Is there a national curriculum/timetable for Year 7

[PopsP]

I have just been looking at my DS's timetable, and I am a bit confused. He seems to have a lot of time spent on Languages & Art, is there a set amount of time they are meant to spend on each subject or is it up to individual schools to decide ?

There are guidelines/minimums set by govt, but I'm not sure where you'd find them.

How many hrs per wk does he do Art? Are you sure it is just Art? In some schools Arts Faculty covers Art, Music, Drama, Dance ...

What about MFL? MFL is compulsory subject up to 14. Our school teachers 3 hrs per wk.

They have to do 2 hrs sport/PE per week I know that.

some info here

At our school year 7s have 1.5hrs of Art & Design a week & 1 hour of Design & Technology. They do 2.5 hours of MFL a week (whixh is either french or German - as the year group is split in two)

Over a 2 week period they have 48 lessons (1 hour a lesson - I think). Which is split as follows

Maths 6
English 6
Science 6
Art 6
MFL 5
PE 4
History 3
Geography 3
RE 3
ICT 2
Music 2
Drama 2

There is no mention of D&T (unless it's included in Art) or Citizenship or Cookery (or whatever it's called these days). I sort of expected more time to be spent on Maths, English & Science. I also expected more time on ICT, although maybe it's picked up in other subjects.

Under Art though, you may have Art, Design, Technology & Food Technology (Cookery )??
As a comparison, just counted up ours :-
Over 2 weeks :
English 6hrs
maths 6
Science 6
PE 4
History 3
Geog 3
ICT 2
RS 3
MFL 5
Drama 2
Art & Design 3
Design Tech 2
Food Tech 2
Music 3
Citizenship 2

Pretty similar actually...... if you count all the art bits together (you DS doesn't go to my school does he )

Well I'm an Art teacher, and we get one measly hour per week. If I showed this to my HoD she would explode.!!

No mention of DT in your ds's timetable, which is compulsory in KS£. so I guess some of his Art lessons would be DT lessons. Even then it would be 3 lessons for each subject!!

I also teach DT. One measly hour per week in that too. Can I come and teach at that school?

Does it have Arts or Art status? That would account for more lessons in that subject

Has the school got some specilist status in Art?

Actually it does have specialist status in Art, but when we looked around the various secondary schools, it was never mentioned by any school that the childen got extra lessons in the area that the school specialised in. It was just implied that the school was particulary good in those subjects and had normally invested a lot of funds in that area. I think that I just assumed that the government dictated what was taught and all state schools taught the same subjects. To be honest I don't really mind, as long as they are not missing out on other subjects. I think I will check with the school sometime just to put my mind at rest.
Thanks for all your replies, it's great to be able to get answers & support from everyone, especially for the move to secondary school, when you do feel very isolated as a parent.

I think the Art status will be the reason for additional art based lessons.

Lesson are 60 minutes long at d d's school. Over a fortningt, she has 5x English, 6x Maths,6x MFL, 4x Geography, 2x RE, 4x History, 5x Science, 6x Technology, 2x Music, 1x PE, 2x Games,1x Dance, 1 x PHSE, 1x Drama,2x Art, 2x ICT

DS has a week lessons are 50 minutes and it is a science status school

english x 4
history x2
maths x 4
dt x 2
ict x 2
geography x 2
French x 2
german x 2
games x 2
psh x 1
science x 4
music x 1
re x 1
art x 1

It's up to the individual schools to decide how to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum.

I teach Science and Geography in an independent school, and I teach 5 x 40 minutes of Science and 2 x 40 minutes of Geography per week to Year 7.

I think around 3 hours of core subjects (English, Mathematics, Scienece) per week is typical.