Primary education - Better in our day?

[starfish8]

I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on whether you think standards and achievement in primary school was higher, 'back in our day?' I went through primary education from the mid 80s to early 90s.

I wonder if teachers today have a range of more complex issues to deal with, that leads to lower overall progress in their classes?

Were the expected standards higher in the past? I was a bright child and I'm sure I achieved a 6 in Maths (though that could be my memory failing me!).

In what ways has the curriculum been dumbed down in the past 20 years? Are there things children used to get taught which they don't anymore?

To counter this, are teachers overall better qualified and better? Some of the teachers I had back in the day were shocking!

None of this to cause offence, just some random waffling on my part to see what others think?

Our local one was so chaotic that my parents paid for us to go to a private school. v traditional but we had country dancing, nature study, poetry, that kind of thing. Imagine a ladybird book and that was it - even down to berets in winter. I enjoyed school but was bullied by local kids for going there.
I was clever so kept being put up a class one year and then held down the next It was very unsettling.
Then on to grammar school where if you struggled, there appeared to be no-one to help you. I read through my school reports yesterday and nearly cried. I think in a present day school if a child had problems with written work it would be dealt with early on rather than criticised over and over again for 7 years.

I adored primary school, but I think standards are higher now. We spent most of KS1 collecting things for the nature table.

As someone mentioned up thread, the maths taught is at a much higher level now. English is much more structured and primary kids' knowledge of different writing genres is much higher. Having said all that, I went to a rural Scottish primary in the 1960s and I think life was much easier then. We had fun and went on fun holidays like pony trekking. We all seemed to have the basics of maths and literacy. Lessons now are frantic and pressured for both pupils and teachers. No wonder there is a mental health crisis.

Thanks all for your comments. Sounds like school most definitely WASN'T better in our day! I wonder if things started to change a bit later on in the 80s, as I can't relate to the being allowed to do what I wanted for whole periods of time, and teachers on strike (70s).

I have a DS due to start school next year and worry about what life has in store for him. Zipitydooda, you are right about the politicians feeding us messages about how poor schools and teaching are, I'm sure like many others I've believed it!

It sounds like the more worrying issue today is the pressure put on both teachers and pupils to hit SATs levels. Reading TES (teachers magazine) website really brings this home. A lot of articles talking about teachers pressurised and leaving their jobs. I truly worry about my son being taught by a teacher who is so (rightly) disgruntled with their job, let alone the pressure he may be put under to achieve particular grades.

I think it depends, what you have to realise it's that in the 80's your looking at pre national curriculum that came in around early 1990's. So yes we all will have had a much varied experience at school.

Plus side is I think now they get to do things like music, France and science early on. But they have so much to cram into the time table that children who have struggled to pick up the basics don't have time to try and catch up. So it's a great system for most children, but with little flexibility in it. There are too many deadlines and targets making the teachers stressed. Although the addition of TA's into the classrooms is a bonus. It suits my children well but it wouldn't have been good for me.

But then I didn't do well at primary in the 80's either, we where left to work through maths cards to. I think they where SMP cards to and where I did very well with maths top of my class. I still couldn't read in my last year at primary. Thanks to a good teacher who then picked that I was dyslexic and a lot of support through high school I did well.

I think they system now is better in some ways but not in others. To much pressure on children to young, still not enough support for those who need extra help. It's gives a more uniform education to all which is good less variation from one school to another. More montering due to ofsted (which again came in in the 90's).

But I do think there could be a middle ground we haven't found yet. A better balance. We are still failing those children who need us the most.

Primary and onto secondary from 80 to 90. Totally half arsed schooling imo. Didn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason what we were taught or any progress reports, I got one report from yr 7 to yr 10.

Much better now. The dc's have structure and progress is kept an eye on. Closer relationship between parents and teachers too.

Well thinking about my own childhood (70s) and that of my children (9,8 and 5), infinitely better now.

I was selectively mute when I started school, I was sat in a corner and given simple picture books to look at because it was assumed I was stupid (until the Amazing Mr J who took me under his wing and realised I could read and write when I started schhol , I just couldn't use my voice at school).

My dd1 was painfully shy when she started but school is so much more nurturing now, that she has blossomed. Dd2 is dyslexic, but her brightness is recognised and celebrated. Whenever I spend time at their school I am always impressed by the eloquence and enthusiasm of the children and how this is encouraged rather than stamped on by some bitter teacher (maybe my primary was just shit!!)

Ds is disabled, he is non verbal but has an average non verbal IQ - he is in a resource base for complex needs in a ms school, he joins his ms class for large chunks of the day where he is welcomed and adjustments are made so he can access the curriculum. He has classmates who are tube fed, some who need wheelchairs, with a variety of disabilities. They are part of the school and not seen as being weird or different by the other children. In the 70s ds would have been deemed as 'dumb' and not able to access 'normal' schoolwork.

Zipitydooda, you are right about the politicians feeding us messages about how poor schools and teaching are, I'm sure like many others I've believed it!

^^ this! Politicians need to justify their existence and look electable by making out they are saving education.

I started Primary school in the mid 70s and loved it.

Most of our teachers were hippys who at times all through the summer taught us English by letting us all run around outside on the grass without our shoes on then sitting under a massive oak tree whilst we all gave ideas to describe what we had seen, felt and imagined whilst we were doing it!! We also had loads of those make a story board things where one person starts a story and you go around the class and everyone adds a bit whilst the teacher wrote it down I remember endless cups of weak orange squash being dished out whilst we did it.

It was so much fun and certainly fired imagination but i'm not sure what we learnt other than a passion for books and vivid imaginations! I cant imagine teachers doing that now or being allowed to. We all had Golden Virginia tobacco tins with our spellings in them, cant see that happening now

There was so much repetition in maths, times tables, long division, adding, subtraction so we all had a solid foundation when we hit secondary school but it was only in the very basics so none of the things kids are taught now at this level.

I watch Ds trudge into Primary now and he hates it. Everything moves so fast and the curriculum seems too broad that he hasnt even grasped a topic before its moved on to the next thing. His self esteem and feelings about school worry me and he's only 7 so I dread to think how he will cope when he moves to Secondary I think Primary now is great for DC who are academically able but for ones like Ds who are slower, its a nightmare and soul destroying. Who sucked the fun out of education and learning.

My older 2 DC who are now mid 20's seem to have had the perfect balance in the 90's at primary. Academics had improved but teachers still seemed to have a choice in how they taught everything without the obscene pressure they have today.

floppyjogger your experience sounds similar to mine and I agree that a better balance is needed between structure and creativity.

Similar to a pp, we were also allowed to put on our own plays and assemblies and also to form sports teams. We weren't micro-managed by teachers and parents.

Education isn't just about achieving certain levels in tests, but also about experiences, building confidence etc. Kids these days don't seem to get given responsibility as they were in the past or encouraged to come up with ideas and use their initiative.

My DC's have experienced a far higher standard of teaching at a very similar type of school and enjoy school far more than I did. I think they have been amazingly fortunate with their teachers. Not sure if this is universal as I can only compare my experience with theirs.

I just don't recognise the education system politicians talk about at all.

They need to spend more time and investment on the social issues which cause huge problems in schools. Not such easy soundbites though.

I left class teaching after 2 years and since have taught part time as a specialist in a variety of schools. I love teaching, working with children is fantastic and they are great. I am a great teacher and can teach an interesting lesson off the top of my head in which I know the children learn. I can't however fill in endless notes and tick lists to justify every learning objective and every little point I make; it makes my teaching stilted and insecure, it prevents me from really getting to know what makes each individual tick and I lose my innate ability to connect with the children and I get so worn down by the pressure of it that I get ill.

I admire the teachers who manage to strike a balance between tick lists and still keep that innate ability to teach with joy. I would never want to go back to class teaching as it currently is.
My eldest child is sitting SATS this year and I have great sympathy towards the school who are doing revision with the children but on the other hand I'm so sad that his last year at primary isn't filled with more fun and creativity and his teachers look so worried all the time.

I spent my final year of primary helping the reception teacher because I'd done everything and couldn't be moved up a year I did that so much in year 5 and 6, loved it! Was top of the class and always finished my work so quickly that the teacher would just send me off to the infants side of the school to help out.

I went to a decent primary so I think the education was quite good, I remember there was lots of project work, I remember lots of music, dance and art. We had different levels for maths and literacy in the last two years so we could work a bit more on our own level though some of us could have done with a bit extra pushing really... my brother was even luckier though, he was two years older than me and got his own maths tutor because he was so far ahead in maths. They didn't do that for me but they did send me up to the secondary school once a week for a maths club.

That was in the 90s btw

Comparing my primary education (mid 70s) with my DCs primary education I would say the only subject where teaching has improved for my DCs is maths.

I live in an 11 plus area, by year 5 90% (or more) will be receiving extra tuition for maths and English. In DC2s reception class there were 6 children being formally tutored in maths and English. I was particularly shocked when DC2s friend came round and stated that they thought my DC was really lucky as they didn't have to do two hours of reading and an hour of maths every day after school (yr3). I didn't know a single person who was being tutored when I was at primary school.

Large numbers of families buy or rent on the door step of the schools with the best SATs/GCSE/A level results (selection by wealth). Everyone I knew at school lived locally and their families had been in the area for a few generations.

There were very small numbers of children leaving and/or joining the primary school I went to. Between the years 2,3 & 4, 10 children had left my DC1s class to go to a private prep. to prepare for the 11 plus or move out of the area completely. Basically 1/3 of the class had changed.

When I was in primary school disruptive behaviour was not very common, likely due to the wooden ruler across the hand or wooden slipper/wooden cane if you were sent to the HM. My DC1 had a very disruptive child in their class who was finally excluded in year 5 so quite some years of constant disruption.

I helped in my DC2s class a couple of times when they were in yr1. I was particularly concerned when the teacher read out a load of non-words from a book for the children to repeat. The teacher told me that they did this at the end of every day. My DC2 was assessed for SEN and diagnosed with dyslexia. The report stated that DC2 was weak in their phonics knowledge despite the fact that they had scored 40/40 in their school phonics test. Prior to the assessment the school had insisted that it was unlikely my DC2 had SEN as they were exactly where they should be academically (i.e. expected levels).

During a day tour of a local secondary school the HM stated that they conducted their own academic assessments when the children started as the SATs results were too unreliable.

I went to primary school in the mid-late 80s

We had project work, art, community activity (we used to go and read to the residents of a local care home)
We had a lesson called 'creative writing'
How much creative writing do children do now? -all writing seems to be 'scaffolded' to within an inch of its life so you end up with 30 near identical pieces of writing!

We didn't do maths to the level children do now but it was well drilled and solid knowledge -not a topic touched on for a day or 2 and then having to be re taught the following year

I went to a very unusual school where we were taught in ability groups rather than age groups. I was coding on a BBC micro in 1982 at the age of 10,
I learnt fly fishing, my sister learnt clay pigeon shooting. We were turned out in the woods on a regular basis.

Went on to get in to selective senior school.
I managed to access similarly alternative primary schooling for my DC who is now flying at senior school.

I think it's improved.
Another one with the maths coloured cards that you just worked through - no maths teaching at all. The answers were either upside down on the bottom or back of the cards so I just learnt to read upside down. I only passed GCSE maths last year.
Reading was assessed once a year by going up to the teachers desk and reading words on a piece of paper.
Topics and science were touched on enough to say 'we've done this' but not explored in depth. I remember really really wanting to delve further into a few topics but not being allowed to.
Art seems to have suffered recently though. We had whole afternoons of the entire class painting/ink drawing/making things with clay. Ds & dd do one art project a term and sit with a TA who tells them what/how/where to put their paintbrush & paint (think winter trees, daffodils etc). They're allowed free run of pastels/paints/felt tips etc at home because I think exploring creativity is important.

lonecat how would someone go about looking for that type of alternative provision? Was it private?

Purple yes my primary education was private as has been my daughters.

google Summerhill purple. You could also homeschool - no fees - but no salary!
I would love my DD to go to a progressive school - don't think many exist any more though...

I've been tempted so many times to homeschool. But the idea makes my Ds sad as he likes spending his days with his best friends. He does know different - he can remember his first school and how awful it was. We took him out and homeschooled then until he was accepted into his current school (1.5 terms + summer). It's always there as an option, but like you pointed out, there's no salary attached.

I try to do what you do purple and go for complete creative freedom at weekends and during holidays. We go to loads of museums/galleries/parks etc and do lots of learning about stuff DD is interested in, so I try to do home-school techniques around her very curriculum based school. DD loves school too, so wouldn't want me to take her out.