'The Creative Curriculum'

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I work in a school that teachers with a topic based, creative curriculum. We link the core subjects into the current theme or topic which is the same from Reception through to Year 6. I have to say the school is fantastic and full of very experienced, creative teachers. Does anyone have negative or positive views on this style of teaching? If the school your children are at also teach in this way, have you noticed an increase or decrease in your children's interest and motivation? I have recently planned a topic on the local area for my teaching degree (I'm a mature student) and needed to link Geography, History and RE into it. Although this was done without problems I was conscious of not making tenuous links between the three subjects and am aware that some schools have forced certain subjects into a theme.

'looking at Africa and starting with African drumming'

Fuck me.I'd be running screaming in the opposite direction very fast.

Imagine someone deciding they were going to be, say 'looking at Europe and European piano playing'

Africa is not a country.

NOOOOOO! It has already been delivered to schools. It is on my shelf. I need to find out more before I believe it. I am hoping it does not mean the whole thing.
Well I am no longer a floating voter.
Any party who does not endorse a child centred, reactive, interesting, rigorous curriculum in favour of a closed, boring, tight, restrictive one that actually holds children back is not going to get my vote.
Just what ideas do the tories have then?

I will open my own school.

www.dcsf.gov.uk/news/index.cfm?event=news.item&id=statement_on_the_children_schools_and_families_bil l
the official announcement

The tories have promised back to basics maths english 3 sciences

I would like to know what they mean by that. What a woolly statement.
Hands up all the teachers who have been teaching non basic maths and english.

Sorry moondog, that was my own sloppy typing rather than anything else. I am sure it was explained more clearly to me but I didn't communicate it well. Luckily I am not the one doing the teaching.

I am so sad. I KNEW this was going too well to last.....

Today, by coincidence, I found a staff handout from about 2002 telling me that I should teach geography for 30 hours in one school year, each unit for 10 hours, for 1 hour 40 minutes a week. If they make me go back to that I will join you in setting up a new school spudmasher...... oh, isn't that a tory idea.... setting up your own school??!!

I tell you, I'm so mad, I've only just stopped myself from disturbing the headteacher's Mexican break..... (I guess I could disguise it as concern over the aftershocks....)

Yes Iwas, it is one of their ideas! And I seriously will do it.
At least this has helped me make up my mind about who I am NOT going to vote for.

Me too actually. I had rather suspected that they had some ideas I didn't agree with, but this confirms it.

Just googled the Tory education plans some nice little gems

"And to provide parents with the reassurance they need that their child is making progress, we will establish a simple reading test at the age of six."

"We will ensure that
the primary curriculum is organised around
subjects like Maths, Science and History.
We will encourage setting so those who are
struggling get extra help."

"Under Labour the exam system has become
devalued. We will overhaul the Key Stage
2 tests and make exams more robust and
rigorous by giving universities and subject
academics more power over examinations."

"A Conservative government
will reform school league tables so that
schools can demonstrate they are stretching
the most able and raising the attainment of
the less able. We will publish all performance
data currently kept secret by the DCSF so
that web-based applications can create many
new and different sorts of league tables. And
we will establish a free online database of
exam papers and marking schemes so that
parents, teachers and academics can see for
themselves how exams have changed."

Why did they print all those copies of the new curriculum if the final bill hadn't been passed? Beats me.

I see some very frustrating times ahead.

So, mrz, you said your school was putting in some contingency measures to keep the CC. As we haven't yet got enough proof that it 'raises standards' (so we can't use that one!), what do you suggest?

AGree with moondog. I want content of teaching and method of teaching based on sound evidence of what works.

Is there any strong evidence at all that a cross-curricular structure in primary and the demise of subject specialism in high school works? Or is it just the fashion.

ah, no proof that it raises standards but we are all doing it anyway. Why no pilot projects in a significant number of schools to show that it works before everyone implements it?

The tory education plans don't sound any different to any other party education plans. Some nice soundbites, sadly lacking in substance.

We have been using our own CC for 6 or 7 years as have many other schools around the country. We obviously based ours so that all the statutory elements of the present curriculum were covered and have found it very successful.

There have been a large number of schools following the New Primary Curriculum (deceased) for the past year as part of a pilot.

pointydog I'm sure all those parents who have been calling for the end of SATS will be delighted that the Conservatives intend to make them more robust and they intend to introduce yet more testing now for six year olds

I am not saying I agree with SATs or that the majority of parents agree with SATs. I am saying, show me some strong evidence for a new curriculum that convinces most educators and has been successfully piloted. That's all.

Have you read the Rose Review new primary curriculum

9 education authorities have piloted the new curriculum

Gutted. Gutted. Is there nothing we can do? Did they just roll over in that meeting and say OK then, we will put all that on the shelf?
How is Sir Jim Rose feeling today? I would like to send him a letter. I wonder how I could get hold of him. A bottle of wine, bunch of daffodils or something.

Just think 7 years work and £millions just sidelined!

Reading Test? Why do we need a reading test at 6 years old? - we are all only too aware of how our dc's are doing in reading - we have reading levels on the spine/back of every book that is brough home...no more! We are less aware of how well they are doing in numeracy & writing, yet the Tories fixate on reading??!!

My dc's in primary school started to get turned off learning in Year 1 when it changed form what you could discover/uncover to what you were told to know. I was really looking forward to the creative curriculum. I'd hoped it would encourage a deep life long love of learning, where dc's learned that subjects studied at school were part of life and not contained within an isolated lesson. I'd happily sacrifice a little academic performance in the primary years in return for a life long enthusiasm for knowledge.

9 education authorities piloted it and then was there evidence to show that it raised standards before full implementation?

I do like rose's early reading review.

www.ttrb.ac.uk/viewarticle2.aspx?contentId=15411

Particularly:
"The curriculum that primary children are offered must enable them to enjoy this unique stage of childhood, inspire learning and develop the essential knowledge, skills and understanding which are the building blocks for secondary education and later life" (p10).