Did I or did I not put up a post last week talking about the way the Primary School Curriculum in England puts to much emphasis on numeracy and literacy? And that children are being made to engage with many aspects of the curriculum too young! And what do you know...two days later....the Cambridge Primary Review are publishing their results about the same thing...
Here's the summary:
"The report finds...children’s statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced primary curriculum compromised by the national tests and strategies; particular pressures at the start (reception) and end (year 6) of primary schooling; acute anxiety about the fate of the arts and humanities and, increasingly, science in primary schools; erosion of both entitlement overall and standards in ‘the basics’ by a policy-led belief that breadth and standards are incompatible, when the evidence consistently shows the opposite – that one requires the other and the best schools achieve both; a curriculum which is two-tier not just in its distribution of time but also, as a result of the relative neglect of the non-core curriculum in teacher training and inspection, in terms of quality; excessive micro-management by government and the national agencies; the dislocation of mathematics and, especially, English by the national strategies for numeracy and literacy; a muddled, reductive and damaging discourse about subjects, knowledge, skills and themes; the detachment of curriculum from the aims which ought to inform it, so that aims become cosmetic and the true purposes of primary education remain confused."
In fact LOTS of people are talking about the same thing. So when will this national conversation lead to a change in policy? The need for change is URGENT so that families like ours do not have to remove their children from State School in order to avoid exposing them to the current rigors of Reception and Year 1.
