Focus On Math In Primary Schools Led To Marginalization Of Science And Languages

There is no denying that math is important. However, too much focus of primary school on math made led to the marginalization of science and languages, such that when students reach high school, they find some difficulty in dealing with these subjects.

Unprepared For Science And Languages

BBC reported that when students leave primary schools, they tend to be unprepared to face science and foreign languages. This creates a problem in many secondary schools in the UK.

According to Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted chief inspector, too much focus on the three r's (reading, writing and arithmetic) pushed other compulsory subjects like science and languages to the "margin of the curriculum." Hence, these students became unprepared when confronted with these marginalized subjects in secondary school, as TES reported.

Wilshaw also mentioned that the government wanted students to take English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects, when they take their GCSEs in the year 2020. The EBacc requires that students will take math, English, history and geography. It also has two sciences included and foreign language.

Preparation In All Subjects A Must

If the ambition of the government to have well-prepared students, it should do more and prepare them well for all of the subjects in primary schools before they proceed to secondary schools. This means that schools must not only focus on math subjects, but must treat all subjects with equal importance.

School inspectors recently reviewed the schools' teaching of science and language, and they found out that lesser time is allocated for them. For foreign language, less than one hour a week is being spent. This explains why more students are ill-prepared for said subjects. Worse, approximately two-thirds of the primary schools are guilty of this. School teachers say that they experience much constraint in squeezing in time to teach the questioned subjects as the curriculum is already tight.

If this trend is not arrested in primary schools, science and languages will certainly suffer. Kids will continue to proceed to secondary school ill-prepared.