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!

Crikey! This thread has been banging on for hours! At least 8/9 hours from when someone mentioned it was someone's potential lunch hour and STILL people are arguing about Michael Rosen and grammar.

I'm off to bed! Sleep is more important than whether Michael Rosen is right and scandalous and whether education is simply the pits.

PS: I like Michael Rosen's arguments (especially the one about the title deeds - read it if you don't know) and yes, education has ALWAYS been the pits. Nobody has ever got it right and nobody ever will!

Night night!

Don't be daft, 8reasons, all MN threads go on for days.

And the governments response to the assessment petition is equally misleading

We recognise that significant reforms like these take time to embed, but not to administer the tests would be to undermine our shared goal of giving children the best possible start in life.

Our education reforms are designed to ensure that every young person receives an education that allows them to fulfil their potential and to succeed in adult life. In primary school this means ensuring that they master the basics of maths, reading and writing, preparing them for the challenges of the secondary school curriculum. Parents rightly expect that we check that young people are mastering these vital skills and that schools are held to account where young people have not done so.

We have set a more a challenging standard for tests at the end of Key Stage 2 to reflect the high expectations of the new national curriculum. Previous expectations for children were too low and below those of our international competitors.

The tests do, however, measure attainment across the range of ability in assessing pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the national curriculum. The easiest questions in the tests remain of a similar standard to the easiest questions in the old tests. There are some more difficult questions at the top end of the scale to stretch more able pupils that replace the old level 6 tests. Furthermore, while it is important for parents and teachers to understand how children are performing in relation to national expectations, statutory tests only form part of the broader assessments that schools make on an ongoing basis.

Changes to the national curriculum tests were first announced in March 2014, and since then the Department for Education and Standards and Testing Agency have provided schools with further information to help them adapt to the assessment arrangements. Sample questions were published in summer 2014 and a full set of sample tests was provided in summer 2015, giving primary schools a year to prepare. (and we are still awaiting the exemplification weeks before we have to submit data) my words

The best way to prepare pupils remains to focus on teaching the new national curriculum. As this is the first cohort to have reached the end of the key stage ( but they were taught a different curriculum for four years!) it would not be fair or accurate to set the new scale using data from pupils that had studied the old national curriculum. However, this should not affect schools’ ability to prepare for the test, because each child should be pushed to reach their full potential regardless of where the final scale is set.

Nicky Morgan said on Question Time last night that of course they recognise teachers' workload, that's why they don't make any changes mid year! I have lost count of the changes to the ARA this year. Previously, I don't think it was ever changed at all once published in September. Then there's the Interim Framework, exemplification materials, lack of exemplification materials, the clarification document they were forced to issue because the assessment process wasn't clear to anyone, and still isn't.

Presumably 'changes' means something else in Nickyland. Workload probably does as well.

Anyone seen today's guest blog?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/2595153-Guest-post-Nicky-Morgan-Why-academisation-is-best-for-our-schools?pg=1&order=

Not strictly on topic, I know but while we're on the subject of Nicky Morgan.

Home educator here for all the reasons you mention. Perhaps make sure you are fully informed of what home education really entails before ruling it out (not saying you are not, but just incase). There are lots of working parents who manage to home educate by using childminders or family or home ed coops. Home education doesn't involve sitting around doing schoolwork, it's extremely social and you don't have to be academic to do it. My daughter does all sorts of exciting home ed day trips and classes she wouldn't have the chance to do in a classroom. If this is still not for you, perhaps explore if you have a full time forest school in your area.

Hello :-) OP back here. Thanks so much for all of your comments. I'm glad and kind of freaked out in equal measure, to see that others are as concerned as I am.

Do you think it would be worth putting a petition on the .gov website - the one that forces a government debate if we get enough signatures? I'd be happy to set this up if we could get the wording right.

Maybe, OP.

I think perhaps the plan was to make the curriculum so ridiculous and the assessment so awful that we'll all be grateful to be academised so we don't have to follow it.

Thanks, Rafa - she's getting short shrift, isn't she? And rightly so. Cheered me up no end.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/122038/signatures/new

It's Nicky does damage limitation mark 2. I think. You'd think she might have learnt after the hostage video.

Once we're academised can we dump the national curriculum then? Because didn't they just announced that all schools were to be academised in the budget yesterday?

Yes and no. You can dump the curriculum, but not the assessment at the end of Key Stages.

Yet. There's plenty of time for that to change.

What do we need to do to get academised then?

Thanks so much for this discussion. I'm tearing my hair out with frustration at this situation and your comments are so helpful.

Nothing, but most schools are fighting it.

I'm not sure it's the solution to your problem really. The school are still going to be judged on their end of ks results. They still have to get their children to the same end point.

I just wrote to our lovely senco and she says it's not the answer for us and that it's just privatisation. Rats.

I have written to our two local private schools to ask if they have a more humane approach to teaching. That's got to be a tricky email to answer.

Sen provision can be a bit variable in the private sector. Sometimes it's down to if you don't fit in/ can't keep up find somewhere else. You may also have to pay for extra provision.

What about other state schools. There is huge variation in how schools are choosing to apply the new curriculum. Is that an option?

The school ds is at is the one in our area that has the reputation for being kind to the kids. Apparently the teachers really bend over backwards to make it easy for the kids to hit their targets.

That's trickier then.

I wish that I could get a proper intelligable list of all the things that he needs to learn so that I could at least pump prime him in advance. The school handed the list out but I couldn't make head or tail of the thing and I have two degrees, so I've no idea how anyone else manages.

I probably should have spelled "intelligible" correctly in that post. :-)

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.

I'd be horrified if our Senco was so completely lacking in understanding about the many different causes of mental health problems in children.

Haven't read whole thread, but I believe the one thing Gove did that was ok was to say primary schools do not need to give homework. (Happy to be corrected).

My only thought is whether there is a local Steiner school you could try? I don't know I agree with all of it but so much less pressure and no formal literacy or numeracy till over 7.

Gatorgolf - your son Should be being extended - gifted and talented.

My very limited experience of the new curriculum (teaching only 2 days a week PPA and Sen/ ASD) is that I'm extremely frustrated by the new numeracy curriculum. I teach only the shape and measures section (geometry gah whatever it's called) and I find myself reaching for the old numeracy strategy. Speaking to others who teach more able children in the school they feel the same, but don't have the background experience to fall back on.

I'm very fucked off with the now 3 sentences in the art curriculum. Bugger all there. Art can influence and feed into so many other areas if given the chance. It's not valued and it shows. Dt isn't given much more. And the prescriptivness of the history curriculum - has led to a history heavy slant full of British values in our school as we try to fit it all in. Basically topic work is all history led.

And don't even get me started on loosing the Lea - all my best pedagogical knowledge comes from LEA led initiatives rolled out across the LEA so we were all singing from the same song sheet. Children will get lost in the cracks. And gawd knows what will happen to SEN.