The broom cupboard 2 - just for when we get briefly stranded without a staffroom

[TheHoneyBadger]

I'll pop a link in the old one so you know where to find safe haven. I have tried to clear out some space by getting rid of the ohp and vcr trolley and gin is hidden behind the sick sand bucket.

@TheHoneyBadger

But I'm talking about having read for pleasure, having the intrinsic motivation that makes knowledge 'sticky' rather than something you have to do for school and remember for a test. Learning vocabulary and tackling difficult styles of writing because you want to understand the content of something you're reading. Sorry if I sound critical of primary school teachers - I'm not - it's the curriculum changes that concern me and all of the focus on sats and crazy, until recently unless you studied foreign languages, obscure grammatical terms.

The reading programme is reading for pleasure - those texts aren't studied in class, just taken by the children to read both at home and at school. There's a mix of texts including the novels I mentioned but also a variety of non-fiction, graphic novels, poetry, shorter stories from other cultures, etc. Every year, the new class research different titles and we buy more to add to that year group's programme.

I kind of agree with the learned helplessness comment. The lower expectations come from not knowing the children as well as primary, because we don't see them as often. I'm also really conscious of not destroying confidence in those first few weeks of secondary.

I really don't know but we can't do what primaries do in terms of Gove like conformity because we have too many kids, too little time and make so little accommodation for kids who aren't getting by in the classes of their year group and are just being left further behind.

There really needs to be a national program(me) of education for those that we know won't benefit from going through school in its current format. We let down pupils because we don't know what to provide for them. Students who don't know number bonds to 10 in year 11 I just don't know what to do with. Aside from get them to sit entry level so at least they have something to take to college. Those students would be better off in a primary style class and taught practical skills they can use later on.

@DanglingMod

They genuinely must forget all this stuff over the summer then, because we do not have low expectations - definitely the opposite. I mean, if they've been able to spell accurately, why would they stop doing it? They seem to, though, as one example.

There will absolutely be a drop off during the summer and there will also be the impact of a new environment, new teachers, new friends, etc.

Just on that specific example though: is spelling fundamental in all subjects?

The children may actually be stronger spellers in primary because they had to address spelling errors in English, History, Science, Maths, etc. and, again, one person was responsible for overseeing all of that.

If spelling suddenly goes from being important 100% of the time to being important even 50% of the time, the quality of the children's spelling will weaken.

I agree it's the structure and lean towards thinking that we have to abandon the idea that drilling stuff into the heads of children when they are young actually equals education rather than sats prep. If children are 'forgetting' key skills then I don't believe they have actually learned them in a meaningful way.

It's like phonics (not criticising phonics) - the objective isn't to have to spend the rest of your life sounding out words but it's presumably a bridge into reading and for that to become meaningful it is integrated much more intuitively and..... brain changingly? and becomes an embedded, taken for granted skill. The stuff they are learning higher up in primary in order to pass sats is sort of like phonics without the real intrinsic learning that turns it from a clumsy but repeated and drilled enough to be a short term reliable output given the exact right conditions and wording and cues into something integrated and lasting.

I'm very clumsy at expressing that but my primary education bears no resemblance to today's national curriculum but it is the absolute foundation of everything I've learnt since despite the fact the likes of Gove would have condemned it to hell.

@DanglingMod

They genuinely must forget all this stuff over the summer then, because we do not have low expectations - definitely the opposite. I mean, if they've been able to spell accurately, why would they stop doing it? They seem to, though, as one example.

The thing is, after the summer holidays, primaery children come back 'not being able to do' the things they could do at the end of the previous year.

So we show them what they COULD do at the end of the previous year (we have 1 book that contains specific pieces of writing all the way through KS2), do a 2 week or so 'transition' unit - usually based on a pretty straightforward fiction book, through which we revise the key skills - and expect the final writing from that unit to be pretty much the same standard as the end of the previous year. Any specific weaknesses for the class / year group are picked up over the next half term, and any specific issues related to specific children discussed with the previous class teacher.

Learning loss over the summer is nothing new to the primary / secondary transition. It's just that in primary we try our utmost to mop up the issue within the first few weeks of the Autumn term, rather than assuming they need a full year of re-learning.

Not unique to English, though. Maths is just as bad. Our local secondary starts again with Y3 topics taught at snail's pace.

The main school we send on to repeats the entirety of the Y6 Maths curriculum as Y7

Now I have opinions here. (Unexpected, and rare).

Cant and I have discussed this over many years and there will definitely be a KS2/3 transition huddle on the Enemies of Education Tour. But there is an assumption in this remark that repeating the Y6 work in Y7 is of course a pointless waste of time for those Y7s.

While lots of people are suggesting that secondary teachers visit primary schools to see the standard of work the kids are capable of, I think it would also be interesting for primary Y6 teachers to visit their classes in secondary school and see that they genuinely can't remember stuff they were taught in primary and need to do it again.

While I agree that Y7s should be exposed to new maths content to keep them engaged, they also need to repeat previous work. Maths is a spiral curriculum and they will be repeating Y7 work in later years in secondary too. We start Y9 the GCSE course with pen and paper addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Our Y7s recently did fraction arithmetic. They've done this in Y6. Did I teach fractions again to a class who were perfectly capable of doing it and were getting 100% on assessments before I'd even started? Of course not. Set 1 has the best hope of just needing a reminder although there will be some kids who still can't add fractions with different denominators or struggle with mixed numbers. Set 2 has some kids who will remember the method but still benefit from practice, and some who can do it after being retaught. Sets 3,4,5...by the time you get to set 5, you're back to 'colour in a third of this shape' in terms of where they need teaching.

Every year when I've taught a topic that kids have seen before I'll say 'You should remember this from Y8' and there will be kids who have sworn that they have never seen it before. At the start of my career I'd have wondered why the previous teacher skipped it, or maybe thought they were a bad teacher. That ended when one year I went 'Hang on, I was your teacher last year, and we definitely did this.

I also think transition from Y6 to Y7 probably gives them more time to forget stuff as the maths and English focus sharply drops from May.

We do.
Boy in 7
GMT or Holes in 8
Boy in the striped Pyjamas or Of mice and men in 9

Well I know from doing a cross subject audit that, on average, they spell better in English than any other subject because they think it's more important, but children do seem to be worse and worse at spelling and other basics year on year. I have no idea why.

I also think transition from Y6 to Y7 probably gives them more time to forget stuff as the maths and English focus sharply drops from May.

I agree.

I think that there is also, in some schools, a genuine ignorance of the primary curriculum. I have found a whole department's judgement of 'Y6s are sent to us knowing NOTHING, we have to start again for EVERYTHING' was based on the assumption that said children had been taught something .... that had been taken out of the KS2 curriculum in 2014.

Just one book a year, Mrs H?

It's just that in primary we try our utmost to mop up the issue within the first few weeks of the Autumn term, rather than assuming they need a full year of re-learning.

I don't think anyone assumes they need a full year. We're constantly revisiting topics throughout all years in maths. Like noble said, it's a spiral curriculum. In key stage 1 you're doing GCSE maths.

At the start of my career I'd have wondered why the previous teacher skipped it, or maybe thought they were a bad teacher. That ended when one year I went 'Hang on, I was your teacher last year, and we definitely did this

THIS! Oh yes, this. It is so true that children forget, but it does not necessarily mean that we have to Start Again Very Slowly.....

Our local primaries all teach GMT/Holes/BITSP in year 5 or 6.

It's a struggle to find a single decent children's book that hasn't been used by one school or another and we only have 12 or so feeder schools.

The primary maths curriculum is so weighted towards number and fraction skills that these tend to be the topics students retain best. Statistics/probability they know the very basics. Geometry they can do area and perimeter of rectangles and that's about it. Huge generalisations but I know this is the curriculum/SATS not the schools fault.

For example one of the key things I find valuable with kids is to help them see 'why' they are learning this, why it is important, how it translates into their lives and why it has meaning. (I appreciate this is 'bigger' in some subjects than others)

Why do 10 year olds think they are learning what a fronted adverbial is? What is the meaningful connection that means their brain/mind will actually integrate that and connect it to their internal map of knowledge and understanding and connections and the 'web' of their internal world?

Really poor example and I'm pretty inarticulate about these concepts but I don't think minds are empty containers into which you pour 'stuff' and repeat it enough times so they can regurgitate it and call that learning - they're obviously growing and developing and integrating and forming. I think the stage of that internal development is different at different ages and no matter how well you deliver it if you're delivering the wrong stuff at the wrong stage it won't work and you cannot expect it to stick.

I obviously don't think the government and policy makers understand this and that the curriculum direction that primaries have taken in the last what? couple of decades? doesn't fit with the realities of child development and tailoring education to work with, rather than against, stages of development.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

It's just that in primary we try our utmost to mop up the issue within the first few weeks of the Autumn term, rather than assuming they need a full year of re-learning.

I don't think anyone assumes they need a full year. We're constantly revisiting topics throughout all years in maths. Like noble said, it's a spiral curriculum. In key stage 1 you're doing GCSE maths.

The head of Maths at our local secondary was MOST affronted when i pointed out that you could get a good 3 at the very least in the GCSE Foundation papers without any Maths outside the primary curriculum...in fact, our Y6s did some past papers for fun as many of the questions are more straightforwardly worded than comparable SATs questions on similar topics.

I know about the spiral curriculum. I am completely happy if Y7 builds on primary foundations and should add another layer. I am less happy if - as it can do - it assumes, and openly states, that there are no foundations and starts again,...

I think that there is also, in some schools, a genuine ignorance of the primary curriculum

Oh I agree, and I'm sure that there are crap maths departments or unqualified maths teachers in secondary teaching Y7 badly. I'm also sure that there are some primary teachers teaching maths badly (obviously none on this thread!!)

But I think it would be really useful for an excellent secondary maths department and a maths specialist primary Y6 teacher to track exactly what happens to kids' knowledge and skills between primary and secondary when the quality of teaching is assured and then stop blaming each other when it's clear that kids forget or get worse at stuff during handover.

I am less happy if - as it can do - it assumes, and openly states, that there are no foundations and starts again,...

Who on earth
a) thinks this
b) writes it down
c) bases a curriculum on it

I was amazed at the level of literacy required to unpick the maths SATS questions.

@DanglingMod

Just one book a year, Mrs H?

Yes.

They do one novel, one poetry unit, one non fiction writing, one fiction writing, one spoken language and one Shakespeare. Year 7 is an introduction to Shakespeare.

This would be a useful thing, Noble, and more accurate/useful in maths.

English is a different ballgame as KS3 and GCSE skills - other than SPAG basics (doing, not naming) and creative writing - are so different from the primary curriculum.

Who on earth
a) thinks this
b) writes it down
c) bases a curriculum on it

That'd be us.

We have 27 feeders this year apparently.... some of them tiny village schools not in catchment.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

The primary maths curriculum is so weighted towards number and fraction skills that these tend to be the topics students retain best. Statistics/probability they know the very basics. Geometry they can do area and perimeter of rectangles and that's about it. Huge generalisations but I know this is the curriculum/SATS not the schools fault.

So if this is the curriculum - which it is - why do some schools say 'they don't know any probability [hint: it's not in the curriculum] so they have been taught really badly, we will take them back to basic arithmetic?' Why don't they, instead, build on the number / fraction skills from the level that children are at, and then make them really excited about starting, and really spending time on, the new areas of Maths that are genuinely new for the KS3 curriculum?

Ah, that's makes sense. Ours do two novels and one play a year and then we deliver mini schemes on poetry, nonfiction, S&L and creative writing around the spine of the novel or play.

noble

Maths is absolutely spiral and that's true throughout primary too. Yes, there are always children who will benefit from recalling previously encoded knowledge and some who didn't encode originally, for whatever reason. But there are also many who don't require that and who come back and tell me, as their old Y6 teacher and Maths lead, that they are bored rigid in a subject they once loved.

I'm sure that the challenge exists in some classes and in some schools but it doesn't exist in all. There is a reason that paper into KS3 was commissioned and a reason why it came back saying that KS3 provision was the problem. Is that true for all settings? Of course not.

When discussing this sort of stuff, I'm always reminded of a course for Maths I went on (for primary and secondary SLEs) where the people in the room were shown a series of questions from the KS2 assessments and the Foundation papers at GCSE and genuinely couldn't accurately sort which questions belonged to which assessment. Now, of course, the activity will have been slightly weighted to make the point but the point has merit nevertheless.

@noblegiraffe

I think that there is also, in some schools, a genuine ignorance of the primary curriculum

Oh I agree, and I'm sure that there are crap maths departments or unqualified maths teachers in secondary teaching Y7 badly. I'm also sure that there are some primary teachers teaching maths badly (obviously none on this thread!!)

But I think it would be really useful for an excellent secondary maths department and a maths specialist primary Y6 teacher to track exactly what happens to kids' knowledge and skills between primary and secondary when the quality of teaching is assured and then stop blaming each other when it's clear that kids forget or get worse at stuff during handover.

I'm trying from my end, I really am. However, I am only a little primary school teacher so obviously not very clever as otherwise I'd be teaching secondary children like the really proper Teachers With Brains do...

As I think I have said to you before, when discussing this, there are only a few occasions in my primary teaching career when I have wheeled out my PhD and proper title. Meeting with the secondary head of Maths was definitely one of them..... though unfortunately I don't think he was listening properly at the time....