By Sammie Jones
Amanda Spieldman, the Ofsted boss has announced her plans to make children’s education in the Uk the wonder years of their lives , that is the best years of their lives. She said the aim was to introduce children in the Uk to the best education possible, helping them to gain a real appreciation of human creativity and achievement.
Spieldman emphasised the maintenance of the current practise of holding schools to account for how well their pupils achieve.
Under Spieldman’s supervision, inspectors are focusing on examining whether outcomes are achieved in a way that sets young people up to succeed in further study and life beyond, rather than just to pass a particular set of exams. Levelling the playing field for the most disadvantaged and driving forward the real standards agenda is at the core of the wonder years agenda. She spoke of developing the intellect and curiosity of children, teaching them about Shakespeare, about the Battle of Trafalgar, raising their interests and passions!
Ofsted is conducting a curriculum research to distinguish school’s that implement a genuinely good curriculum, and those who simply talk a good game. ”The connections between knowledge give rise to understanding, and as pupils develop unconscious competence and fluency, this will allow them to develop skills” she said. Helping children build the capacity to perform complex operations and drawing on what they know is a key factor to their overall development.
”We also know that we learn by relating new knowledge to what we already know, Spieldman said. Ofsted is using the statutory expectation of a broad and balanced curriculum and the national curriculum, which all maintained schools are expected to follow, and which academies are expected to match in ambition, as our baseline.
Ofsted also said it will reward the curricula that demonstrate thought and care about how to build rich and deep learning. Similarly for those who want to adopt existing designs, textbooks or other products that work well, that is equally fine and very often to be encouraged. Ofsted spoke about the benefits of primary schools considering the sequence in which mathematical concepts are taught and whether there are opportunities for recall of facts, concepts and procedures. Spieldman said primary schools are free to pursue a broader curriculum that gets children reading early, expands their vocubulary, and puts in place the fundamentals of maths.