John Rumm wrote
Rod Speed wrote
John Rumm wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Mark wrote
wrote

We have a stream of pupils some of whom attend colleges doing
different level btec courses, run btec courses in house and the
engineering diploma these number about 100 out of a yeargroup of
400 students - its a right b*gger to schedule i know !!
Unfortunately the present education dept well michael gove is now
against this type of education despite much support fro large
manufacturing companies. Education here is a political footbal.
In the 22 years I have been in it we have changed course about 5
times - it takes an average of 5 years to get changes through (due to the nature of students growing up) so the
system is in effect
constant flux

Very true. I just wish they leave alone and let the teachers do their job.

I'm not convinced that you'd get a very viable result that way.

Historically there was a time it worked very well...

I dont believe there ever was.

And bugger all kids were in formal education at that time anyway.

What century are you thinking of?

The ones where the individual teachers decided what would be taught and how it would be taught.

I was talking about the period post WWII, to probably the late 60's

The individual teachers didnt decide what was taught and how it was taught then.

when the teaching profession and government between them started
"fiddling" with the formula that had been used for decades prior.

And it was a formula, it wasnt left to individual teachers
to decide what was taught and how it was taught.

You lot had a system where at roughly age 11, it was decided
what sort of school the kid would go to, with the state system.

We have national curricula for a reason.

Partly because it stopped working in some cases...

It never did work.

I don't follow your logic? That is in effect arguing that all
education failed to work prior to 1988 when the NC was introduced.

No, I meant that allowing all teachers to decide what
was taught and how it was taught never did word.

I should have said that more carefully.

but to a large extent it was a knee jerk reaction to some failing schools

Nope, because its just not viable to let all schools
do their own thing, let alone every single teacher.

The schools were not "doing their own thing", they were teaching according to type of education they were trying to
provide for their students, and being led by the syllabi of the exams they were proposing they sat.

But the teachers were not free to teach whatever they liked however they liked.

Neither were state schools either.

They were also free to select exam boards based on the style and nature of their papers - again to best suit the needs
of the school and students.

Nothing like letting each teacher decide what was taught and how it was taught.

and poor teachers.

There will ALWAYS be poor teachers,
just like there will always be poor anything.

Indeed, and its how you deal with them that matters.

And it makes no sense to leave anything to those poor teachers.

The teaching establishment got less good at maintaining and
policing its own standards it seems.

There can be no 'standards' if every teacher decides
for themselves what is taught and how its taught.

The fact that we managed to achieve massive growth in our economy right through the post war period up to 1988 without
a NC proves the fallacy of that claim.

LIke hell it does. Teachers werent left to teach
anything they liked any way they liked at that time.

The good schools, that have freedom to do it their way, still get outstanding results,

None of them have complete freedom to do anything they like.

Not anymore...

Not since the war either except with public schools.

although things are moving back a little toward how it was previously.

But not to anything even remotely resembling anything like a
situaiton where invididual teachers can teach anything they like any
way they like. You dont even get much of that in public schools.

however as with any freedom, what can be a positive thing in the right hands, can become a liability in the wrong
ones.

And we have national curricula for a reason.

Keeping the influence of the loony left out of education mostly...

Nope, its much more about modern mobility of the kids parents.

It isnt viable to have every school do its own thing, let alone every teacher.

Get the leadership and enthusiasm right,

Not even possible with all schools.

Who said it was?

You need to appreciate that "one size fits all" is rarely a good solution in many fields.

No one ever said it was. A decent national curriculum doesnt even attempt that.

Overly prescriptive control may help reduce the damage done by poor schools, but it also impedes the good that can be
done by good ones.

Yes, there obviously can be good and bad national curricula.

Thats a separate matter to whether a national curriculum has its place when done right.

You need a system that can recognise where schools are competent and
delegate the power to them to fully capitalise on their competencies.

Its much more complicated than that when you want
to allow for the modern mobility of the kids parents.

give head teachers the ability to hire and fire as they require etc, and it can be very viable.

How odd that its never happened.

I strongly disagree - there are some excellent schools about which
managed to achieve outstanding results long before there was a NC,
still do, and I am confident would continue to do so into the future
even if the NC were to vanish tomorrow.

Separate issue entirely to whether it makes any sense to let every
teacher decide what should be taught and how it should be taught,
let alone whether there is anything to be gained by a well done NC.

It didnt even work when a tiny subset of kids were formally educated.

In effect this is what the UK had prior to the NC

No it did not.

Funny, there was no NC when I was at school.

Yes, but the individual teachers did not get to decide what was taught and how it was taught.

THAT is what was being discussed in my original point.

The school was not under educational authority control, and could choose how to operate as it liked.

But it STILL didnt allow every single teacher to
decide what was taught and how it was taught.

I doubt it was the only one in the country like it at the time.

Corse it wasnt, but it was a small subset of all the schools at that time.

And its not a viable way to do the entire country when
you are compulsorily educating every single child.

which is a relatively recent thing.

There was never a time when every teacher could
teach anything they liked any way they liked.

Define "any way they liked"?

Doesnt need defining. Its obvious what it means.

It seems a fitting description of how my school operated for example.

I bet it wasnt at the level of the individual teachers, particularly in
primary school with teaching the basics of reading and writing etc.

The teachers would in fact have been taught that stuff in their formal
education and would mostly have been doing what they were taught once
they had qualifed as teachers and had started teaching in that school.

That sort of thing doesnt have to be done with a curriculum, it can
also be done by a variety of other methods like with teacher training,
school inspectors, exams set by other than the particular teacher
\whose students are being rated, standardised testing etc etc etc.

That did not however mean that they could (long term) decide to skip teaching English and concentrate on urban street
slang instead.

Precisely. And they couldnt even decide that they wouldnt
bother with maths, or languages other than english either.

Since had they have done so, parents would not have selected the school, and they would not have achieved the frequent
categorisations by OFSTED of "very good" or "outstanding".

And that last alone means that the individual teacher did
not get to teach anything they liked any way they liked.

Likewise, when teaching Physics, it was of great mutual benefit that they taught the same syllabus as that which the
AEB were going to use to set the exam and mark against.

So even tho there was no NC, there was nothing like every
teacher teaching anything they liked any way they liked.

However it did not take a NC to prescribe what subjects they chose, or what the exact content of those course was.

Sure, but an NC does have some advantages when done right,
particularly when the kids parents move around quite a bit now.

Despite all the political rhetoric all parties
have micromanaged schools via their policies.

Thats what national curricula do.

Indeed, which is an argument against them IMHO.

There is no viable alternative to curricula.

Curricula - possibly true,

So you are agreeing with my original comment.

however there is no absolute requirement
for them to be imposed at a national level.

Yes. But that does have advantages when parents move around quite a bit.