Curriculum for Ignorance - AAARRGH!!!

[gaelicsheep]

That's it really. Really really need to rant about this with other Scottish parents of primary age kids. Middle of P1 and I have no clue what my child is doing/should be doing/will be doing. The school is useless, I haven't seen a single example of work but I get the impression they're at least a year behind their English peers. What the hell is going on up here? I know the Scots excel at reinventing the wheel at every opportunity but this really takes the biscuit.

If anyone would like to explain why I'm wrong and how the Curriculum for Ignorance really is the best thing since sliced haggis I would be very pleased to hear it. Otherwise rant away with me please!

we saw the kids work at the parents night we had in november. It is all very woolly and you dont quite know what they are supposed to be doing/what level they are at, although ds is getting harder maths work as they have picked up his flair for numbers (apparent even at nursery).

I wouldn't expect any Scottish teachers to come along and defend it because as far as I am aware, most of them think it's pants too!!

IME it is great with a great teacher and rotten with a lazy teacher.

My ds's teacher is fantastic and he has done lots of writing and maths work - much of it has been done through play but has had the end result of a concrete piece of work that he has enjoyed doing and which has a real point.

My dd's teacher is lovely but a bit more laid back and I am concerned by the lack of concrete pieces of work being produced. It has improved of late but there is an element of an excuse just to have fun and not really teach much.

I think it is all about learning outcomes. It is not enough to have an activity related to the topic being studied that is fun. It HAS to have a clear, specific and VALUABLE learning outcome too.

Can you ask the teacher to explain the learning outcomes of specific pieces of work? It may be that there was more to it than you thought and if not it may plant that expectation in the teacher's mind.

Otherwise it is very difficult to tackle. It is very tricky to challenge a teacher on the quality of their teaching.

You could ask to see her once every 6 weeks or so to discuss your dc's progress which would force the teacher to have made some progress by the next time you visit.

I agree, CforE is too touchy feely. Some parents at a recent parents night liked it as they wanted their kids to have a more relaxed experience where emphasis was placed on learning through fun and things being topic based. I'm in the other camp where I feel school is for learning and I want to see results. (This makes me sound like an ogre)

I know a lot of Scottish teachers are really struggling with it.

I 2nd what carrots says it the teacher is keen and hard working it works great and learning through play has been proved over and over to be great for young children. Unfortunately if you have a lazy bored teacher it's a nightmare! If it doesn't make sense at primary you should try and make sense of it at secondary level!!

Mine are in S5 and S4, so doing highers and standard grades, but friends with children in S1 are really worried and confused about CFE in secondary. I think the concept makes sense for primary - but depends a lot on how good the teacher is - but is a nightmare in secondary. They're talking about teachers specialising less, so that for example, a biology teacher could also theoretically teach maths. Nuts!

DS is in p1 and has great teachers. He has two due to a large class. He is four and reading at the level of a 6 year old. We do work a lot with him at home as we feel it's all a bit too "go at your own pace" in school too. And he works better when pushed a bit. If left to his own devices, he would just dawdle along quite the thing! But he seems to be learning lots more and just put of the blue says things!....agree that teachers make a huge diff.

I am really suprised that you have not seen any of your child's work. Doesn't your child get homework? Didn't you have a parents' evening in October and view their work then? If you are not happy then it could be the school or the teacher rather than the curriculum. FWIW, I have a daughter in P1 and her class is definitely not working at a lower level than they would be doing in England, if you are comparing with Reception rather than Year 1. CforE does give schools a lot of freedom over the curriculum though, so your school may be doing things differently.

Glad to see some interesting thoughts here - thanks. I totally get that it depends on the school and the teacher. I think DS's school - while good in many ways - suffers from having low expectations of the children so I can only see CfE making it worse. carrotsandcelery - I would love to see, or hear about, "pieces of work" as there has been only one - a class project - which we have never seen or heard of again since the piece of work was produced. I will be making an appointment to see DS's teacher when term begins as in two terms there have been no reports, no parents evening and no work has come home, apart from a couple of artworks.

I'm starting to do things with DS at home too because we have ORT Biff et al for reading that bears no relation to the phonics lessons and as far as I'm aware maths consists of adding numbers up to 5. It's not good enough, not by a long shot IMO. But I have nothing concrete to base my opinions on. I know DS is way behind where he would be south of the border, but I don't know where he is compared with peers in Scotland because the CfE tells you absolutely nothing about what they should be taught and when.

Does your school subscribe to Education City? You could try going onto the website with him and getting him to do some of the exercises there.

If you feel he is not being pushed and the expectations are low then you may have to take some of it into your own hands.

We had a problem with ds's reading in P1. He could read before he started school but the school couldn't see past his emotional problems and didn't even get him started on reading. We just read with him at home and then subscribed to the Reading Chest and read with him through that. This year his class teacher moved him up 4 or so reading groups after spending a little bit of time with him (I told you she was good).

I think I would do stuff at home and also speak to the teacher myself. I am shocked that you haven't had a parents meeting.

this was recommended to me although I haven't tried it yet

and this as well

The school doesn't as far as I know, but I signed up for a free trial last night. That's mostly what got me thinking as I had a look at some of the games at the level they assigned him to and I don't believe he's covered any of the subject matter. It's hard to tell what is in each level - I'd be glad to be enlightened! - but I moved him down to Early * in maths and english which I believe is aimed at his age group (5-6). I think there was an error in the original placing actually which put him on Level 1 (6-7 year olds?).

Even so I started the games with him today. The first was completing sequences in tens - he hasn't done tens and units yet I discovered although he caught on quickly. Then there was the concept of a number being between two other numbers - number lines etc.. That was new to him too. The reading example for phonics is way more than he can currently do. Now I'm extremely concerned.

I signed up to Reading Chest for a while but unsubscribed as Biff & Kipper have successfully put DS off reading for himself. However I have just discovered Reading Eggs and have a free trial and the phonics-based approach looks like it will really work for DS. He hasn't heard of vowels yet though.

Like I say I have no idea what I should expect in the middle of P1 so I don't know if I'm worrying unnecessarily.

I don't believe there is any scope for DS's school adjusting work to suit his abilities. There are less than 10 children in his class (small rural school) and they have a teaching assistant alongside the teacher yet it seems they all have to read the same book at the same pace at the same time. DS memorises the darned things the first time - no actual reading involved with Biff & Kipper of course - but we have to go through the motions each night until another book turns up and it starts again. They read them at school and at home. The poor kid's bored stiff!

Sorry that should read Early ***

Oh damn it, it should read Early* !

What is wrong here?! Early and 3 stars!!!

Sorry for that confusion. Thanks for your comments and the links too. We've looked at Oxford Owl and there are some good e-books on there. I've just ordered a set of phonics-based readers from the Book People as well that were on offer - the Songbird series as Read Write Inc, which I like, are too expensive to buy individually and the set is out of stock at the Book People. I guess I just need to know - somehow - what I should be working on with him without jumping too far ahead of school and confusing him. I guess I'll have to speak to his teacher and go from there.

Does anyone happen to have a link to an online version of the old 5-14 curriculum, as I gather many teachers are continuing with that in some vein? I can't find it online. Otherwise I will have to refer to the English National Curriculum I guess and treat home and school as two separate entities.

Seriously, if I didn't work and we had money to buy books and materials I would seriously be considering withdrawing DS from the school system and home educating. Where we live the local school is the only choice.

The old 5-14 curriculum isn't that easy to follow either although it would be clearer than the current one probably.

In p1 ds learned all the phonic sounds from jolly phonics (you can get the materials online or from ELC and ebay).

He also learned simple adding and subtracting with numbers under 10 (adding first) using number lines and physical aids.

He learned to write all the letters of the alphabet.

Errrmmm? I am trying hard to remember.

From your last posts it sounds like the school is not covering as much as one would expect by this stage in P1. Where you say that there is no scope for the school adjusting work to suit your son's abilities - why do you think this. I am a teacher, and this is what we do every day. There is absolutely no way that any school could get away with saying that they cannot differentiate work to meet the differing needs of their pupils.

That's interesting misshappiness - thanks. How far are they lagging behind do you think?

I have absolutely no idea why they can't adjust to suit but I really don't think they do. They teach P1/P2 together but the class is well under 20 children in total. There is a heck of a lot of free play, which I understand is still a large part of things in P1. They all move up reading books together as the school only has two copies of each one. I really don't know what happens with maths, but I know another parent of an older child who told me that her child spent P1 listening in on,and thereby learning, P2 maths. This was frowned on by the school and there was no suggestion that the child should work with the P2s. I don't think academic achievement is the school's top priority tbh. They're good at gardening, community stuff and growing good citizens and I think that's where the focus is.

Sorry, I pressed post before I had finished. I meant to add that with a teacher and a TA it should be easy to provide differentiated work, so I do not understand why they are not doing it. The teacher should be able to provide you with an outline of what they are going to cover by the end of P1 which might help. But from what you have said it might be worth going to see they headteacher if you are not satisfied with what the teacher says. It sounds like you feel that you are going to have to teach your son yourself and you shoujld not be put in that postition. Are other parents concerned?

Tbh I think I have more faith in the class teacher than the headteacher. The HT doesn't have a reputation for being receptive to feedback. I've spoken to other parents who share my concerns, although those with older kids seem to have resigned themselves to the way things are. Others don't appear to care as long as their kids are out of their hair.

This is not my area as a teacher, but from my own kids' experiences I would say that they they should definitely understand numbers being between 2 other numbers. Can't really tell from what you said about the reading but the phonics lessons and the reading books should support each other.

I know that in reality, resources often do dictate what teachers do but not in my experience to the extent of forcing pupils to all stay on the same reading books together. I don't think that is on.

I also do not see why an able P1 in a composite class could not be working with P2s on some things. That is one of the benefits of composite classes. I recently spoke to someone with a P2 in a rural school, composite class and she said her dc had already finished all the P4 reading books because of the scope to push ahead in such a small school. Good luck with meeting the teacher!