I went to a university open day at the weekend with my son. It is a well-respected ex-poly university. I was shocked. The modules in the first year seemed to be teaching them very basic stuff - essentially what they should already know from A-levels. This year would not count to the degree - one merely had to pass. It included a double module on study skills - how to research a topic; writing and presentation skills; literature searching strategies; review and synthesis; citing sources and referencing; note taking; reports; poster and oral presentations; groupwork.

The lecturers explained that they wanted to make sure that everyone had the basics.

I did A levels in the 70's and got accepted for a place at University,( which I didn't accept) but no-one ever taught me study skills.
I should imagine that I would have found that very useful.

Interesting to hear about Keele.

I suspect that one thing from the modern day had no counterpart back then - even with our incredible marvellous wonderful ever-rising standards we see science courses dropping maths as a subsidiary subject because both students and lecturers are unable to cope.



What an indictment of the superlative grades this new generation of lecturers must have.

Dreadful state of affairs revealed in RSA report

IME it's always been thus (save for the study skills bit - I was at Uni in 1988-1992 under-grad).

The jump from A-levels to under-grad was not that great for me, and the first year stood as a year to consolidate and get everyone on the same page (for better or worse. It allowed me to perfect the drinking career I'd started a bit earlier and for that I will be forever grateful ).

"Study skills" could be very useful. But the cynic in me suspects this will involve teaching kids how to read past exam papers and not much else.

Your daughter is of course well advised not to buy into any form of edubabble doublespeak.

That said, 'there are no failing pupils' has resonance with the ranks of illiterate and innumerate students clutching fistfuls of certificates with impressive grades. All must have glittering prizes.

If HMCI is to be believed there are thousands of failing headteachers never mind teachers.

It's not the students' fault that the government and exam boards succeeded in reducing the value of top level passes via grade inflation but the pretence has to stop.

Then you aren't the only one - e.g. journalist from linked article - and with many others subject to this targeted propaganda, non-story, have been had, as Gove would be pleased to hear.

Most of my work is now with primary schools and I heard the trails for this on the radio this morning on the way down the motorway to one, wondering what the hell was the point of mentioning the 'same as before' new stuff that's not "story"...

They aren't his proposals btw and not even certain to 'make it' in this form. No matter as there's bugger all that's new in the stuff leaked so far.


"A draft mathematics curriculum suggests that five and six year-olds will be expected to count up to 100, recognise basic fractions and memorise the results of simple sums by the end of the first year of compulsory education.

In the second year, they will be required to know the two, five and 10 times tables, add and subtract two-digit numbers in their head and begin to use graphs.

Nothing to see here, move on. Already part of the curriculum. Jesus H Christ, don't journalists check their stories and research before publishing any longer?

A couple of year 1 (i.e. 5 & 6 years of age) questions from the current 'Pitch & Expectations' document.

There are 11 boys and 16 girls in Blue Class. How many children are in Blue Class altogether? There are more girls than boys. How many more?

Complete this calculation: [?] - 8 = 78.


"It represents a dramatic toughening up of standards demanded in English state schools"

Not from what has been reported it doesn't.


"At the age of nine, pupils should know all their times tables up to 12x12 and confidently work with numbers up to 10 million by the end of primary school, the Government said. Currently, children only need to know up to 10x10."

The horror! Only up to 10 x 10 and now thank god to 12 x 12 (ever wondered why that used to be a goal many moons ago?) now way more functional... The whole point of the 10 x 10 remit was that with this knowledge and a good grasp of partitioning, number bonds and patterns a pupil should, typically, be able to work out - including mentally - problems beyond 12 x 12 anyway. Here's a couple of ex Year 2 (for 6 or 7 year olds) test questions:

There are 15 apples in a tray. Ling has 4 trays of apples. How many apples does Ling have altogether? Show how you work it out.

23 children are coming to John’s party. Each child will get 1 ice cream. There are 10 ice creams in a box. How many boxes does John need to buy?.

At level 2a so not the highest anticipated level for infant age children either.


And suitable for a typical (age expected) 9 year old:

A CD rack holds 25 CDs. David has 83 CDs. How many racks does he need to hold all his CDs?
Lin has 6 racks full of CDs. How many CDs does Lin have altogether?

Fill in the missing numbers: 22 x [?] = 660
[?] x 24 = 288

Explain why 2 divided by 6 is one third.

"and familiarise themselves with numbers below 1,000 by the age of 11."

Lies and bullshine. Simply NOT true.


Mathematics teaching and attained standards in infant and junior schools are by no means perfect across the board but it isn't the lack of content or the level of the content that's the main problem. The problems include poor standards of numeracy/subject knowledge and low levels of training/confidence in far too many teachers, including those coming into the profession now with far less (expert and usable) preparation from teacher training institutions than needed. The over dependence on a plethora of commercial schemes thrown at children page-by-page, willy nilly, with way too little reflection of whether the method/content meet the actual pupils' needs. Poor subject leadership and ineffective management. And on it goes.

The good news is that, despite their unpopularity - including with some residents of PH, from past threads - Ofsted is upping the ante; the criteria for good teaching and learning under the new Inspection Framework are more stringent still, reflecting a constant rise in expectations that has got many teachers and heads scared silly! Something to hide? Or something to work on?

People might also be interested to see how, despite this, standards at the end of key stages one and two have risen over the past 12 or so years partly thanks to the curriculum designed and recommended to schools by the Primary National Strategy and QCA (the former killed by Balls to save a penny farthing). The percentage attaining level 4 for example has risen very significantly, and there is no 'dumbing down' at work here; these tests are just as stringent as they were a decade ago.

Similar to my first year of my four year course which I have just finished.

The idea in the first semester is to get everyone aquainted with the basics and to a similar level, not everyone comes from an A-Levels background (I didn't).

The study skills are probably one of the most important modules for university you would study, particularly citing sources and referencing, each university does it differently, and if you mess up the presentation or deliver something that isnt to the standard they expect, you can lose some serious marks.

No that's why I said first semester. The second semester is still basic stuff, but usually building upon the first semester to grow the knowledge.

I don't recall a spelling module to be honest with you, we mainly did structural mechanics, fluid mechanics and geotechnics in the first year as well as mathematics.

What a strange country.

People spend the entire year (particularly on here) bhing about how young people are useless feckless drains on society. Said young people then work hard and get good results and we tell them its further proof they're useless feckless drains on society by claiming the exams are too easy.

No wonder we've got social problems in this country.