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?

Actually none of those are terms that should be familiar to most primary children.
My Y2 class studied Ancient Greece so we have talked about democracy and when we studied the Stuarts (a child initiated topic btw) we talked about monarchy and revolution and political parties ...and they have 4 more years to build on that.

that should be unfamiliar

Yes, but there's a huge difference between having had exposure to a word explicitly stated and elaborated on and having it embedded in the general flow of conversation. When I have observed lessons at secondary school, there are often upwards of 60-70 of these types of words used in any one class (though this is more true of Science than the Humanities). At the same time the syntax used in teacher presentation of material (both orally and in writing) becomes more complex increasing listening demands, expectations regarding student attention and engagement increase, personal and social relationships within the classroom take on new (hormonal!) dimensions and the breadth of study becomes broader and more depersonalised.

I suspect that the curriculum designers/overviewers would fully believe that the average 11 year old has a good grasp on words like these and can handle this upward shift in exposure across the school day, but in reality, very many haven't a good grounding even if they have been exposed to them before. That is true even of more able students. With language like this, there is also often a stark difference between children who present as traditionally "middle class" learners and those whose home culture is different for whatever reason.

A lot of it is to do with the pace and linguistic complexity of what is presented. You can talk about the same things but at very different levels, in very different ways and using very different styles. For example, at GCSE, there is quite a lot of discussion about how Hitler consolidated his power. "Consolidate" is a word that isn't always explicitly introduced or embedded, it might be introduced in a few lessons - sometimes never, to be honest. There is a whole linguistic knowledge base attached to each subject area that is crucial to enable the performance of skill, and that it is assumed students developmentally acquire, when this is often not the case.

and surely that is what education is about ...building on previous skills and extending knowledge.

Well, quite. However, it should be about building and extending on students' previous knowledge, not building on what the curriculum says students should know because there was a unit on it in Year 4. As someone above said, education is about working from the point of where the student is actually at and developing from there. However, going from learning a handful of key words per half-term to 60-70 per lesson (with up to five lessons a day) is quite a challenge for most students.

I wouldn't know as I've never taught the units

Greythorne - your theories of rote learning of conjugation (and I also learned conjugation by rote, in another century ) are being severely tested in CE1 at EaB. Frankly, it just doesn't work the way the French teachers say it does.

I've been out all day.
Mrz you can't say that what you do IS the primary curriculum when quite obviously different schools interpret 'skills based' in widely different ways. The fact YOUR school does things a certain way doesn't mean others do.

BTW What if the child hadn't intitiated your study of the Stuarts? Its sounds very like in your school other worthy topics would have been covered. Not so all schools! You are actually proving my point. It is important to cover knowledge. You can't 'just look things up'.

To point out that this is a primary forum is to demonstrate what I think is a real problem in primary education. So much of a primary teaecher's job is to get students ready to be able to cope with the secondary curriculum. Its easier to argue for a skills based curriculum when you aren't the history teacher with a yr10 that just don't have enough knowledge to grasp what a revolution is, as they have so little contextual knowledge to grasp this new concept. I don't have a lesson to teach this, I have 2 minutes. There is so much else to cover. So working9while5 is right. We are reliant on primary schools to send us children with enough knowledge to quikly learn new concepts.

Sorry camicaze but have you read the statutory programme of study for history in the English NC?
sorry it's a bit long as I condensed my earlier post

KS1
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Chronological understanding

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. place events and objects in chronological order b. use common words and phrases relating to the passing of time (for example, before, after, a long time ago, past). Knowledge and understanding of events, people and changes in the past

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. recognise why people did things, why events happened and what happened as a result b. identify differences between ways of life at different times. Historical interpretation

1. Pupils should be taught to identify different ways in which the past is represented.

Historical enquiry

1. Pupils should be taught:

a. how to find out about the past from a range of sources of information (for example, stories, eye-witness accounts, pictures and photographs, artefacts, historic buildings and visits to museums, galleries and sites, the use of ICT-based sources) b. to ask and answer questions about the past. Organisation and communication

1. Pupils should be taught to select from their knowledge of history and communicate it in a variety of ways (for example, talking, writing, using ICT).

Breadth of study

1. During the key stage, pupils should be taught the knowledge, skills and understanding through the following areas of study:

a. changes in their own lives and the way of life of their family or others around them b. the way of life of people in the more distant past who lived in the local area or elsewhere in Britain c. the lives of significant men, women and children drawn from the history of Britain and the wider world (for example, artists, engineers, explorers, inventors, pioneers, rulers, saints, scientists) d. past events from the history of Britain and the wider world (for example, events such as the Gunpowder Plot, the Olympic Games, other events that are commemorated).

KS2
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Chronological understanding

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. place events, people and changes into correct periods of time b. use dates and vocabulary relating to the passing of time, including ancient, modern, BC, AD, century and decade. Knowledge and understanding of events, people and changes in the past

1. Pupils should be taught:

a. about characteristic features of the periods and societies studied, including the ideas, beliefs, attitudes and experiences of men, women and children in the past b. about the social, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of the societies studied, in Britain and the wider world c. to identify and describe reasons for, and results of, historical events, situations, and changes in the periods studied d. to describe and make links between the main events, situations and changes within and across the different periods and societies studied. Historical interpretation

1. Pupils should be taught to recognise that the past is represented and interpreted in different ways, and to give reasons for this.

Historical enquiry

1. Pupils should be taught:

a. how to find out about the events, people and changes studied from an appropriate range of sources of information, including ICT-based sources (for example, documents, printed sources, CD-ROMS, databases, pictures and photographs, music, artefacts, historic buildings and visits to museums, galleries and sites) b. to ask and answer questions, and to select and record information relevant to the focus of the enquiry. Organisation and communication

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. recall, select and organise historical information b. use dates and historical vocabulary to describe the periods studied c. communicate their knowledge and understanding of history in a variety of ways (for example, drawing, writing, by using ICT). Breadth of study

1. During the key stage, pupils should be taught the knowledge, skills and understanding through a local history study, three British history studies, a European history study and a world history study.

Local history study

1. A study investigating how an aspect in the local area has changed over a long period of time, or how the locality was affected by a significant national or local event or development or by the work of a significant individual.

British history

1. In their study of British history, pupils should be taught about:

a. the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings; Britain and the wider world in Tudor times; and either Victorian Britain or Britain since 1930 b. aspects of the histories of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where appropriate, and about the history of Britain in its European and wider world context, in these periods. Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in Britain

1. An overview study of how British society was shaped by the movement and settlement of different peoples in the period before the Norman Conquest and an in-depth study of how British society was affected by Roman or Anglo-Saxon or Viking settlement.

Britain and the wider world in Tudor times

10. A study of some significant events and individuals, including Tudor monarchs, who shaped this period and of the everyday lives of men, women and children from different sections of society.
    Victorian Britain or Britain since 1930

11. Teachers can choose between a study of Victorian Britain or Britain since 1930.
    Victorian Britain

a. A study of the impact of significant individuals, events and changes in work and transport on the lives of men, women and children from different sections of society.
Britain since 1930

b. A study of the impact of the Second World War or social and technological changes that have taken place since 1930, on the lives of men, women and children from different sections of society.
A European history study

12. A study of the way of life, beliefs and achievements of the people living in Ancient Greece and the influence of their civilisation on the world today.
    A world history study

13. A study of the key features, including the everyday lives of men, women and children, of a past society selected from: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Sumer, the Assyrian Empire, the Indus Valley, the Maya, Benin, or the Aztecs.

The above is statutory it is what all state schools have to cover by law

BTW What if the child hadn't intitiated your study of the Stuarts?

I would have done a lovely project on the Vikings or perhaps Buffy

And all I will add is that children will arrive in secondary school with more of this knowledge EMBEDDED if they have used skills other than the 'listen to an adult talk and then write about it' to arrive at the subject knowledge.

I will repeat the point I made above that 'skills based' vs 'start from the content' curriculums differ in the journey to acquire the knowledge, not in the actual coverage.

As the NC is statutory, all primary schools should cover what is listed above. The 'skills-based' debate comes about because some schools choose to come at this from a didactic 'lets shortcut straight to the content through direct teaching of facts' angle and others come from the 'lest use our skills to arrive at the content' angle.

Bonsoir Thu 16-Feb-12 17:40:34
Greythorne - your theories of rote learning of conjugation (and I also learned conjugation by rote, in another century ) are being severely tested in CE1 at EaB. Frankly, it just doesn't work the way the French teachers say it does.

Hi Bonsoir

Do you mean EaB no longer teaches verb groups by rote or (and hence children don't know their verb endings) orthat they do do it by rote but it does not work as well as it should?

I remember vividly as an exchange pupil aged 9 as my French classmates sat and copied from the greenboard several irregular verbs and then chanted them aloud, exactly as we did for times tables back in England. I had never seen anything comparale in the learning of English grammat which, AFAIK, does not require that type of sing-song, rote learning. I was fascinated and confused. How come these Frenchies didn't just pick up language by speaking as we did?

The teachers ask the children to learn conjugation by rote, but then expect them to know how to apply the conjugation in sentences, without doing any exercises . Parents are wise to this and invent lots of homework exercises in order to help the children. It's a complete mess

Yikes, Bonsoir that sounds like the opposite of what is being suggested on this thread: pure factual content without skills to apply said knowledge!

I think I have been misinterpreted a little on this thread! People seem to think I am championing some sort of curriculum where no 'knowledge' is taught. That is not the case at all!!

What I am arguing against is a significant increase in the knowledge content of the English primary curriculum (I know nothing about the Scottish CforE so cannot and have not commented on what they've done with that). I hold to the point that every piece of knowledge about everything can not be imparted to a child during their time at school so there necessarily HAS to be some selectivity about the content included in any curriculum. However, I am as keen as anyone to see the content that IS included be 'core', 'traditional' knowledge.

I just want to see time left in the curriculum to cover the content that is taught in a deep and meaningful way that requires engaged thought. I am concerned that if lots more content is rammed into the primary curriculm, it would be at the expense of that.

Thought some people might be interested in this re the times tables thing which has been taken up with such vigour:

Maths in Singapore

You need knowledge and skills but sadly there seems to be far more of a focus on skills rather than knowledge. After all, doctors, dentists, architects, scientists etc all need knowledge. Ah well, we can always get people from abroad to do these jobs, I suppose.

I think primary schools should focus on getting children to read, write and do basic maths first. A lot of secondary school teachers I meet say that year 7 is just a 'catch up' year because so many pupils don't have the expected levels of numeracy and literacy to cope.

Making a curriculum relevant to a child's experience is just a load of tosh. And the word 'active learners' makes me laugh: how can you be inactive when you learn fgs?

but you can be passive

Lot's of our ex pupils say they have learnt nothing new in the first two years of secondary school and just repeat what they did in Y6

When you are learning, you are listening and concentrating and perhaps making notes when the teacher speaks. You are not passive.

Perhaps your ex pupils haven't learnt enough or learnt it thoroughly. After all, year 6 is just a year about passing SATs. Secondary schools have their own marking system which doesn't always match that of the primary school.

Obviously the quarter of children without a level 4 would need reinforcement of literacy and numeracy in year 7.

I don't know many 4 year olds who do much of the listening and concentrating and even less who make notes when the teacher speaks

If you'd read my earlier post you would have seen that the secondary heads admitted they were teaching things that had already been taught simply because they didn't realise it was part of the primary curriculum ... since we usually have high 90% level 4 and 60% level 5 our ex pupils obviously don't need reinforcement

My son reading over my shoulder just commented he wasn't taught anything new in all his time at secondary not the same one my school feeds into

Mrz I know some topics are specified but there is a reason there is a debate over skills versus knowledge. The way these topics are taught makes a huge difference. You did a great discussion about democracy. Another school all dressed up and all the kids really remember is their costume. There are primary teachers on this thread that argue that knowledge isn't important and that they emphasise skills. The experience in their classroom will be very different from in yours. You teach times tables by rote. My dd1's school would have argued this was not real learning, just rote and banned it. Despite one national curriculum the learning experience of children in different schools is vastly different.
BTW knowledge to understand the concepts I teach at secondary school will not just come from history teaching either but from a good awareness of the world.
All I (and others I think) are arguing is that if skills are at the expense of knowledge, that is actually a poor education. I don't mind what method is used if it ensures a child understands the knowledge and it is time efficient so they can learn breadth and depth. I don't think a discovery approach is as effective as others do. However we all agree that knowledge has to be understood. No one on this thread thinks its acceptable to simply lecture children as if they were empty vessels to be filled. This is the ridiculous caricature of a knowledge curriculum.

Mrz - don't your 4 year olds sit and listen to a story? And when they play don't they concentrate on what they are doing? Obviously they don't take notes at 4 - you sound a bit uppity!

and from what you've already said on previous posts, your son was a child prodigy so what could secondary school ever teach him?!

It may well be that secondary schools cover some of what goes on in primary but there's still that 25% with a reading age of 7. It must be so difficult for secondary school teachers to bridge the gap.
camicaze - I totally agree with what you've said. Isn't education all about imparting knowledge to children?

Actually my son had an excellent teacher in Y5/6 (mixed class) who taught all the children to a very high standard which meant they were all failed by low expectations in secondary (as they didn't all move to the same secondary school I can only assume it is a general failing).

Perhaps you haven't read the many news reports identifying the current problem of children starting school who are unable to listen to stories and who flit from activity to activity because they lack the necessary skills ?