Questions over mainstream primary curriculum

Reports today on the state of the mainstream primary curriculum make interesting reading.

Several points seems to have been made by the Cambridge study including:

-Lives are 'being impoverished' by the 'standards agenda' in primary

-Too much testing

- Humanities have been 'squeezed out'

The report  has three main recommendations: 

• The needs and capacities of the individual: wellbeing; engagement; empowerment; autonomy
• The individual in relation to others and the wider world: encouraging respect and reciprocity; promoting interdependence and sustainability; empowering local, national and global citizenship; celebrating culture and community
• Learning, knowing and doing: knowing, understanding, exploring and making sense; fostering skill; exciting the imagination; enacting dialogue.

These recommendations are pure Montessori and can be found in any sound Montessori primary classroom, as six of our team studying their Primary Diploma can attest to. Is it not time to re-imagine the curriculum for children aged five to eleven in a more holistic way?

Interesting reading indeed.