Comments on: A National Curriculum: What’s in Store?

By: Jo Broadbent

Jo Broadbent — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:03:32 +0000

As a Prep teacher I believe there are definitely positives and huge negatives to the National curriculum. I like the idea of consistent guidelines for all teachers especially those who come down to Prep from higher year levels or come to QLD from other states. The main problem is that the Prep year is still essentially a developmental year which means that some children will simply not be ready for the formalised instruction that is being forced upon them by many school admins. I think the key for Prep teachers is to continue advocating for the value of play based philosophy as one of the many contexts for learning in Prep. If we can keep at least some of the play based philosophy and the children are still meeting the outcomes they are required to meet, not only will our children reap the benefits but admin & policy developers might begin seeing the value of play as a catalyst for learning!!

By: wendy walne

wendy walne — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:35:54 +0000

Out of these threads ‘PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE’ and ‘TEACHERS WHO ARE NOT EARLY CHILDHOOD TRAINED WILL..START VERY FORMAL TEACHING….(I would add that it all is in the hands of school principals and those not on the ‘early childhood trained wavelength’ are going to do a huge disservice to these young children…probably their interpretation of the ‘requirements’ of the National curriculum but it is not the ‘right’ interpretation’)…ORAL LANGUAGE AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS…+ ENQUIRY LEARNING AND HANDS ON ACTIVITIES….(so essential foundations learned through PLAY of all sorts!!!!!)IS THE WAY TO GO ..the BOTTOM half of the PREP intake are very young….and QUEENSLAND children are STILL months younger than their counterparts…….so I would say to those in Admin or see themselves as ‘advisors’ to PREP…..USE the knowledge of experienced early years teachers to STEP UP the ‘content’ if you like, BECAUSE those teachers are the ones that will STILL keep it light, fun,oral language and play based while bringing in the CONTENT. I simply cringe at the thought of rows of desks and 5 text books!!!! for PREP children. Absolutely heartbreaking!!

By: Vicki Fites

Vicki Fites — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:29:28 +0000

My concern about the National Curriculum is the content expected to be covered in Year 7 and in Prep. These seem to be the year levels mostly affected by the changes. The Year 7 curriculum seems to have extra content in the areas of History and Geography. My concern lies with the focus on how much content needs to be covered when the basic literacy skills will suffer as a result of the ‘pushed’ curriculum and the expectations on teachers. The Prep concern would be the loss of the play based curriculum as we are already experiencing the loss of free play and experimental learning. Content is also forced upon the Early Years and the expectations each school is placing on these vulnerable and inquisitive learners, at such an early age. We definitely need to take the advice from Freebody and Luke but let the focus be on deep knowledge and understanding of rich texts and literature and if content is part of this learning then it is a bonus. Our aim is to provide strong literacy skills to enhance the life long learner and to develop knowledge and understanding, to achieve personal growth and to function effectively in our society.

By: kerry warland

kerry warland — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:32:17 +0000

What worries me is that all there are all these benchmarks formerly part of the year one curriculum that now have to be met in the prep year and prep is not a compulsary year of schooing. What about the children who enter Year one without having done prep?? I seriously worry that those teachers who are not early childhood trained will see these benchmarks and start teaching much more formally in the prep year and then the poor children who have not had this instruction will be all the more behind in Year 1.

By: Rakia Chebib

Rakia Chebib — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:58:07 +0000

I totally agree with your point about oral language as I’m in a school which is 98% ESL. You put it so simply ‘what can be gained from putting the cart before the horse?’ We are currently trialing the use of a DI program formally called Language for Learning by Englemann. The program is now referred to as the language strand component to the Reading Mastery (Signature Edition)program. Your remarks/thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated