National Curriculum Summary And Analysis

According to Anthony & Walshaw, (2009) within a constructivist view, it is a teacher’s role to facilitate the learning of a child by providing a resource rich environment from which they guide a students learning. A student within a constructivist-learning environment must become engaged in the learning process by becoming a researcher, identifying a problem, collecting and analysing data and formulating a conclusion. This process of engagement provides a student with endless opportunity to develop his or her own understanding and knowledge. An educators ability to understand this learning theory as a process of construction and development provides a conceptual framework from which to build a teaching practice.

A study conducted in 2003 by Ofsted that involved England, Denmark and Finland, showed England’s national curriculum compared to the other two countries was:

Why does England have a National Curriculum for primary education? To what extent does the National Curriculum 2014 for English, mathematics or science reflect current theories of teaching and learning?

Guidelines for the National Curriculum are laid down in the Education Reform Act of 1988.

The review of the Australian Curriculum, undertaken by Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire recommended that students in Prep to Year 2 should focus on English, Math, History and Science and the arts content of the curriculum should be reduced. This means that the core content of the arts curriculum of music, visual arts, drama, dance and media arts would be not introduced until Year 3. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-13/the-conversation-expert-verdict-on-the-curriculum-review/5809706). There is evidence for both sides of the reduction of creative arts for the Australian curriculum and this essay will attempt to address possible issues and solutions to the reduction of the arts.

Eight years ago, when I was employed as a teacher at BYLC, it was only in its second year of operation. Therefore, I played and integral part in developing an alternative curriculum that would successfully engage our students and also enable us to receive full accreditation as a secondary school. Since the introduction of the Australian Curriculum (AC), I re-developed our programs and they have again been approved during an accreditation review.

According to Directgov (2012), “the National Curriculum is a framework used by all the maintained schools to ensure that teaching and learning is balanced and consistent.”

The National Curriculum advocates that teachers need to be implementing strategies in lessons in order to make education inclusive and accessible to every pupil, including those pupils that have a special educational need and disability (SEND). Consequently, these learning needs must be supported in order for them to overcome any learning barriers that are presented. In 2016. 1,228,785 pupils were documented as having a learning difficulty, of which nearly 26% of these pupils had the condition, Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The aim of this rationale will be to justify the strategies implemented in the science lesson plan, making it inclusive for the named child George.

Based on the research and analysis undertaken, it is recommended that the most effective and authentic forms of assessment for writing and reading are writing portfolios and reading checklists, respectively. Although Brown & Hudson (1998) state that both these forms of assessment are time inefficient in that the initial creation of the criteria to cater for specific learning outcomes requires extensive planning, as well as possible teacher retraining, the benefits of such assessments far outweigh their limitations. The Australian Curriculum’s (n.d.) shift to accommodate diversity, inclusion, and inspire deeper learning and thinking in students requires more subjective, individually catered, and authentic assessment strategies that allow for

Humanities and Social Sciences involves students undertaking the process of inquiry learning in order to acquire the desired skills and understandings that are embedded within the Australian Curriculum. Reynolds (2014 p3) suggests that Humanities and Social Science learners need to be ‘self-directed, flexible, have complex thinking skills and be reflective of their learning’- these skills are solidly linked to the inquiry process and the Australian Curriculum and is why inquiry learning in the Humanities classroom is so important. (Reynolds, 2014)

Therefore, an example of a constructivist learning environment in a pre- primary classroom would firstly begin with the educator observing a common interest or conversation amongst the young children, for example dogs. As a group the educator would ask the children and document everything they currently knew about dogs. Through this class discussion the educator would document questions about dogs the children did not know. Next through guidance the educator will support the young children in finding the answers to their unknown questions. Through various activities created by the educator, the children will build up knowledge about dogs. The children are then given the opportunity to display their learning to others including friends and family through a model creation or through role play for example (Project Approach, 2014).

In this article the author’s discuss the area of cooperative learning and the constructivist philosophy and how they relate to each other. There are examples given of different classroom activities that involve cooperate learning and the constructivist philosophy. In these various classrooms, the students learned subject matter and developed meanings that were personalized to them and they also used prior knowledge and engaged in classroom discussions. In these examples, the teacher was the facilitator, who motivated the practice and reinforced

Cooperative learning will be a method I use in my classroom. I believe that in a cooperative learning group a student can learn socialization skills and how to work with others. This goes along with the pragmatic/progressive philosophy that children learn by doing. The progressivism teaching style also includes the incorporation of problem-solving and critical thinking techniques. I want my students to learn to think for themselves and be able to function in society. At the same time, I will be a fellow learner myself and

In contrast to this view Les Vygotsky, whose theories have also been implicated in modern educational teaching methods, explained that children can learn skills that are just beyond their ability if they are helped by someone who possesses that skill, this was known as proximal development and although it contradicts the fundamental argument behind Piagets support for cooperative learning, it provides an other theorists outlook on the benefits of cooperative learning in educational settings and thus increases support on its use. “Different learning theory approaches favour cooperative learning for different reasons” (O’Donnell, 2002)

Collaborative learning stems from the theory of Vygotsky’s conception of Zone of proximal development. The thought is that children learn best with “help and guidance” (Ormrod, 2012). In transitioning this zone to a collaborative learning experience, children work with their peers in broadening their learning experience, allowing small groups of students to work together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, problem solve, and more. These classroom environments help to create durable abilities in students and aid in producing a “smoother integration into adult society when the activities resemble real-world tasks” (Ormrod, 2012). As students work with peers and adults, they adopt some of the learning strategies demonstrated and develop more skills in problem solving. This scaffolding creates a trickle-down effect of knowledge construction. In collaborative learning, students are afforded a myriad of enriching opportunities to explore perspectives that may differ from their own. These activities serve to create a self-awareness in the student of their responsibilities to a group, requiring them to self-monitor their activity (Lee, Tsai, Chai, & Koh, 2014).