Free school head without any teaching qualifications plans to ignore curriculum

[mrz]

m.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/10/free-school-head-no-qualification

I know beezmum but it's expensive to study

Ipad, first it is important to be clear that both sides in this debate know that skills AND knowledge are important. Hirsch et al and 'twenty first century skills/ just google it' zealots both know children need both but they strongly disagree about how much emphasis should be placed on either and why.
In maths the fault line is really that of the 'maths wars'. So on the one hand you have maths education academics like Jo Boaler arguing that curriculums should emphasise practical applications and that a firm knowledge of stuff such as number bonds, times tables is unnecessary/ harmful. So she would not support resources such as 'Big Maths' that presume that a key to success in maths is fluency of knowledge.
On the other hand you have those that argue successful understanding in maths does not flow from tasks aimed at building conceptual understanding and instead maths requires fluency gained from lots of practice.
It is easy to argue that the truth is somewhere in between but that brings me back to my original point, where in between? i don't claim to have explained that well. I am interested but not a maths teacher!
I will post a few links.

Here is an article that is quite clear about Boalers position - I dont disagree with everything in it but made me choke...
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/maths-reform/9621100/Make-Britain-Count-Stop-telling-children-maths-isnt-for-them.html

This blog is useful, but particularly the comment below the post by Kristopher Bolton that does a nice job of a counter argument to Boaler.

back2thewhiteboard.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/4-what-are-the-best-teaching-resources-for-maths/

I can probably find better if I have a think.
This blog has a nice very quick summary of one of Willingham's books too.

So it would seem that we are already running this 'knowledge' based curriculum in the UK in Maths and English?

However, I do think a 'knowledge' based history curriculum is a little different, as it is relying on very young children having a sense of chronology. How many teachers have blushed when a child has asked if an ageing visitor was around with the dinosaurs? Small children have absolutely no idea of when things happened - they are egocentric, and many of them can't count in big enough numbers!

This is why it makes sense to teach a unit 'about the Romans', during which the children gain a lot of knowledge about the Roman civilisation, without the teaching necessarily being in chronological order. I'd say from about Y5 onwards, chronological teaching makes a little more sense.

It's interesting if you study history at degree level you aim for a lot of knowledge about a relatively short period of time but for young children we want them to know a little tiny bit about every period of time.

We are most certainly NOT currently running a knowledge based curriculum in Maths and English. Sorry, I don't know where to start to explain. To begin with it is Boaler that is part of the maths educational establishment, she is highly influential. Different schools interpret the curriculum differently, so my dd's primary that didn't believe times tables needed to be learnt by heart is not at all unusual. The new curriculum is explicitly knowledge based because it explicitly states that things like times tables do need to be learnt by heart. If you compare the old and new curriculums you can see that one emphasises skills students should attain and the other emphasises things they need to know, with fluency.
That sounds so good in theory but the argument of Hirsch and the findings of cognitive science are that you need to know to understand, so the knowledge should come first.
In Secondary English there is a widespread presumption that teachers should teach relevant texts as what is important is that children gain analytical skills and this can be done through accessible, 'relevant' texts. However, whatever analytical skills children have don't help when faced with more complex texts that students don't have the knowledge to understand (see back to the Willingham you tube). So the new curriculum makes it clear that more complex texts must be studied. I am very familiar with this issue as a history teacher. The old curriculum had a basic assumption behind it that you can teach children generic skills which they would then be able to apply this is why it is quite definitely NOT a knowledge based curriculum.

I pretty much agree re your comments on the history curriculum ipad although I think kids can cope before yr 5 with chronology.

We already teach number bonds and times tables up to 12X by heart as do most schools.
We teach grammar from reception and study classic books in depth

beezmum I think you are confusing the National Literacy/Numeracy Framework with the actual curriculum

The thing is our current curriculum is underpinned by assumptions about skills- that they can be taught in isolation and are very transferable. This blog post gives quite a clear idea of why those in favour of a knowledge based curriculum criticise the premises of the current one:
behaviourguru.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/i-think-therefore-i-learn-why-thinking.html

Ipad you seem to have decided that if there is anything behind the Willingham stuff then you will retreat to a new defensive position, that the current curriculum agrees with the position of cognitive psychologists anyway. However, the old curriculum quite explicitly disagrees with the research. Needless to say it is not very similar to the successful Massachusetts one either.

Not confusing anything. MRZ you seem to have a tendency to argue that what you do is what is generally done. The devil is in the detail. You are wrong if you argue the majority of state primaries ensure all children really DO know their tables. As much as it would revolt you to believe it, your practice (as per my impression of it from forums) is very much in line with the principles pf a knowledge based curriculum - Gove would love you....

Numbers and the number system

1. Pupils should be taught to:

Counting

a. count reliably up to 20 objects at first and recognise that if the objects are rearranged the number stays the same; be familiar with the numbers 11 to 20; gradually extend counting to 100 and beyond
Number patterns and sequences

b. create and describe number patterns; explore and record patterns related to addition and subtraction, and then patterns of multiples of 2, 5 and 10 explaining the patterns and using them to make predictions; recognise sequences, including odd and even numbers to 30 then beyond; recognise the relationship between halving and doubling
The number system

c. read and write numbers to 20 at first and then to 100 or beyond; understand and use the vocabulary of comparing and ordering these numbers; recognise that the position of a digit gives its value and know what each digit represents, including zero as a place-holder; order a set of one and two-digit numbers and position them on a number line and hundred-square; round any two-digit number to the nearest 10.
Calculations

1. Pupils should be taught to:

Number operations and the relationships between them

a. understand addition and use related vocabulary; recognise that addition can be done in any order; understand subtraction as both 'take away' and 'difference' and use the related vocabulary; recognise that subtraction is the inverse of addition; give the subtraction corresponding to an addition and vice versa; use the symbol '=' to represent equality; solve simple missing number problems [for example, 6 = 2 + ? ]
b. understand multiplication as repeated addition; understand that halving is the inverse of doubling and find one half and one quarter of shapes and small numbers of objects; begin to understand division as grouping (repeated subtraction); use vocabulary associated with multiplication and division
Mental methods

c. develop rapid recall of number facts: know addition and subtraction facts to 10 and use these to derive facts with totals to 20, know multiplication facts for the x2 and x10 multiplication tables and derive corresponding division facts, know doubles of numbers to 10 and halves of even numbers to 20
d. develop a range of mental methods for finding, from known facts, those that they cannot recall, including adding 10 to any single-digit number, then adding and subtracting a multiple of 10 to or from a two-digit number; develop a variety of methods for adding and subtracting, including making use of the facts that addition can be done in any order and that subtraction is the inverse of addition
e. carry out simple calculations of the form 40 + 30 = ?, 40 + ? = 100, 56 - ? = 10; record calculations in a number sentence, using the symbols +, -, x , ÷ and = correctly [for example, 7 + 2 = 9] .
Solving numerical problems

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. choose sensible calculation methods to solve whole-number problems (including problems involving money or measures), drawing on their understanding of the operations b. check that their answers are reasonable and explain their methods or reasoning. Processing, representing and interpreting data

1. Pupils should be taught to:

a. solve a relevant problem by using simple lists, tables and charts to sort, classify and organise information b. discuss what they have done and explain their results.

I disagree beezmum we are a bog standard school

MRZ bog standard primaries in deprived areas don't get the results you claim to.
Here are maths levels from the current Nat Curr.
www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/secondary/b00199003/mathematics/ks3/attainment/processes

You will note that they describe the skills students will have, not their progressive mathematical knowledge. That is because the current curriculum is skills based. Its not up for debate, its in black and white and the assumptions apparent in these descriptors are contradicted by research.

beez I think mrz and I are from opposite ends of the country. I too teach times tables, and all the 'knowledge based' curriculum she has listed above. Contrary to media (and thus, popular) belief, children are required to learn their tables, and they do do bus stop division and vertical addition (etc).

Over the past few years, many schools have each developed a maths curriculum policy, outlining what a child should know to progress to the next step. Ours is very similar to the new curriculum, except perhaps for the fractions part. In much the same way, most of us are using sequential phonics schemes.

And what is that blog wittering on about? I've never been asked to teach thinking skills!

beez Have you seen the APP grids? No-one uses the national curriculum as an assessment tool.

Perhaps using my actual area of expertise will help make my point more clearly. Sorry I am about to talk secondary on a primary forum and it is very long.
I teach Political Ideologies to A2 students. While I was on my last rather long maternity leave A level specifications changed to emphasise acquisition of skills. I had previously prepared students to write essays for example, 'Socialism is defined by its opposition to capitalism, discuss.' The weaker students would learn descriptions of the different sorts of socialism and then in the essay they would outline each type and say in passing what that sort of socialism thought of capitalism. My aim as a teacher is to try and improve their understanding so they can get a bit beyond this. Able students would be able to really actively compare types of socialism and explain WHY they had different approaches. I marked their essays using a set of level descriptors, one description for each grade and did a best fit to get the grade.
Anyway I return from maternity leave to find the essay title is the same but mark schemes have become skills based. Now I have to mark the essays using four different level descriptors, one for knowledge and the other three judgements for various types of analytical skills shown by the student. Those that haven't run away screaming may remember that my weak students had never been able to do lots of meaningful analysis because it required fluent grasp of the detail and they just weren't really able to understand the stuff well enough to analyse it much at all. So now I have to teach weaker students 'analytical points' they could make which they don't understand, or they will not get any of the three quarters of the marks available for analysis. The new mark schemes were changed to become skills based but unfortunately the ideology that underpinned these changes as well as that of the current curriculum, ignored the obvious point any cognitive psychologist could have explained - that skills come from fluency of knowledge. There is not a separate discrete 'analysing skill' that can be taught and assessed. I now have to spend countless extra lessons drilling my poor students on 'technique'. Results have become much more unpredictable because a weak student might happen to say the particular buzz words that count as 'analysis'. The mistaken assumptions of a skills based approach have made a dog's dinner of assessment.

cheers for comment on APP. The point is that the current curriculum IS skills based, which was being debated.

So...for example:

On the maths APP grid, it says that children should know doubles to 20. That's not a skill, it's knowledge. I will level the child by his or her knowledge of the curriculum.

AF7 on the reading APP is to: relate texts to their social, cultural and historical traditions (Knowledge-dependent, surely)

AF7 on the writing APP is to: select appropriate and effective vocabulary (not a skill, but dependent on the child's knowledge and experience of the language)

I wonder, in your example, whether you are just citing a change in the exam marking system that was introduced for political purposes. Haven't they been fiddling around with marking criteria in an effort to lower grades?

Ipad - its great if many schools are improving in that way - although not my experience locally. However, because you teach maths knowledge does not mean you have a knowledge based curriculum, especially if the assumptions that underpin the curriculum deny that skills come from fluency of knowledge. I would want to look at the proportion of time spent practising to gain fluency as opposed to teaching maths problem solving. Maths is what you asked about but the real heart of the knowledge based curriculum is humanities/science.
The thinking skills blog is relevant because those are the same assumptions that underpin the curriculum - that skills can be taught in isolation of the relevant content and are transferrable.
Must go to bed and try and limit time tomorrow. MUST start doing some prep for new term!

Hey ipad - yes political - everything is - but no - not about grades. The last reforms to GCSE and A level were explicitly to make them more skills based. Its all in black and white - but please don't ask me to find it now!

When schools use APP that doesn't mean the National Curriculum is any less skills based in its rationale, If anything it would suggests reform is over due in a more knowledge based direction.

Interesting thread just started that says that Willingham advocates a knowledge based curriculum with skills being taught alongside. (I had picked that up from reading his blogs - hence my 'defensive position', pointing out that much of our maths and english teaching followed this model already!)

I think we do need a more knowledge based curriculum in science, and I totally endorse the draft. YR/KS1, IMHO, should be learning about the world, and should do most of that outside. I think the weighting on investigational skills is ridiculous, and too much time is spent teaching the abstract process skills.

Gove seems to be taking knowledge to the next level in the humanities! Somewhere along the line, the introduction of thinking skills would be useful! How else are your pupils going to answer analytical questions a couple of years later?

I get really irritated by the false either/or argument. I'm not sure whose interests it serves. Knowledge without skills is pretty useless, and you can't develop skills beyond those that are instinctive without some form of knowledge. Eg, driving is a skill that becomes unconscious with practice, but you need to first learn to know the sound of the engine that tells you when to change gear before the skill of shifting the gear stick will be of any use.

The concept that makes most sense to me is of crystalline and fluid intelligences. My understanding of it is that crystalline is the stuff we know: memory plays an important part in the accumulation of knowledge, but so does motivation, physiological factors and the way we encounter the knowledge (which is where quality of teaching comes in). Fluid intelligence is the ability to apply what has crystallised into other contexts - to take a specific and apply it generally, to recognise a skill we have acquired and adapt it to be useful at another level or in another discipline.

Maths is my passion and I am forever banging on to my class (Year 6) about the importance of knowling their tables because it makes work on fractions, shape, probability, ratio, algebra - just about everything in fact - so much easier. I talk to them about the parts of the brain and the fact that frequent practice puts knowledge into a place where your brain doesn't have to work hard to find it, it is instantly available, leaving the cleverest bits of your brain free to do the creative thinking you need to solve problems.

I don't think there is any need to make a choice between skills OR facts/knowledge: my worry is that some elements of the proposed new curriculum are so packed that we will have to work through them faster than many children can securely take them on board. What I haven't seen in all the posturing and name calling is sensible proposals for what teachers should actually do differently to speed up the rate at which children learn. And given Wilshaw's Ofsted likes teachers who barely speak in class, I am looking forward to his advice on how to engage children as active learners on some of the more challenging aspects of the new KS2 history curriculum .

Insets on Thought Transfer, with learning objectives taken from The Demon Headmaster?

Agree wholeheartedly re knowledge and skills. Knowledge is useless unless you have the skills to build on it and use it. (I reckon there's a reason why pub quizzes are full of the over 50s - people who can remember soundbites from their 'knowledge-based' secondary school curriculum, and who know nothing in depth.)

ipad