Secondary School Curriculum: Do you know anything about it?

[Nelleh]

Does anyone else agree with me that, unless you work in education, it is quite unlikely you will be abreast of changes to the curriculum.

The primary and secondary curriculae are currently going through huge changes.

The Dcfs has a very good website but how are we parents supposed to know about it?

Do you think education (and not as a political football or weekly section) should feature more in the media?

Would this make all parents more aware (if only
by osmosis?)

Agree. It's hard enough for teachers to keep abreast of the changes, so it must be baffling for parents.

It's amazing really that so few people out of education have a good idea about what goes on, and very frustrating that so much misinformation is carried by the media in the name of politics.

A local reporter came to our school for the day recently to spend the day as a student and she couldn't get over how much schools have changed and are changing since she went to school (and she was only 29). The article she wrote was great and made such a change from the usual slagging and/or generalisations in the media.

BBC breakfast does an occasional series based on innovation in schools, but there's not much out there in terms of regular information sharing and reporting.

It wont stop all parents being experts though will it

I spose the most you get is every August when the media report on the A levels and GCSEs with the rider 'Are exams getting easier?' , and the DM will print completely out-of-context exam questions then it goes quiet for the rest of the year.

I agree - as a teacher, I often have to explain things to parents, and even having done that, they are still confused! What concerns me most are parents of students doing qualifications like BTECs, etc,and not really understanding the possible future ramifications of these qualifications.

However, I don't think the media will pick up on it moren- I really think it is the parent's responibility to look very carefully at the Year 9 options booklet and make sure they ask about anything they are not sure of.

Thank you all for your responses!

Haggisfish, I quite agree regarding qualifications. Diplomas will apparently meet the needs of industry but I'd like to see how many employers would take a diploma over GCSE/A levels. We should be more in line with other countries respect for vocational qualifications but we're entrenched in our respect for academia. Anyone met a poor plumber/builder?