The Priorities of the Primary Curriculum

Welcome to my first blog on the priorities of a primary school curriculum.

I believe that the priorities in a primary school setting should be around personal growth and personal skills, such as, communication, determination and honesty, rather than purely getting children to learn facts and knowledge. This is due to the fact that modern world technology is so advanced and with up to date search engines like Google and websites such as Twitter, any information that is needed is available almost instantly at one click of a button. This advancement in technology means that modern education is different to previous times; with much more technology being used in classrooms than ever before (I will speak about this in a later blog). This then leaves more time in the school day to work on children’s personal growth and skills.

This contradicts Daisy Christodoulou (2014) who believes that teaching children facts and knowledge is vital as she talks about long term memory and how when we problem solve, we use prior knowledge that is stored in our long term memory, so the ability to problem solve is directly related to the knowledge stored in our brains – we cannot rely on our limited working memory. However, I believe this to be irrelevant because as I said before, technology is now so advanced that there aren’t many problems that we face that cannot be solved using other means, besides educational knowledge. A child’s ability to problem solve would be much higher with a good level of social skills, communication, and persistence, all taught under the ‘personal growth and skills’ category.

Teaching children pure education knowledge, such as history dates and numeracy is just for the purpose to pass standardised tests in order to make our country look better when being compared, in statistic charts such as PISA, which should definitely not be the purpose of our education system.

Professor Graham Donaldson (2015) has created a new curriculum design for Wales that will start to be rolled out throughout the country by 2022. This curriculum features six key areas of learning and will be carried out between the ages of 3-16. 
These key areas are: 

1)       Expressive arts

2)       Health and Well-being

3)       Humanities

4)       Maths and Numeracy

5)       Science and Technology

6)       Languages, literacy and communication

He said that “the Areas of Learning and Experience should not be seen as watertight compartments but rather a means of organising the intentions for each child and young person’s learning, with decisions and plans for how these should translate into day-to-day activities taking place creatively at school level. They are therefore not timetabling devices” (Donaldson, 2015, p. 39).

This supports my opinion as the six areas are very broad and do not just focus on literacy and numeracy skills. This new design includes skills such as communication which is vital for a person’s development through life, at any stage. It also included Humanities, which includes Religious studies and geography. This topic of learning isn’t particularly going to get someone a job in later life, but will aid them as their life progresses, when meeting new people and experiencing different cultures.

Donaldson (2015) also proposes a cross-curriculum skills design which involves Numeracy, Literacy and Digital Competence. This links to my earlier point about technology being used in education and the wide opportunities that technology can enable. “Digital competence plays an increasingly powerful role in the lives of children and young people, for communication, networking, information, leisure and entertainment as well as for an increasing range of transactions and educational applications” (Donaldson, 2015, pp 41). This quote really shows how beneficial digital skills are to young children for current and future life, so teaching these skills in schools is definitely vital and in my opinion cross over into a personal skill, because as mentioned, digital competence links closely to communication. However, “it has become incredibly difficult to decode the content, purpose and possibly outcomes of what is communicated via media” (Christodoulou, 2015, pp 61). This means that anyone can edit the internet and information found online may not be accurate or safe. Despite this, with the right education, children would be aware of the dangers of the internet and would learn how to get the most out of our extended online world.

Going with the new cross-curricular design, numeracy and literacy are still included. This is because they are of course still, and always will be essential skills– Gina Donaldson (2015) believes that maths enables us to function and thrive in everyday life and gives us the basis of everything we need, even for simple tasks such as using public transport and cooking. Basic maths and literacy skills such as simple addition and spelling are important in a child’s general and educational development. Despite this, I do not think that numeracy and literacy skills should be the only or priority subjects taught in our primary education system. From Professor Donaldson’s design it is clear that he believes that a range of subjects should be taught – “Teachers should be able to help children and young people to make links across learning, bringing together different aspects to address important issues relating, for example, to citizenship, enterprise, financial capability and sustainability” (Donaldson, 2015, pp 39). 

This is because education is not just about equipping children with skills to enable them to find work in later life, education is about defining and shaping who these children are as people, providing them the chance to progress in what they are good at, and teaching them how to survive and be the person they want to be in the world that we live in. This idea is supported by Dewey (1938, p. 78) who said “I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living”. This is completely true as education is a journey, it is not the build up to a future life, it is a life itself which is a journey of learning and evolving into better versions of ourselves and being at the right stages to face all of life’s obstacles.

So to finish, I do believe that literacy and numeracy should be included in the primary school curriculum, because all children need those basic skills, however I do feel like there are a lot more important things/skills that a child can gain from being in a school setting. These things include personal growth and citizenship, which I feel are a lot more valuable in long term life, as well as in a child’s development, than the ability to do simple numeracy sums.

References

Christodoulou, D. (2014) Seven Myths about Education. London: Routledge.

Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education. New York: Kappa Delta Pi.

Donaldson, G. (2015). Successful futures: Independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales. Welsh Government.

Donaldson, G. (2015) ‘An Introduction to Maths’, in: Driscoll, P., Lambirth, A. and Roden, J. (2^nd edn) The Primary Curriculum: A creative approach. Los Angeles: Sage, pp. 27-46.