does anyone know of a school that isn't mind-numbingly boring for children?

[whysoboring]

I'm feeling very sad for my children. They attend what is meant to be an "excellent" (sometimes "outstanding") school. Yet, they are bored and I'm bored observing the tedium of their school days.
Examples:
i) over-use of videos to introduce topics
ii) overuse of printed worksheets
iii) children mark each others' papers and read scores out loud to teacher
(( what do teachers actually DO??? They don't teach lessons; they don't make up questions; they don't mark papers.... I'm not sure they even review the papers after the children have market them to keep track of how individual children are progressing!!!)
iv) spelling work involves writing unrelated, simple sentences each one using a single spelling word (couldn't they be a bit more creative? ie ask children to write a paragraph using as many of the spelling words as possible? or use the spelling words to write sentences related to a "topic" they're learning in history or geography or PSCHE?
v) subjects are completely independent of each other -- no effort is made to incorporate learning from one subject with that of another (which could easily be done with, for example, geography and science or history and literacy
vi) oral reading consists of reading a single book aloud for the duration of a term or two or three (couldn't the teacher have them read aloud short stories which could be completed in a couple of weeks? or have children read ahead a few chapters in between the weekly oral reading sessions? or at least chose a book that's somehow related to something they're studying?
viii) the 3 or 4 weeks prior to exams are spent reviewing what they've learned -- seems to me they only learn new material for a few weeks out of every school year!!
vii) my younger child said a few weeks ago "i've figured out what school is about now. we learn something one term and review it the next".

viii) "reading comprehension" consists of copying words correctly and precisely in the same order as in the text.... there is no real "comprehension" required (in the sense of interpreting texts). My other child was marked down on a test for answering a question by writing something like "she likes to discover new things" rather than "she likes to find things out (the relevant phrase apparently being "find out" rather than "discover"????!?!?!?!?!?!!)

They are only 8 and 10 and already feeling bored by school. I remember loving school throughout the primary years. If it weren't for the positive social aspects of school, I'd be very, very tempted to try home education!!!

Does anyone know of a school (in or near London) where teachers are creative and actually TEACH? Where children are encouraged to enjoy learning?

I'm sure a teacher can get on here and say what old curriculum this was but at some point we were discussing on here what history topics were being taught at MN's schools and I rattled off a list which both DD1 and DD2 have had:

Y1: Celtic Britain
Y2: Great Fire of London
Y3: Henry VIII/ Roman Britain
Y4: Egypt
Y5: Ancient Greece

Teachers replied that this was a very old curriculum - yet our school does this and the same associated field trips (even though some parents have literally threatened to slash their wrists if they have to go to certain places again with DC3/4 - some huge families at our school).

I agree with much of the general feeling your conveying. My impression isn't so much that it can be boring (same thing year in year out) but that not a lot of thought seems to be going into things (i.e. same resources year in and out as well). However - I have to say I'm not clear about what the reasons behind that might be - and from various mutterings I suspect one major underlying factor is the administrative load (i.e. work teachers do which parents don't see - recording progress, meetings, lesson plans, marking for inspectors (not parents - which is just a green tick in workbooks, no comments) etc...), optional SATs Y3-Y5, etc... all of which often is hidden from the point of view of pupils/ parents.

My children said that the days OFSTED were visiting were the best week in school they ever had. Lessons were really good with lots of exciting things going on and lots of moving about the class. Groups dissolved - and it became more about working with partners - sometimes numbers were assigned on the fly (1-5 and then children were told go to Table 1, 2, 3, etc....). Assemblies weren't just singing hymns & praying, but were about 'non-religious stuff' as DD1 explained - which turned out to be on a theme of SPRING and seasonal change with a theme of metamorphosis. Lots of comments in their workbooks on their homework that week. Their only ever 'research' assignment - history of local area - find 10 facts about XXXX place. After OFSTED it went back to normal and, interestingly enough, the homework policy was thrown out the window as soon as OFSTED were gone (which my children at least mourn - because in the run up to the OFSTED inspection they had some really 'fun' [their word not mine] homeworks).

I think the difficulty is management. My brother teaches outside UK - equivalent UK Year 6 - and he is tasked to demonstrate 'shake up' of 12 lessons (one week/ 5 one hour lessons on particular topic - fractions, adverbs, Romans, Spanish food words, etc...) each year by his HT (ca. 4 lessons per term). He's also asked to add 5 new things to VLE (virtual learning environment - i.e. Moodle/ WebCT/ etc...) each term - so that pages don't fossilize. He moans about it - but agrees it keeps things dynamic.

Two things.

How long ago was this school rated outstqnding?

And how do you know so much about what happens in the school day?

I agree that you should look round other schools, as this one doesn't sound very inspiring. I also think you should visit a few local home education groups and chat with families in your area whose children don't go to school. You might discover that there are far better opportunities than you could have imagined for socialising and doing activities outside of school. My kids are always busy and are often with their friends.

My older daughter tried school when she was ten and while there were things she enjoyed about it, her main objection was that it took up so much time that it interfered with her social life and all the out-of-school activities she wanted to do.

If you leave out the boring bits of school, that frees up so much time that children are able to do more of the things they enjoy. In the case of my 13 year old that means singing, drawing, sports and mooching around town with her friends. In the case of my six year old it means playing with her dolls and making complicated inventions out of household rubbish. Some people would say that these things aren't important (though I think they are), but at any rate it is time better spent than doing things at school which actively turn them off learning, as your children are doing.

My 8 yo loves school.She has just done ancient Egypt and especially enjoyed mummifying a sausage and seeing what had happened to it after the holidays.

Seeker -- it was inspected last year. and... i know only what my children tell me happens during the school day. obviously, there might be many very creative and dynamic things happening that they don't tell me, but I doubt it! The days they come home excited about something they've learned in class or in assembly are, sadly, very few.

Saracen -- the sausage "mummy" project sounds interesting. I'd love for my children to have something like that to do! (and, yes, we do look for interesting things to do on our own; i'd just like their teachers to also think of interesting things to do...!)

Pastsellbydate i think possibly one of the problems is that teachers are struggling to figure out how to use technology effectively. I am WELL past my "sell by date" and remember teachers writing on chalk boards... Then they had to think carefully about what they were going to write, how they were going to teach, how they might respond to various questions or answers from the students, etc. Lessons were much more dynamic. I'm sure they could be even more dynamic with whiteboards and other "new" technologies, but my impression is many teachers haven't been trained to use the versatility these technologies provide they just make use of whatever they can download without adapting it to interests and abilities of their class. It seems the thinking now is "why teach a maths lesson when you can show a video to introduce a topic? why discuss Egyptians when a video can present the history while I do something else?
I think you're right that teachers have to do lots of administrative chores that are not obvious to parents. I wish they could be freed to devote time to planning lessons and teaching rather than write, for example, useless year-end reports!

So it was "outstanding" last year?

You really don't get "outstanding" if you are crap. You might get it if you are OK but put on a good show. But an "outstanding" school will not be crap.

And children are not always good witnesses. Honestly. They aren't. And "I'm bored" can mean all sorts of things. Sometimes it means "I'm bored". But sometimes it means that the work is too hard/easy for me. Sometimes it means I'm not interested in work that is otherwise interesting. Sometimes it means the teacher has sussed me and I have to knuckle down. Sometimes it means the teacher is a tyrant, and I'm justifiably rebelling. You really have to dig deeper/ enquire more. Taking the word of a child that its school is crap can be dangerous. You need to listen and take on board but have a sceptical eye open as well.

Seeker I agree with you that I need to be careful with how I interpret what children say and I agree "I'm bored" can mean many different things. If you asked my children what they think of their school, I'm sure they'd say they enjoy it. They wouldn't use the word "bored". My discomfort/disappointment comes from asking them details about the day to try to understand what actually happens in the classroom. (They have very little homework which is fine with me! so I don't know what they're doing/learning at school unless I ask specific questions). I am dismayed to learn that much of the teaching takes place through videos (except, perhaps, on the days of inspection....); most of the "work" is on photocopied worksheets; there is very little "discussion" in class even with regard to books when they're doing "oral reading"; the children mark each others' work (except, perhaps, during inspection...) all of which leaves me to wonder what the teachers do if they don't prepare lessons, don't prepare questions for children to answer and don't mark the work themselves..... The school is a happy place and most of the children are bright and polite and kind (again, from what i can tell at drop-off, pick-up and children's comments) and come from supportive families. It shouldn't be difficult to achieve good results with this group (as opposed, for example, to what MRZ describes of the intake at her school) so inspectors are deluded by looking at results rather than any "value added" by the teachers themselves.
grumble grumble grumble....
I think I'll now turn my mind to planning summer fun!

Our school in Camden uses the IPC, this is our first year but it means all of the subjects are connected to each other. I feel that the school is incredibly creative and engaging. For literacy week a couple of years ago we had a mysterious nest appear on the roof, then some giant eggs appeared, they received an email from the Natural History Museum and it appeared in the local press. DS would walk through the door and tell me about the nest before even saying hello. The schools do exist.

One last thing. Peer marking is done a lot for, I understand, good educational reasons, not just (or at least, not always!) because a teacher is lazy. Somebody I am sure will come along and explain the theory behind it.

And OFSTED can no longer be deceived by good year 6 SATs- there progress of low, middle and high achievers is assessed separately now.

And if the children are happy and achieving, it can't be that bad, surely?

I hadn't heard of the IPC. Have just read about it and think it's very interesting though there don't appear to be many schools in London that use it. You're lucky to have one nearby. I suspect the American School or the International School might use a similar curriculum but both are prohibitively expensive. A friend used to send her daughter to a German school near Kew and the curriculum there seemed very interesting but, alas, we don't speak German.

Seeker -- thanks for your helpful perspectives. I do keep telling myself the children are happy so I shouldn't worry....

My two are at a SW London school, with cross-curricular teaching as per Littleducks and Neo's posts....they love school, and learning.

And know their times tables too

My sister loved the Steiner school that she sent hers to. It wouldn't necessarily have been ideal for us but the children certainly didn't get bored.
The school you describe sounds a bit desperate - maybe they've been concentrating too much on ticking the boxes for their rating and haven't really thought enough about making sure the children are engaged. Many schools do manage to find a balance so I'd also say look around more.

Not in London but our school has a 'creative curriculum' where everything is topic based and all the subjects are taught through the topic. I did wonder at first if that was really possible and whether real work would get missed but it actually seems to work really well. They do the standard literacy and numeracy stuff like everybody else too.

Topics aren't the same every year at all. In reception she had celebrations, bugs, castles, fairy stories. Higher up the school I've seen detectives, WW1, construction, the environment, travel or based around a particular book. If you think about it you can see how it is possible to teach reading, writing, maths, science, art, music and whatever else. I think it is exciting for the staff as well as the kids. I believe the kids get some input into topics higher up the school.

They also seem to respond to local/ national events eg construction was in response to major house building in our area. They visited the site and had builders in to school, they did science stuff about foundations and cantilevers, measured and did scale drawings and they wrote job adverts and CVs for different jobs on the site.

DD gets very excited seeing what topic it will be and often they stage some kind of 'event' to announce it eg a taped off crime scene for the detectives one.

There's also no homework apart from reading in KS1 and no book bands or reading scheme only 'real' books. I never realised until I came on here that these things were a bit radical!

I didn't choose the school very particularly or bust a gut to get in its just our local school, ofsted good with some outstanding features, catchment the council estate we live on. I wouldn't want my kids to go anywhere else now.

So maybe that's what to look out for if you want a change, topic based/ creative curriculum?

Hello OP.

I also think it may be a good idea to consider H.ed, perhaps look at the threads on here or contact a local group to you.
We started this year and it works really well for us.
The freedom away from curriculum and timed lessons has been most fun and just running with what dd decides to do next.
Which in this glorious weather was going to the park.

Mamadoc - that is exactly what the IPC is about. So far it has been great.

The way it was explained is that actually this is the way many of us would have been taught. I certainly very clearly remember my topics at school and many if the teachers said they learnt topic based and we are around the same age.

IPC is only as good as the teachers.
At DCs primary it was an excuse for laziness.
At other schools I gather it can work well.
Blinking Mission to Mars and all that.

I agree. I feel like our teachers were delivering before, the nest thing was Pre IPC. I am a Governir too so am keeping a close eye on it.

What I do know though is my son is definitely inspired and they learn this way in reception anyway.

It is sad OP that your DC school is not meeting your expectations. There has been some good advice on this thread though.

We looked at IPC and thought it was mind numbingly boring ...

To be fair we looked at all the "creative" curriculum packages that were available at the time and decided against them.

What made you decide against Mrz?

I am not aware that ours is a 'package' but perhaps it is and I just didn't realise.

MRZ I, too, would be interested to know why you decided against "creative" curriculum packages. Presumably the children at your school as you describe them on arrival -- benefit from a structured, "traditional" education. I would have thought you could offer such an education (ie "grounding" in the basics of literacy and numeracy) through a more creative approach than I have witnessed so far.

Mamadoc -- you are very lucky! Your local school sounds wonderful!

For the record: Peer marking is a very effective way of teaching. For example, I would hand out short quizzes at the beginning of class. The students would do the quiz then mark each others seem guiding the process as a class exercise.

The students would, in actuality, do the quiz three times. Once when they sat the quiz, once when they marked the quiz and a third time when they got their papers back because they did not necessarily trust their classmates

DS and his friends love it but it is early and they were very engaged by the way they were previously taught too.

We thought it was far from creative (very old hat) certainly not inspirational for our pupils mamadoc.

I think the whole idea that "creativity" comes from a pre prepared package is quite bizarre. If you are following someone's ideas the "creativity" has been removed IMHO.