experience of new NC - just out of interest

[nonicknameseemsavailable]

I am curious what other parents of quite bright children are finding their child is saying about the new curriculum.

partly what is the child finding but also if you feel your school are coping with challenging the brighter end of the class and in what way.

we have parents evening in the next few weeks and I have a fear from what is being said that my children are not being challenged in which case I would want to find out exactly how the school think they are challenging them so would be helpful to know how other schools are approaching it.

Thanks

I think this has been debated before. The first few hundred posts on the first glass ceiling thread, for example.

In short, the new NC is a little more challenging but places massive emphasis on mastery which, for more able kids, means practising things over and over again looking at it from every conceivable angle. Then once, that's been done, asking if the child is allowed to progress to something new, finding the answer is that there is no scope within the new NC, so they resume the repetition of what they already know again.

sorry I didn't read the glass ceiling posts.

I don't have an issue with mastery in itself but having read so much about how the curriculum was supposed to be harder (and perhaps I should actually just be thinking my children are lucky that they are able to deal with it if it really is) I am surprised it doesn't seem to be.

it seems to have killed any enjoyment my kids had for school completely.

I think possibly it is more difficult, but you know how it is... you move the boundary up a fraction and a sizeable number of kids suddenly struggle to reach it, but there are others for whom it is something they can do easily.

Its the mastery that makes it boring. That and the fact that many teachers interpret the new NC as meaning that there is a point beyond which they may not teach that year.

My ds tried the masterly assessment that teacherwith2kids gave us link to.
He done all up to year6 without problem. I was tempted to take it to school and ask them their opinion, if he already mastered NC for KS2 what are they going to do with him. (I won't do it, I already lost hope this year.)
Yet, he is still mastering something in YR3 curriculum everyday.

ooh I have obviously missed a link somewhere, any idea where I can find the mastery assessment please irvine101? I would be curious to look at it.

I think that is part of the problem - the teachers feel they CAN'T move on, and in some ways I fully support that, far better to ensure they really DO know the basics but it does make it dull and surely part of mastery could include touching on the next level of whatever the topic/skill is.

I did ask the school how they planned to challenge the more able children and got a sort of reply which sounded okish but in practice I am not so sure. Perhaps I will try to speak to someone in SLT about it separately depending on what my dcs teachers say at parents evening.

Here:

mathshubs.org.uk/what-maths-hubs-are-doing/national-curriculum-assessment-materials/

thank you - greatly appreciate that.