Primary school teachers please.

[NickiFury]

In your opinions, which years are years of less importance during primary school? If any.

I ask this on the back of a conversation with another parent who referred to Year 4 as being a "meh year where not much happens". Obviously year one important as moving from EY, year 2 again another "meh year" year 3 important as moving to KS2, year 4 - meh, year 5 important because of SATS, year 6 important because preparing to move to KS3.

This parent is not a teacher but has four dc that have gone through primary and she does work in a job related to education to a certain extent.

Just wondering what teachers might think of this razor sharp analysis of the primary education years?

Back to the original posters comment.... I do think that a mum of 4 kids who have all gone through primary school does probably have some valuable / relevant knowledge & experience of school life.

If, overall, she has observed that some years were 'meh' years for her kids at school, then they most probably were, right? I have 3 kids and have also observed that some school years are 'meh' years too.... kids don't seem to learn a huge amount / there's lots of plays / trips / downtime at school etc.

And without wanting to start a 'holidays in term time' debate, I shuddered at newbieman1978's comment re: Some parents have the misconception it's ok to miss time during primary for holidays. You hear parents saying things like "we're going to have one last holiday before kids go up to high school" Fact is any time missed is missed learning which may never be caught up on and impact on future learning.

Sorry, completely disagree - I do think its ok for some kids. Me and my sister were taken out of school every year for term time holidays in the 1980's. I left education with straight A's & a 1st class degree from a top Uni. For some kids, missing a week or two of school every year really DOESN'T harm their education one iota.

Sorry, slight rant over (off to pack for our term time holiday next week )

Love your post sugarhoops and couldn't agree more.

Not wanting to fuel a term time holiday debate - there was no national curriculum in the 1980s so there wasn't the problem of missing chunks of the curriculum

But mrsz - your point (to me, anyway) sort of suggests we didn't learn much in the '80's due to no national curriculum!?!

Surely missing some school in the '80's and missing some school now - we missed some learning either way, whichever decade it was in, and we all turned out ok didnt we .

It is absolutely true that a term time holiday would make no difference to the education of some children. High achieving kids with otherwise excellent attendance with interested motivated parents. It's simply not true to say otherwise.
The policy has been brought in as a catch all. Like healthy eating in school. Catch all policies are everything that's wrong with state education.

Totally agree ConnieBaby

Not at all sugar loop but there wasn't a set body of knowledge that had to be taught at specific times ... meaning if you aren't there you miss it!

For most of the 80s individual schools were free to teach what they wanted when they wanted which is the reason a national curriculum was introduced

But we still missed learning mrz.... Whether it was written on a more modern curriculum, or 'planned' in the 80's for the weeks we were away, we still missed learning a topic.

I'm sorry but I just don't agree that it harms all kids. It no doubt does some, but not all.

Yes which could be repeated at a later date or just ignored as it wasn't used to set future targets or subject to reportable national testing

Añd it has nothing to do with being modern the simple fact is that pre 1988 schools could have spent 6 years teaching you to crochet or skip so if you missed some learning it didn't matter because the school down the road didn't teach that anyway and the school in the next town had different things on their curriculum to the first two schools ...

But those 80s children still achieved as did those in the 90s and 00s whose parents took them on holiday.

Re; term time holidays.
As others have said, due to national curriculum and time constraints certain things will be taught once and once only. If a child misses it then that's something which won't be covered again.
Certainly some children will have parents who plug gaps and some very bright children will just work things out for themselves but in general most children need to be in school to learn what they need to know in order to move on through.

Also the general jist of my comment was that patents are more happy to take children out of primary but not secondary because they have the misconception that secondary is more important and missing time there would be worse.
For me missing any school time is detrimental.

Plus just while we're on the subject, I'm sure most parents wouldn't accept perhaps a TA or agency cover assistant teaching their children for a week while the teacher had a "cheap" holiday. "Oh it doesn't matter it's only a week, we'll have videos this week and catch up whenever"
Oh I'd love that conversation which Mr&Mrs pushy parent!!

I certainly don't expect the teacher to take a week off as that's his /her paid employment. T&Cs of teaching states that holidays must be taken out of term. Teachers sign up to this as adult employees. It's isn't like for like at all.
And I'd like examples of anything in maths or English which is never revisited please.
As I said it's a catch all. A policy I personally find unacceptable.

Bloody get in there and deal with the parents who are disengaged and never ever hear their child read. Who send them to school with a box of Pringles for morning snack. The ones who are late 3 or 4 times a week and miss every other Monday. Put policies in place for them not some shit policy which covers everyone just to catch those that re failing. I hate the 'oh we can't stand up and say you're crap for sending the Pringles we have to put a genetic rule in which means banning the occasional home made cake etc' it's cowardly and weak.

Of course teachers sign up to the t&c's and accept that holidays are out of term time, that wasn't the point.
The point is if parents don't think a week of learning here or there makes a difference then it would follow that a teacher could take a week off (for a holiday) and by your logic it wouldn't matter.

But my point is that as parents we should have the right to make that decision based on time of year and reason for holiday etc. Flying out on holiday 2 days before the end of the summer term to save a family. £300 really doesn't impact on a child's education.
And what about all the time wasted with sats prep? Bloody disgrace. Can I get that back please, tagged into July? I was so cross about it with my oldest that I didn't send him in for the tests. How bloody dare they waste all his time from feb onwards. He missed PE and art and all sorts week after week.

Of course to a degree as parents you have the right to do as you wish with your children. However by having children you essentially sign a contract with the state to conform to certain things one of which is educating your child. And if you pass that on to the state via school you have to conform again to certain rules, one of which is the attendance criteria.

I can see though some people will not like my point of view and similarly I won't like theirs but that's what make life interesting!

Did they Connie? Lots of things children are being taught in primary now I wasn't taught until Grammar school!

But there's lots of things the state seems to be able to do that parents didn't sign up to such as effectively suspend the curriculum during the spring term of Y6. They say you can't take them on holiday yet they effectively rob them of a terms learning! And the healthy eating nonsense. Parents unable to send the occasional treat or homemade cake as part of a balanced lunch because a blanket ban is needed to catch idiots who only feed their children crap. Oh and what about the fact that the government will not allow parents to opt out of being allocated a church school? That in itself is a disgrace.

Mrz, I'm not sure that teaching everything at a younger age means that education is much better these days.
And I'd like to see some evidence that backs up the claim that bright motivated kids from supportive families with otherwise excellent attendance are suddenly educationally disadvantaged by going on holiday the first week in July every year. I'd also like to know which areas of maths and English are only ever covered that week having never been covered before and never to be revisited.

Whatever we think the fact is that children are expected to have mastered these things at a much earlier stage in their education in order to be prepared for the next stage of learning expectations.

Good point Mrz ... It boils down to university which seems mad when talking about primary age.

Not too many years ago about 10% or less of children went to university with the vast majority coming from public schools and a small amount from grammar schools. These children could take advantage of all that those institutions offered and presented on the first day of university at the level expected.

In recent history it is quite rightly accepted that many more children can expect to reach university regardless of background or school.

According to many universities youngsters are turning up lacking the level of knowledge to start their course and time is being wasted catching students up.

So hence state schools are being expected to teach more sooner than ever before in order that 18 year olds have the correct knowledge on entering university.