What do we think.....would this improve grades at secondary level?

[Verbena37]

I was thinking whilst chatting to two teacher friends today......what if, rather than continuing the primary (mainly KS 1 and 2 rather than reception), primary schools employed specialist teachers in ALL subjects?

I honestly think this could dramatically improve teaching and outcomes. So instead of a teacher, for example doing a degree in education or a degree in history and then doing a PGCE), they do their specialist primary subject (maths/English/science/French/PE/Humanities and music and then do a PCGE.

After that, they teach from year 1-6 only in their specialist subject.
Obviously many primaries already employ specialist language, PE and music specialist teachers but surely this proposal would be cheaper and more effective (for continuity) way of teaching.

Wouldn't specialist teachers from year 1 ensure a better quality of teaching ....especially in core subjects? I'm really NOT trying to annoy current primary teachers but just looking at an easy way to update and improve our state education system.

The two teacher friends both agreed that it was a possible idea that could work,

We had different teachers for each subject at my primary school (early 80's), obviously I wouldn't know if they were trained to degree level in their specialist subject, but nobody from my school was particularly any brighter than anyone else iyswim due to this different way of teaching

Perhaps you need to be looking at secondary training if that's where there is a decline why are you assuming the solution lies in primary?

From children I know including my own they didn't learn anything new in Y7/8 just repeated what they'd covered in depth already.
My daughter's English teacher confessed he didn't know how she managed to learn anything in his class...

My DS has just gone into Yr 4 at a state school with one class per year group (no more than 25 in each class) and from this year will have specialist teachers for Maths, PE, French and Music. In maths the class will be split into 2 groups, so no more than about 12 being taught in each maths session. I've no idea how unusual this is though.

Because Mrz the government and schools use year 6 SATS to predict GCSE results. I personally don't know how they easily do that and I'm really not sure my own GCSE results would have correlated with how I would have done had SATS been around when I was in Yr 6 but apparently, that's how they do it. And obviously, grades can massively improve and decline so it's not set in stone that if you do badly in SATS, your GCSEs will be awful and vice versa.

So if more specialist teachers could boost core subjects in KS2, perhaps that might improve GCSE grades.

Children only have 25 hours max in classroom time. When the heck are they supposed to fit in all this enrichment? That is your job as a parent!
RE is about ethics, history, cultural identity, philosophy, moral debate, it is important. I say that as an atheist!

Your complaining about children reaching secondary school not up-to-scratch, but want to take time away from core subjects? How do you think we can help all children reach an accredited standard? Not by doing gardening when they can barely read, that's for sure.

Gardening, cooking, DIY as after-school clubs, sure. But who exactly is going to run them. You want subject specialists, but then which teacher is going to have a degree in gardening /horticulture, followed by a PGCE? In order to teach a seven hour week?

*You're not your, sorry

Holberg I did change my mind further up about only having degree specialist teachers for core subjects maths, eng and science.

You seem to be saying that because they do well in KS2 tests and they are failing to reach expected GCSE targets so i triduce subject teachers to raise standards further in KS2 in order to improve secondary

No, I meant if they do badly in yr 6 SATS and aren't achieving the expected grades in that year, then their predicted grades at GCSEs are lower.

But yes, obviously there is a need for secondary teaching to improve and carry on their learning before Gcses.

OK they are predicted low GCSEs but that doesn't mean with hard work and support in KS3 they can't achieve high As.

Yes that's true. I just thought that perhaps starting right down in KS 2 with specialist teaching might set a more stable path. I'm not saying I only think my idea is right......I was just interested in what others thought, including teachers.

But Verbena37 - going back to your comment about 'pigeon' Spanish. To my knowledge, hardly any state primary schools have a specialist languages teacher. Usually it's done by whichever member of the teaching staff has a smattering of a language.

It's good to introduce primary school children to the skills necessary to learn a foreign language, but they only do a teensy bit per week, it may not even be the language they'll do at their secondary school and in any case the secondary schools will start them from scratch. Bearing all this in mind, I don't think employing an additional member of teaching staff with a degree in Spanish is going to be high on the priority list.

I think, probably stating the obvious, it's incredibly difficult to create a school system that fits every child. I'm not in favour of multiple specialist teachers, and I'm not sure employing one person to teach in a group of schools would work. In the good old days of LEA control it may have worked but now, with academies and free schools, doubt it would. And it would be a nightmare for the teacher to plan - mixed ability in multiple schools with multiple behaviour policies, urgh!
I think slimming down what is taught in primary would help enormously. Do fewer things in greater depth.

We kind of have that at our tiny primary school though there will be changes to one subject in September.

I think slimming down what is taught in primary would help enormously. Do fewer things in greater depth
Great point fortyfour. My SIL who is a primary teacher, was saying the new maths curriculum is a complete nightmare and there is loads of extra stuff to cram in when they need more time on number and placement value.

And the number of times my kids have learnt about Romans, Tudors and the Gunpowder plot is sleep inducing! Let's ramp it up a gear and include history topics such as apartheid, Northern Ireland and the treatment of Aborignal people in Australia.....history that's actually still very relevant and current today.

Verbena
Guessing it would require a revamped pay scale system and funding.
You clearly know nothing about the budgets of schools.

They are paid a fixed amount per pupil.
If teacher numbers are to increase, that will involve massive increases in school budgets and more teachers doing nothing for part of the day : which is just stupid.
To pay for it would cost at least 2p on income tax : which ain't gonna happen.

In a school with two classes (one for KS1 and one for KS2) how would you make it work?

Or are well resourced schools just for those in big cities?

I think there's a lot of things we could tackle to help raise standards before we need to even think about specialist teachers in year 1, even if it's only for core subjects

Early identification of children at risk of falling behind and effective intervention for those children
Monitoring the effectiveness of intervention programs and getting rid of those that aren't doing what they should be (ELS anybody?)
High expectations for all children regardless of background ,probably in combination with mixed ability teaching that doesn't place a ceiling on children's learning
A whole school policy where all teachers are responsible for year 6 results, not just the year 6 teacher being used as a scapegoat for poor curriculum issues in lower years
Good quality synthetic phonics teaching for reading/writing/spelling throughout the school

Just a few things that schools could consider and that would probably be more effective than subject specialist teachers

Am I the only person on the planet that thinks the new maths curriculum isn't too bad.

It's introduction was crap, meaning children had to jump from old to new and cover gaps from previous years. But while I might change a few bits, the content is mostly OK.

All great points rafa.

Talkinpeace it was only theoretical. I hadn't looked into or really thought about the why and how ????

I know the basics of school budgets but you're right, I hadn't really thought about it.

No Rafa I don't think the new curriculum is too bad either.

I think the new maths curriculum is an improvement.

The year 1 science is much better for cross curricular than the QCA units were IMO. And hooray for the end of genre theory and trying to get 5 year olds writing using the features of a million different forms of non-fiction texts.