It is an unusually hot August in Wales, but, like many educators across the country, I have already begun planning and preparing for the new academic year. The Summer offers a period of renewal and reflection, where we are offered a chance to think about our work over the past year and recall aspects which have developed positively. We are at a critical juncture in Wales as we move towards the new curriculum and, in this very brief blog, I offer a few thoughts after ten years as a teacher!
School Leaders - Don’t Get Lost Amongst Damaging Educational Myths
One of the negative facets of Curriculum for Wales has been the myriad of education myths, often exacerbated by schools who feel under pressure to change, but are not sure how (or why in some instances). One such example of this has been the repeated claims that children do not need rote learning and that now that we have “Google”, facts are pointless. I have listened to countless head teachers who seem unclear and uncertain in their convictions about the planning of a curriculum linked to skills or knowledge or the Four Purposes.
I was discussing teaching and learning with a local school leader at the end of term, who reminded me of this educational myth. They commented that pupils at their school were suffering a “Google lesson overload”, as most sessions involved pupils googling information related to ever changing topics which they “investigated” in some loose form of enquiry based learning.
The irony of this is that it is now well established among international researchers that a fact-filled curriculum, planned with good coherence will support pupils the most. The paradox is that de-emphasising factual knowledge actually makes it harder for pupils to look things up effectively as they are unable to understand the information. To understand information in any article online, pupils need a general basic knowledge to place facts in context. Even to google something, pupils need content specific vocabulary.
Any upper key stage two teacher reading the few sentences above will be able to identify the sentiments expressed and recognise lessons where they have asked pupils to look things up, only to realise that pupils have no understanding whatsoever of what they have read.
My own opinion as a curriculum lead, is that we need to be clear about what we are going to teach children in order to plan for their educational journey and map out the knowledge and experiences and skills. Whenever we talk about knowledge, people often hear facts, although this is not exactly what we mean and the general dismissal of the role of knowledge in education is something which we need to address. All educators in Wales support the ambition for pupils to develop the Four Purposes, yet I am not entirely sure that enough support has been provided about what this means in terms of curriculum. For me, it doesn’t mean skills ladders where we tick things off, it means supporting them to have knowledge in key areas which will in turn allow them to engage in critical thinking, creativity, problem solving and communication.
I hear the education minister talking about CPD and the importance of supporting teachers to improve. What I think ministers have failed to understand is that teachers are not expert curriculum writers and that, in my experience, CPD related to actually designing a curriculum, which can be sustainable in a school which faces staff changes, leadership changes, as well as changes locally, is more challenging that a politician might think.
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