Good parents will ask their children what they have been doing in school and help them with homework etc. etc. However until now most parents will not have looked in detail at what their children are studying in each of their subjects. Since parents have had to take on the role of teacher, home schooling has changed all this. Some parents are now seriously questioning the curriculum. In a recent article in the Guardian (a UK newspaper) a well-known novelist is appalled at the way in which her 7 year old daughter is being taught English.

Erin Kelly goes on to say that she does not blame the teacher, who she says is doing her best to make the lessons as interesting as possible. What she blames is the curriculum that the teacher is being required to follow.  This site is of course for IB chemistry teachers, but isn’t the IB doing exactly this too when it comes to the IA in chemistry? The whole emphasis is currently put on students being required to show that they can identify different types of variables, number crunch uncertainties and pass through unnecessary hoops with little credit awarded to students who show real initiative and imagination. You can read about this in much greater detail on my page on Gaining full marks for a databased IA.