New national curriculum: assessment- quesion for teachers and schools

[AbbyR1973]

I have DS1 entering year 1 and DS2 starting reception in September.

I have read that the government plan to abolish national curriculum levels as they are too complicated for parents to understand (they say). Instead they say that schools will be free to introduce their own tracking to measure pupil progress. They do however say that there will still be statutory assessments at the end of each key stage which will be compared nationally.

Actually as a parent I like levels. I understand where DS is compared to national expectations. I will know their starting point and if for some reason they don't make expected progress I will know there is a problem with DS's or school and be able to do something to help. As a parent what information will I get from school in the brave new world? Will it be a tick list of DS can statements? How will I know if he has progressed as expected. Then what happens with statutory assessments- there will surely need to be some sort of level assigned?

Secondly the government have said the exisiting national curriculum will be partially disbanded this September leaving schools free to make arrangements to smooth the transition to the new curriculum. How will this actually work for DS who is going into a mixed year1 /2 class. Presumably the exisiting year 1 going to year 2 group will continue to follow the existing curriculum, however DS is working well ahead of his year group and I was expecting he might be working with year 2 in some areas.

I don't actually object to most of the content of the new curriculum ( is there seriously a massive issue with expecting children to know tables to 12 and getting younger children to cut pizza into halves and quarters?) I am more concerned about how transition arrangments will affect DS's and how I will know how they are getting on as a parent.

Teachers please answer?

Thanks

Not a teacher, but a governor (on our standards committee). We discussed this at our last meeting, and the answer was that they're still working out what to do!

We have no clue either

The new curriculum is still in the consultation period so could change again before we get the actual thing ... fractions are already in the curriculum so no change and all the schools I know teach 12 times tables ... as to assessment the end of Key Stage tests will continue until 2015 after that who knows

I actually think they're making it up as they go along. And, as the intention is to persuade all schools to become academies anyway, and therefore make up their own curriculum, the whole exercise seems a bit of a farce.

Ok...so this is not reassuring but useful to know where schools are at with this. Just don't want DS's to become educational guinea pigs- as I say I don't have a major issue with the curriculum contents but the implementation needs to be well thought through and ensure DC's educated in transition are not disadvantaged. The timescales appear rather tight as a non-teacher.

It gets worse

the government has confirmed its intention to disapply elements of the national curriculum for a time limited period in order to give schools greater flexibility to manage the transition from the existing national curriculum to the new one. This will mean that while maintained schools will still be required to teach national curriculum subjects, they will not be required to teach the centrally prescribed programmes of study (or use attainment targets as part of statutory assessment arrangements) from September 2013 for the following subjects:

English, mathematics and science for pupils in year 3 and year 4

all foundation subjects for pupils at key stages 1 and 2

all subjects for pupils at key stage 3 and key stage 4.

so basically school must teach the old curriculum for English, Maths & Science in Y1, 2, 5 & 6 next year but can choose to teach the the new to Y3 &4 and the new foundation curriculum for other year groups