New '1950's' School Curriculum For The Isle Of Man?

[VinnieK]

'While we will certainly study these outcomes carefully once the review is completed, there is no requirement for us to act on them unless we consider that to do so would benefit our young people.' The island has its own curriculum, A Curriculum for Learning and Achievement, which the department believes affords a more holistic way of educating children to ensure they develop 'the six Rs' – readiness, relationships which are positive, resourcefulness, resilience, remembering skills and reflectiveness.

 

So what does that mean? I have never heard a local teacher talk about 'the six Rs'. Is this spin or a new teaching philosophy that we should all be told about?

 

Probably not. It sounds like the usual nonsense soundbite that infects a lot of education bureaucracy on the Island and in the UK. Usually this kind of toss is written more for the approving eye of author's boss than for parents or teachers, who by and large regard it as the meaningless dross it usually is.

 

The only real purpose it serves is to demonstrate that the person quoted is so out of touch with schools, contemporary issues in education, the public, and often reality itself that they have nothing to actually contribute to the topic in question.

[Declan]

'the six Rs' – readiness, relationships which are positive, resourcefulness, resilience, remembering skills and reflectiveness.

 

I can't be alone in hoping the kids leave school capable of pithier & more meaningful ways of expressing themselves. "Remembering skills" is the sort of phrase I grasp for when I can't remember the proper word (like "the anti-cooker" for freezer or "water-boiling machine" for kettle or "spinning thing in basement" for tumble dryer).

 

Are they the attributes we want future adults to have? What are they after - emo cub scout?

 

I googled "readiness, relationships which are positive, resourcefulness, resilience, remembering skills and reflectiveness", most of the first page in Manx references. Also found this Freedom to Flourish A Curriculum for Learning & Achievement in places it barely literate -

 

putting into place teaching and learning practices which ensure that all pupils achieve well in relation to their capabilities and their earlier attainment;

 

ensuring that high standards of work are demanding of all groups of children;

 

making sure that the curriculum is evaluated rigorously and well judged, carefully

managed innovations help to meet changing requirements;

 

Anyway it does describe the 6 r's in more detail -

 

Readiness

• positive self esteem;

• an ability to take responsibility for own actions;

• skilled in managing own emotions and feelings;

• appropriate curriculum skills;

• good concentration and focus.

Relationships which are Positive

• an ability to work as a team member;

• an ability to make and sustain friendships;

• understanding and respect for others;

• an acceptance of boundaries;

• empathy and understanding the role of others.

Resourcefulness

• a recognition of how to get help;

• the capability to apply reason, (compare/contrast);

• the ability to question;

• the ability to use initiative;

• achieving self motivation.

Resilience

• the ability to solve problems;

• the capacity to persevere;

• an acceptance of constructive criticism;

• adaptability and flexibility.

Remembering Skills

• the ability to recall;

• the confidence in the use of transfer skills and strategies;

• the ability to interpret;

• the ability to learn from experience.

Reflectiveness

• a sense of pride;

• the ability to plan;

• skills in analysis, reasoning, negotiation, mediation and organisation;

• the ability to redirect light back to its source;

• the capability to monitor, revise and adapt;

• an appreciation of own learning processes.

[Terse]

‘While we will certainly study these outcomes carefully once the review is completed, there is no requirement for us to act on them unless we consider that to do so would benefit our young people.’ The island has its own curriculum, A Curriculum for Learning and Achievement, which the department believes affords a more holistic way of educating children to ensure they develop ‘the six Rs’ – readiness, relationships which are positive, resourcefulness, resilience, remembering skills and reflectiveness.

 

We could narrow that down to the two 'Bs' - bullshit and bollocks.

[VinnieK]

• positive self esteem;

• an ability to take responsibility for own actions;

• skilled in managing own emotions and feelings;

• an ability to make and sustain friendships;

• understanding and respect for others;

• an acceptance of boundaries;

• empathy and understanding the role of others.

• a sense of pride;

 

The above in my mind falls under the responsibility of parents and more general knowledge that's picked up along the way.

 

Yes, of course kids whose parents lack the skill or inclination to help their kids in these areas should receive help, but I don't see the rationale in making such qualities part of the entire basis of primary and presumably secondary education where it only dilutes efforts to teach academic and practical skills (which I'm presuming is still the primary aim of state education), unless of course the government has decided that either the majority of parents aren't doing their jobs (or at least need to have their efforts assessed and suplemented by this self indulgent rot).

 

... and what in god's name does

• the ability to redirect light back to its source;

 

mean?

 

'Reflectiveness' is a hot topic amongst skills and training people at the moment, and unfortunately it's not limited to primary and secondary education. Usually it's just a wanky HR name for writing a short (and wholly superficial) report on what you've learned about yourself during this or that activity for the benefit of no one but the box ticking skills and training goblins, and is overwhealmingly treated with the contempt such an exercise deserves.

 

It's actually a brilliant wheeze on behalf of the training and educational theorists and those implementing the measures they recommend: You identify a quality that can't possibly be measured with any reliability or depth (like pride), talk impressionable ministers and civil servants into believing it's a vital component of any educational programme, and then spend a decade or so exploiting the vagueness of the goals you've established to come up with hundreds upon hundreds of pointless exercises, training schemes, and assessment practices. Then, when the old noggin is running low on ideas you just abandon the whole thing and set about establishing a new fad set around a slightly different bunch of qualities.

 

Sadly, too many in Government and in the upper echelons of the education sector are either too gullible or too scared of looking like fools to point out the emperor has no clothes on.

[Brickster]

"So what does that mean? I have never heard a local teacher talk about 'the six Rs'. Is this spin or a new teaching philosophy that we should all be told about?"

 

 

The 6 R's has now been supplemented with E4L.

 

See here

https://www2.sch.im/e4l/

[sarahc]

Box ticking is everywhere. Have faith in the people on the front line...

[ManxTaxPayer]

'the six Rs' – readiness, relationships which are positive, resourcefulness, resilience, remembering skills and reflectiveness.

 

I can't be alone in hoping the kids leave school capable of pithier & more meaningful ways of expressing themselves. "Remembering skills" is the sort of phrase I grasp for when I can't remember the proper word (like "the anti-cooker" for freezer or "water-boiling machine" for kettle or "spinning thing in basement" for tumble dryer).

 

Ya fucking "person who doesn't seem altogether compos mentis". The six Rs, Jesus, what a load of "waste material emerging from a large bovine male's rectum".

[Cronky]

Succinctly put!

 

This has all the appearance of a system designed by civil servants - for civil servants . . .

 

Flourish in Life!

 

Helping young people be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and acheieve, positively contribute and prosper.

 

The new Curriculum for Learning and Acheivement provides the guidelines you should use to give our young people the best possible start.

 

who can't even spell!

[VinnieK]

Box ticking is everywhere. Have faith in the people on the front line...

 

Generally speaking, I do. But sometimes their hands are tied and job made harder by the wacky inclinations of their senior managers and government: like when the new A-Levels were introduced in the UK in 2000/2001 and a lot of good A-Level teachers found that the increased assessment, combined with the additional burden of key skills and Enrichment schemes meant that they couldn't teach as deepy as they wanted and were pretty much forced to teach to the exam.

 

The Essentials for Learning bumpf is even more disturbing than the supposed 6 R's, not least because the emphasis on learning 'styles' and so called meshing ("a range of teaching strategies are used which appeal to visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners") has been debunked by numerous proper studies, which have often found that at best there's no evidence for such strategies having any postive effect. The flat out adoption of such methods and application to the sector worries me: not only due to the lack of caution with which they're applied, but because it may show that those in charge are unaware of or ignoring the literature that they should be reading if they have any real interest in their roles.

[Moghrey Mie]

Box ticking is everywhere. Have faith in the people on the front line...

 

Generally speaking, I do. But sometimes their hands are tied and job made harder by the wacky inclinations of their senior managers and government: like when the new A-Levels were introduced in the UK in 2000/2001 and a lot of good A-Level teachers found that the increased assessment, combined with the additional burden of key skills and Enrichment schemes meant that they couldn't teach as deepy as they wanted and were pretty much forced to teach to the exam.

 

The Essentials for Learning bumpf is even more disturbing than the supposed 6 R's, not least because the emphasis on learning 'styles' and so called meshing ("a range of teaching strategies are used which appeal to visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners") has been debunked by numerous proper studies, which have often found that at best there's no evidence for such strategies having any postive effect. The flat out adoption of such methods and application to the sector worries me: not only due to the lack of caution with which they're applied, but because it may show that those in charge are unaware of or ignoring the literature that they should be reading if they have any real interest in their roles.

 

 

So long as they learn about the formation of ox bow lakes they'll be fine.

[Fossils]

Incoming UK governments almost inevitably attack the curriculum. Few UK governments have the vaguest idea about the basic principles of education, but this ignorance fails to deter their enthusiasm for change, regardless of the consequences for the students. Experienced teachers have learned to expect it, but few welcome this regular interference in education by amateur busybodies.

 

 

 

[Cronky]

Incoming UK governments almost inevitably attack the curriculum. Few UK governments have the vaguest idea about the basic principles of education, but this ignorance fails to deter their enthusiasm for change, regardless of the consequences for the students. Experienced teachers have learned to expect it, but few welcome this regular interference in education by amateur busybodies.

 

The Coalition are chucking out most of the prescribed curriculum and replacing it with a smaller version of more essential knowledge. This hopefully addresses the presenting problem of children leaving education with some basic skills lacking - i.e. the 3r's, basic arithmetic, knowledge of British history and basic geography.

 

They are, apparently, not going to prescribe teaching methods. Michael Gove would seem to agree with you that 'interference in education by amateur busybodies' (i.e. Government and civil service bureaucrats?) only serves to undermine the professional status of teacher whose job is, after all, to teach!

 

The Times did a piece on this on 21 Jan (sorry can't link to it).

 

They commented:

 

The national curriculum, which runs to 151 pages of notes for primary schools and 28l for secondaries, is to be replaced with one a fraction of its size, listing, by subject, the facts and concepts that children should study at certain ages. Ministers say that a slimline curriculum, available in bookshops and online, will make it easier for parents to follow and support their children's studies.

 

and that

 

Its purpose must be to list core concepts and subject knowledge, leaving entirely to schools the task of deciding how these should be taught, he said. John Mclntosh, a member of the review team and the former head of the London Oratory school, said that a minimalist curriculum would be a challenge for teachers used to following

Whitehall instructions. He said: "An enormous task outside this review is to change the culture within the teaching profession so teachers feel safe about taking responsibility as professionals for what goes on in schools rather than seeing themselves as robotically taking impositions from on high and implementing them in schools."

 

This all sounds very sensible to me.