As a future Primary Teacher, it is very alarming to hear that so many of our pupils fail to see the relevance of our learning. Learning in my opinion, and in line with the aims of the PYP curriculum should be fun, engaging and relevant. If our pupils have the view that it is in fact the opposite, we must be doing something wrong.

To suggest that all learning is useful, is naive. Of course we can’t teach content which is useful to every pupil, all of the time; it wouldn’t be possible. But what we absolutely can do is make sure that all of our pupils are catered for by offering a broad range of activities, allowing personalisation and choice to provide the best learning opportunities for our pupils.

It’s our job as educators to dispel any misconceptions about the irrelevance of learning. But what we first must do, is fully understand the relevance ourselves. Once we are confident about the purpose of what we are teaching it is absolutely vital that we convey this to all pupils by applying it to real life situations.

If you had presented me with the above statement when I was thirteen years old, or in fact this time last year, I most definitely would’ve agreed with it. To some extent, I still do. It isn’t a waste of time, but when taught without context, it is difficult to understand its purpose. It does matter, but without teaching them why it matters, it’s useless.