To think the British educational system is all wrong?

I've said many, many times that we should use something like the existing 11+ as a "bench mark" for basic literacy and numeracy . Once you pass, at whatever age, it's the gateway to starting GCSE etc courses and, if very late, the gateway to leaving school to education or college etc. Along with that, scrap the "year by year" progression in secondary schools and get pupils moving "up" according to ability, not age. So, the struggling/weaker students stay at a more basic level, doing basic skills, but the higher performing students move onto GCSE/A levels etc at a pace that suits them, even if that means taking the external exams earlier than normal. Really no point trying to teach Shakespeare or other "wordy"/essay subjects to kids who can't read nor write. No point in teaching trigonometry or physics to kids who can't add up! If pupils are struggling with basic literacy and numeracy, then spend all available time on that, not on languages, sciences, humanities, etc that they're not capable of.

There is no British education system.

i completely agree. I can’t imagine a more inequitable system. It’s a terrible idea

The German system was condemned by the UN for entrenching social inequity.

It's not the less academic who go to technical schools, it's the less well off. Somehow, wealth buys access to the academic routes. Same as in England where kids on free school meals rarely get into grammars.

I quite like the German system

They have 3 different type of secondary schools.

Gymnasium - academic route
Gesamtschuler - somewhere in the middle
Technischer - technical schools more focused on trades

It means that those who are not that academic can go to technical schools where they learn core subjects but instead of other subjects they are very unlikely to ever need they can do building or plumbing or car mechanics

You can switch schools so the decision made at 13 doesn't mean you can never change schools but it means that learning is more tailored to interests

“Reset the economy by restricting mortgages…” wouldn’t reset house prices. It would just mean that the average person wouldn’t ever be able to afford to own a home.
It wouldn’t make houses affordable for everyone. It would never happen, never mind overnight.

I think a lot of this- and it bleeds into the university discussion- centres around what we as a society want from education.

Basing everything around jobs and workforce preparedness means we want a nation of employees. There is some merit to this as we need employees, but we also need people to invent and lead and be entrepreneurial

the big risk in such a classist society as the uk is if you don’t developed those skillls with the support of a state education, those skills will be held by the elite as eton will certainly not be churning out employees. Therefore you create a modern version the lord and servant society.

gatekeeping university is going back to exclusivity and constraining social mobility. You might not like thousands of 18 year olds going to university but it is a powerful tool for social mobility. And for that children need to be given the opportunity for academic achievement, not divided into “academic and manual” as per the old grammar system (and as suggested earlier, they do in Germany)

But at what cost does that school get good ‘results’? And those results are such an arbitrary measure of success. They may open doors for a small number of individuals but again at what cost?

I agree that it isn’t clear cut. There is no clear answer to how to improve the English education system. It involves so so many factors that have barely been touched upon in this (& many other school-related threads on here). Not only is ‘control’ a factor but so is the outdated curriculum of course and deeper more philosophical issues such as its role in our capitalist society, the COL crisis, the deepening class and wealth divide and increasing numbers of families living in poverty. There is so much to unpick that I agree merely pointing to the Scandi model is too simplistic. We need to be asking what would be best for English kids.

I find the 45% getting grade 5 or above in English and Maths statistic depressing. We are literally setting up the majority to fail.

A basic pass/fail numeracy and literacy test, like Functional skills, would be better. Concentrate on these basic skills before the more complicated stuff.

So rich kids can go to university as they fancy but poor kids have to be smart?

doenst sound very inclusive 🙁

The other things I would do are to introduce basic numeracy and literacy tests for 15 year olds, that have to be passed before you can leave school (with appropriate SEN exemptions). Make employment laws much more attractive for employers to take on young staff with on the job training across all sectors.

Then reintroduce university grants (not loans) for tuition and maintenance for a restricted number of places, based on academic standards. Universities could recruit as many students as they want, but those who don’t reach the standards for grants would have to pay for themselves.

Alongside this I would like to have something like the Dutch system for supporting those who, for whatever reason, did not succeed at school but could be helped as younger adults, in a much more flexible setting, to reach their potential and go on to have useful and satisfying lives.

But then everyone who has a mortgage at all is in negative equity (unless they are in the final 10 years)

No one can move house

No, prices fall.

Oh I am sure that the population would be delighted to see their houses massively devalued?? Negative equity on a national scale?

That’s why the first point is to reset house prices so that they are at single income level. It wouldn’t happen overnight.

I broadly agree but don't think the school day is too long.

Starting at 5 or 6 would be better for most children. The way EYFS was implemented in our primary was judgy - charts for being able to do zip coats, I was told my child couldn't hop but it was more he didn't on demand. I'm sure all schools are different and not all as competitive about stuff like this that's often age or size of child related.

I don't believe in formal style uniforms at secondary and see no benefit to them at all in primary and definitely not logoed uniform for small kids. Other countries manage without uniforms pretty well.

yes apologies I’ve realised I read the book about 10 years ago, not that it was research from 10 years ago

that’s my point- it’s not as simple taking one factor that contributed to Finland’s success and replicating it in other countries. It wouldn’t work, and the situation is obviously greatly more nuanced than starting school at 7 or whatever

Immigrant children do much worse than native children in Finland these days, wasn't so bad years ago when there weren't so many and they could get enough attention in prepatory education to prepare them for joining the normal classes but now there's just not enough resources to cope with increased amount of children with an immigrant background and the system has not adapted well enough. This is actually one of the big problems in the Finnish system, not the fault of the immigrant children themselves but because they get put in the S2 stream and in many schools that means lower standards for all subjects, not just Finnish, so they aren't learning at the same level as native speakers. My DD was moved out of S2 in second grade so I don't know if it's so bad in my town but I'm going to get my DS moved out rather than wait to find out.

Another big cause I think is budget cuts, education especially suffered cuts in 2008 but also in the 90s which would have impacted the 2003 and 2006 pisa results. Along with moving away from the more traditional teaching methods, though the teachers in my town tend to prefer them thankfully - never even noticed phenomenon based learning, clearly not been implemented much in my town but I heard that's been a big problem in other schools.

If results are the be-all and end-all of school then yes, the Michaela School's methods work. Problem is that the idea that results are everything is flawed, the exam system itself is flawed, the way pupils are taught for their exams is flawed.

The parents who choose Michaela for their children have high ambitions for them and are prepared to support and back the school in their rules. That's not the case for every comp up and down the UK. Building relationships is vital for teaching, but I found it very difficult to build rapport with my pupils and teach them when I was constantly told to fight them on their uniform, their hair, their make-up, their pencil case etc. The focus never seemed to be on what and how they were learning, but whether they were under a sufficient amount of control.

One problem with secondary education is that you come out with a series of numbers (GCSEs) and letters (A levels). The aim is to maximise this small group of values.

In reality surely this means teaching to the test?.The better you can do it the better the qualifications for the students and the greater the plaudits for the school.

So instead of viewing the works of Shakespeare as a thing of beauty it's about how to ensure you put down the current points when summarising MacBeth 's character failings to maximise your mark.a

we have a less than holistic means of assessing education and simple numeric value though administratively the only feasible method is lacking.

I don't think there is an easy answer but I am sure a lot of parents and maybe teachers do look at the exam as the be all and end all.

Have skim read the whole thread but as a mother, grandmother and ex-primary teacher I have to disagree that our system is not fit for purpose. My children had very good educations and my gc are having a great experience at their school.They are enthusiastic and progressing well academically and love the social side. My observation of the EYFS does not match with very small children being drilled in academic pursuits, just pottering around much of the time learning through play, some of it directed. They have loads of time to do stuff after school especially in the Summer.

Schools are, however, struggling financially and cannot support children with special needs adequately. I also agree that the IB would be a very good thing to broaden out, having to choose a path at an early age is difficult. The micromanaging of curriculum and teachers has, I believe, harmed education especially at primary level where enthusiasm and joy is slowly being leeched out of the classroom.

Finland is often cited, the homogeneity and small population did help, and the high qualifications and subsequent respect for teachers can’t have harmed the system. Interesting to note it is less successful now.

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I think the UK gets Early Years right (albeit those years begin a BIT too early) but it's the terminal end of education that gets it too wrong.

The idea that a 15/16 year will no longer study maths or English/composition once they finish GCSE exams seems a bit weird, coming from a country where things are compulsory until 18, and even required at early uni level.

And don't get me started on post-16 options--I don't quite understand the need to specialise learning at such a young age, at a time when teens are still trying to figure out what they like.

There are a lot of power struggles and attempts to exert unnecessary control in schools.

The school in England that exerts the most control over its pupils gets absolutely astonishing results, so perhaps deciding what is 'unnecessary' isn't clear cut.

The Marxist viewpoint is that school is designed to replicate the workplace so that children obey and don't question authority etc, and I think there are elements of truth to that. There are a lot of power struggles and attempts to exert unnecessary control in schools.

One of the most challenging but rewarding classes I ever taught was a Year 11 set who weren't doing GCSE Literature and weren't expected to pass Language, so they were doing an Entry Level qualification. I loved teaching those lessons - we worked on CVs and cover letters, email communication, interviews, reading non-fiction critically, participating in group discussions - all functional literacy skills that will benefit them in the future. I can't understand why these practical, functional literacy skills aren't standard for all, because I had a "bottom set" Year 11 leaving school with an entire career literacy toolkit in their back pocket, something I know higher sets didn't have.

it was identified 10 years ago that one factor in Finland’s successful education system was the complete lack of immigration. The authors suggested it would be interesting to see what happens in the future as Finland was starting to welcome migrants and refugees. It has steadily slipped down the rankings since then.

Finland's decline started 20 years ago.

The suggestion that immigration contributes to educational decline is refuted by the fact that EAL students in England outperform non-immigrants, and the amount of immigrants in London is cited as one of the main reasons that London schools massively outperform the rest of the country.