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!

I think naming her that might blow our anonymity, but she was a specialist physio with a lot of experience in development and neurological and other kinds of conditions. She said he was definitely 100% right in his movement and balance, communication and all that kind of thing and just needed to get out and run around a bit more to strengthen up.

Look at Osteocare fluid, it's a calcium supplement and has vitamin D, magnesium, zinc etc. Really helped my DS and tastes quite nice apparently. Also agree you need to see the OT to rule in/out these things, have you seen your GP/a paediatrician for a referral?

I'm not asking for names just wondering who is qualified to make that kind of assessment if an OT hasn't been involved.

My experience is that a pedestrian diagnosed ds2 with mild dyspraxia and low muscle tone, as well as hyper mobility in some joints but occupational therapist confirmed the diagnosis and wrote/delivered therapy. We had seen a physiotherapist before that and she just said that ds2 was flat footed. I think that if there are more than one area of concern a team of pedestrian, speech therapist, physiotherapist or other specialists can together come to a diagnosis (some children with dyspraxia also have speech issues).

It's usual for DCD to be diagnosed by two or more professionals often a paediatrician and an OT.

I think so, and as far as I know physiotherapist can't diagnose dyspraxia.

Thanks, I've made an appointment to ask the GP about a pediatrician referral. :-)

Hello :-)

I just heard that a headmistress of a primary school near us has got fed up with all the daft curriculum stuff that's going on (fronted adverbials and so on). She's called a meeting of the parents and said that they refuse to burn the kids out by teaching all this daft stuff when they could be teaching them useful stuff in a properly broad curriculum, at an appropriate rate. She said that it means their year 2 test scores will not be great and they might lose their ofsted grade 1 rating but she'd rather teach the children properly even if it means losing the ofsted rating. Isn't that the best news you've ever heard? I wish all heads of primary schools would have the courage to make a stand like that. Hats off to that woman. I wish we were in her school and I hope ofsted sit up and take note, and give her a grade 1 with three stars next time.

Wow!!

But not all schools have the problems you describe OP. At DS's school they manage to teach a broad curriculum without burning the kids, and they were also able to keep their good ofsted grade. The school just had an inspection recently, like a month ago, and it went well. So it's not impossible.

And DS is in year 2, due to have his KS1 SATs soon, and couldn't be more oblivious to that, definitely not stressed by it.

Yes, DD's school also seems to manage to teach children without scaring them or making it all about the tests. They get perfectly reasonable results if not stellar (in line with or slightly above national average with a higher than national average percentage of all of FSM children, EAL children and SEN children). They are rated good by Ofsted. But in fact, they were before that rated satisfactory (now termed needs improvement) and actually I think the school was better at that time in terms of actually making school a lovely place to be for all the children. It's a very unpopular school locally mainly because it does not get the v high results that most schools get around here (v high achieving local authority). But it's a kind and gentle school that tries v hard to get the best out of all children and most importantly tries to make school a nice environment for every child. Unfortunately, this isn't something particularly rated by Ofsted and it's not something that parents as a whole seem to select on.

I'm astonished that such an obviously clever child as yours, Ipsos, is finding school so stressful. Mine is bright too but her school has been at pains to teach resilience and personal responsibility way above what she needs for arbitrary tests. I think it has served her very well and I now have a clever child who knows that trying is always good and that your result isn't necessarily the most important thing. I really think this will be of more value to her than any amount of teaching to the test in her future life.

That's interesting then. I wonder what the difference is? Our senco says she feels the curriculum is far too demanding and she says she doesn't know any teacher who feels otherwise.

DD's teachers also think the curriculum is too demanding (but not for her specifically, just generally in terms of what they expect different ages of children to be able to do). DD has not found it even slightly challenging, tbh. It's just a few extra facts to take in to her.

It's harder than the old one, but I'm not convinced it is too hard. At yr1 it's manageable for the majority of children within a balanced curriculum, IMO

The assessment system is batshit, but that shouldn't be affecting year 1 to the extent that it seems to be in some schools.

I'm not sure why some schools seem to be finding it harder than others. It doesn't seem to be related to intake at all.

I agree Rafa it's the assessment that's the problem. The curriculum should have been phased in and assessment reflect the fact that children currently in Y6 have only had 5 terms of the new curriculum.

As to Y1 I think teachers are very aware that there is a huge amount to cover in KS1 for children to access the tests.

For those who say their kids are finding it fine, do your children all have birthdays at the beginning of the year. Or are some of you talking about kids with summer birthdays, or English as a second language, or issues of prematurity, or any other other caveats that make things difficult, but are very much the norm?

month of birth or gender doesn't appear to be factors

I suspected that might be the case with yr 1.

It's what happens when you don't accurately match your assessment framework to your curriculum, so it comes as a bit of a surprise when teachers see it.

As a slight aside, what sort of god awful mess is the KS1 grammar? Very little issue with the content and children identifying it in reading and using it in writing (not advocating the SPAG test), but why is it adding tense ending in year 1 but not dealing with past/present tense until year 2? Surely those are things that could and should go together. Quite possibly earlier than year 1. Similarly for adding s/es to plurals but not expecting children to use the terminology for noun. Expecting children to know singular and plural but not noun seems a bit strange.

Totally agree with OP. It is too much for the children, the teachers and the heads.

I am sickened by the way that education - i.e. our children's and GC's happiness - has become the proverbial political football, messed around by idealogues who have no professional experience of education.

I am a school governor and have responsibility for overseeing special needs. Talk again to the senco - there should be a proper plan for your son that fits HIS needs and not OfSted's. I understand the temptation to push children too far, as one child marked down could make all the difference to the inspection outcomes (especially in small rural primary schools, where one child might represent 25% of the year group). But this is about your child's education - things must move at his speed and not Nicky Morgan's or it is bad teaching. Put your foot down, be a thorn in the senco's side (however much you feel sorry for her position), ask to speak to the govermor with responsibility for special needs, talk to the head........you are the parent, you know the child best and you must feed back what effect this is having on your son.

I agree the curriculum content hasn't been "shared out" for best effect.
We've had a grammar progression in place for a number of years (long before SPAG became a thing). We don't shy away from correct terminology in other subjects so why call an adjective a describing word or a "wow" word or "power" word rather than what it is? Spreading it more evenly across the school takes pressure off Y6.

My ds is in yr3, so I can't really speak for children who is facing YR2 sats this year, but it seems quite different from yr6 children who has been taught old curriculum until recently and have to take a new test this year.
My ds's friend came to England 2 years ago, and despite being his birthday was 31st of August, he achieved level 3 for everything last year. My ds has a mother who's first language isn't English, but he excels in Literacy. You can't blame birthdays and circumstances for everything.

I'm not sure why I hadn't seen it before. Now, I get what Pie Corbett was talking about in the letter that he wrote complaining about it.

Its the pacing issue with letters and sounds all over again. If you take all the bits in isolation rather than 'reading' and 'writing' as a whole then you end up with nothing matching up.

I wonder whether schools would find it easier to get better results if they deviated from the curriculum documents.

Irvine I don't think there's anyone that agrees with Nicky Morgan's assertion that this year 6 are the first year that have been taught enough of the new curriculum. It's total bollocks.

The yr 2 don't have that issue. The issue there is that the assessment framework was released too late, doesn't match very well with what the curriculum seems to expect or with the things that are important for yr 2 to have mastered. In just about every assessed subject. It needs a complete re-write IMO.

Thanks Mishaps I will do that. So great to hear some encouragement to put the child first. You've made my day.

We've used the Pie Corbett grammar progression for five or six (might be longer doesn't time fly when you're having fun!) years now