Curriculum for Excellence

[onestarrynight]

I have a DC due to start school soon and I feel like I keep hearing negative things about CfE (things like too much emphasis on group work, muddying of boundaries between different subjects, not enough factual knowledge, too nationalistic, etc) but I don't know anyone with primary age DC who can tell me about the reality. If you have primary age DC, how have you found it? If you have particular complaints about your DC's experience, what sort of things have been poor? I'm not really sure how worried to be.

They are meant to be learning skills so the topic is irrelevant, which of course it isn’t.

Thanks for all the replies - very depressing interesting reading. Sounds like a lot of parental input is needed if they're not to fall massively behind their EU peers. A couple of PP mentioned supplementing in maths - what do you recommend? I don't particularly remember much of my school maths, but that Nat 5 paper looked pretty low-level to me. What are the best resources that you've found to supplement CfE maths at primary level?

As a teacher in Scotland, all I can say is it must depend on the school. In my school we would never get away with teaching the same topic over three years for example. In smaller schools the mixing of classes to create composites can make it tricky and there is a small chance of occasional repetition but we do detailed handovers each year so it shouldn't happen. I am a huge believer in play based learning and, done well it is excellent, but it needs time and resources to do well, which are in short supply at the moment. I can't speak to secondary issues but I think a major difference to England is how different each local authority and school can be. Much less standardisation. This is sold as a strength by the SG but interesting to see that it's not always perceived that way. I don't doubt the negative experiences on this thread, btw- but it's not the only experience out there!

Op the teejay books are what they use in school. You can buy them on amazon

The vagueness of how your child is actually getting on continues well into high school while they are still in the BGE S1-3.
It is really only when they get into S4 that they get graded and marked work. By which time it’s a bit late to make any significant intervention, so you need to be pretty on the ball and invested to ensure your child on track. My youngest son is in S2 and only ever is properly assessed in Maths and science. He has never had a grade/mark for an English assignment, it was the same for my older son. We had no idea how my eldest would do in N5 English until he got to 4th year.
Teachers are expected to deliver more and more all the time, unfortunately this means that teaching of the basics becomes diluted.
Having said all that my kids are both doing well and I think they have more rounded education than I had, although I didn’t grow up in Scotland.

Re the Nat5 maths paper posted - that is Application of Maths which (I think) is probably comparable to Functional Maths level 2 in English system. Most pupils will study for National 5 maths (2022 paper) (although having a dyscalculic child I wish the Application of Maths course had been available for her).

It is still a Nat 5, there is now a Higher in it too. So meant to be comparable to other Nat 5s and Highers. The lower qualifications are Nat 3 and Nat 4. The children are being told that it is accepted by universities etc as a Nat 5. My dd is bright but could probably have done it in S1, I only just looked it up and was shocked at the level and kept checking it actually said Nat5 before posting it on here. I would be relieved if someone could show it isn’t.

It looks more like a functional maths paper as you suggest.

It is a Nat 5 paper - but it is not the same as the 'normal' national 5 maths paper which I posted. It is accepted as a maths pass at Nat 5 for university in the same was as a pass in functional maths is accepted as the same as a pass at GCSE (as far as I can gather by skimming online) for universities. It would not be enough for someone wanting to go on and do maths / science though.

I wish that application in maths was more widely available rather than it meaning that kids who have no chance in passing Nat 5 maths end up leaving school with no maths qualification (other than Nat 4 which I reckon is worthless).

There are tonnes of things for primary out there - hit the button app for maths,
Song birds, education city.

Library or second hand bookshops will net you first readers, Oxford reading tree app has some free books for every age.

It'll be ok - and I agree there is large school by school variation and some kids do better than others with c f e play based approaches.

my DD is in S2 my opinion is it is neither a curriculum nor excellent i do not think Scottish education is as good as it was my DD is very good at Maths in top set but not doing what I was doing at her age she finds it boring, She doesn't necessarily find eveything easy but I'm not convinced and a few retired teachers I know think the same it is not stretching enough or covering enough ground,

she has very little if any homework, but i check there is no homework to be done; it does seem quite laid back. They start curriculum for nat4/5 this May so choosing options next month I am hoping pace picks up a bit then

100% this. How are you supposed to advise what subjects your child should study at Nat 5 / higher when it is only at the end of s4 that you get a clue what their strengths are?

what I want to know - from P1 onwards - is where does my child rank in their class, where do they rank in the school, where do they rank in Scotland at English and maths at primary, and every single subject in secondary. They get tested, yet we never hear the results of the testing.

the reports prepared by the teachers no doubt take a while to write, but don’t contain this vital information so teachers might aS well not bother.

Exactly sorefootouch, they are even testing the kids! Just don’t pass on the information to the parents and if you ask are made to feel like you have asked for some sort of classified information

I find the best way in primary to gauge how they are getting on is to ask them which other children are in their maths and reading groups. And you can usually give from that if they are in the top/middle or bottom group. Or they actually know themselves and can tell you

They do the Scottish National Standardised Assessments in numeracy and literacy in P1/4/7/S3 but don’t pass on the results. I got them but the school had to ask permission to give them to me!

I don’t understand what the reason is for that shelefttheweb? I actually wondered if it was a policy just in our area not to give results to parents. We live in an area where I guessed the teachers maybe labelled the parents as pushy parents and they don’t want too much questions and heavy involvement from the parents. But perhaps it is a nationwide policy. Whatever the reason it is very odd

My DD got tests throughout S1-3 and that gave an indication of how she was doing. Although you probably do need to encourage them to tell you as the teachers don't always. And you still get parents nights where you can ask questions (more so now pandemic is over)

YY to everything being great and everyone is progressing at their own speed.

Possibly specific to our school, but I also find it puzzling that they seem determined to see the children as 'not ready' for various things, 'lockdown babies' etc. I know it was a really hard time and I know some children were very affected, but it seems a very negative foundation to build on.

What age is that maths paper for @Shelefttheweb ? My Year 6 child (England very bog-standard primary) would be able to have a decent stab at it.

Curriculum for Excrement??? Yes some call it that...

The SNSA results are generally not provided because they're only one snapshot apparently.
Plenty of other exams are just a snapshot...and obviously they can't give us the results and any explanatory text about what the teacher thinks about the result...

It makes no sense to me - I did get the results from the HT after a tussle too but no real comparative detail.

@Shelefttheweb Applications of Maths is quite useful I think. DS 2 studied it by distance learning and I tutored him, I had to learn quite a few new concepts like statistics that I didn't cover in school. It's a useful alternative qualification for anyone that struggle with more abstract maths and it teaches some transferable skills and concepts and helped DS2 gain confidence.
Easy for pupils that are good at Maths, but then so was O-grade Arithmetic in my day ( which it reminded me of with a few additions).

GCSE equivalent

Really? From looking at the paper, there isn't similar in the KS2 / KS3 curriculum.

Yes that is what I thought. I can see the subject could be useful but it just didn’t seem difficult enough for Nat 5. I believe there are some schools that enter all their Nat 5 maths students for application of maths too as it doesn’t really involve more work.