Has anything changed at your primary with the new curriculum?

[cantthinkofanewnameatall]

Can't see anything has at ours.
Do your children have targets yet?

I've just come home from a parents' evening with a booklet about end of year expectations for year 5 in maths, reading and writing, a list of spellings they are required to learn in year 5 and 6 and a recommended reading list for year 5. Nothing about targets. This is at a primary school which was previously extremely target-focussed, so yes I'd say things have changed.

I think DD2 will struggle with the maths expectations and the book list has a distinct whiff of Gove about it. Don't know if that's unfair!

They have to share any data they have on your child.

Ooh nearly forgot, ds has come home saying he's been learning French, another thing to remember to ask at parents evening.

Do any of your schools run their own science club? Have to say I'm not sure ours does anything science related!

I sent husband to curriculum meeting few weeks ago then asked whats going on.

he said literacy is now called english again.
numeracy is now maths.

ict is now computing with code.

our coe school will now be teaching evolution.

year 2 and 6 unaffected.

receptions need to count to 100! hes mistaken by end year 1 they need count 1-100.

he said daughter in year 4 will now be expected do stuff year6 doing.

another mum said hes wrong they epected to do year 5level week,

daughter and most of her class are finding it tricky so guess it must be hard,

school did say they doing changes phase 1 and 2.

she has silly amount homework now.

asked her whats changed she said she still does numeracy and literacy.

im unsure about levels going as how can i measure what progress shes made took me 2years get my head around nc levels now they gone.

In my DC school the expected level for yr6 is a 5C now.

There is much more focus on times tables/mental maths (set over the year into ability groups).

NC Levels are staying for the moment.

French is taught from yr 3 (but it always has been anyway).

Maths hasn't been called 'Numeracy' for years. At least not in official documents. Many primary school teachers had kept it, though. Why they would, beyond EYFS, escapes me.

The expected level for the end of Y6 is a 4b (secondary ready).

Most primary schools have taught a Foreign language in KS2 for years.

Some stuff has moved lower down the school, but coming from an upper KS2 viewpoint, there's not much I didn't cover anyway.

Science is a core subject and always has been. We do roughly 1 1/2 hours in KS1 and 2 h in KS2 per week. We also have a science club and industry links to promote engineering, technology and science.

Much more focus on reading at home with attached tasks

We've been told that Y4 now have to cover what was expected of Y5 previously, in Maths. I asked how this was possible, given no extra resource and no answer was known

Spellings much harder than DS had in Y4, and he is much better at spelling than DD

DS in Y6 no change (apart from the reading focus, which in think is probably an our school only thing)

Only have one DS so nothing to compare his education to and he's not great at telling me what he's done at school. He tends to switch off when he gets home.

He's just gone in to Y3 so that will explain the French lesson, I'll ask about science. His old school used to do little experiments every so often, he's not mentioned that they've done anything similar in his new school but then again it's like trying to get blood out of a stone getting information out of him

So are everyone's kids getting the new spellings then? We haven't had any and they aren't doing them at school in class either.

They have stopped setting at DS's Junior school for Years 3-5.

I feel I'm missing out; DD is Y2 so she's still on old curriculum for now and DS is YR so is on same EYFS that DD did. Are the new curriculums devised by the schools then with no national standards?

DD (yr2) is supposed to be on the old curriculum I think but because she is in a very bright cohort they are on the new one.

She is starting recorder lessons next week (which previously started in yr3) but I haven't noticed any other difference (yet).

Ghoul the new curriculum was drawn up by the government and is the national standard. There is flexibility built into it though.

Free schools and academies don't have to follow it, although given their children will still be assessed on it at the end of years 2 and 6 they'd be unwise to disregard it completely.

Not really. In English and Maths we have always taught what the children need next to move them on rather than what a national curriculum says is this unit's objectives. Just because it says times tables in a specific year group you don't teach it to the group of children that can't order numbers to twenty or have any concept of place value - that needs sorting before we chant (!) times tables. And if the objectives say something children can do standing on their heads already we automatically look at other objectives. It has always worked like that and children haven't changed how they learn because the government has changed the paperwork.
Some changes are:
A few different topics compared to what has been taught year-on-year in the past, e.g. The Stone age.
Bit more focus on specific aspects of the maths and English curriculum.

Starting a poetry bank for children to memorise.
Computing has had some INSET for coding (luckily we'd been teaching most of it already, but maybe not used the new curriculum terminology)
Biggest change:
Fretting how we can monitor cohorts and specific groups of children each half term without NC levels. LA & OFSTED love reducing groups of children to just data .

I work in Y2 so for core subjects we are using the old curriculum still, though with some extra added bits from the new curriculum.

Computing is more detailed with a lot more computer science stuff, rather than ICT - though we were doing a lot of that already in the last couple of years.

There are no NC levels. Here in Sheffield we are using a tracker thats been developed by the authority. Y2 will be assessed using the old levels this year, as required. Not sure what that will mean in terms of what parents will see in reports. But we never talked about levels much anyway and never put them on individual pieces of work.

We are being a little more formal with teaching spelling - it is more explicit though still not for homework, and no formal testing.

Our school had "set" tables before. Now the tables seem to be mixed ability. I can't judge yet if it is better or worse.

Our primary dropped French 3 years ago, they have now reinstated it for all children, not just juniors as before. That I like.

I think we are still using the old NC levels, but I am not sure as we haven't had any feedback on the DC's progress yet.

There seems to be more emphasis on grammar than there was before.

Our school has got rid of ability tables too, so you now have children in year 4 who were the old 2a sitting next to children who are a 4c (2 years above) which seems silly to me. The new curriculum is challenging, but only to the middle to bottom of the class. So the high achievers are going over work they've done in previous years and hence are not being challenged and feeling bored! I've heard this from several parents in other schools.

If the idea is to teach the average and to sideways learn or learn more in-depth about a subject, how is this going to show the gap between the brighter pupils when it comes to taking the grammar tests?

I just don't understand this new curriculum when it states that children should be learning at the same rate and doing the same thing, rather than move children on though the levels which has been done previously. I worry this is another way of trying to close the gap and the brighter children lose out!

Thank you for an interesting thread!

Algebra and lots of it in year 6. I know they don't need to be on new curriculum, but school trying to bridge gap for year 7.

Any school keeping levels (a part from the year 2, 6 and KS3 run out) will need to explain that choice carefully to OFSTED. The levels were based on the old curriculum and also the Government feel they had strong reasons for scrapping that assessment model.

It may be that your schools are keeping levels until they are able to introduce something they have devised, by next year. My understanding is that schools are being given a year's grace to come up with an assessment plan.

They have to share any data they have on your child

Lepetite, I am not convinced this is true. I think they have to simply report the likelihood that a child will have made expected progress by the end of the key stage.

I don't understand how you can start a new curriculum and not have any assessment plans in place! This shouts out to me as a great opportunity for schools to try and close the gap. Especially good or outstanding schools who know ofsted won't be knocking at their door for a couple of years! I get the impression this curriculum has been rushed through far to quickly by the government!

As parents at least with the old system you could gage the progress your child was making.

DS came home before half term & said that there are no tables (ability wise) any more and they are sitting on mixed ability tables with kids that work well together.

DD is in yr2 & is still on ability tables AFAIK.

Sorry X posted on others saying the same thing.

DS seems happy with it & says that kids are still getting work at their level.

Reading between the lines it seems to be in place to stop over competitiveness & for kids who muck about together but are the same ability so were previously on the same table.