There has been a lot in the news recently about how narrow the primary curriculum is in England, especially with the emphasis in recent years on teaching the basics in literacy and numeracy. There are now plans for a major shakeup of the curriculum.
The author of a recent Cambridge University report warns that too much emphasis on testing the basics could “impoverish” learning in areas such as the arts. Professor Robin Alexander says this could mean a “deficient” education.
The report says inadequacies in the primary curriculum stem from a mistaken belief that breadth in the curriculum is incompatible with improved standards in the “basics” of maths, literacy and numeracy. History, geography, science and the arts have been “squeezed out”, it argues. The report’s authors suggest learning in primary schools is skewed towards subjects which are formally tested in the national tests, used to draw up league tables.
The review suggests the primary curriculum should be “re-conceived” with 12 specific aims, which it arranges in three groups:
- The needs and capacities of the individual: wellbeing; engagement; empowerment; autonomy
- The individual in relation to others and the wider world: encouraging respect and reciprocity; promoting interdependence and sustainability; empowering local, national and global citizenship; celebrating culture and community
- Learning, knowing and doing: knowing, understanding, exploring and making sense; fostering skill; exciting the imagination; enacting dialogue.
These aims would be achieved through eight “domains”, rather than a small number of subjects. The domains would be: arts and creativity; citizenship and ethics; faith and belief; language, oracy and literacy; mathematics; physical and emotional health; place and time (geography and history); science and technology.
This seems to me to be quite similar to the framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, along with its’ six areas of learning – the Early Learning Goals. I have always found this to be a very effective model for curriculum planning, and lends itself to a more thematic or ‘topic’ approach, which is how things were done in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It seems fundamental to me that children do not view their learning, or the world, in terms of separate compartmentalised units. In contrast, they need to see that everything is interrelated.
What are you views on this? What impact will it have on teachers?
I agree totally with this article although as with most things in teaching, isn’t it funny how things have gone full circle as this is how things used to be done! I’m lucky that I teach in a school where we do have a topic based approach which really does help children to make relevant connections and put what they learn into context.
Thanks for your responses Clare. When I first started teaching we used the integrated day model and it was all topic based. The children loved it. In any one lesson, I would have an aet activity, a maths activity, a literacy activity, and possibly a fourth one too.
Children don’t see the world in neatly defined subject areas – everything is interrelated. I am so happy the new curriculum is coming in. It will be more fun for teachers too.
Long time since anyone mentioned ‘the integrated day’
That was all the range when I did my first TP. Call it the creative curriculum, or project based learning or just topics, or what ever, it’s a much more interesting and engaging way of teaching and learning.