Twinkl-ed Out

[TrojaninTroy]

I'm posting this in the spirit of enquiry rather than clash, hopefully.

DS's independent pre-prep department have re-written their curriculum in order to make lessons more cross-curricular. This seemed all good until the last lock down schooling, where it became evident that his teachers had switched to Twinkl as their almost sole curriculum platform. Everything, everything that they presented to the children was there, bar PE, Art & Music which was taught by subject tutors. It was terribly samey, with Power Points, comprehensions, missing word sheets, fact files all there week after week. No 'live lessons'.

OK, so that time has now passed, and we are now well into the summer term. But school are still following the same Twinkl format. Some of the facts aren't that well presented and there are no actual photos of people & artefacts & neither were there any maps. Some of it is not completely up to date or sufficiently broken down.

I'm not sure how Twinkl have been able to be so bang on for DS's school's new curriculum. Do teachers use Twinkl to make their own worksheets, PPs etc look better presented, or do the teachers ask Twinkl staff to do it for them? Some of it has been rather wishy washy and some of it seems too wordy for the target age group.

I'm not averse to certain of their materials being used by schools if they are genuinely the best thing. I do know that there is some good stuff on Twinkl and I use some of it myself in my work as a tutor. But I wouldn't dream of reverting to it wholesale because no way does it specifically match what my students need, plus I believe good teaching should include a variety of approaches.

DH & I have a meeting with DS's Head Teacher next week to discuss an ongoing issue relating to lack of challenge in maths (I felt we needed to be specific about the territory we have raised concerns about so have not mentioned the wider curriculum before), and the Head knows that we are considering a change of school. We have decided to tell the Head that as DS is going into prep next term we will leave it a year to see if things improve. But thinking as I do at the moment, more of this Twinkl formula might just be too much and I am considering raising this with the Head at our meeting. It would be good to have my thinking challenged by any primary school educators out there, as it will help to clarify what we say to the Head next week.

Thanks in advance :-)

That’s a very lazy way of doing things....especially if you’re paying for it!
I wouldn’t be happy.

Hmmm well Twinkl is very strong for phonics and number bonds but to pay for an entirely Twinkl education would annoy me too. Especially when no one in the illustrations seems able to open their eyes, they're a smug bunch.

My DC’s have been in various primary schools (independent and state) and they have all had their own curriculum which is repeated every year for each year group and adapted as and when required. They have all used Twinkl sheets somewhat but definitely not exclusively. They have all been challenged at their level in all 4 schools to greater depth. They have all been set in all
4 schools and have had consistent extensions in Maths and English and other subjects too. Typically, extensions will be harder work on the same topic and harder questions eg 3 step rather than rushing ahead in the maths curriculum too much, but usually 1 year ahead, sometimes 2 in eg Shape, Time, Fractions etc . It sounds like you are getting a poor service.

My son experienced the best Maths teaching when he was set from Year 3 across 3 classes and the top set steamed ahead and were doing some year 7/8 maths in Year 5 (boys’ independent school).
My DD’s school refused to set so as not to undermine other children’s confidence - but usually by secondary school they are all set. In maths, in particular, if you have a very strong mathematician, it can be boring for them and you have to work with the school. Worst case get a student tutor outside school to keep their passion alive. I remember my poor DD having to do the same easy questions over and over and over and it being draining and boring for her. However, at secondary she is top set and luckily still good and still really likes it so that is the important bit. If they have a real flair for maths it isn’t going to suddenly disappear but you have to manage their frustrations.

Thank you to PPs for your replies. Any more opinions anyone?

Twinkl can be useful for flash cards, poster and the odd worksheet but I certainly wouldn’t use it as a sole curriculum platform.

Some of the resources are created by the Twinkl team. There is also a Create tool so teachers can make their own resources.

Depending on the level of membership there are planning and assessment packages too.

This indicates very low level teaching in my opinion. Most teachers use some Twinkl materials but they should absolutely not be the core teaching materials. A teacher needs to think though their teaching and the steps needed to secure learning in their class. Banging through a Twinkl PPT will not achieve this. In terms of maths, challenge should be achieved through deeper learning such as reasoning, conjecture, problem solving and explaining. Bigger/harde numbers will not represent challenge.

I’m stunned that a school (let alone fee paying) uses Twinkl that much.

My sons school nursery use it for things on the craft table and displays. Further up the school they use it for ‘fun’ activities, but not as a main driver at all (think dot to dots and colouring in....).

I’d be very unimpressed if I was paying a school and they relied on Twinkl.

Hi, I am a primary school teacher and I wouldn't be happy if Twinkl was used so heavily in my child's school.

It can be great for some things - I mainly use it for additional resources and things like phonic games/flashcards, some display resources and the odd worksheet but it definitely shouldn't be used as a full curriculum.

It wouldn't be acceptable in my school to use it so heavily and if the head was to find Twinkl worksheets stuck in books it would not go down well at all... especially if it hadn't been edited for my specific class.

I'd be concerned if it were my child. Twinkl resources are of mixed quality and I'm afraid I disagree that their phonics materials are strong. Far too many errors for my liking both in Twinkl and teacher produced work.

Norestformrz

What are the areas of weakness re phonics?

Do you have a preferred site for phonics?

I do not have a very good opinion of twinkl. I work at an independent school and my children attend also. For a fee paying school I’d be seriously pissed off at there being no live lessons and twinkl worksheets during lockdown and now.

My reception aged child had daily phonics lessons on zoom, in small groups of 4 with a teacher for 10 mins. They were split on abilities. They also had daily maths lessons, form time and either a live show and tell, art, music, Spanish or topic lesson in the afternoon.

We have taken on a lot of students this academic year, a lot from schools who went down the twinkl worksheet and no live lessons route during lockdown. I would seriously consider looking for a better school tbh.

The examples I've seen of so called alien words that use combinations of letters that are never found in English making them impossible to decode shows the authors don't understand English orthography.
Teaching blends (noun) rather than the skill of blending. Confusing analytic and synthetic phonics ....

Thank you for your continued responses. School buys into RWI for phonics, so doesn't use Twinkl for that. In fact, nearing the end of Year 2, they are almost done with the phonics and so they are now just using RWI for spellings/suffixing.

In order to compensate for this, school has re-written the rest of the curriculum, apparently because they don't have a literacy hour as such, where they would do more writing. They appear to be using Twinkl almost exclusively for the creation of their new cross-curricular topic work as well as for maths (with the occasional use of Abacus workbooks thrown in - Year 2 books only). My husband has played devil's advocate by asking 'What's wrong with that?'

Apart from the same-iness of it (Powerpoints, Comprehension Sheets, Word Searches, Fact Files are generic from week to week), it doesn't disguise that some of the language the teacher uses in these materials is somewhat grown up for Year 2s and sometimes it feels like facts have just been slung together. And that is a deeper criticism. I feel that a school for which we are paying approx £12k a year ought to be able to present the children with something better. But what is out there that is better for the teaching of cross-curricular work, especially when the school have designed their own curriculum?

Norestformrz

The nonsense words I've used contain digraphs etc that are easily sounded out and help to reinforce the idea that the real words actually have a meaning. We find those fun and helpful. I haven't noticed any that literally can't be sounded out.

Regarding confusion of analytical and synthetic phonics, that's all interesting criticism as I've found other sites much worse for this and Twinkl much better-there isn't an encouragement to guess, children aren't overwhelmed with words that beyond their phonics ability, and the illustrations are often designed to be folded away if required so they can be shown at the end to highlight meaning. I had taken that to be able literacy skills rather than encouraging one type of phonics learning over another. What's the alternative, after all.

I think they give ample practice in blending consonants but it's down to the teacher how this is used, whether as learning by rote or actually blending.

I'm not employed by Twinkl, don't necessarily love it but find the criticisms you've chosen quite odd. If there's a better resource, I'd be glad to find it.

OP, you'll find the use of complex language is everywhere. I use a very broad range of learning programmes and this is a feature of all of them.

Is there a parents associstion at the school you can raise your concerns with. Its very possible other parents feel the same as you.

@Viviennemary

Is there a parents associstion at the school you can raise your concerns with. Its very possible other parents feel the same as you.

Or does your school have a WhatsApp/Facebook group?

Any discussion on ours on a topic like this ends up heated! With a few paying school I’m sure there’s others that feel a bit like they’ve been fobbed off with an £100 a year subscription for printouts...

@Sanjani
Yes, we had heated debates going on our WhatsApp Dad's Group during and following the first lockdown, largely regarding school fees. There seemed to be a particular grievance from some quarters that the school hadn't put in any live lessons for pre-prep.

One of the dads is a perpatetic teacher at the school and wanted to defend the school's point of view. A couple of the dads then got silly about this and in response the teacher left the group. Since then nobody's breathed a word ...

Twinkl is an addition to not a sole source curriculum.

It is very concerning if it is used in any other way IMO.

@JackieWeaveristheboss

Twinkl can be useful for flash cards, poster and the odd worksheet but I certainly wouldn’t use it as a sole curriculum platform.

Some of the resources are created by the Twinkl team. There is also a Create tool so teachers can make their own resources.

Depending on the level of membership there are planning and assessment packages too.

100% agree. I use it to print out phonics games, bingo, matching activities but it is just a dip in and used to enhance an activity I've already planned and prepared for.

Using Twinkl and Collins text books for maths teaching is very, very poor. We would certainly not do that in my (state) school.

This is what I’d expect - basically a glorified version of the photocopiable pages from our own days in school.

@Sajani

As an ex-primary school teacher, I (literally) cut & pasted photocopied bits from text books I got from the local library, before Learning Objectives had to be addressed. I've not seen very many of those on Twinkl.

Thank you for your thoughts again. It is helping me find the words I have been grasping for to explain to the Head Teacher my reasons for objecting to the school's overreliance on Twinkl. I agree with others that they are OK as an occasional time-filler. But not as the major curriculum resource.

I'm not a Twinkl fan. There are far too many errors to me, and I think to rely on it too much looks lazy. I find the font a bit naff too.

I teach UKS2 now so wouldn't dream of using it. Certainly wouldn't be happy paying prep school prices for it!