Is the Elementary Curriculum "overcrowded"?

[Sheila Stewart]

Great to hear about the province-wide consultation being conducted by the Working Group on the Elementary Curriculum. From the consultation paper: "The working group was appointed by the Minister of Education, in consultation with the Curriculum Council, to examine the elementary curriculum in general and to respond in particular to concerns that the curriculum is “overcrowded”. The findings of the working group will provide a foundation for the Curriculum Council as it develops recommendations regarding the curriculum for the Minister of Education. These recommendations will inform the development of the elementary component of a new ministry document outlining policies and programs for Ontario schools, from Kindergarten to Grade 12."
You can find more information on the Ministry website. I think that it is great that there are separate discussion questions for consideration in the consultation paper for students, parents, and educators. There is also a link to submit your responses online. Some good questions there!
Here are some links:
Parent page:

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/paperconsult/index.html

Link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspxsm=zuzR6vtvYGkbVO0Zv8N5Qw_3d_3d
Link to the curriculum discussion paper:

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/discussi/SLTpaper.pdf

[Gay Stephenson]

I don't have children in elementary school anymore, but some of my friends still do. And I know that some do feel like there's a lot squeezed into a school day.

And sometimes at meetings, or on social occasions, parents will complain to us about young children bringing home too much homework because there wasn't enough time to cover everything in class. And homework is not supposed to be for learning new tasks or things that haven't been taught yet.

So I'm really interested to see what parents who have children in elementary school now have to say on this topic. And teachers too.

In our elementary school survey last year, 32% of schools said that in order to deliver daily physical activity to students, they really needed more time in the school day. That seems to speak to this topic, that in those schools, the days are so jam packed that they have difficulty making time for daily physical activity.

On the topic of the curriculum feedback survey, some of the questions seem hard to answer! I guess we could just skip some...

[I Murasak]

So who exactly gets to comment on this? I don't see many groups invited to comment and the ministry has this buried in the their underworld. This ministry is undoing any good initiative that many hard-working grassroots organizations have tried to implement in a core-knowledge style curriculum from the late 1990s. They are dumbing it down and filling it full of fuzzy fluff that cannot be measured or easily assessed.

[Cathy]

I thought one of the big selling points of the "Balanced School Day" was that it allowed for more focus on curriculum and added physical activity time. Have we been sold a bill of goods?

Who is telling parents the truth?

[Gay Stephenson]

Good point about the balanced day Cathy. The research on that topic is not conclusive on one side or the other. We had a very informative workshop on the balanced day at our conference last year. Two researchers presented summary reports, Trisha Woerle of the Hamilton-Wentworth DSB and Michele Stairs of Niagara College. Their presentations/research are both available from our website.

On your second point, I must confess that I don't like the way old posts are added in when you hit "reply to this" beside a comment either. (You can erase them or use the other reply to). Thanks for the feedback! We are trying it out, as some found it difficult to follow comments when they were posted in a thread, not in chronological order. The thing with NING (our host here) is that we only have those two choices (chronological or threaded to original comment). You aren't doing anything wrong :) My hunch is that once you become accustomed to how the site works (like you and I both are) the threaded/connected comments are the clear choice. Perhaps the simple chronological order (and the repeating of the comment you are "replying to") is simplest when you are new to discussion places like this. But as I say, that's just a hunch - could simply be personal preference! Keep the feedback coming, we will take it all into consideration when selecting the "best" way forward.

[Sheila Stewart]

I remember when the Daily Physical Activity (DPA) came into being, it was to be included in the teaching time. It was not to be part of gym time, but on top of gym time (15-20 min.) a day. Not all schools have the balanced day schedule, so it was not a related thing at all, I believe.

I am all for the integration of topics across subject matter, but it seems to me that "integration" of curriculum content has occured to help cover the all curriculum. I have seen drama covered in other subjects, science covered in language arts, math covered in art (which is an neat idea.....but then is it really drama/science/art?). It's a creative approach, and possibly necessary, but has it become a solution instead of a desired methodology?

[Cathy]

I understand that the Balanced School Day is working really well in my local schools and that the teachers are better able to manage the curriculum because of it.

It just seems to me that there's been much talk of stability for students bantered about over the years and each and every time we make a major curricular change it undermines stability before it even has a chance to work out. If the curriculum is standard, surely to goodness teachers can, as individuals be flexible enough to make adjustments if they need to. Not all do.

I have had teachers of my kids who can cover the elementary curriculum with time to spare and others who(for various reasons) don't get it covered. It's sometimes even the teacher in the next grade that finds this out the hard way.

There are good teachers out there who already integrate and don't need to go through a whole curriculum change to do it.

I give those teachers credit for NOT depending on the gov't to make their professional decisions for them.

[Sheila Stewart]

There was a deadline for this input of Nov. 4, but now I am hearing through PICs that the deadline is Nov. 12.

[Sheila Stewart]

Can anyone confirm this?

[Sheila Stewart]

Just confirming my own question here! The due date for input is this Thursday the 12th.

[Heather Linklater]

I am a parent of an eleven year child who is in grade 6. I agree that there is too much homework given to children, and I really believe that the school day and school year should be extended. The amount of information our children need to acquire to compete academically, locally, provincially, nationally and globally requires longer school days. 66 % of global jobs require science and technology, yet the Ontario curriculum doesn’t require Science and Technology to be taught everyday. I have been told by teachers that there is not enough time in the day to teach everything that our kids need. Science and Technology, Social Studies, English, Mathematics, and Physical Education should all be seen as core subjects and should all be taught on a daily basis.

Rather than placing priorities on only two (English and Math) due to time constraints in the school day, the schools should extend the day so that all the core subjects are seen as priorities. Private schools and some public schools in other countries have recognized this and thus extended their school day and year. When so much has changed over the last 30 years, why does our school system remain the same? It should be noted that these schools have created time schedules which allow for all core subjects as well as other subjects such as music and a second language to be taught every day.
Gay Stephenson said:

I don't have children in elementary school anymore, but some of my friends still do. And I know that some do feel like there's a lot squeezed into a school day.

And sometimes at meetings, or on social occasions, parents will complain to us about young children bringing home too much homework because there wasn't enough time to cover everything in class. And homework is not supposed to be for learning new tasks or things that haven't been taught yet.

So I'm really interested to see what parents who have children in elementary school now have to say on this topic. And teachers too.

In our elementary school survey last year, 32% of schools said that in order to deliver daily physical activity to students, they really needed more time in the school day. That seems to speak to this topic, that in those schools, the days are so jam packed that they have difficulty making time for daily physical activity.

On the topic of the curriculum feedback survey, some of the questions seem hard to answer! I guess we could just skip some...

[Sheila Stewart]

Thank you for your thoughts here, Heather. It's a good question about how instruction time is being used...in school and out of school hours. Did you get a chance to input on this consultation? Keep sharing your ideas here regardless! Welcome to the site and the discussions!