Key Stage 1 and 2 Explained

-
The National Curriculum in Britain is broadly split into four Key Stages, with primary school comprising Key Stages 1 and 2. The two stages help young students develop basic and important skills through a wide range of subjects.
Primary school teaching can be an incredibly rewarding experience. It requires you to help shape and open the minds of young pupils in their early stages of formal education.
Whether you're a parent or an aspiring teacher, it is important that you have a good understanding of the UK’s primary school system structure and in case of the latter, decide whether you are suited to the general approach for this teaching age.
What Is Key Stage?
Key Stages were incorporated into the British education system with the enactment of the 1988 Education Reform Act, which also created the national curriculum.
The 4 Key Stages break up primary and secondary school into sections defined by age, whereby each provides the next level designed to enhance and assess pupils’ learning skills.
 Primary school consists of Key Stages 1 and 2; KS1 students are usually aged between 5 and 7 and in years 1 and 2, and those aged 7 to 11 fall into the KS2 in years 3, 4, 5 and 6.

What Are The Differences Between Key Stages 1 & 2?

Key Stage 1 and 2 share almost the same curriculum elements, with English, Mathematics and Science as core subjects.
KS1
During Key Stage 1, English, or commonly referred to as Literacy is designed to help pupils work towards being able to read fluently and to use their phonetic skills to work out any new words that they encounter. They are also taught how to write complete sentences, using basic punctuation, such as capital letters, full-stops, commas, exclamation marks and question marks. Along with this, they will learn spelling and about grammar. 
In Mathematics, or known as Numeracy the targets are pupils should be able to count, read and write numerals up to 100 and write in words up to the 20th digit. Students are also helped to understand the concepts of ‘more’ and ‘less’ (addition and subtraction), especially on a number line.
Key Stage 1 Science aims to develop the learner’s inquisitiveness and observation skills. It also requires students to be able to identify and classify certain things, in addition to collecting data.
KS2
The Key Stage 2 English curriculum, which spans a larger portion of the child’s life, helps students to progress from reading with a focus on comprehension to reading to grasp overall concepts through age-appropriate literature.
Pupils’ writing skills at this stage are expected to evolve from being able to write well-punctuated and structured sentences to having the ability to express their ideas clearly across a wide range of subjects. Targets are in place for spelling, punctuation and grammar.
In Mathematics, the curriculum is structured to enable them to perform long division, multiplication calculations, algebra, shapes, interpreting graphs an problem solving by Year 6.
This stage also sees students go from learning purely observable concepts through the Science subject to understanding more complex and abstract concepts.

Primary Teaching Requirements

–       A Bachelor of Education or Primary PGCE, with QTS
–       A valid passport and visa which allows you to work in the UK
–       Experience in teaching the UK curriculum, or a curriculum which is very similar

I'll be posting more information about various websites to refer to, to help you tutor your child at home.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What are GCSE's in the UK? Key Stage 4 Explained

-
KEY STAGE 4 & GCSE's Explained The secondary education system in England, Wales, the British Territory of Gibraltar and Northern Ireland was split between Key stage 3 and Key stage 4 (KS4) to set the educational knowledge of students of various ages, mainly to align with the two-year examination courses at the GCSE level. General Certificate of Secondary Education GCSE stands for General Certificate of Secondary Education. GCSEs are exams which the pupils attend at the end of compulsory school education. However, appearing for GCSEs are not compulsory and the decision is up to schools whether to make pupils attend GCSE examinations. GCSE represents KS4 of the national curriculum and represents two levels of the National Qualifications Framework that are been addressed as level 1 and level 2. Level 2 comprises of grades A to C while level 2 comprises of grades D to G. New GCSE’s in England starting from 2017 with English and maths are being graded fro 1 to...
Read more

Should I send my child to a UK state school or private school?

-
Image
UK State Schools vs Independent Schools - What are the key differences? Let's first be clear about some of the interchangeable terms these schools are referred to. A state school is sometimes referred to as a "free school,"   although a free school is actually quite different to a state school. Independent schools are also known as, " private schools," "fee- paying," or "public schools."  Some parents often think all " grammar schools" are fee-paying schools. This is not necessarily true. A grammar school can either  be an independent school or a state funded one. If you're not sure about a particular school's status, it's worth checking their website under admissions. To understand the different types of schools, it's worth reading,  types of schools . Independent schools do not rely on UK taxpayer's money for funding, instead they charge a handsome fee to the pupils, with Eton College, the royal fam...
Read more

What is it like to be educated in the UK as a British Indian? (A Personal Perspective)

-
Education in the UK as a British Indian I fall into the category of having  Indian ethnicity and being British by birth. Brief Background MY PARENTS  came into the UK from India in the mid 1960's, when the British Government had opened up its doors to immigrants to fill the shortage of labour to reconstruct its economy after being affected by Second World War. 1. So, what was primary school like? I had a very normal upbringing and was the youngest of four children. During my early school days, in the 1970's, I can recall being quite popular among friends. I remember the teachers were mostly white British (English) and there was one Indian teacher.  I cannot say that I ever felt that my teachers ever gave me the feeling that I was NOT British . In fact the school I attended at that age, from what I can recall was around 50:50, white to other ethnic groups so having the feeling of being singled out was not even possible. The teachers were trained to be impartial...
Read more