Moving back to the state system

[holdthebus]

I am contemplating a move back to the state system from a private school...what would you say have been the main changes in state primary education in the past five years? i.e. The things I am most likely to be asked about if I were to get an interview/would need to be familiar with if I was appointed. I have started to do some research but I just wondered what you all felt were the biggest changes.

Primary or secondary? For primary, it's all about workload - the extra detail required on weekly plans, the expectation of more lessons more closely differentiated to the needs of individual/groups of pupils, the need to put differentiated success criteria on all plans. Then there's assessment - levels (or whatever the school is using to replace them) to be reported more often. Many schools require the teachers to do data analysis on their results, identifying children who need extra support and then submitting plans for what they are going to do to address this. 5 years ago I was concerned about the impact of being expected to level a piece of writing (or 2) for each child every half term. I now level for every child every week (I know it's pointless, but that's the requirement...). Maths APP is a shocker too in terms of the amount of time taken and it hasn't gone away yet in my school - in fact it's been updated to match the new curriculum.

And that's something else - the new primary curriculum - not so much change in KS1 but lots of things which are different in KS2. Oh - and "accountability" - unachievable performance management targets and no pay rise unless ALL children in the class make about average progress. Which is of course statistical nonsense...

Now tell me you're secondary and a lot of this won't apply!!

Thank you-I am primary so it has been very useful.