Statutory surprises
We all know what (state) secondary schools must do — or do we? In reading through part of The national curriculum in England, set reading prior to starting my teacher training, the following surprised me…
Collective worship
“All state schools are also required to make provision for a daily act of collective worship” [Department for Education (2014), The national curriculum in England p5]
I will be curious whether/how this is achieved in practice! I don’t recall this from my own children’s state secondary education… and how does one provide this when students are from so many different religious backgrounds. We’ll see!
Develop in all subjects…
Teachers should develop pupils’ numeracy and mathematical reasoning in all subjects so that they understand and appreciate the importance of mathematics.
Teachers should develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject.
[Department for Education (2014), The national curriculum in England pp10–11]
I have seen mathematical worksheets that completely abandon basic English sentence structure, for example giving up on beginning sentences with a capital letter or ending them with a full stop. Not only that, I have heard such formatting called out positively, almost advocated, in some maths circles. But surely that would go against developing good English language being an integral part of “every subject”?
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I have certainly seen deficient (as well as excellent) writing by people in technical roles — doing all we can to improve literacy via every subject is a welcome surprise. So is calling on every subject to help develop pupils’ numeracy and mathematical reasoning … I look forward to quizzing my English teaching trainee colleague on that!
Taking a step back, these exhort us to ensure that education is cohesive across subjects, rather than treating each in isolation. While the crossover opportunities may vary, the ideal certainly sits well with me.
Positive surprise!
