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?

I was at primary school late 60s/early 70s. In many ways I think standards were higher in the basic skills, but we did far fewer subjects - no science, and history/geography were a bit random. A lot of stuff was drilled in, and it was very, very boring. I can remember doing pages of sums while the teacher sat at her desk marking our books. Sometimes we would be allowed to queue up for help if we were stuck which frequently meant spending whole lessons standing in the queue. In my last year of junior school we were taught the skill of making notes and writing them up afterwards - we used to have a radio programme (anyone else remember the big box high up on the wall?) called Man which we listened to and made notes on, and then we had to write them up for weekend homework. I absolutely hated it at the time, though I have to admit it's stood me in very good stead ever since. By the end of primary school I was bored to death and couldn't wait to go to secondary (which unfortunately turned out to be even worse). Teacher attitude very much, 'I've taught it so you should know it - and if you don't, tough, it's your lookout'.

My DDs were at primary school in the 90s/early 00s and they had a very different time. Their curriculum was much broader, and they seemed to find a lot of it very interesting most of the time. I'd kept some of my old schoolbooks, and we used to look at them together as they were interested in what mummy did in the olden days. Their writing wasn't anywhere near as good as mine had been - chiefly, I think, because I had so much practice. We wrote all the time - e.g. 'compositions' every week done in silence, and returned to us with corrections which we had to write out ten times, and you do get technically better if you do that. However, they'd learnt things I'd never thought about, particularly in Science and the non-arithmetic aspects of Maths. And they certainly had a more positive view of learning, so even though they went to secondary arguably with less in the way of basic skills they were better able to learn when they got there because they hadn't switched off.

I went to 3 private primaries (cos mainstream didn't like even minor disabilities), and ds is in Y2 and dns in Y3. So far they are learning a much wider curriculum and really drilling into ensuring basics of reading and numeracy are understood before moving on, and there are no lazy, incapable or actively nasty teachers at ds's school (dn had a crap teacher last year and some less good ones, but none like the ones I had who might just hide behind a book while we ranriot).

So far ds is learning everything I had by his age but with addition of science and religions and all sorts of stuff under "culture" and "emotional and social education" - only thing he has less of is handwriting and memorizing stuff. His school does seem to take inclusion seriously, though dn1 and 2 are at schools that fret about SATs and don't seem to like children who don't fit their moulds. Still better than the 1980s total lack of inclusion I guess (not to mention things like in my day, inclusion meant the Jewish kid and Muslim kid didn't get told off if they didn't eat the roast pork, end of.)

I went to a Catholic primary school late 70s/early 80s. I remember endless handwriting practice, daily spelling tests and rote learning in maths. By year 6 I had got to the end of the maths textbooks and had to do other (non-maths) project work to fill the time. Oh and a great deal of praying. A decade of the Rosary (10 "Hail Mary's, an "Our Father" and a "Glory be") before lunch every day during the month of May. Whole mornings spent on preparation for Holy Communion. This was before National Curriculum - there's no way they could fit all that praying in now! The only thing I think my kids miss out on at their primary is enough art as it is squeezed out by everything else. Unfortunately there is increasing pressure around SATS - a couple of years ago the kids didn't even realise they were sitting Yr 2 SATS as the school put so little pressure on but we've had a change of head and there is a lot more pressure now. There was very little bad behaviour in class - probably because kids with SEN were either excluded early on or not given a place to begin with. I remember a kid shouting back at a teacher and being hit and dragged out of the class room. Different times!

Ii was at primary school to mid 70s. I just loved it. It was a very small village school with pupils from all walks of life. One teacher in particular was absolutely dedicated. We did masses of music, country dancing, sewing. I loved the BBC Radio for Schools programmes and I especially loved the history programmes and studying the accompanying booklet. Having older, old-fashioned teachers, we had to do proper handwriting with an ink pen and there were no trendy methods!

There was however no concept of Special Needs in those days - at least not out in the sticks. There were a couple of boys who were - from my perspective as a child odd and scary. One of them was frequently caned for severe anti-social behaviour. I wonder what happened to him...

I went in the early 80's, don't remember much about lessons, just about the very long lunchtimes playing on the school field, building houses with the grass cuttings! If a supply teacher came in, we would spend the whole day copying from the board about the Tudors. The maths my DS does in Year 3 is much more demanding that what I could do at the end of primary school (I know, as I saw my school books the other day). My school was a bit alternative in that we didn't learn times tables (that bit me on the nose when I went to secondary).

Children work MUCH harder at primary school now.

I left primary school in 1980. I just remember it being deathly deathly dull, though obviously I liked seeing my friends. They taught us very little - the 3 Rs, a tiny bit of history, no science, no geography, no grammar, no foreign language. We did a fair bit of art, but PE was also awful - netball or v basic indoor gym and that was it apart from the odd random session of country dancing. The boys did football instead of netball.

DD's school by comparison is AMAZING. They learn loads of science, history, geography, French, all kinds of stuff. There is a big emphasis on emotional education so they seem to talk a lot about how to solve problems with friends etc which I am certain is a good thing. It's very very nurturing and a very friendly place. DD tells me about when friends at school cried or got upset etc and I can honestly say that in my day if someone cried at her age (Y4) they would have been mercilessly teased - very much a culture of 'show no weakness'. They do all kinds of interesting maths and literacy stuff whereas I can't remember ever getting anything genuinely interesting to do.

In addition, it's not just the same lesson for everyone which was the case when I was at primary. I was very bored (arrived able to read, write and do basic arithmetic and left in much the same condition, though I did pick up long multiplication and division in the seven years) and I am sure there were other people who were totally floundering. DD's school differentiates really well. She gets really good extension work for things she is good at (eg Maths secondary teacher coming to do cross-year stuff with the most able pupils) and really good support in areas where she needs help. I would have loved to go to her school. She is really enthusiastic about learning and by her age I had totally switched off and was doing the bare minimum. I am so happy for her that she has such wonderful opportunities - clubs for everything you can think of, a really great group of friends and a place to learn that feels almost like a family (in a good way).

This is a v ordinary state primary, btw.

The education that my daughter gets in year 2 is far more focussed on the 3 Rs than when I was her age. My infant school was very laid back with large classes and no TA. It was possible to get away with doing very little work. There was more development of creative skills, project work, sport and music than what dd gets.

My junior school was a lovely school. The maths standards were stronger than a typical year 6 class, but the literacy skills were poor. Again they had lots of music, sport and drama.

My son's mental maths skills are poor because of an over reliance on calculators. I did not have access to a calculator until I was 14. My mental maths skills are very sharp as a result.

I think that secondary schools really have a problem with low expectations in the UK. There is a culture that only the top set get to do triple science or additional maths. My son (in year 9) has gained 7C both maths and science in a test before christmas. He is deemed good enough to do triple science, but he is not deemed good enough at maths to do the additional maths. There is not room for him in the top maths set and his school can't be arsed to provided more challenging work for the second maths set.

I'm 38 so went to primary school 82-89 and strangely the same one where my ds 12 has been and dd 5 is now.
The school burnt down twice and we were sent to another school to learn in the hall/corridor/broom cupboard basically anywhere that could fit us! I feel my schooling was majorly disrupted but- I was an extremely clever child and it didn't affect my education in the same sense that it affected others.
When back at re built school there were no languages or trips away which seem to be the norm now.
I would imagine far less pressure on teachers and never remember a teaching assistant it was a class and a teacher that's it.
We did do a lot more music and drama than my ds did, i remember that clearly. There were some absolutely amazing teachers but we had one in the y3/4 equivalent who was so bad and didn't teach us anything we hadn't learned so I started doing my own thing at home with library books to help ( sad looking back ) and luckily it didn't delay me at all. I was expected to go to grammar school but refused as the local one had a straw hat and I didn't like it, how ridiculous but I was very strong willed. Ended up at a bog standard school and whilst I did well I think how differently things could have been.
As said at the start. Dd is in my old school, 5 months in and I'm already having reservations, we shall see.

I was educated in France in the eighties. Maths, grammar and spelling were taught well, with time allowed to consolidate new knowledge. There were no tests and as a result no rush, no stress. The teaching might not have been super creative but it was solid. In comparison, my daughter's learning is like a prefab : goes up very, very quickly but it's not very solid, it's not weatherproof. So, yes, teaching was better in my day.