How would you reform primary education?

[Hobbleouchouch]

I found the secondary education thread really interesting.

As a soon-to-be-primary-school-parent, I would love to know your thoughts on what would make the perfect primary school!

Thanks!

I don't agree with you.

But what does it matter?

Who cares if one teacher in the world says they don't want to accept complaints in a certain way.

I don't see what point you're trying to make.

I'm in Scotland where standards are falling, likely related to the much disliked 'curriculum for excellence' which is more skills based than knowledge based. They are also moving to play based primary 1 which seems like a bad idea when the quality of early years education is pretty patchy - from talking to parents with kids in P1 their kids basically only get taught for about a quarter of the day. I'm deeply unconvinced that less teaching in a country where standards are falling can be a good thing. I was at primary school in the 80s/early 90s and it definitely wasn't playbased then. The outcomes measures show English attainment is higher than Wales or Scotland, so why drastically change the English primary system? Surely we should be copying the English approach to Scotland & Wales?
(disclaimer - I'm not a teacher but work in an area which is endlessly subject to non-evidence based political 'reforms' that sound good on paper but in reality are expensive and usually not an improvement)

My children (infants level) attend a lovely village primary, with the advantage (although I hate putting it like that but it is only so because of limited resources) that there do not happen to be any very demanding SEN pupils in their classes. There is also a very well funded PTA. They have a teacher and full-time TA in every class of 30 students.

There's not a lot I'd change at their school so far, but I do wish for the following:

• That they did more sports / physical activity. I think it should be every single day
• That they did more music sessions at school and instrumental lessons were subsidised or better yet free for all students
• Less homework and no screens required / expected for homework
• This is really wishful thinking but a cook preparing healthy food instead of shipped in UPF for the school cafeteria

I'd also get behind any measures that improve rewards and professional autonomy for teaching staff. I haven't come to the stage yet but I don't think primary school should have any exams at all.

I definitely think school meals should be improved.

Smaller class sizes
More TA
Better behaviour management/ intervention
SLT presence ant the start and end of day (loads of parent fights and not a staff member in sight)
SLT actually listening to teachers and parents
More money for resources (we had no glue for the last 2 months and all the paper seems to be previously enjoyed)
Reinstate wrap around care (school got rid and said it's not cost effective)
Reinstate soft start (school started 15 minutes early and every child was offered breakfast they got rid of it)
To have a week taken off summer and allow parents to have a discretionary week during the academic year.

Yes to everyone having a discretionary holiday week including school staff.

Our school bought pencils so cheap they snapped after one letter/number was written. No electronic pencil sharpeners. We bought our own so the children could at least do their SATs without that obstacle! The glue sticks were so cheap they didn’t stick. We all bought our own. I spent c£600 on school supplies in 6 months and the NQT spent over £1k!

SLT listening to staff and parents?! Pigs might fly!

Slowwww down the English and Maths curriculums
More music, art and real engaging science
Outside more, forest school as standard
No more SATs, no more stupid phonics screenings/times table screening etc.,

With these changes, there will be small but positive outcomes for those children with low-level learning difficulties, I feel.

More life skills, first aid, bike maintenance, basic principles of gardening. Explaining how things work, old clocks, radios and the interconnection in the world. Food and nutrition.

Forest schools from building a den to saving our natures.

Sewing and motor skills

Lots of singing it's so good for learning

All of this plus more autonomy to follow children's interests and to teach flexibly rather than rigidly following schemes and policies.
Get rid of Ofsted

I’ve always looked at it from the teacher perspective and I’ve now quit and I’m soon to be looking at it from the parent perspective - it’s so strange. For me as a teacher it was the behaviour that was the major problem and because you couldn’t tackle that, it just killed any chance of achieving anything else. There weren’t any staff available to come and help when dealing with extremely violent children. I had a child smash a window, been kicked hundreds of times, been spat at, had chairs thrown at me, been sworn at etc. A lot of these children should never have been in a mainstream classroom to begin with. The local authority (where I stay) are saving money and cutting staff and resources but what stings the most about it is the fact they’re playing it off as ‘inclusion’. It’s honestly laughable. The goodwill of teachers is being exploited time and time again and it started to cause me major anxiety issues as I was basically lying repeatedly when talking to parents to cover up for the local authority and the management in my school (who were nowhere to be seen half the time).

When I’d already decided I was leaving I was in the staff room when the head teacher came in to put up pieces of paper on the notice board. One was looking for ‘volunteers’ for the school disco, another for a Saturday event, one for the Christmas fayre and another for a Monday to Friday residential trip. I pointed out (after she was away) that no other workplace would have optional overtime advertised on a notice board like that, with the added bonus of being unpaid. If you work somewhere, it’s for money. It’s not a charity, it’s a place of WORK. That’s not being mean-spirited towards the children, it’s just the facts of how a job works. If the job itself was actually doable, never mind enjoyable, I’m sure lots of us would happily give up time with our own family’s to attend these events but it’s the fact you’re basically crawling out the building black and blue, most likely having a cry on the way home, but oh yeah, il be back at 7 for the disco 🕺

Sorry, just went off on a tangent but basically more staff, less of a culture of fear around inspections and observations like everyone’s going to get ‘caught out’, an army sergeant in an office somewhere in the school who comes at a moment’s notice to deal with challenging behaviour, management who have your back and basic resources to actually do the job.

No
I disagree with every single thing you have written.
Sounds like a free for all.
Most kids thrive on routine and structure.
Movement , nutrition and green space for example is what parents should provide , taking their kids outdoors etc.
School is for structure and learning.
Too much softly softly / gentle gentle
Its not playgroup , it’s school.

@PPD i think you have hit the nail on the head within your first paragraph , again around children that should not be in mainstream education.
Inclusion policy is killing education.

These are all things that should be taught / learned / enjoyed in family life.
These are not things to be learned at school.
Everything you’ve listed can be taught in the family unit by mothers / fathers : grandfathers etc .

Play based and child led learning with outdoor education (instead of classroom sit at your desk learning) up through the whole of primary. All teachers and TAs trained in attachment based education such as RIE. I don't understand why basic maths is ever taught sitting at a desk when there are so many opportunities to bring this to life outside or in real settings.

The curriculum to be revised and shifted towards essential basic knowledge and skills.

Lots of breaks and shorter terms. Holiday entitlement to be the same as school holidays.

Assistant teachers for every class. Smaller class sizes.

Move SATS to end of year 5 (aligned to curriculum at that point). Anyone in a grammar area that gets greater depth in at least one of the English subjects and maths gets entered into a random ballot for a grammar place. Would save a ton of hassle and end tutoring and level the playing field re tutoring.

Give teachers back their autonomy

Scrap SATS

Bring back school plays, dancing, art, drama, cookery - all the fun creative stuff

More art, more music, more P.E.

Scrap uniform & SATS. Not start school until age 6, keep children in nursery or preschool an extra year, stagger starting like it used to be, start the term after child turns 6. Smaller class sizes, full-time TA in every class, teach to the child, not the curriculum, as long as a child leaves primary with the basics, good reading, writing & maths skills & basic knowledge of things like history, geography, nature, human biology, make time for art, drama, music, cooking, sport & exercise. Extend primary to age 13, then move to secondary for 4 years specialist teaching, take GCSE's at 17 & increase school leaving age.

Smaller classes. This is #1, the UK has gone for years under the misguided idea that 30 kids in a primary class is appropriate and a TA can make up for that.

"back to basics" isn't really great imo, it makes the curriculum awfully dull. Correctly planned, the other subjects reinforce basic maths and reading skills. The problem with UK primary education seems to be that too much is being stuffed in.

The science does support phonics. The USA is having a big thing over the science of reading. Sight words don't work. The issue is that phonics need to be supported by having children actually read books.

Proper inclusion and support for SEN.

Outdoor education would be deeply unpleasant most of the year where I grew up - you'd be in the dark half the day in winter for a start. I hated being forced outside for playtime in the cold & wet - and still find I'm very unproductive if the office is too cold. Schools need support to deal with pupil & parent behaviour plus a functioning non-mainstream system for kids with significant additional needs. Changing the curriculum achieves nothing if kids are throwing chairs (or logs presumably in forest school)

It’s such a joke. At least just own it and say we have no money so we can’t afford any staff and will just need to put kids in mainstream school who shouldn’t be there.

Nah let’s find a bit of ‘research’, do an inservice day on it and pass it off as an improvement. Then when we observe teachers we can just blame them, sorted 🙃

Parents also have a right to mainstream. I know of 4 families who were offered specialist in my DS school and it is a disaster as there are so many kids slipping through the net my DS included. The cynic in me thinks they are doing it so younger siblings get in as its a very sought after school.

Absolutely this. I am a retired teacher who started in the mid 80s. I chose to work in Early Years which remained relatively unstructured for a long time but that had changed, in my school at least, by the time I left.

I was trained to work using children's interests while still teaching basic skills. Younger teachers are generally no longer able to do this (I'm sure there are exceptional individuals) having only been taught to teach to the tests.

A variety of alternative provision for children unable to thrive in mainstream settings. Teaching assistants that are not drafted in to cover classes. Behaviour management that moves away from restorative approach. Less prescriptive curriculum.... Children cannot honestly be expected to retain information at the scale that they are.