What should be the priorities in primary education?

By



I used to think that the primary school curriculum was an improvisation with creative design to ensure children’s learning was the centre of all educational needs. Since the start of my studies within primary education my perception of what the priorities of education should be have changed. There will be many responsibilities that I will have to undertake as a future primary school teacher and the key elements that will form and shape me into the best teacher possible.

This blog will concentrate on the importance of creativity and engagement within the curriculum. During my research, I discovered the importance of the curriculum and why engagement and how the various strategies such as creative activities can contribute. 


Sir Ken Robinson (2006) believes that creativity is just as important within education as literacy and it should therefore be treated the same way. 
Relating back to what Sir Ken Robinson suggests, with my own personal experience at school as a creative pupil, creativity was over looked and never got acknowledged as something important in education.

It was the obvious that the curriculum should insist of the basic literate and numerate skills, yet now it is more tempting to ask what should be included in teaching, why should teachers be teaching it and how it should be taught. Vygotsky theories suggest that learning takes place through the Zone of proximal development, suggesting that children will learn but are reliant on the more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky,1978). With Vygotsky’s theory in mind, Engagement is a key factor within children learning and developing: Without engagement within activities, tasks, it would be extremely difficult for children to interact and take away from the above skills, knowledge or accomplishment, all of which would enhance and strengthen the children’s self-esteem and confidence; Setting expectations that are ambitious but achievable, therefore “set tasks and select resources that build on previous knowledge and experience and engage interest” (Donaldson,2015). It’s interesting how it led to the exploration of how the past curriculum actually has developed and continues to grow with the child cantered approach. Within the Donaldson report (2015) it states that the curriculum should be based on 4 key purposes to enhance the development in children and young people to ensure it offers a broad and structured balance (Donaldson,2015)

With the Idea that children are like sponges: full of imagination, inquisitiveness and wonder, we should take advantages of this and the curriculum could be based around their interests. “Governments around the world have turned their attention to how children and young people might acquire the necessary attributes of creativity as part of their education” (Wyse and Ferrari,2014).

The curriculum in my own opinion should be reviewed often due to the evolving world, with the ever-changing technology that is undeniably already a huge part of everyday life in both adults and children, the first national curriculum devised in 1988 and was a world that was yet to see the growth and advances in technology, the internet and globalisation that have had tremendous impacts on the way we live today (Bartlett and Burton,2016). 

Is there a benefit from teaching all children the same way? Do all children learn in the same way? What good is it to teach “black and white targets the government want to reach” (Blower,2013). With Various articles and research being composed to say that schools should be focusing more on creativity (BBC News,2015).



References

Bartlett, S. and Burton, D. (2016). Introduction to education studies. 4th ed. London: Sage 

BBC News. (2015). Creativity 'squeezed out of schools'. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31518717

Blower, C. (2013) National Union of Teachers Annual Conference, Liverpool.  April 2013. 

Donaldson, G. (2015). Successful futures: independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales: February 2015. 

Robinson, K. (2006). Do schools kill creativity?. [online] Ted.com. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity/transcript 

Wise, D and Ferrari, A (2014) Creativity and education; comparing the national curriculum of the states of the European Union with the United Kingdom, British Education, Research Journal. DOI 10.1002/berj.3135.