A narrowing of the curriculum has led to a decrease in the quality of English primary schooling, says a report.
"High stakes" testing of pupils has led to a system "focused on literacy and numeracy at the expense of the broader curriculum", it suggests.
This is a warning that when you use targets and measurement you may distort the system by forgetting what is outside the measurement system. We must certainly not allow the schools to forget the wider objectives of encouraging learning in general and ensuring they are motivated.
I agree that literacy and numeracy are key objectives but we should find a third measure of general knowledge that could be simply tested. The tests should not be too time-consuming or control the curriculum. The results must show that the child has the necessary skills to benefit from secondary school. The schools should be measured on an overall attainment score combined with the percentage of children that fail.
Friday 29 February 2008
Primary schools 'have got worse'
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2 comments:
There is a lot of talk of testing pupils at school, and the government (whose main target seems to be to set more targets for others) defines what is satisfactory.
The government also spends a lot of time and money on the fabric of schools, and very little extra on training and retraining the teaching staff.
I come back to view again and again that if school heads and managers were provided with staff motivated to be the best teachers, with school managers properly trained to manage a business, with training and retraining facilities for teaching staff, and maybe extra non-teaching staff called 'pupil managers' or some such; then the positive effect would be visible within half a decade.
Brown's obsession with bricks and mortar is evident also in the NHS, as is his lack of genuine interest in good management and expert, relevant training. At present in schools there is a dearth of genuinely good teachers and managers, which is being strenuously maintained by this government and by some of the unreconstructed teahing unions.
I agree with you, Bob C. There is clearly a failure to motivate and train existing teachers.
There is a tendency to denigrate and label people as 'bad' teachers rather than providing help and support to improve.
The problem with motivation, though, is connected to the overall top-down approach to education. The problem with bureaucracy is that your remove freedom of action from the people on the ground. That has always been the cause of demotivation.
So what we need is fewer targets and more encouragement.
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