Primary education 'too narrow'

BBC News, 20th February 2009

Children in England are getting a primary education that is too narrow, because schools focus too much on maths and English, claims a major report.

The author of the 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 government has rejected the claim as "insulting" and says it "flies in the face of international evidence".

The Cambridge Primary Review's interim report is part of the biggest independent inquiry into primary education in England for 40 years.

It calls for an urgent debate about the purpose of primary 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.

It calls testing "the elephant in the curriculum", noting that in Year 6 especially, the final year of primary school, "breadth competes with the much narrower scope of what is to be tested."

Professor Robin Alexander, director of the Cambridge Primary Review, said: "Our argument is that their [children's] education, and to some degree their lives, are impoverished if they have received an education that is so fundamentally deficient."

'Eight new domains'

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.

Prof Alexander said there had always been a problem in primary schools with striking the right balance between the basic skills, such as numeracy and literacy, and other areas, such as history.

"All of them should be taught to the highest possible standard, raising the quality of educational experience across the board," he said.

"The key benefit to pupils is a retention of the statutory entitlement of a broad and balanced curriculum."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families denied primary pupils were getting inadequate schooling.

"To say our children are receiving a deficient education is insulting to hard working pupils and teachers everywhere and flies in the face of international evidence," he said.

"English children were recently recognised as being the highest achieving in maths and science among European countries."

The government has commissioned its own independent inquiry into primary education. Its interim findings - already published - called for a flexible, less-overloaded time table.

Sir Jim Rose, heading the review, suggested there could be six broader "areas of learning", rather than up to 14 individual subjects, such as history, geography and science.

'Freedom and flexibility'

The spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families continued: "We thank Professor Alexander for his contribution and Sir Jim Rose will no doubt read it with interest as part of his extensive, independent consultation into the primary curriculum, which is still gathering evidence from a wide range of experts and academics, teachers, parents and the public."

He added that the Rose Review's aim was to give teachers more freedom and flexibility, smooth children's transition between the stages of their education, and ensure the best possible educational outcomes for all children, he added.

Acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Christine Blower, said it was a matter of "concern" that the government was keeping the Cambridge Primary Review "at arms length".

"His proposals for the primary curriculum have depth, credibility and, above all, respond to the realities of the primary classroom."

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said children needed to be taught the basics at primary school, as well as a range of subjects.

"But if literacy and numeracy are taught well there should be enough time in the curriculum to teach the other subjects," he said.

The Cambridge Primary Review is an independent body which began its research on primary education in 2006.

The primary curriculum report is its 10th published study. A final report will be published later this year.

The head teachers of many primary schools are obsessed with getting a high score in the KS2 SATS tests for their school which often results in the best part of Y6 being devoted to English, maths, and science, at the detriment of everything else. However, the author of this report really should have looked at primary schools before the NC came into being and what a narrow curriculum they offered compared to primary schools of today.

I attended primary school back in the 1970s and found it tedious and boring. Almost all of the lessons were devoted to reading, writing, arithmetic, and more writing. Once or twice a week we had a PE lesson and children who worked hard and behaved well were treated to lessons in art and drama, but that was about it during a typical week. History and geography lessons were sporadic and always involved plenty of writing. The school did not teach any science apart from nature study, and neither were there any lessons about engineering or how machinery works. I suspect that the teachers had little knowledge of hard sciences like chemistry or physics and even less interest in them. Maths lessons were almost entirely (mental) arithmetic - probably because the teachers themselves had an insufficient knowledge of topics like algebra or geometry.

Fast forward to the early 1990s and primary schools have changed beyond recognition. If they had not changed since the 1970s then I would have considered HE my son from the outset. I only sent my son to primary school because I thought they offered a more interesting and varied curriculum than the tedious lessons I had to endure.

I can second most of what you say after attending primary school in the early 80s. Schools were only just beginning to introduce more interesting stuff into an otherwise rather dull curriculum. My Y5 class had a history project about ancient Egypt, another about the Romans, and the school got its first computers that year. Just four BBC B machines with only one disk drive between them. Only one of the teachers was able to switch them on because the rest had never even seen a computer before! Another memory I have is when the school got its first video recorder. It was a monster of a toploader that was so heavy I could only just lift it up on my own.

One of the biggest criticisms I have of primary school is that the teachers didn't put in enough effort to teach the children. Far too many lessons IMO consisted of completing worksheets with the teacher acting more like a teaching assistant. Lessons were demoted to a status of "do this work" rather than actually learning anything. One good think I have to say about the teachers in both of my son's primary schools is that they functioned as teachers rather than classroom supervisors, and put much effort into teaching the children rather than relying on worksheets and videos like my teachers did.

I never got treated to such delights. Primary school history lessons never covered anything more exotic than the Battle of Hastings. I didn't encounter video recorders or computers at school until Y7 and Y10 respectively. I'm sure the first video recorders at my secondary school were U-Matic because they took a rather strange cassette that wasn't VHS or Betamax.

My son got to learn about ancient Egypt and the Romans at primary school by a teacher who was always getting facts wrong.

Did your school have any video cameras to go with the U-Matic?

The video recorder at my school was VHS and was used to record various educational programmes broadcast during the day. I'm sure the teachers let the video dictate what they taught in class in an era before the National Curriculum.

The drama department had a video camera on a tripod similar those used in TV studios during the 1970s. It was used for filming plays.

I had a similar experience with my first primary school back in the early 80s. Far too many lessons IMO were spent completing all manner of worksheets with the teacher taking on the role of a supervisor. The situation was completely different in my second primary school. The teachers actually did make an effort to teach and worksheets were uncommon. I suppose rather strong contrasts in teaching styles from school to school were a feature of the pre NC era.