Primary school curriculum asking too much of children

[Ipsos]

Hi,

I wondered if I might ask what others think of the pace of work in the primary school curriculum in England the Wales?

My son has been struggling at school and I went to talk to the senco. I said I felt that they were asking too much of ds.

The senco agrees and says that she doesn't know any teacher who thinks that the current fast paced learning is healthy or appropriate for little kids of their age. She says people are always talking about mental health problems in young children as if it was some kind of mystery where it comes from, when in fact it's obvious that it's caused by the school system.

She said there is little that the school can do to shield him from this as they have to meet targets or they will be marked down in their ofsted assessment.

I feel really sad for ds that he is being put through this in his early years, which should be a time of free play and freedom to think and develop naturally.

I wondered if anyone might have ideas on how to solve this problem? If people generally agree that the curriculum is too fast paced, could we perhaps start a petition or something?

Thanks!

We do have a steiner school but the senco said that that can be tricky as their is no steiner secondary school. Do you think that would be right? She said that the steiner primary is not a great preparation for mainstream secondary.

I did look at steiner but I wondered about it because they said they don't start reading until 7. We didn't teach ds to read before he started school but when he did start we found out that he was mysteriously already reading oxford reading tree level 3 books and we had no idea that had learnt that. What happens to early readers in steiner schools?

Sorry my spelling is bonkers today. I've been up half the night every night since saturday with ds and coughing virus.

There are a couple of secondary steiners. Not sure where.

Not sure about the early readers! I doubt they discourage, but just don't actively teach. I've been in awe of how my niece has gone through. And definitely handled harder text levels than I did at her age (hobbit and Lord of rings at 9. Given started being taught in school at 7, makes you think...)

Was your niece at a Steiner school Clarella?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-28646118

Oh dear.

Yes that's the stuff I don't agree with. My niece is vaccinated up to the nines. But the report ignores the holistic, creative side of Steiner.

I just wish we had the education system of some of the Scandinavian countries.

May I ask if anyone has considered moving a child down a year within their existing school? My son is a May birthday so if he was starting now he would be eligible to enter at the year below. I do wonder whether this is the good option?

I didn't think you could move children (who have already started school) down a year without agreement from the school, which they are unlikely to give without very good reason.

Reason being (I think) that they wouldn't automatically get funding for the extra time that the child would spend in that primary school.

Afaik they are similarly strict about new intake sticking to their year group age - so whilst you're not obliged to send them to school till they're 5, they have to enter school at 5 with the rest of their cohort (even if that means them starting in Yr 1 and missing Reception) - they can't start with the younger ones.

I just had a chat with dh and he says we should just suck it up that ds is struggling academically and socially and give him all the help that we can to get him caught up. Do you think that is a good scheme?

My thought on this is that if I could just find a comprehensive list of all the learning outcomes for the next couple of years then maybe I could gradually introduce all the learning that wee bit ahead of time so that ds does not come to things cold when the teacher teaches them. At the moment, for example, he's self-teaching at home the concept of division and multiplication of negative numbers, so he has spare capacity for learning. If I could just guide him towards the topics that the teacher is teaching before she gets to then maybe that would take the pressure off.

I'm also doing a lot of work with him in playdates and that seems to be helping. I've noticed that he plays beautifully with the children of his own age, but struggles with those who are older or dramatically precocious socially. Oddly, I have found that if I explain what's going on to the more socially developed children then that seems to help. For example I explained to one very precocious little girl that my son is a very good reader, and that she is a very good talker, but that neither of them is great at both. She looked quite taken aback and embarrassed because she is in the reading catch-up programme, but after that she was much kinder to ds. I also pointed out to her that it would be good to be fair when making up teams. It took a week or so for them to figure things out but they are getting much fairer teams organised, and that is helping the other younger children in the year group too. I've noticed that the older sibling of the most precocious little girl is actually the one who suffers most, so perhaps careful management of the most precocious children is actually what is needed?

Maybe the thing to do is to keep helping ds build his life one day at a time and to try not to get discouraged myself? Ds understands the big picture stuff really well so if I could get it all straight in my head and explain it to him then he's probably feel a lot more positive about it all.

Parenting is very complex isn't it?

OP, how old is your son? Is he in Year 1? Sorry if you have said it before but I couldn't find it at the beginning of the thread.

If your son is 5 years old, in Year 1, and self-teaching at home the concept of division and multiplication of negative numbers, I don't see why he should be behind (at least in maths!). What exactly did the teacher said he is struggling with? There's lots of fun things you or a tutor (if you don't have the time) could do to help him to catch up. I did lots of games with DS when he was in reception and Year 1, based on what the teacher said they were learning at school, and he always enjoyed them and we were able to extend it as further as we wanted to.

Also you can get the contents of the new curriculum for all subjects online and check what he is supposed to be doing in his year, the year below and above to have an idea of what things to target at home.

Hi Ellle, Yes he's 5 and 3/4 years old and in year 1. I think the thing is that he's a bit of a sensitive little fellow and very bright and it really bothers him if he doesn't understand everything completely and immediately.

Plenty of other kids might be really struggling academically and don't care because all they are interested in it when the football games starts later but my ds cares deeply about the details of the phonics and the maths and so on. He says things like "Do you know that some people might think that Darth Vader is spelt Darth Vaeder?" and then he sort of laughs a little thoughtful laugh as if he was saying that some people can't tell flavours of ice cream apart.

In addition to that he's very musical and frequently sings his reading books to us off the cuff, and as I say is now doing -100 x -100 and remarking to me that multiplication of negatives always yields a positive number.

He's an only child and has had a very gentle upbringing at home before primary school and a lot of illness in early years so that he was out of social circulation for two years before school started. So now he's plunged into the melee of the social scene and loving every minute, but just a bit unsure of the rules. "No hitting" was a real confusion in reception, and now tig is proving to be tricky as he's not that fast a runner. He's popular though and has nice friends and is gradually getting more and more settled.

I think he just gets worn out completely by the stress of needing to get everything completely right, when he's also nearly the youngest in the class.

Is it easy to get the complete list of learning outcomes then? I've tried looking and been a bit fuddled by it all. At least if there is a complete list then we'd have something to aim for.

Thanks!

He sounds quite bright to me. I still don't understand exactly why he is struggling with the new curriculum, so hopefully with a little nudge in the right direction (either from teacher, you, or both) it will be okay.

This link should be helpful with the list of learning outcomes you want:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum

Thanks for that link. :-)

I think he just gets worn out completely by the stress of needing to get everything completely right

tbh, from what you have said, his level of stress and anxiety looks like the main issue here rather than his age or academic level. He's not particularly young for his year group, and he doesn't seem behind academically, in fact he seems very bright.

Not saying that the new academic standards aren't part of the problem of course. Does he do much extra-curricular stuff / playdates - is there anything that you could cut down on so he can spend more time just playing gently at home and de-stressing?

Hi, We have been cut down to nothing at all outside of school for the last few years as we just lurched from one virus to the next if we didn't but he's starting to be able to have play dates after school and we got to sunday school on sundays which is very gentle and he enjoys. We tried going swimming after school once and he loved it and whooped and splashed and had such a lot of fun, but then he was totally knackered and went straight down with the next virus, and then the next. He has obstructive apnoea for years as a baby/toddler and I'm not sure he's over the exhaustion. I know I'm not.

Is there a specialist person that a child can be taken to see to look at stuff like that? We have food intolerance problems and exhaustion and viruses are a constant problem, and I've read that naturopaths can be helpful, but I'm never sure whether just going to the nearest one is a good idea.

From your post, your ds doesn't sound like struggling at all. I think he is just young. Being a good reader will help a lot with grammar and spelling. Having a aptitude for maths is really good. If you help him at home, even a little everyday, will make a huge difference.
My ds was really ill up until 3, and in and out of hospital a lot, including long stay. Also has lots of allergies. His immune system is very weak, so he gets ill all the time. But now he is 8, and getting stronger.
I don't think you shouldn't worry too much, he is only 5. I am sure one day he will click and excel.

Ipsos I haven't had time to read all the responses to you but yes you can ask to repeat a year, especially since your child is summer born. There is a change in admissions code due to take place soon (no definite date yet) to allow parents of summer borns to choose whether to send their child early at 4 or wait until they reach compulsory school age (5). It's worth looking into. There is a Facebook group called 'flexible school admissions for summer borns' that will tell you more about how to go about this.

You can request but you aren't guaranteed success

"Lili you have teachers on this thread ask them if they teach poetry in the way Mr Rosen claims"

It's the way it's tested that is the problem.

mrz, with respect, you shouldn't assume that people don't work in schools necessarily. Or that every school/teacher is like your school/you.

And with respect Mr Rosen needs to make it clear he's speaking about specific teachers rather than every school in the country. Simply because he's seen a teacher do something stupid and blame it on testing/curriculum/ grammar/phonics ir hugs pet hate of the moment please don't assume everyone lacks sense.

I must say, I do remember a close friend with two summer borns commenting on how exhausted they were when they started school, and for the first couple of years really.

I think it is tiring for them all. I also don't think it sounds like your Ds is especially struggling academically - potentially physically? I wonder if school could refer to an OT? And make sure he's getting vit d, especially for the sun (safely) from April- October.

Mrz, This is a problem I've noticed before about Rosen's writing. For example, his repeated claim that "schools" are supposedly throwing out picture books (because phonics), When you press him, he retreats to "some" teachers have reported this to him. When you ask how many schools out of the 17,000 primary schools in England this applies to, he doesn't answer. (Obviously out of 17,000, you are going to get one or two incompetent heads.)

It's a common rhetorical "persuasive" debating device. Exploits the ambiguity of a noun with no quantifier, in order to convey the impression of significant numbers, while still allowing plausible deniability of any intention to deceive.

He does it a lot. Then attempts to claim that everyone else has the wrong end of the stick.

I don't think he has 1 school that threw out all their picture books. Which was why he had to backtrack and tried to pretend that everyone had misunderstood. It's not even a case of there being 1 or 2 heads that are incompetent that prove his point. He just lied and got caught out.

There's a number of other blog posts and pronouncements from him where the same thing has happened. I find it difficult to take him seriously on anything now. There are so many well thought out and well-considered education blogs that there doesn't seem to be much point in paying much attention to his.