The overarching focus on the “3Rs” at primary school – reading, writing and mathematics – has led to a steady rise in outcomes for pupils at key stage 2, Sir Michael Wilshaw says.
However, this has also “pushed other compulsory subjects to the margins of the curriculum in many primary schools”.
In his latest monthly commentary, Sir Michael warns that a result of this is that pupils are arriving in year 7 unprepared for “the rigours of key stage 3”.
He says that this could be undermining the government’s focus on the core academic curriculum via its English Baccalaureate policy.
He writes: “This is a concern because the government has said that it wants the vast majority of pupils who started secondary school last September to take the full suite of EBacc subjects, including science and a foreign language, when they come to sit their GCSE examinations in 2020.”
He points out that in 2015, less than half of pupils studied a foreign language at GCSE and although science is a core subject to 16, only 74 per cent took it to GCSE level and thus qualified for the EBacc measure.
Sir Michael adds: “It seems clear that if the government’s ambition is to be met, primary schools will need to lay the foundations in these subjects before their pupils move on to study them at secondary school.”
He has now pledged to “remind” his inspectors to ensure they focus on other subjects than just English and maths during primary school inspections.
Ofsted research into this issue, based on 340 primary school inspections, found that problems included a lack of time being allocated to science and language study, a lack of teaching expertise (particularly with languages), and poor working arrangements with partner secondary schools. A lack of communication between primary and secondary schools means that in languages year 7 pupils can end up repeating a lot of what they have already learnt. In some cases, they study one language at primary but then are forced to change to another in year 7.
A lack of trained teachers is a particular concern for Sir Michael. He adds: “The generation of teachers entering the profession in recent years was not, in the main, required to study a foreign language to GCSE. This has resulted in a shortage of language specialists at primary school level that can only be addressed through significant investment in the professional development of staff.”