How to Know What Your Child Should be Learning in School

How well do you know what your child should be learning in school. Maths, English, Science… but its so much more than that! Each subject comprises a huge range of components and, as one of the core subjects, Maths is no exception. Knowing what your child should be learning in school is one of the many things we teach in Foundations 4 Homework. This is our flagship course designed to support parents and empower them to be able to feel confident in dealing with school, and supporting their children. We want to help you to know what your child should be learning. To also give you a flavour of what we teach, we’ve put together some key information.

The History of the National Curriculum 

Before explaining how the curriculum is structured, we need to look at the history. Over several decades, it evolved to get us to where we are now.

1976  Callaghan’s Great Debate: This discussed the need for a standardised approach, increasing professionalism and ensuring all children had access to the same education.

1988 Education Reform Act: The National Curriculum was introduced as part of this act

1994 Shepherd Reform: Slimmed down the statuary content because there was too much in it

1997 Blunkett Reforms: Introduced the Numeracy and Literacy strategies giving more focus on the core subjects

2007 Balls Reforms: Slimmed down KS3 and KS4

2014 Gove reforms: introduces the New National Curriculum Framework, making the content more challenging, slimming down the foundation content, and including more in mathematics

The Structure of the National Curriculum 

All these subjects MUST be taught and all maintained schools must follow their Programmes of Study. For some subjects, there is further guidance which is not statutory but gives examples of how these can be taught.

Core Subjects: These are Mathematics, English and Science. The curriculum describes these as being the centre of all learning, and the curriculum goes into a lot of detail. These are also what are assessed in the SATs.

Foundation Subjects: These subjects are the other main subjects. They vary dependent on the key stage, and are not assessed in the SATs. The National Curriculum Programmes of Study do not have as much detail as the Core subjects. See the diagram below for which subjects are taught in which key stage.

Other Subjects: All schools must teach religious education in all years, and at key stages 3 and 4 they must teach sex and relationship education.

The Key Stages

Years are grouped into KS1 to KS5 as outlined below. The legal requirement is to cover the content of the programmes of study for those years by the end of the key stage,

KS1: years 1 and 2

KS2: years 3 to 6

KS3: years 7 to 9

KS4: years 10 and 11 

KS5: years 12 and 13

This diagram from the national curriculum shows which subjects are taught to which key stages.

Programmes of Study

If you want to know what the content is for each subject in which year, then you look at the programmes of study. It varies by subject if the content is specified by year or key stage but the legal status is that it must be taught by the end of the key stage. Looking at the content can help you see if your child is on track with their knowledge, or if they are ahead or behind.

You can find all of the programmes of study at the government website using the button below:

There is also additional guidance for some subjects and this gives extra explanations, but this is guidance and not statutory.

Why do schools teach things in a different order?

The national curriculum doesn’t specify the order to teach topics. Therefore schools can choose how to teach a subject. This means that if a child moves schools during an academic year or key stage, you may find that there are areas that they miss out on.

There are different schools of thought in how learning should take place. In maths you can either do a spiral curriculum or mastery. A spiral curriculum covers everything lightly but keeps coming back to the topic but becoming slightly more challenging. A mastery curriculum will spend a longer period of time on the topic, so that it is ‘mastered’ taking it from basic to challenging.

This is one of the reasons that you may find it useful to see the school scheme of work, some publish them on their website, or will send them by email if you ask.

In Foundations 4 Homework we look in more detail at the National Curriculum and what your child is studying. 

If you need more support with your child’s education then join us in Education Support 4 Parents, my free Facebook community. Alternatively, book a 15-minute Education Advice call with Liz.