above is best done as an option at secondary school level.

At primary school level I would teach them Logo and get the children to program a turtle. Using a programmable turtle is a great way helping their maths and general logic skills. I think that most children home their IT skills through other areas of the curriculum. Technology will be different in 20 years time and children need to learn adaptablity rather than a microsoft package.

I agree that MFL should be taught from reception. The standard of MFL teaching at my son's school is awful. However, I think schools need to think beyond just teaching French. Schools need to employ specialists at primary level who can actually speak the language.

Make KS1 much more play based, with formal learning starting later- similar to Scandanavian style.

More flexibility with schools encouraged to be more imaginative in their approach- working across age groups, children cooperating to take more control of their own learning, more learning outside the classroom.

A much more skills based curriculum rather than fact based.

Lots of media studies- enable children to objectively evaluate what they read, see and hear, especially with regards to bias and the agenda of the writer.

More emphasis on the scientific method- raise teens and adults who can look at the evidence and make their own minds up.

More speaking, listening and discussion.

More emphasis on reading for enjoyment and reading to satisfy your own curiousity.

More discussion of relationships, self-respect and respect for others. Specific discussion about consent and rape myths.

Overall I think that children should be taught to ask the questions- active learning, not just sitting there passively waiting to be taught.

Yes, definitely specialists for MFL. Also specialists for Music, which should be much more than just a half hour singing session each week. Also art specialists coming in for occasional events, if not as a regular thing.

I would make it a National Curriculum so that when you moved schools the schools are all at the same level teaching the same stuff in the same way. My DD has done Romans 3 times and never done Viking (unlike DS who has done them twice).

I would add in KS2 and 3 two components (assuming they can be squeezed in!)

a) common sense life skills: first aid, self defence and situation awareness (which could include "no means no"), car maintenance, home maintenance, cookery and nutrition (emphatically not food technology)

b) general knowledge - possibly by adjusting the curriculum for other subjects. The current aim is to teach pupils to think (ie processor power) and I wouldn't want to derail that. But I would like more facts (put more into the database that that processing power accesses).

And though it's not the most exciting thing to do, touch typing - possibly the single most useful life skill there is. Starting early until proficient.

Edith - absolutely agree.

Allow academic children to drop some subjects in Year 9.
I'd be happy for DS to drop Art/Music/DT all of which he hates and allow him to do other stuff he would love such as another language/astronomy/computer science (and I don't mean ICT ).

I'd drop it all except literacy and maths in primary.

SecretSantaSquirrels, I think I would allow non academic children to drop subjects in year nine and do something vocational. I think it would improve the standard of behaviour no end.

I would force children to do maths and english until they had achieved a level 7. As soon as they were level 7 standard (ie. GCSE grade C) I would let drop it if they wanted to.

I think that it would improve learning if childrern had more choice in general. There are ways into tricking children into learning maths and english or at least disguising the fact they are having a maths lesson. Children learn best when they are interested.

Scrap age cohorts where possible.
Close all infant schools and introduce free all-day kindergartens instead.
Teach everyone maths up to the age of 18, by specialist maths teachers in small groups.
Ditto English.
Open schools 8-6, 50 weeks of the year, and make the day less intense. Let people book leave as and when they need it, avoiding exam periods and school performances, up to a set limit of time.
More practical science.
More PE.
Less citizenship.
Less lining up.

I'd ban the setting of Making a Shoebox Theatre as homework for any age. Ever ever ever.

I would make the whole of the primary Science curriculum based on Natural History and outdoors observation.
That way teachers would not feel insecure about teaching "forces", kids would learn that outdoors is interesting and observation skills would improve
to be used analytically in all subjects at secondary.

"Open schools 8-6, 50 weeks of the year, and make the day less intense."

What would you envisage the children doing all that time?

Anything which fosters a love of languages and openess to other cultures from a very young age. Children learn MFL much better the younger they start. Cuts to MFL are an own goal I think, and the standard of MFL in the UK is appalling, as so few people are interested.

Just revisiting this thread in the light of today's announcement that all primary children will "know their tables by aged 8".

I was only a parent helper but I fumed at the National Curriculum when I sat in a Year 6 class with a group of children who could not add up or subtract, did not know their tables and could obviously not do division . The NC however, dictated that they must do fractions, percentages and long division. It was ridiculous.
These were not SN children just the lowest ability group.

This is what children are expected to know already by the age of 9.

Level 3 APP states:
? add and subtract two-digit numbers mentally, e.g.
? calculate 36 + 19, 63 ? 26, and complements to 100 such as 100 ? 24
? use mental recall of the 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 multiplication tables, e.g.
? multiply a two-digit number by 2, 3, 4 or 5
? understand finding a quarter of a number of objects as halving the number and halving again
? begin to know multiplication facts for ×6, ×8, ×9 and ×7 tables

SSS - 'lowest ability' usually equates to some learning difficulties (i.e. SN)!

And getting disenchanted 15 year olds to read Sophocles, Homer and Shakespeare? They are absolutely stark raving MAD! They've got to go!

I am quaking in my boots about what the new curriculum will entail. Can I avoid it by becoming an academy?

Actually, why are they writing a new curriculum if they want all schools to be academies? Who will use it? Am I getting confused again>>>>>>?

I'm a real old fogy when it comes to primary education.
Actually my point was that I agree that 9 year olds should know their tables. Those children I was "helping" were just below average ability. There was no reason they could not have learned tables if they had been properly taught them. Instead what seems to happen is there is an expectation that they will learn them at home. So the children from homes where there is parental support will know they tables just as they learn to read, but those without that support don't.
The window to learn the basics starts to close after KS1 because the NC has to be taught, even to those who still can't read or add up.

When I was at school a hundred years ago pretty much every child knew their tables off by heart in reception.

I would teach finances - how to organise them, how not to be shafted by big financial organisations, how to choose mortgages, savings etc, how to set up and run a business, how tax returns work.

I'd teach much more about relationships - how to develop them and sustain them. Parenting too. Not in a nanny state way, but showing different methods and their pros and cons so people don't enter into the most important aspects of their lives with no clue how to handle them.

'Open schools 8-6, 50 weeks of the year, and make the day less intense. Let people book leave as and when they need it, avoiding exam periods and school performances, up to a set limit of time.'

Yes - I've long thought this would be a good idea - it maybe that there were core hours 9 - 4.30 ish, and then there could be extra activities the rest of the time, but I'd definitely scrap all holidays except a standard week at Christmas and maybe a standard week in the summer, and then teachers and pupils could have 5 weeks 'annual leave' to take throughout the year like the rest of us. The extra time in school would make up for the disruption of teachers being off at different times, and you wouldn't teach much more than is taught now - you could just be more thorough/do the extras etc.

Touch typing

Listening skills, negotiation skills, presentation skills

Physical activity every day for every child (not just playtime and not cancelled for every sodding play rehearsal etc)

Cooking from primary age, and no I don't mean making flapjack, I mean proper cooking of meals.

Less focus on handwriting, especially joined-up handwriting

Play-based learning throughout KS1

More imaginative art, rather than 30 primary aged children all making identikit pictures.

Oh, and not strictly national curriculum, but class sizes of 15-20.

Shorter summer hols, and more consistent high-quality breakfast clubs (not just serving shit cereal, but porridge, fruit yogurt etc) and proper universal after-school care not run by bored under-qualified late teens/early twenties. So yes, I guess extended days.

I would also make school lunches compulsary, and cut down the cake content.