Rethinking School – What is being taught?

Week 4 of our Rethinking School Series

Last week, we explored the role of education in shaping families’ decisions to leave mainstream schooling in favour of home education. This week, our focus shifts to the curriculum itself — examining what children are taught in mainstream schools and how these subjects, skills, and values contribute to (or hinder) their preparation for a successful life.

In the United Kingdom, the National Curriculum is the body of knowledge, skills, and understanding that the governing authorities intended to impart to the future workforce. The understanding behind the concept of the National Curriculum is that everyone needs to be in a universal conversation, where everyone has the same base in knowledge.

Enacted in 1944 with the passage of the Education Act, its primary objective was to “ensure that every local authority contributes to the spiritual, moral, and physical development of the community.” Nevertheless, schools and teachers were largely left to their own devices in implementing this curriculum.

Declining educational standards in the 1960s prompted the establishment of a curriculum study group within the Department of Education and Science to enhance the curriculum. By the mid-1970s, there were significant concerns that the United Kingdom was not adequately served by its schools. The Department of Education and Science criticised schools for the lack of curriculum balance and their failure to adapt to the evolving needs of industry and society. Consequently, the concept of “a core curriculum” was introduced. By 1985, a strong movement towards a “nationally agreed curriculum” had gained momentum. In 1989, the National Curriculum was officially introduced to both primary and secondary schools. Since then, there have been numerous reforms and revisions.

The Primary Curriculum

The primary curriculum comprises five main components:

1. Compulsory subjects: English, mathematics, and science, along with foundation subjects in art and design, design and technology, geography, history, ICT, music, and physical education.

2. Two non-statutory skills frameworks:

• Key Skills: Covers communication, application of numbers, information technology, working with others, improving learning and performance, and problem-solving skills.

• Thinking Skills: Covers information processing, reasoning, enquiry, creative thinking, and evaluation skills.

  
  

3. Five non-statutory cross-curricular elements:

• Creativity 

• ICT 

• Education for sustainable development 

• Literacy across the curriculum 

• Numeracy across the curriculum

  
  

4. R.E has always been compulsory in schools, so school must teach it even if it is not a religious school, the syllabus for which is determined at local authority level.

5. Recently, relationships and sex education (RSE) has become compulsory. We wil come back to this in later in this series.

The Secondary Curriculum

While the secondary school curriculum remains largely consistent with the primary curriculum, it is structured into two distinct sections. At Key Stage 3, citizenship and modern languages are introduced as additional subjects. At Key Stage 4, pupils are required to take compulsory examinations in the following subjects: English, mathematics, science, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and physical education. Additionally, they must be able to select at least one subject from each of the four entitlement areas of the arts subjects, design and technology, humanities, and modern foreign languages. Finally, the new secondary curriculum incorporates non-statutory “cross-curriculum dimensions.”

1. Community participation

2. Creativity and critical thinking

3. Enterprise

4. Global dimension and sustainable development

5. Healthy lifestyles

6. Identity and cultural diversity

7. Technology and the media 

   
   

That is quite a lot to pack into a week of schooling and quite often it is impossible for the teaching staff to deliver it all.

The primary objective of this initiative is to equip individuals with the essential skills and knowledge necessary for “a successful life” in a diverse range of career paths, thereby enabling them to move on from mainstream education with a comprehensive set of tools for their future employment. Now that there is no longer employment for life with the same employer transferable skills are the key to our modern-day work force.

However, and this is quite a very big however! The national curriculum is based on the idea that on the first of September an idealised fictional child will be able to do X and over the course of the academic year they will learn how to do Y.  They will move through the system smoothy and make progress at every stage. This does not allow for deaths in the family, illness, homelessness, poverty, or any other of life’s events that may befall a family.

There are also some very big assumptions being made here and this list can be found across the internet:

1. The notion that every child should meet a standardised checklist and attain an average level of achievement in all aspects regardless of who they actually are.

2. The targets have been set by individuals who may not fully comprehend child development. Factors such as financial resources and time are now been taught below the age at which most children can comprehend these abstract concepts. 

3. That all children are capable of and/or interested in acquiring the skills and knowledge that the curriculum is offering.

4.     That every school’s intake is the same, and every year the school intake is the same.

5.     That all assessment should be through timed written work.

6. The national curriculum has been developed on the assumption that acquiring these skills and knowledge is essential for achieving “a successful life”. This implies that individuals without these qualifications cannot lead successful lives.

This last point raises a very important point – who is quantifying this “successful life”. We will return to this question a number of times over the course of the series.

Consequently, there are a number of unintended outcomes of this list of 6 we now need to consider:

• From the outset of their educational journey, children born during the summer term are often discouraged and sublimely learn that they will never succeed. Regrettably, they are frequently compared to their more advanced autumn-born peers. In the early stages of childhood 3, 6 and 9 months is a long time, and this developmental disparity represents a significant part of a child’s growth.

  
  

• Our educational system is heavily weighted towards the system, rules, homework, grades, and passing tests, neglecting the individual needs, talents, skills, and the interests of students.

  
  

• Moreover, we adopt a monolithic teaching method, which fails to accommodate the diverse learning styles of the population we educate.

  
  

• Students are conditioned to provide answers that align with the examiner’s expectations, resulting in a decline in the expression of original thought.

  
  

• A family’s wealth and well-being have a more significant impact on a child’s education than any curriculum of education they receive.

• A family's cultural background will have a more signifiant impact on a child's education than any curriculum of education they receive.

  
  

• Schools with affluent parents who can afford tutoring tend to perform better academically, potentially skewing the assessment of the school’s actual effectiveness.

Whereas in areas with less affluent families many children miss school due to financial constraints, including transportation costs, uniforms, school supplies, school trips, and school meals. Consequently, some families feel they are compelled to take mid-term holidays and the fine, because simply combined they are often less than the cost of a holiday taken during the school holidays.

Academies

Finally, there are schools known as academies that exert greater control over their operations and are now deviating from the national curriculum. Furthermore, a school failing to deliver the national curriculum successfully is compelled, by the powers that be, to become an academy, which implies a reduction in compliance with the “National” component of the “curriculum”. This suggests to some that the very fundamental principle of a “National Curriculum” is undermined beyond repair. The notion that there exists a unified repository of knowledge that everyone should possess in order for all to participate in national life fully, live a successful life and be included: is now fundamentally flawed.

Consequently, we present our first argument in favour of homeschooling: if certain components of the traditional school system are failing to meet their own objectives and causing entire schools to withdraw from the national curriculum, why should we, individually, not adopt a similar approach?

What are Orchard Training’s Homeschool children being taught differently?

The most pertinent quotation regarding the definition of education I have encountered is: “Education is what remains after forgetting everything one has been taught.” A remarkable illustration of this concept is presented in the television program QI, where three panellists attempt to elucidate the oxbow lake to the fourth. Three educated in the UK and the fourth overseas and who had no idea what an oxbow lake was. Each panellist maintaining that this was one of the few things that they can recall from their schooling but acknowledges that it holds no practical value for them as adults or in their professional pursuits.

Many of the young people I come in contact with ask the same question: “Why am I learning this?” Essential, “What is the value of this to me?” “Why am I expending energy learning this if once the exam is over, I will never use it?” The answer most teachers will give is that: “We, in education, are trying to open up as many employment doors as possible for you.”

Many teenagers don’t necessarily know what they want to be by the time they leave school. However, many do—are we in danger of simply dismissing their time and efforts by insisting on them learning so much irrelevant stuff, most of which they will forget, leaving them with pieces of information they can’t use – like the QI oxbow lake - interesting but not useful!

As home schoolers, we do have the freedom to choose our curriculum, choose the order in which we learn, and choose the methods we employ. We can study as much or as little of a subject as our interest lasts.  We can cover large areas at a shallow level or concentrate on one point of deep interest. We are not bound by any “national” curriculum nor educational standards, which could be seen as nothing more than box ticking. We are not constrained by time either; if it takes longer to acquire a skill, it will take us longer to do so. We don’t move on because next week we are timetabled to do so. If we need to repeat a year we do so. Nevertheless, if we have already achieved significant milestones, we proceed at the pace of the individual and are not constrained by the collective speed of the class.

This week we looked at one of the key reasons why many families ultimately rethinking school and choosing to leave mainstream education, a rigid curriculum that fails to engage children and often drives their curiosity away from learning. In comparison, homeschool learners study what sparks their curiosity and what is relevant to them. Instead of memorising facts for an examiner, they explore ideas, form their own opinions, and often retain more knowledge because they are genuinely engaged. In the Orchard Training approach, we teach the children the skills that support them to learn, not tell them what they have to learn.

Having said all of that, our state school system is free and for many children they are offered a school place relativity close to home. So, why are they walking away from a free school place with the national curriculum, or a variation of it at the academies?

This situation is intricate, encompassing a confluence of the curriculum, its delivery, and the inherent characteristics of the individuals involved.  Let’s examine them in the order they happen.

Firstly, our learners are telling us it has a lot to do with the change from primary to secondary. Numerous primary schools structure their curriculum around overarching theme, with the main subjects such as Mathematics, English, Science, Geography, History, Art, Physical Education and Religious Education (R.E.) integrated throughout the day, week, and longer periods of time. Upon entering secondary school, students encounter fragmented subjects. Each lesson covers a single topic within a specific subject, and after the bell rings, students are transferred to a different classroom to study a completely unrelated subject. By the time they return to the original subject the following week, or in schools with a two-week time schedule - the third week, they have forgotten the primary content of the previous lesson. The elements lack cohesion, coherence, and integration, making it challenging to maintain a cohesive whole.

Secondly, our learners have expressed their dissatisfaction with the curriculum, asserting that they lack the freedom to choose their subjects. They perceive themselves as confined within lessons that fail to pique their interest, and the vast expanse of time allocated to these unengaging subjects exacerbates their frustration. The dormancy of speaking and writing task over practical hands-on experience in subjects like Design and Technology, science and geography. The lack of school visits in subjects like Art and History.

Thirdly, as they progress through KS3, the message of the value of academic education is so prevalent that the route in to apprenticeships is not being clearly heard. They perceive the school path as a route to college, to university and not directly to job opportunities. What they want is to work and get paid.  They, themselves, are failing to comprehend the significance of their education to work. The link between the practical relevance of mathematics in the workplace and the application in English language proficiency is not being effectively communicated to them. Consequently, they are overlooking the significance of the GCSE and its potential for securing early practical employment opportunities.

Fourthly, (and this mainly comes from the dyslexics) the fact that during exams that you have to write long paragraph or so, in prose and are marked on the English skills and loose marks for gramma. Why can’t that information be show in other forms like mind mapping or a diagram, which would play to their strengths and not their weakness. Where the student demonstrates what they know or understand in a way that they can best show this information. Rather than a computer reading text looking for key words marking the papers.

The final area of focus is the Relationship and Sex Education lessons, which I will elaborate on further in a separate blog post. Whilst some young teenagers do divulge not being ready for some of the content of these lessons, it is important to acknowledge that the primary concern lies with the parents rather than the learners who confide in me, on this point.

This week we have looked at what is being taught and is effect on families rethinking school and choosing to homeschool. Next week, we will consider why things are being taught in schools. We will be revisiting that troublesome question how does this all contribute to a successful life?