Failure label for up to 2000 more schools.

[sailaboattvgal]

I cried when I heard this news. :(

NOT only that but the government are going to force schools to prioritize traditional subjects. This country needs young people with superb IT, design and practical skills.

Yes we need more scientists, engineers and nurses, but why make children study subjects that put them off education and are totally mind numbing? We also need more plumbers, electricians, and creative artists who will champion a future for Britain. Labelled schools and people as a failure is IMO extraordinarily backward thinking ?.. and at the same time we will be asked how happy we are!

[longfingernails]

Thanks to the EU it is much cheaper to get plumbers and electricians from Poland than Preston.

And if you need to be taught how to be creative, then you aren't.

It's good that schools which are crap are told they are crap, and forced to change their management and teachers. To do otherwise fails the pupils. Even better is to give parents the chance to walk away by offering real school choice. Crap schools will then be forced to improve, fast, or be shut down or taken over.

The Labour mentality is to suggest that all schools are equally good at everything, that all pupils are equally good at everything, and that an A-Level in Media Studies has the same worth as one in Mandarin.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

'real school choice' is a nonsense buzz-phrase.

what's the choice? everyone wants the good school, not everyone can get in.

better to have less choice in some ways so that all schools get a good mix of background and ability and start on a level playing field rather than some getting to cherry pick and leaving an unequal and difficult mix for neighbouring schools.

[ComingDownTheChimmley]

pfffffffffft real school choice is a real snorter when you live in the country

[UnquietDad]

I actually agree with you both...

Schools need to be told things are not working when they are not. No point pretending everyone is equally "excellent".

But this is not achieved by telling teachers that they are rubbish, nor by having measurement by results. Ofsted seriously needs to change its approach.

[UnquietDad]

Agree "choice" is a totally misleading word in education. Have been saying so ad nauseam on here for years!!

[longfingernails]

Riven By sacking bad headteachers and teachers, having far more academies, allowing free schools, making money follow the pupil round the system, giving teachers more powers to enforce discipline, etc.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

academies are just shit schools with new labels and the right to cherry pick their pupils leaving neighbouring schools to go from borderline to failing because they get and even more challenging demographic. then what?

if you sack teachers you have to attract and recruit good ones from a limited local pool to work in your shit school. the schools they leave, if you get them, then have to recruit teachers to their school from the same limited pool.

all you're talking about is shuffling problems around and reordering who has the best teachers and pupils with a bit of engineering and therefore shifting problems to the next school down the road.

it's nonsense.

everyone should just go to their local school and campaign to improve that school rather than just rushing to get their kids into some supposed good school ten miles away which of course is a good school because all the most education orientated parents fight to get their kids in there and therefore they have a very easy job in terms of demographics.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

i'm an ex teacher. i was a good one. the majority are not great tbh. some are ridiculously incompetent. reality is though they're all needed because they've got to fill the jobs.

[UnquietDad]

How does having more academies help?

The schools here which have become academies are exactly the same schools - same kids, same poor results - just in "smart" blazers (actually chap-looking polyester blazers) and new buildings with lots of glass so they are baking hot in summer and freezing cold in winter.

[longfingernails]

Riven The metrics used would be different for each pupil, but basically, consistently achieving poor improvement in exam results over a few years is a sign of bad performance.

[UnquietDad]

Giving teachers actual power to enforce discipline is a start. I am shocked at some of the stories DW tells me about kids simply ignoring teachers who give them punishments. It just would not have happened at my school. Zero tolerance is the way to go.

[longfingernails]

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan Choice has worked in so many other areas of life. Why can't it work for schools?

At the moment, fairly well-off parents get to choose, by sending their kids to private schools. If they don't like the school, they send their children to another.

Why shouldn't middle-class and poor parents have the same degree of choice, within the state system?

[UnquietDad]

And don't make the teachers the problem when it is the kids who are the problem.

For years we have been told you don't get results from kids by doing them down and sending negative messages to them.

And yet for some reason this seems to be OK for teachers.

[longfingernails]

UnquietDad Are you saying that people who are bad at their job should be allowed to continue, because otherwise it might hurt their feelings?

[longfingernails]

The teachers (and especially teachers' unions) are a huge part of the problem. Together with their enablers in local education authorities.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

what choice?

if you have three schools in your area that your child can physically access (more than most) and one is known as the 'good' one, one ok-ish and one has the reputation of being utterly shite.

what choice is there? everyone will want the good one and put that as first choice. however it has limited places and all the kids in that area will have to go into one of those schools.

it's not choice.

[UnquietDad]

longfingernails - yes, of course that is exactly what I just said, isn't it? Sigh.

What a classic example of turning an argument into a strawman. No, I am not saying that.

I am saying that teachers should not automatically be made scapegoats for the poor achievements of pupils. One of the ways in which this currently happens is that the blunt instrument of Ofsted is wielded by suited idiots who have not a single clue about what teachers actually face and do not take factors such as schools' socio-economic background into account. Measurement by results alone is stupid and worthless, and makes good teachers demoralised.

[longfingernails]

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan Well, now, you can start your own free school. Most people will scoff and sneer, but a group of 15 or so very determined parents could probably make it happen.

I agree in one sense though. If schools were allowed to make profits, there would be far more incentive for external providers to start up new schools.

[DiscoDaisy]

It would be nice to have more than 1 secondary school in our town to choose from.

[UnquietDad]

Parents setting up their own schools is a daft idea. Nobody suggests that if your local hospital has too many people dying then you should set up your own.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

lfn you're not saying anything so how about this -

how are teachers the problem and how do you see that being changed? (given the reality that not many people want to teach as the conditions in schools are so horrendous)

what would this choice look like and how could it be a choice for all?

schools are understaffed, overcrowded, full of anti social behaviour and risk, stressful, dirty and very noisy. they're a bit like prisons only you want the wardens to be educated, well qualified and skilled in the art of inspiring and teaching despite the conditions. not easy to attract them.

[longfingernails]

UnquietDad Well, not by yourself - but I would love for qualified doctors and hospital managers to be able to set up their own hospitals to compete with existing ones, with the money following the patient around the system.

In other words, moving to a more French system of healthcare. The State pays, but you can use any private provider you want.

[UnquietDad]

I don't expect schools to work like businesses though. Or hospitals for that matter. I suspect this may be an insurmountable ideological difference.