Pupils in England 'lag behind international peers'

[rollonthesummer]

bbc

The government and DFE typically welcome the news and intend to use it as evidence to bring about rigorous change.

Might be nice if they stopped and thought, 'oh, shite-maybe we should stop screwing everything up'

[TheSolitaryWanderer]

But that would make sense, rollon.
To look at the situation and say that we've been interfering for 30 years with our shakeups and our initiatives and our exciting multiple changes of direction, and our confrontational politics that means you will never hear any politician say ' The opposition had a brilliant idea and we are going to keep it'
And all that's happened is confusion and bewilderment and a constantly distressed population.
So what would happen if we just stopped interfering for a decade and then observed the results and compared them?

But logic and common sense have never been part of the political world.

[noblegiraffe]

The main problem does not appear to be the education system, it appears to be that our schools are stuffed with white British kids.

According to the report out today, children of white British parents are not hitting their targets www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/04/white-children-falling-behind-other-groups-at-gcse

If we had schools filled with Chinese kids, who do hit their targets, everyone would be saying how marvellous our schools were.

[TheSolitaryWanderer]

So perhaps we ought to look at the different parenting styles.
That's going to be a landmine-strewn zone that politicians aren't going to enter.

[MrsGuyOfGisbo]

different parenting styles
yes, to put it mildly!
The biggest difference, as it is within the UK, the parents that value education and those that don't.

[littleducks]

There is a large group who preferred not to say...they are often middle class white British ime of completing questionnaires

[TheSolitaryWanderer]

Or the parents who are prepared to take a more strict line about completing work, attitude to school, higher aspirations and knowing that achievement often takes effort and that learning isn't always an exciting carousel of delights, sometimes it's hard going with stretches of tedium.

[tethersend]

Or perhaps we should try making our education systems more like Finland/Canada's?

That is never, ever considered.

[HarrietSchulenberg]

It's not just parents, though. Look at the attitude to education in society. I've just typed a very long response on these lines on another thread on this topic (and really haven't got the strength to do it again), but it's rare to see a positive portrayal of education, or intellectually aspirational characters, on TV these days. And kids' TV is no exception.

[dizzytomato]

This is exactly why I put down either prefer not to say, or mixed any other. I could never see the need to have me, my husband and my kids racially defined by the school system. For what purpose? We've lived in other countries and only in the UK were we asked to tick which box we racially defined ourselves as. It's ridiculous national obsession. Look at the categories they scream 1960! The other thing that really boils my piss is that there is a category for White (British) but no acknowledgement for any other British, no Black British, no Asian British, No Irish British, No Asian British, and Chinese is a whole different category WTAFF!? This thing is so wrong it is mind blowing!

[TheSolitaryWanderer]

'Or perhaps we should try making our education systems more like Finland/Canada's?'

ABSOLUTELY!
If only.

[noblegiraffe]

Everything I've been reading suggests that Finland is on the decline in the education stakes.