- Personal, social and emotional development
- Language and literacy
- Mathematical development
- Knowledge and understanding of the world
- Physical development
- Creative development.
These areas are divided into Early Learning Goals (ELG). They set out targets that most children are expected to reach by the end of Foundation Stage. Learning at this stage is done on a more informal level and children are encouraged to learn through play, while the assessment is done through teacher’s observations.
Skills, Understanding and Knowledge
Through the subjects children learn a wide range of skills, knowledge and understanding.
Key Skills
- Communication
- Application of number
- Information technology
- Working with others
- Improving own learning and performance
- Problem solving.
Schools must also foster and promote children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. This again is done through all the subjects, but is more focused on during citizenship and RE lessons.
The Key Stages
Key Stage 3
The statutory subjects that all pupils must study are:
- art and design
- citizenship
- design and technology
- English
- Geography
- History
- Information and communication technology
- Maths
- Modern foreign languages
- Music
- Physical education
- Science
- Careers education
- Sex education
- Religious education.
The revised curriculum for key stage 3 comes into effect from September 2008; it was first published by QCA in 2007. The new curriculum is intending to raise standards and enable pupils to meet the challenges of life. The new curriculum aims to provide an entitlement for all. However, there is also a degree of flexibility which enables schools to adapt and build their own curriculum that considers their local context and meets their pupils’ needs, capabilities and ambitions.
Inclusion
The Warnock Report (1978) brought the issue of inclusion to the forefront of education. The report announced to society that it was no longer acceptable to regard some children as ‘defective’ and to ‘label’ them. It also stated that it was unacceptable to send them to institutions or ‘special schools’ where very little would be expected from them, on an educational level. We tend to take these changes for granted, but thirty years ago it was a radical statement to make.
The National Curriculum incorporates a statutory inclusion statement. It outlines how teachers can adapt, as necessary, the programmes of study to provide all pupils with a relevant and appropriately challenging education. It states that teachers need to apply three principles that are fundamental to developing a more inclusive curriculum. These are:
- Setting suitable learning challenges
- Responding to pupils’ diverse learning needs
- Overcoming potential barriers to learning and assessment for individuals and groups of pupils.
Supposedly by adopting and applying these principles the need for aspects of the National Curriculum to be disapplied for a pupil should be kept to a minimum. However, on some occasions there is always a slight chance that the child will feel ‘a little out of the loop’. This is something that I have encountered on occasion. I am the SENCO in the school where I work, and I also teach years 3 and 4. To be able to plan effectively for year three and four’s literacy and numeracy sessions the class teacher and myself had weekly planning meetings. This was to ensure continuity. During the weekly literacy sessions we made sure that we were both focusing on the same genre of writing. This enabled all of Key Stage Two to complete a piece of written work in the same genre during our Theme Day (this is a day, usually a Friday, where we focus on our topic of the term such as Tudors or Ancient Greeks etc. During the day the children will complete various activities such as writing, art work, drama etc all to do with the current topic).
I found these meetings invaluable, especially at the beginning as the class teacher was extremely supportive. She helped me set the pace of my lessons and helped me with my planning as at first I was unsure of how many activities to plan. I found it difficult to gauge how much the children would be able to complete in the given time. I was also very conscious of the fact that for some of the sessions I would be observed by the Headteacher. I wanted to appear capable and in control at all times, but even more so when I was being observed.
“Teachers have expectations of what a class of pupils will achieve….Where teachers make them explicit they provide pupils with clear guidance on the standards of behaviour and work which they can rise to…….
Realistic but high expectations of learning provide pupils with the motivation to stay on task.”
Visser J. (2001, page 24)
When planning activities for children I always try to ensure that all children are catered for and that I have differentiated for all abilities, ranging from children with SEN up to the children on the Gifted and Talented register. An example of this can be seen in Appendix 1. This shows an example of a lesson I planned and carried out. However, I also want to ensure that all children are appropriately challenged; I feel that this is a very important aspect of planning.
One of the greatest challenges…is a need to differentiate the activity to meet the needs of children at different developmental stages and different levels of aptitude in their learning. Differentiation is a process by which planned activities are varied to meet the needs of a range of children. Differentiation is a crucial aspect of teaching and learning in classes of up to 30 children, where there may be a wide range of ability.
Kay (2005, page 48).
I occasionally cover for the year 5 and 6 teacher when she is out on courses. During one such occasion I had planned a numeracy lesson for the class which involved measuring (a copy of the plan can be seen in Appendix 2), one of the year 6 boys (who is dypraxic) struggled with some of the activities. Whenever I plan practical based sessions I try to ensure that I have TA support for children who find certain things difficult. The child concerned may have felt slightly uncomfortable at not being as capable as his peers despite having TA support. I do feel that I planned well in the hope of avoiding this but despite my best efforts it still occurred, albeit only slightly. It made me realise that a lot of pressure is put on teachers to ensure inclusion of pupils with SEN and even with the best will in the world this is not always attainable. I spoke with the TA and class teacher about inclusion and we all agreed that on some occasions there is always a slight chance that a child could feel a little left out but with thoughtful planning and tactful interventions this can be largely avoided.
In Nasen’s view, inclusion is not a simple concept, restricted to issues of placement. Its definition has to encompass broad notions of educational access and recognise the importance of catering for diverse needs. Increasing mainstream access is an important goal. However, it will not develop spontaneously and needs to be actively planned for and promoted. Moreover, inclusive principles highlight the importance of meeting children’s individual needs, of working in partnership with pupils and their parents/carers and of involving teachers and schools in the development of more inclusive approaches. Inclusion is a process not a state.
ISSEN – NASEN Policy Statement: Inclusion (overview).
What is a broad and balanced curriculum?
There has been no justification as to why the core or foundation subjects were chosen, or any for their content.
It is hard to say for certain why these were chosen, since no rationale was provided for them. Richard Aldrich has drawn attention to the very close similarity between the 1988 list and the subjects prescribed for the newly introduced state secondary (later grammar) schools in 1904 (Aldrich, 1988, p22). The National Curriculum gives every appearance of having been lifted from what was originally traditional grammar school practice.
White (2004, page 2)
Is the National Curriculum effective?
I feel that on the whole the National Curriculum is effective, albeit flawed. Children are ‘taught to the test’ at a detriment to other subjects, and so they are missing out on a broad and balanced curriculum.
Schools will admit that they are being forced to “teach to the test”, cutting out subjects such as history, geography and art to inflate their position on national league tables.
The national tests also distort children’s education as they are being offered a restricted timetable as teachers are forced to focus on the core subjects.
In some schools an emphasis on tests in English, mathematics and science limits the range of work in these subjects in particular year groups, as well as more broadly across the curriculum in some primary schools.
MPs have said that results gained from the tests don’t give accurate data. They also only provide someone analysing the data with a ‘snap shot’ of how that particular child was performing at that particular moment, under those test conditions. Therefore they aren’t able to provide a complete or accurate picture of how a school or a child is performing in a fair and unbiased way. Even though this is the case the results from standardised tests are still relied upon by officials such as the Government and Ofsted in making decisions and compiling League tables, and even if a school is to be put into special measures or closed. There are those that still believe standardised testing is still the best way forward. The schools minister, Lord Adonis said: “In recent years there have been unambiguous rises in results using standardised tests. It is only since National Curriculum tests were introduced that there is a solid basis of evidence showing improvement on a consistent basis. These improvements have been validated many times by independent experts”.
Maybe we need to ‘go back to basics’ and return to the three ‘R’s. There are still many children leaving primary education with very low level literacy and numeracy skills, many of which are below level 3. These children are then disadvantaged as they enter secondary education as they are unable to access the curriculum due to these poor literacy skills, so a ‘broad and balanced curriculum’ is irrelevant to them as they don’t possess the necessary skills. Are we as educators to blame, or is it the system and the National Curriculum at fault? Maybe if we weren’t so results driven because of tests we would be able to focus on the basics of education and ensure that every child left primary school capable of reading and writing to a competent degree. It seems that some kind of reform to education is on its way. Sir Jim Rose has already started to make noises about the current curriculum being too ‘cluttered’ and some kind of reform is required of the way five to eleven year olds are educated. This seems to come along at the same time as talk of how schools should focus more on ‘life skills’ not subjects. It looks as though some of the other subjects will be reduced to make way for more numeracy and literacy based topics across the curriculum.
Themed Lessons
This is something that we focus on in the school where I work. We have ‘Theme Days’ and ‘Theme Weeks’. During these times we focus on a particular topic and use it as a base for all our lessons across the curriculum. Our last theme was ‘Safari’ which lasted for a week. During the week there were various activities based on the safari theme. We also made a huge inflatable ‘jungle’ which stayed up for the whole week in one of the class rooms. The children took it in turns to play in this and it provided great role-play opportunities. As part of the topic the children who I teach in years 3 and 4 each painted a canvas in the style of an artist we had been studying. They also produced newspaper articles based on fictional safari and jungle events and we looked at what it was like to live in places like Africa and the Amazon.
I feel that themed lessons are a fantastic way to teach, and in a way we are moving away from the core and foundation subjects and more towards the six areas of learning, with some of the learning activities being provision based. This is a better way for the younger children to learn and should be embraced by more schools, especially as some feel four is too young to start formal learning. Some believe that it can be harmful to a child’s long-term development to start formal schooling so young. We could adapt the curriculum in other ways to ensure that every child was actively engaged in their learning and making the best possible progress that their ability will allow.
We are actively exploring how to make education more responsive to individual children – how to deliver personalised learning. This means:
- Having high expectations of all children
- Building on the knowledge, interests and aptitudes of every child
- Involving children in their own learning through shared objectives and feedback (assessment for learning)
- Helping children to become confident learners
- Enabling children to develop skills they will need beyond school.
DfES. Removing Barriers to Achievement. (2004, Page 52)
However, if a theme based curriculum was adopted by more establishments the problems associated with children being ‘too young’ to learn and the difficulties children with SEN face could be potentially reduced and a broad and balanced curriculum would be relevant to all children, because as it currently stands I don’t believe that it is.
Appendix 1.
Lesson plan
Appendix 2 Lesson Plan
References
DfES. (2004). Removing Barriers to Achievement The Government’s Strategy for SEN. DfES Publications.
Kay, J. (2005). Teaching Assistant’s Handbook Primary Addition.
Continuum.
Visser, J. (2001). Managing Behaviour In Classrooms. David Fulton Publishers
White, J. (2004). Rethinking the School Curriculum Values, Aims and Purposes. Routledge Falmer
1999. The National Curriculum. Hnandbook for primary teachers in England. Jointly Published by Department for Education and Employment and
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Paton, G. (2008) [online]. Telegraph. Available from: [accessed 19/01/09]
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Paton, G. (2008) [online] Telegraph. Available from: [accessed 19/01/09].
Bibliography
Berger, A. & Morris, D. Implementing the Literacy Hour for Pupils with Learning Difficulties. 1999. david Fulton Publishers.
Berger, A. Morris, D. & Portman, J. Implementing the National Numeracy strategy for Pupils with Learning Difficulties. 2000. david Fulton Publishers.
Coulby, D. Beyond the National Curriculum. 2000. Routledge Falmer.
DfE. The National Curriculum. 1995. DfE.
DfES. Primary Framework for literacy and mathematics. 2006. DfES Publications.
