England’s robotic national curriculum

While homeschooling her eight-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son during lockdown, Eliane Glaser was shocked to discover what they got up to at school in pre-pandemic times. Her children were asked to explain the meaning of “fronted adverbials” and “determiners”; they filled in “success criteria”; their maths worksheets asked them to “use inverse relationships to solve problems.” These are not questions you would ask of an adult—let alone a young child. So what happened, and who’s to blame for the absurdities of England’s robot curriculum? Eliane joins the Prospect podcast to talk about the many sides of homeschooling, what she learned when speaking to teachers for the piece, and what needs to be done for the curriculum to change.

You can read Eliane’s piece, “Homeschooling has revealed the absurdities of England’s national curriculum”, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/homeschooling-parents-lockdown-national-curriculum-uk-eliane-glaser

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