I am pleased that he is so confident, and though I don’t think he really knows what’s in store, he’s had a fairly good preparation at pre-school and at home. Having taught KS1 children, I am well aware of the skills he will need to facilitate his first few weeks at school, and have tried to help him on the way to learning them.

If your child hasn’t been to nursery or pre-school, the idea of sitting in a classroom with other children, following instructions from someone other than their usual carer, can seem alien and frightening to them. Many schools have taster days, or provide some other opportunity for your child to see their prospective classroom, and meet their teacher. Playing schools with your child is a good way of preparing them, as well as reading one of the many stories about first days at school – your local library is certain to have a selection.

Make your child aware who to talk to when they need something or are in any trouble – it may seem obvious, but let them know that the teacher or classroom assistant is there to help them. Be positive when you talk about school, even if your own experience was otherwise.

Aside from social graces, children also have basic physical skills that they will need. You would be surprised how many kids go to school without being able to dress or undress, fasten their shoes. It’s worth making sure your child knows how to go to the loo unaided, wash their hands by themselves, and tidy up after themselves. With these skills in place, they will be able to navigate the school day much more smoothly.

As a fairly disorganised sort, I am planning to practise the school routine a little while before we start, as well as involving my son in getting his clothes ready the night before. I think we’ll also try a ‘dry run’, to time how long it will actually take us to get myself and both kids ready and out of the house by 8.45.

There are lots of guides for parents of school age children, looking at both the child and parent's feelings, such as this one from Mumsnet. I particularly like the advice from a teacher, on settling your child into their new classroom: “As a teacher there's nothing worse than snivelling parents making fond farewells inside the classroom. Children settle in much better if parents send them in confidently, smiling, wishing them well... Then you can go and weep round the corner. I did!"

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

At primary school SRE (Sex and Relationships Education) is largely taught through the science curriculum, and includes naming of animal and human body parts, and basic facts about reproduction in plants and animals.  Further sex education, usually towards the end of primary school, is given in PSHE (Personal Social and Health Education) lessons, and will include discussions on love and relationships as well as the ‘mechanics’ of sex and birth. All schools are required to have an SRE policy, and parents have a right to withdraw children from these lessons if they do not agree with the policy.

Maybe this country’s often prurient attitude to sex has led us to the sexual health problems of our young people - we have high rates of pregnancy, abortion and STDs. Dutch people are stereotypically known as being very open about sex.  However we could learn a thing or two from them regarding sex education  – their teen pregnancy, STD and abortion rates are around a quarter of those in the UK. They start teaching children about sex and relationships tailored to their age as soon as they start school, and devote a week of school each year to the topic for all children aged 4 to 12. 

Personally, I think that honest discussions about sex should be ongoing and directed by your child’s questions, with the answers taking into account the child’s age and level of understanding.

A little while ago, at the park, my four-year-old and I encountered a pond-full of mating frogs.  An avid nature lover, he already had a lot of knowledge about what they were doing, with the males and females having different ‘jobs’, and how they were the mummies and daddies of the frogspawn that would soon become tadpoles. We didn’t go into the nitty gritty of body parts etc. as it didn’t come up.  However if he had wanted to know, I would have told him using language that he can relate to.

We have always referred to body parts using both slang terms as well as biologically correct ones (though he thinks that the word penis is too hilarious to use), and, as he has a little sister, have talked about the differences between boys' and girls' bodies when the questions arise, invariably at bath time.

I am not the sort of person who talks endlessly about sex to other adults, let alone to children! However I think it is important to talk honestly about it, even if it is uncomfortable or embarrassing, as ignorance can lead to problems in later life.

As parents we are the first port of call for this sort of information – school will give the broad details, but we need to fill in the gaps. We need to start the dialogue early, so that when the (often fraught) teenaged years come along, our children feel able to turn to us for support and answers.  

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

There are many other, less obvious, ways in which the national curriculum can be delivered through gardening, from scientific learning through to literacy and numeracy projects . And schools don’t need to have huge outside spaces to grow things in – a small container garden can provide plenty of inspiration for teachers and children alike.

It’s not simply the novelty value of being out of the classroom that gets children enthused.  Studies by the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) have shown that children are happier and learn better if they attend schools that encourage gardening.  Many will behave better and achieve more when learning outdoors – the charity, council for learning outside the classroom, insists that the confidence of children who may not be doing well academically can be boosted by this different approach to learning.

If your children’s school doesn’t have a garden and you have some experience, why not offer your help set up a growing space, or help out with the gardening club.  For the less brave, there’s a lot you can do at home, whether you have a garden of your own or not.

Growing something edible is great for encouraging healthy eating, as well as being able to closely observing a plant grow.  CBeebies’ Mr Bloom, who has an allotment of talking vegetables, has transformed my four year-old from vegetable-hater into vegetable-lover overnight (though his love has yet to extend to tasting ‘Colin’ the runner bean, but we live in hope…). This cress head is a perennial favourite, and will give quick results, perfect for impatient young children.  Another great way to observe germination is to grow a bean plant in a jam jar. You can clearly see the root and shoot development, and can grow it on any windowsill.

Encouraging gardening at home can be anything from growing a single seed in a pot to letting your children take over a whole section of your garden or allotment.  You don’t need to be an expert yourself – simply discussing what you can see happening, and helping them to care for plants provides a valuable, and enjoyable learning experience for your child.

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

Take a look at BBC Gardening with children.

Find out about the One Pot Pledge. 

So what does all the jargon actually mean? How much support should you give them at home?  What should you do if your child wants to learn to read before school, and will you interfere with what will be learned in future if you try to help?

I am a trained primary school teacher and a mother of two pre-schoolers, so I feel in a good position to explain some of the more opaque language used and to challenge some of the myths surrounding reading.

Different methods of teaching reading go in and out of fashion.The current trend is for synthetic phonics, whereby children learn the alphabet sounds (phonemes), and most commonly used graphemes (blends or groups of letters, such as tr-, oo, -ight and so on). These are generally learned before tackling any text, with schemes such as Jolly Phonics or Oxford Reading Tree commonly used in reception classes.  

However, a lot of children will still be learning the old-fashioned way of whole-word recognition and analytic phonics (understanding the basic letter-sounds).  If the first sound of the word is recognised, the child can then work out, usually from the illustration and what has gone before in the story, what the new word is.  By repeating stories and phrases, whole words are remembered, avoiding the need to break down a word each time.

My eldest has been very keen on stories and books from an early age, and has largely learned to read by himself. We have always played games like eye-spy and both love making up silly stories, songs and rhymes as well as reading stories together. Without being formally taught, he knows the letters of the alphabet and their sounds (with help from the likes of the CBeebies Alpha Blocks)  and is able to read simple words and short stories. 

I’m not worried about him getting confused when he goes to school – although it’s not the way he’s learned so far, most synthetic phonics programmes are fun as well as being informative, so I don’t think he’ll be bored.  

As a parent, you can make reading fun and accessible for your child. If they are ready and want to read, there is no reason why you shouldn’t help them at home – you don’t need to have expert knowledge, just enthusiasm. Your local library is a great resource, with lots of early reading books as well as stories to share together. With all the talk of cuts to library services, there’s no better time to show how much we need them!  

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

Never fear - there are several (hundred) books out there which will offer you advice, ranging from the cuddly Continuum Concept  (never put infants down, attend to every cry immediately, let them take the lead) to the new, uber-strict, ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ by Amy Chua (don’t accept failure, ban TV and computer games, force children to practise a musical instrument of your choice for up to 3 hours a day, even if they hate it…)

In my view, each end of the spectrum has its merits. The Continuum Concept’s ideas of keeping infants close and responding to their needs, as soon as possible, can lead to greater security and confidence in older children.

Equally, Amy Chua’s thinking is not as harsh as it first appears. Why should you accept mediocrity if you know that your child hasn’t made an effort? You’d also be mad to think that hours of TV and video games are going to help your kids finish their homework on time.

It seems ridiculous to put forward one ‘method’ of parenting, as the perfect solution. However, there is evidence to suggest that hot-housing is not always successful - psychologist, Oliver James, reports that it can, in fact, lead to depression, substance abuse and academic under-achievement. Many prodigious children turn into average adults, so perhaps it would be better to help your children be emotionally stable and self-directed, rather than focusing on their academic achievements.

Good parenting, to me, means that both you and your children are happy most of the time, regardless of how ‘well’ they do at school. Beating yourself up about being a rubbish parent isn’t going to achieve this. If I were going to recommend one book, it would be ‘The Idle Parent’ by Tom Hodgkinson, who advocates largely ignoring parenting manuals and leaving kids alone to make their own fun as much as possible, with plenty of low-tech family games and silliness.

If, however, you’re aiming for your progeny to end up as prodigiously talented individuals, who excel in the field of your choosing, then the ‘Tiger Mother’ method is the one to go for, but don’t expect your kids to be universally grateful (Amy Chua describes her youngest daughter’s rebellion in the book, while the eldest seems happier with her choices).

There’s no handbook to help you bring up successful, happy and well-balanced children, who are fulfilled academically. The best you can do is to show that you love them, look after them when they’re little and then, as they grow up, give them as much freedom as you feel is appropriate. If you are trying your best, thinking about your decisions, and enjoying your own life, then more than likely your children will do the same!

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

True Montessori schools provide child-sized environments in which the activities designed to lead children to learning, without formal lessons. The teaching method is based on the practice and research of Dr Maria Montessori, a doctor and educator, working at the beginning of the twentieth century, who believed that self-directed learning was best for the under 6s  

Montessori believed that children learned best through sensory experience, rather than the formal, strict lessons of her time. She observed children learning to read and learning numbers through (carefully prepared) play materials. In Montessori schools, children are encouraged to be as self-sufficient as possible - to tidy their own toys, dress themselves and act as they would within a family. Adult helpers do just that – help the children in whatever activity they choose for themselves, rather than teaching them in the conventional sense. 

A lot of these principles are used in ‘mainstream’ nurseries, pre-schools and primary schools – there has been a recent re-focus on learning through play and child-directed activity. If this is done well, this leads to children using their natural curiosity and interest in the world around them, to learn new skills.

Steiner schools are also child-centred in their teaching, believing that children should find joy in learning, and that education should serve the whole child, not simply academically. The schools are divided into different age groups, with nursery up until age 6, lower school from 7-13 and upper school 14-19. They have no system of testing, with children being encouraged to express themselves creatively through music, drama, art and dance. They discourage children from using screens right up to the end of lower school and do not start using computers in school, until the age of 13.

The notions of the ‘purity’ of childhood are based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Unlike Montessori, he developed a philosophy called Anthroposophy, on which he based his ideas of child care and learning. A quick web search on this will give you the basics - the spiritual ideas were also very important to Steiner, and some schools, whilst not often actually teaching them, still uphold these ideas..

I have to declare my bias towards Montessori - my grandmother was trained in the method (standard training at the time, in the 1930s) and I am considering sending my daughter to my local Montessori nursery next year! I’m not so sure about Steiner schools, as although I limit TV and computer time, I feel that they are not harmful in small doses and I am not sure about the ‘spiritual’ side of Steiner teachings. However, they are highly praised by some parents and kids, who absolutely love the schools.

Ultimately, as parents, we need to carefully research the kind of school we choose, particularly as there is more and more choice out there. It’s important to visit the schools and talk to existing parents, as well as researching the accreditation of the schools - there is currently no legislation governing which schools are allowed to call themselves Montessori or Steiner - to get a more accurate picture than the one written in an Ofsted report.

The ideal is (of course) that whichever school you opt for, whether state-funded or otherwise, it supports the values you are teaching at home and encourages children to explore the world and engage with other people, resulting in happy and confident children who actually like going to school.

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

The little one, who isn’t yet two, is already making marks with crayons and generally getting stuck in. But her four year-old brother couldn’t be less interested! He’s far too busy playing with dragons, dinosaurs and aliens from outer-space to sit down and make something.

As a child, I can remember many pleasurable hours spent drawing and making things and I have worried about him missing out. However, he displays fantastic powers of imagination and creativity in his play-acting and story-telling.

We tend to see creativity in small children, as defined by the making of physical objects, but it doesn’t always manifest itself in this way – creative thinking is key to any creative process. Educationalist and expert on creativity, Ken Robinson, highlights the fantastically non-linear way in which small children think and he wants educators and parents, to try to keep these ways of thinking alive. He believes that in order to do this, we need to change the education system: making it less about test results and more about the individual student. It’s hard to disagree with his thinking.

This vision may be far from reality in schools, but we can encourage our children’s imaginative abilities at home, by providing a safe space to let their creativity run free. Many parents fear the mess of creative play – I’ve heard of more than one family who never paints or glitters at home, because of the clearing up. Whilst I’m not ready to embrace wall-scribbling, even if it satisfies a creative impulse, I don’t mind a bit of low-level chaos in the name of self-expression.

We all need to encourage our children, by giving them the space and tools to extend their creativity.  So for some that will be glitter, paint and glue, but for others it might be some plastic dinosaurs, a cardboard box and some string (well it works in our house!).  And I will just have to have a crafty Christmas with only one little helper (not withstanding the occasional sprinkle of glitter from a passing dinosaur).

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

This ‘letting off steam’ is facilitated by being in an open space, and outside time is an essential part of school life. Whether simply running free at break-time, or more formally introduced through schemes such as Forest School, children will learn great life skills through being outdoors. 

I taught in an inner city school in Birmingham, where lack of grounds meant that the only outside areas were concrete and completely devoid of vegetation. We started a small container garden with the Key Stage 1 children, which gradually crept around the playground.  It provided a way for them to not only learn about life cycles and how to maintain plants, but gave those with little or no contact with the natural world a chance to get their hands dirty and simply enjoy nature.

 

Much of the national curriculum can be taught outside, with charities such as Learning through Landscapes offering teachers (and parents) lots of ideas for how to use the outdoors in children’s learning. There are events through the year, such as this week's National Tree Week, organised by the Tree Council. Children will be given a chance to get involved in tree planting and to learn about the natural environment, with various events happening all over the UK. 

So many children spend the majority of their time indoors, whether at school or at home, often looking at screens of one kind or another. This bombardment of the senses by various technological gizmos leaves little time for contemplation, something that being outside in nature offers in spades. American author, Richard Louv, has coined the phrase ‘nature deficit disorder’ and has written widely, urging parents and educators to allow children time to explore the world on their own terms.

Too often, as parents, we are afraid to give children freedom to roam - it’s more convenient to keep them indoors so we can keep an eye on them. However, if schools as well as parents teach children how to be safe in nature, then maybe we can stop being so worried and allow our children the wonderful experiences we took for granted as kids, messing about outside.

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

Check out the BBC ThrillSeeker site to find outdoor activites near you. 

I taught in a faith school with a rigorous approach to homework. From Year 1 onwards, children had weekly spelling tests and tasks each evening, which were supposed to include written work. Some of the children could barely read the alphabet, let alone produce a piece of writing each evening!  

The pressure to give out homework was mainly from the parents – it seemed to be an indicator that the teacher and pupils were getting ‘value for money’ from the school.  More than once, a parent complained to me that the homework I had set was too easy – and this was for 5-year-olds. What happened to just playing and relaxing after a busy day at school?  

There is an alarming trend for pushy parenting to be the norm. An over-emphasis on homework is one aspect of this trend, which includes the increase in private tutoring and the rise of after-school clubs. But is this really helping kids long-term? 

As parents and teachers, we need to examine whether the homework given is actually meaningful in terms of a child’s learning. For primary school age children interaction and input from others is very important – ‘busy work’ like worksheets, will all too often bewilder the less able and bore the rest, without anyone really benefiting.

Of course, there are things that need to be learned by rote and practised at home, from recognising the alphabet and learning times tables to memorising dates and information for exams in later school years. But surely burdening small children with up to an hour of work each night, will lead to a tired child, not a more intelligent one. 

I understand that as children get older, formal homework is necessary, but if someone reads with a young child at home and takes an interest in what they are learning (ie talks to them!) then that should be enough early on. So let children do what they like after school, being allowed to play freely and to discover things for themselves is just as important for learning as reciting times tables. And it’s more fun too!

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

Check out the BBC Parents article on 'How to help with homework'.

Listen to debate on Woman's Hour about 'Homework in primary schools'.

However, many children leave school without having had the opportunity to gain a basic historical knowledge of this country, let alone of any others. A lot of school children from Key Stage 3 (age 11 and up) are being taught history in combination with other humanities subjects, increasingly by teachers with no training in the subject.  

History has a stuffy reputation, but it doesn’t have to be like that. I enjoyed history at school, enough to pursue it to graduate level, studying History of Art.  Not only does it give insight into modern society and how it came about, but it is also full of fantastic stories - Catherine the Great and her over-the-top antics; the beginning of modern politics with Pitt the Elder, the Whigs and the Tories; the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe.   

Surely that is what education is for – to enrich and delight, and to foster a desire for knowledge?  A recent BBC series in association with the British Museum, managed to combine these elements.  ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’  took fascinating objects and told their stories in an engaging way.  There’s no reason why this approach couldn’t be built on in schools.

Fewer than a third of children take history beyond age 14, and are apparently put off by the project-based nature of the subject.  Michael Gove has recently promised to overhaul the history curriculum, with the help of Simon Schama. 

Gove wants all children to leave school with a basic knowledge of "narrative British history". Hopefully this means that it will be taught well and will engage students, rather than the widely taken approach of learning about historical figures from various eras, without filling the historical gaps.

History is a vital part of a well-rounded education. From explorations in Primary school, to in depth analyses at A-level, it allows pupils to explore, question and to understand the past and its impact.  It’s frightening to think that so many will leave school without a basic knowledge of history - to paraphrase Edmund Burke, if you don’t know history you are doomed to repeat it. 

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

Look out for the new BBC One series, Turn Back Time: The High Street from November 2nd. 

As education consultant and former Ofsted inspector David Moore asserted that the way children behave is modeled on their parents’ interactions with them and other people. You can see this starting at a very early age – preschoolers who are yelled at, told to shut up and generally pushed around verbally, are the ones who behave badly and aggressively amongst their peers.  

Whilst good manners and respectful behaviour should be taught at home, it is not always going to happen. As a trainee teacher I saw primary children who were not neglected by the standards of social services, but whose parents just weren’t teaching them basic social skills before they arrived at school. They didn’t know when to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, how to wait their turn or how to behave if things weren’t going their way.

Willing parents can access help through social services or other state-funded bodies like Surestart. But not all of them want to or are able to.  

Looking to blame someone in itself is not that helpful – we should be looking at ways to solve the problem.  School, the place where children spend most of their time, has to be one place where they learn what is socially acceptable in terms of behaviour. There is no magic wand to make all children well-behaved, but there are simple steps that can make it easier.

To start with, clear behaviour policies in school, including bullying policy should be agreed by parents, staff and pupils.  This should be enforced rigorously, with sanctions for those who don’t comply.  So many teachers feel disempowered when it comes to behaviour management.  Maybe the new government’s plans to allow head teachers greater powers will help towards this.

Reducing class and school sizes would be a major improvement, but a politically difficult one – large schools are cheaper to run. But would you want to go to work with 2000 other people?  This inhuman scale means that lots of students  simply get lost in the system and behaviour issues go un-checked. 

Improving classroom management and  better teaching methods will in turn improve pupil behaviour. Monitoring students more out of lesson times - increasing staff to pupil ratios at break times or providing space for students who have free lessons rather than expecting them to roam around.

So yes, good behaviour should begin at home, but simply blaming parents, teachers or the school system is simplistic.  It may be a cliché, but young people are the adults of the future and as parents, we need to give them the best start possible.  Modeling how we expect them to behave is a major part of this.

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC parent panel.

If I was at the point of sending my child to secondary school and could choose between a failing comprehensive and a free school along the proposed lines of the West London Free School, then I would, almost certainly go with the free school.  If it were your child’s education at stake, wouldn’t you?

In principle, however, I am very unsure about the academies and free schools being set up to ‘solve’ an education system in crisis.  I believe that every child, regardless of background, deserves an excellent education. Surely the local authorities rather than private enterprise should deal with lack of provision and failing schools? Couldn’t the academies and free schools budget, be better used to invest in state-funded building programmes and bringing in crisis management, in order to turn around existing schools in trouble?

Toby Young with his family

Free schools are essentially independent schools with state funding, and won’t be accountable in the same way as local authority schools.  When problems occur, it won’t be democratically elected politicians who will be under scrutiny, so how will complaints against these schools be registered and dealt with?  And if the existing free schools are anything to go by, it’s not going to be plain sailing.

The American model for free schools, the charter system, has ostensibly led to more division in local communities rather than providing equal opportunities.  The Swedish system is constantly cited as being exemplary, but there is data to suggest that attainment has dropped year on year since the free school scheme was widely adopted.  This could be, amongst other reasons, due to employing unqualified, or under-qualified staff. 

Michael Gove wants poorer students to get a better education, and be first in line for the new schools. However it’s in no doubt those who David Cameron has dubbed the ‘sharp-elbowed’ middle classes, will find a way to work the new system to their advantage, as they seem to have done with the more successful academies, leaving less resourceful families worse off.   

As John Humphrys beautifully illustrated in Unequal Opportunities, there are state schools out there that are working for local communities;  schools that were failing and have been turned around by inspirational heads and teaching staff.  If we want all children, not just our own, to have equal educational opportunities, there must be a better way to do this than half-hearted free school and academy schemes.  It will cost money, and involve real commitment on the part of the government – but are they willing to do it?

And if Year 8 at Hertswood School is anything to go by, then not much has changed since I started studying for my GCSEs twenty years ago. Pupils sat in relative silence and put their hands up to answer questions. It seems the classroom is still a hallowed place where teachers impart their wisdom with little opportunity for discussion or questioning from the students. The more able students dominate, leaving the less able to stare blankly out of the window, falling behind in their learning but afraid to ask for help.

In the programme, Professor Dylan Wiliam is trying to change the atmosphere of the classroom to enable all children to have an opportunity to improve in all subjects. His starting point is the mantra 'smart is not something you are, smart is something you get', that leads to changes in the teachers’ lesson delivery.  Overall his methods seem to work very well, with the initially resistant staff and students gradually seeing real benefits.

Professor Dylan Wiliam at Hertswood School

As a fourth generation teacher, I do have a problem with the way that the techniques are portrayed as new – I know that there are very few new teaching methods, just new packaging! Most of the methods in the show are common in primary schools – the ‘no hands up’ rule, where children are chosen to answer a question at random; dry wipe boards so the whole class can show their answers at the same time; a traffic light system to show if you are understanding a topic, need some help, or are genuinely stuck; early morning exercise to improve concentration, just like 'wake and shake'.

It’s usual practice in primary schools to give feedback orally as well as on paper, with practical guidance on how to improve a pupil’s work. The obsession with grades at Hertswood (and most other schools) means that competition is fierce within the class, and ‘level driven’. Professor William’s idea of giving a comment means the students are given concrete ways as to how to perfect their work which they are more likely to take notice of in the absence of a grade.  

I’m guessing the reason that old-fashioned ways of teaching still exist is that it makes it easier to control the behaviour of the class. If you allow children’s input in a more natural way, with discussion and questioning, the lesson can be disrupted and may not follow the teacher’s plan.  With the National Curriculum and constant testing and pressure to perform in league tables, it’s no surprise that many teachers opt to deliver the lesson to a more passive crowd of students. 

I’m sure that there are plenty of secondary schools that employ more child-friendly techniques – I hope my kids will go to one!  But if these methods do prevail amongst secondary teachers, after all one in five students now leave school without basic Maths or English, then primary schools could definitely teach them a lesson in how to boost young people’s achievement. 

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC parent panel.

Find out more about the programme  The Classroom Experiment,  part of BBC Two School Season.

As seen in Gareth Malone’s Extraordinary School for Boys the disparity in literacy skills starts in primary schools, and radical steps need to be taken in order to close the attainment gap.  The concluding episode showed that Malone was able to make a real difference to the literacy levels of a group of ‘average’ year 5 and year 6 boys.  

His techniques really engaged the students, with exercise, a taste of outdoor living, various role-playing and other less formal teaching tools providing real life context for his pupils’ literary efforts. The school production, written by the students, was a testament to the fact that when boys are engaged with a task they are able to read and write as well as the girls.

However, if you took any good primary school teacher and asked them what they would do to help students struggling with the literacy curriculum, their solutions wouldn’t be far from Malone’s. The reason why this kind of thing doesn’t happen in all classrooms is not in fact poor teaching, but curriculum restrictions and the fact that most year 6 (and often year 5) lessons will be taught ‘to the test’ rather than being guided by individual teachers’ creativity. 

Most teachers will tell you that the primary literacy curriculum is often delivered in a way that is boring for both girls and boys. At risk of extreme over-generalising I think that the main gender difference is that girls have been taught to be more compliant and hardworking, so will succeed despite being bored witless, whereas boys will tend to switch off more quickly if something doesn’t interest them.

By the book, uninspiring teaching does not happen in all schools and it’s easy to forget, when watching a programme of this kind, how diverse teachers (and their classes) are in reality.  

I was fortunate to train in some excellent primary schools in Hackney, one of the poorest boroughs in London. The intake of pupils was mixed in ability and background, but the results achieved by variously talented teachers were often remarkable. 

During that time, one teacher stood out as really engaging his pupils, not just in literacy. He didn’t really conform to the national curriculum, but took themes (the old-fashioned project based teaching which most of us enjoyed) and used them to teach different subjects. The students explored themes that interested them which they were allowed to examine in depth, often taking their own initiative and direction.

This teacher had the full support of the head and the rest of the teaching staff, and was able to ‘get away’ with his unconventional approach by virtue of his excellent results. This kind of teaching is already happening all over the country and needs the support of schools and government policy, as demonstrated in this article in the TES. 

So while it may be mildly insulting to teachers that a choirmaster, with no formal training, is allowed free rein for 8 weeks and ‘miraculously’ is seen to turn the boys’ fortunes around, we can take something very valuable from this series. If you allow teachers creative freedom to make lessons fun and interesting, then the pupils might actually show some interest and harness their own creativity (and it’s not just the boys who will benefit).  

Hannah Hunter is a member of the BBC Parent Panel.

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys is part of BBC Two's School Season.

You may be interested in this article from BBC Nottingham about a new literacy scheme just launched in Nottinghamshire.