What is a skills based curriculum?

[skewiff]

Our primary school says one of its aims is to make the curriculum more skills based?

What does this mean?

I think there is some confusion between knowledge and mere facts

Of course you need to know how to find things out, but, let's face it, it takes about a week to impart that (internet or book or ask someone who knows/was there, and take account of who wrote/said it, why they wrote/said it and know if it's an edited/peer reviewed source. Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Gillian McKeith doesn't have a real PhD. The end) If you cant grasp that easily, I'm skeptical about one's ability to ever become an effective learner.

Surely a good teacher should not just be imparting facts, but also injecting understanding and methodology? This is often a pretty efficient way to learn things.

Most people are paid for things they know/know how to do rather than their ability to find things out. Employers main bug bears are not that people like google skills, but that they have poor literacy and numeracy.

Ahem. "lack google skills" Clearly people like google. That's self-evident.

Surely a good teacher should not just be imparting facts, but also injecting understanding and methodology?

you've just defined a skills based curriculum ... well done

The idea that you have to have read particular books in order to understand references is a bit worrying for most of us!
Well, I'd put it a little differently. I think it is undeniable that the more widely read one is, the more layers of meaning one will be able to access. And obviously some texts are more dense and referential than others. As well, some are more open to conveying a preferred meaning, while others are more closed texts, demanding more 'work' on the part of the reader.

So one can potentially find enjoyment and meaning in a text while making a minimum of links - many readers will 'get by' with, for instance, a very generalised recognition of myths which have passed into the mainstream culture, not even requiring them to have direct contact with the original source. I think that is certainly the case with the Harry Potter books, and perhaps accounts for some of their popularity. I would probably not argue that the HP books are the 'densest' of texts (and that is not to demean them in any way). BUt even so, there are probably levels on which they can be understood and, if you like, analysed, which expand based on reader knowledge. The Northern Lights series comes to mind here as well, as one that is multilayered and can be accessed by readers easily, yet 'grows' in meaning for those in possession of (both facts and knowledge) about the sciences, religious thought, and history. So while the 'skill' of putting letters together to read words is invaluable, it is not by any means sufficient.

But I think the main point I would want to make is to do with this -
Surely if children know how to find out what the references mean they will be better place to read a wider variety of books?
because I think this goes right back to the earlier debate. It only works if we accept that the children will firstly know that there are references there to be parsed out, IYSWIM. That requires either independent recognition (which relies on some preheld factual knowledge) or being directed to pre-determined and limited references by an instructor (which I think has obvious problems). Of course no one has every book memorised - and the ideal I suppose would be that a student would have the widest possible base of factual knowledge, resulting in a spark of awareness and recognition, which then might in turn lead to a return to the other literature referenced ("ooh, that must have someting to do with that Icarus story I read years ago!), or to a new work ("ooh, I think that could be a reference to Crime and Punishment, maybe I should read that!), or to a bit of fact-checking and research (ok, I remember learning in history that the sufferage movement was happening during that period; obviously the author is referencing those events and I want to know more about what she's saying). It isn't enough for a teacher to compile a list of set reference points and set them as a task for a student to research and regurgitate on an exam, because that is ultimately so limiting and ideologically as well as intellectually biased.

aren't these arguments more secondary based than primary?

MrZ- but on that basis, nothing's changed. They were doing this when I was at school in the 1980's.

When did teachers just teach facts? Certainly not within the last 50 years.

I don't know mrz, I work across the age range 3-16, and to be honest, I would rather that at primary in history (say) the focus was on narrative understanding of events vs determining reliability/unreliability of sources. I think if that bank of knowledge is developed in primary, it would make a more skills-based secondary curriculum potentially more feasibility. however, cognitively establishing "reliability of sources", say, is really difficult to achieve without understanding the basic facts of the situation in a deep, consolidated way. At primary level, students (IMO) should be really developing and expanding a broad base of knowledge which they can learn as they develop their cognition to analyse.
This is Bloom's Taxonomy stuff -. knowledge/remembering comes first, then understanding, then applying. I think the goal of a primary curriculum should be to develop knowledge, understanding and the very basics of application to pave the way for "higher order" learning as the student progresses. Somehow, a skills-based curriculum seems to me to be one which asks for analysis, synthesis and evaluation before the basic knowledge is there. Primary is a time in student's lives when just engaging with the basics of literacy and numeracy, and learning to appreciate and find excitement in story, would seem to me to be most important.

Again, I am sure that a good teacher can mould either a knowledge or skills based curriculum so that it is more well-rounded, and that a poor teacher could take a fantastic curriculum of either persuasion and destroy it.. so there will be individual differences in practice that are meaningful in terms of how students progress with learning. However, I suspect it is harder to "muck up" teaching a skills-based curriculum, particularly if the view is taken that the underlying knowledge/content is somehow irrelevant to the "skills" being deployed.

*feasible. Excuse typos!

RealLifeIsForWimps well my children's secondary school seem to teach by copy this information from the board or handout ...don't think ... don't ask questions ... in fact when I think about it don't learn [

aren't these arguments more secondary based than primary?
Some of the examples used have been more secondary, I think - but the basis is laid in primary so that by secondary and beyond, the foundation is there to build on.

At primary level, students (IMO) should be really developing and expanding a broad base of knowledge which they can learn as they develop their cognition to analyse. This is Bloom's Taxonomy stuff -. knowledge/remembering comes first, then understanding, then applying. I think the goal of a primary curriculum should be to develop knowledge, understanding and the very basics of application to pave the way for "higher order" learning as the student progresses.
yes, this!

I think if we are considering Bloom's Taxonomy then research has shown that Attitude (Affective) is the best indicator of future success especially in the Early Years of education so perhaps the greatest effort should focus on developing a positive attitude to learning and a desire to learn.

gaelicsheep, dd's primary here in Fife is following CfE - she's in P1 and doing castles, the P4s are doing vikings etc - my take on how they're doing it here is while they're learning some basic info about castles, they're also using the topic for maths, art, literacy - extending their awareness and skills across a range of subjects. That strikes me as eminently sensible.

The problem with "core" knowledge is who decides it's core? A very anglocentric approach means that you study the vikings but can spend your life never knowing about the Carolingian empire, for example, or study the Brontes but not, say, Graham Greene (I am picking examples out of the air...)

Mitz - thanks for the teachingbattleground blog link - a very interesting read

Habbibu - I disagree. I find the CfE approach to be very problematic. They are learning a little bit about some things, nothing about others, with no overall coherent structure and no obvious progression. It goes back to my earlier question, which no one answered, about what happens in science subjects when whole areas may be missed out. Admittedly more a secondary argument but relevant nonetheless.

And yes Bloom's Taxonomy is exactly what I had in mind. Young children are sponges ready to soak up knowledge. Why deny that to them? I am not for one moment suggesting that children's time is spent learning lists of dates, but people on here are denouncing the value of knowledge itself. That leaves me incredulous.

Gaelic Sheep - regarding your Q about science subjects and whole areas being missed out. The skills-based curriculum that you (and I) are most concerned with is Curriculum for Excellence and at secondary level, knowledge is being prescibed in the same way as it always has been. Pupils are still going to do exams, and from what I have seen so far, because all the secondary stuff is being published at the moment, the knowledge expected for the new curriculum is exactly the same as for the old. No more and no less.

Gaelic,

I am absolutely not denouncing the value of knowledge (not facts, knowledge). Any workable curriculum has to encompass not only what skills a child should acquire [the current English NC 'Knowledge, Skills and Understanding' e.g. Sc1 in science] but also the 'coverage' that a child should be exposed to and should apply those skills to.

To take an example - a critical skill that every child should acquire is that of being able to read. There is a kernel of knowledge in there (the knowledge of the phonic code) but most of 'learning to read' is acquiring, practising, and applying a skill.

A workable curriculum might then go on to define the 'higher level' skills that a child might progress on to (skimming and scanning to acquire information, using punctuation to guide expression, inferring a character's emotions etc), as well as the coverage a child would be expected to encounter (defined in terms of authors, or genres, or both).

The child would, through application of skills -decoding, comprehending, inferring, using expression - to a selected 'coverage' - would acquire knowledge of books and authors.

A curriculum defined in terms of 'content only' - 'knowledge' in its driest sense - leads teachers to 'short cut' that process of acquiring knowledge by providing it in a 'cut and dried' didactic form. A curriculum defined in terms of skills AND coverage SHOULD (will not always, in the hands of poor practitioners) lead teachers to allow, enable and teach children to acquire that knowledge for themselves - and I firmly believe that knowledge acquired in that way is learned in a 'deeper' way.

I entirely agree with you that skills CANNOT be taught in isolation, and SHOULD be taught in genuine, substantive contexts. Part of the skill of the teacher and the curriculum designer is in guiding those contexts without being overly prescriptive (to learn about the Victorians is not, a priori, better than learning about the Georgians. It just so happens that the Victorians are cited in the current National Curriculum whereas the Georgians aren't...and if someone teaches in e.g. Bath, they might think that the Georgians might be more relevant to their children....)

I suppose that I am coming from a background of seeing excellent teaching starting from skills but working on a basis of substantive context, and you have seen poor skills-based teaching on a basis of potentially 'trivial' context [I could think of some extremely interesting content for a topic about bridges, bringing in materials science, some serious maths, a lot of D&T, plenty of geography and map work, and a broad sweep of history including some very fine battles and interesting tactics, with lots of opportunities for writing from instructions to imaginative stories ... but that may not have been your experience]. It is hard from your perspective to see what i see in my min's eye, and equally it is very hard for me to address your concerns...

Beatrice, that is also my experience in England in schools which teach in a skills-based way. It's the starting point and the route which is different not the end point in terms of coverage (in planning Science, I start with Sc1 skills and then look at the content I wish to apply it to, rather than looking at the content first, writing lots of slides and then planning a few experiments 'at the end if we have time')

teacherwith2kids - yes a lot of what you say makes sense and you certainly know your subject. But I still take issue with the idea that you can just take a topic like your example, bridges, and bring in all those things while still maintaining a structure and gradual building of knowledge in all those specific subject areas. How do you prevent the maths, geography and history you mention from becoming merely a pick n mix over the years? Clearly I had a very traditional education with linear progression in distinct subject areas, but I fail to understand why that has become so unfashionable? I see scope for much confusion and frustration among students who prefer to learn, as I do, in a clear and structured way.

"They are learning a little bit about some things, nothing about others, with no overall coherent structure "

To be honest, that's true of the English National Curriculum content too - whether it is taught in a skills-based way or not. Why Grace Darling, Florence Nightingale, the Romans, the Great Fire of London, the Victorians and World War II? Why not Boudicca, Marie Curie, the Persian Empire, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Georgians and World War I? At the end of the day, the definition of curriculum content IS somewhat arbitrary. As long as the child acquires the critical e.g. historical skills, and has been given substantive contexts in which to apply those skils, the actual selection of which arbitrary set of events, people and eras to study may be less important?

My DS is in P1 and has spent two whole terms doing a class project on one specific topic to the exclusion, it seems, of almost everything else. My views are somewhat coloured by these kinds of experiences!

I do agree that curriculum content, by necessity, will always be arbitrary. I am less concerned with history I suppose, although I do feel they should follow a general narrative picking out key bits as they go. I am more concerned that they get a comprehensive coverage in subjects that require it, such as maths and science. I'm just not confident that this will happen any more.

"How do you prevent the maths, geography and history you mention from becoming merely a pick n mix over the years?"

Planning, tracking, whole school recording approaches - many ways to skin that paticular cat, depending on the size of the school, whether topics are kept the same each year or varied, whether 'off the shelf' materials are used at all...but basically such tracking and planning is the bread-and-butter of every teacher's life!

There is a really interesting debate going on locally (where I teach) at the moment about Science, about whether for younger children there is a need for 'comprehensive coverage' in terms of content, or whether what we should be teaching in Science are a set of attitudes, of dispositions, of skills and of knowledge of processes and approaches, that the child can then bing to any body of scientific content at a later date.

So a child could observe and classify rocks, leaves, feathers, 'mini beasts' ... could perform a fair test investigation about absorbance or elasticity or opacity... could observe physical changes in ice or wood or cake mixture... etc etc ..

Do you think that there is a 'comprehensive foundation' in science in terms of CONTENT that is necessary for young children, or is it the 'knowledge of the scientific way of looking at the world' which is important? (I am of a pre-national curriculum era when I did no science whatever in primary school under that heading...and went on to study it at post-graduate level...)

I don't think I did any science that was called science in primary school either come to think of it, but I'm sure it was taught. I certainly remember doing nature and I think that is really important - teaching children about the world around them, identifying trees, wild flowers, animals etc. Those are the kinds of things that it is easy to learn as a child, much less so later in life.

I realise I am conflating primary and secondary here, but certainly north of the border the skills-based, cross-curricula approach is being extended to the secondary curriculum as well, which I suppose is where my worries about science come in.

Having said that, yes I do think there is a basic grounding that children should get - I suppose again based on what they can observe in the world around them. Nature, as I said above, as a basis for biology and botany. The basics of physics and chemistry I guess would include things like the different states of matter, basic laws of motion, gravity, space (ever popular of course).

I remember learning in such a way that we learned a basic set of concepts at a fairly superficial, observational level. Then as we moved into secondary school these were gone over again in more depth to GCSE. Then at A level we were told how hopelessly oversimplified it all was and had to relearn it all . But I still think it was valuable to introduce all those things at an early age and in a structured way.

But hey, I'm just offering opinions on how I would prefer my own child to learn. I am obviously no expert in any of this!

Haven't read this post, particularly, but one problem I have with a focus on skills without worrying too much what knowledge is imparted at the same time is that I do object, for example, to having covered (pre-national curriculum) the First World War twice, once at the end of primary school and once in my second year at secondary school, and never having covered the Second World War at all, and not having been given a proper concept of how isolated periods studied actually fitted together until GCSE when we studied the history of medicine (ie history over a long time line). I, personally, would much rather there had been a little bit more co-ordination between primary and secondary level education and between schools for those who move around a lot, so that repetition or big gaps in understanding were less of a risk. I also learnt how to dissect a frog at primary school, but was not taught how to do long multiplication or division (teachers' strike was probably the reason for that...). At secondary school, it was assumed I had been taught the latter. Good schools may effectively teach the skills and impart the knowledge necessary to help keep building on the skills, but bad schools really can make a big balls up of all of it. So, what is wrong with having more of a skills focus, but within largely pre-agreed subject areas?