Basic skills in LK20: where are they on the timetable?

Basic skills are not on your child's timetable, yet your child practises them in almost every lesson. The basic skills in LK20, the Norwegian national curriculum, are five: reading, writing, numeracy, oral skills and digital skills. Many parents hear the word "basic" and think of the Norwegian lesson and the maths lesson. That is a fair guess. But look at the weekly plan held to the fridge by a magnet, and the skills are nowhere to be seen. So where are they?

What are the basic skills?

Basic skills are five tools children use to learn: reading, writing, numeracy, speaking and using digital tools. They are set out in the core curriculum, in the chapter on principles for learning. The idea is that the skills grow through the subjects, not beside them. That links closely to what STEAM learning is: children learn best when subjects talk to each other.

Here is the twist: basic skills are not subjects. They are an invisible layer lying over almost every subject.

Picture a clear plastic sheet laid over the weekly plan. On it are five small marks. Lay it down, and they light up box after box, even in PE, music and science.

That is why numeracy is not the same as maths. In mathematics after year 2, pupils explore numbers and counting in play, nature, visual art, music and children's literature. And in mathematics after year 4, pupils explain their ways of thinking. Explaining out loud is speaking maths.

What does it look like in a normal week?

• Science: writing down what happened to the bean on the windowsill.
• Arts and crafts: measuring the paper before cutting, so the fold lands in the middle.
• PE: reading the map on an orienteering course in wet grass.
• Music: recording the class song on a tablet and listening back.
• Maths: explaining to a classmate how you found the answer.

None of these lessons is called "reading" or "numeracy". All five skills are there anyway. If you want to know why LK20 covers fewer topics than before, read about deep learning in LK20.

Try it at home: the weekly-plan hunt

Suitable for ages 6–13. You need the weekly plan, five coloured pencils, paper and a pencil. First, ask your child to guess which skill they use most.

1. Give each skill its own colour.
2. Pick one day on the plan.
3. For each subject ask: did you read, write, count, explain out loud, use a screen?
4. Put a dot in the right colour for every yes.
5. Do a new day each evening for the rest of the week.
6. Count the dots. Which colour shows up in most subjects?

What happens if you try the same thing on an ordinary Saturday at home?

Questions to wonder about

1. Which of the five skills did you use at breakfast today?
2. Can you do numeracy without a single number?
3. Is there a sixth skill everyone needs that no curriculum has named yet?

Every child is made of good atoms. See how Good Atoms builds on this topic.