There's a "culture of low expectation" in secondary schools. Do you agree?

NO i said i could see that you were 2 succesful teachers who were commited to their pupils and my experience of Education would have had a different outcome if i had the luck to be taught by either of you.

Beatback you named the two of us.

I am not interested in defending myself on here. Experience tells me that if you think teachers are mediocre, lazy , overpaid and out of touch any bleating from me will not change your mind .

I was talking in General not individually.

Surely the point is that we shouldn't need to defend ourselves? Hardly an education thread goes by without at least one poster throwing "if that's what you think / how you react, then I can't believe you're allowed to teach" into the ring.

Where have I attacked anyone?

I am sure that if Evil/Arisbottle had been teaching me 26 years ago i would not have left Education without any paper Qualifactions. I can see that both of you are succesful and commited teachers to your pupils. I just wish you would not be looking for ways to attack as a way of defending your own postions.

More to the point
the self selecting cohort of posters on these threads can never ever be deemed representative of either parents, teachers or in my case accountants!

Therefore we will never reach true conclusions, just chew the fat a bit more and hopefully learn a little.

I would hardly say that hubba has been bullied , he/she has clearly revelled in the "debate "

I am sorry you feel as if you have to leave the threadhabba, the bullies have won yet again it seems. I am disappointed that MNHQ doesn't appear to be able to deal with them

But insulting someone based on their career is ok is it? The "excuse me but last time I checked you were just a drama teacher and therefore not worthy of note" attitude is, what? Acceptable? Not bullying?

Why does it always come down to someone"s "GRAMMAR OR SPELLING" on these threads. It is just bullying people who have not been as fourtunate as somepeople who have benefitted from good Educations, it seams the first thing the "PROFESSIONALS" use is someone"s poor spelling or grammar to demean them i have suffered from this on previous posts it is just bullying and pathetic.

"Evil - if you was a PhD in Education or a member of an education policy think tank or the author of some definitive book on the subject then I can understand your shut the feck up about something I clearly know more about than you put downs. But correct me if I am wrong but you teach drama at a comp/SM."

" I just expected the person at the other end of all this arrogance to someone other than a secondary school drama teacher."

It's quite clear, Habba, that you have low opinions of secondary school drama teachers. Given that you know very little about me, including my level of education and publishing history, I don't think you're in a position to criticise me. For all you know, I may well have a PhD, and may have published a number of books on the lowly subject of secondary school drama.

I am quite able to come up with counter-arguments to yours, by the way - for a start, I don't believe that Gove and Wilshaw deserve automatic respect simply because they are higher up the financial pecking order than me. You, apparently do:
"And why do you get to slag off people several levels above your pay grade"
I prefer to look at their constant ill-considered announcements, which, in a number of cases, are contradictory, then use my own knowledge, understanding and experience of the education system as both a teacher and a parent to formulate and justify my opinions. If that's "arrogant" then so be it.

No need to jump in MNHQ.I'm done :)

Evil - me pointing out that you are a drama teacher is me slagging you off???

I was simply making the point that you are quite an arrogant person in the way you dismiss other people's opinions, not just mine, and in the way you decide who should be allowed to contribute to this thread. I just expected the person at the other end of all this arrogance to someone other than a secondary school drama teacher.

As for the grammar flame, that is so feeble. If you can't refute the other person's argument then flame her grammar instead eh?

wonderingagain - there are huge genetic differences in intelligence among the privileged population at my DD's school. Why would that not be true across the population as a whole?

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It is evil.

I think I'm also honest about the downsides of careers that pay a lot too. That may might require long hours etc (although to be fair lots of badly paid jobs require that these days)...

Same with the creative industries. I try to point out that the rewards can be high both in terms of hard cash and dream fulfillment...but there is little stability and not everyone can thrive on that.

You can only state the facts and then leave it up to them.

I object strongly to the term 'bright' being used to describe some academically advantaged children. It implies that some children are born genetically more intelligent and recent research has shown that this is extremely rare, that it is a child's upbringing and schooling that determines their academic outcome.

Parents need to understand that at some stage in their lives, their children will coast and have to accept it. If their child is ahead of the others that's great, but it doesn't mean anything terrible will happen if they have a break.

It's about time those children without academic help from home (what term do we use to describe them, the Stupid children?) get decent help in the form of homework clubs and smaller class sizes.

Inequality and segregation are rife in our system, let's deal with that first.

Using the term bright is divisive and

I think most parents are quite open about salaries , as far as our knowledge will allow. However I don't think teachers are as open about salaries and I don't think they always acknowledge the importance of a salary, perhaps because that is not the prime motivator for them.

I once said that I would like to get paid as much as possible for doing as little as possible and some members of staff didn't speak to me for a long time.

In a similar manner I get shouted down if I say I went into teaching for the holidays and pension . Vocations are all well and good but they don't pay the bills.

I am much more open with my DCs about money than my parents were with me. I think confidence with dealing with personal finances is very important.

Aris I can't speak for other families but I know that I am very open with my DC about what things cost and what jobs pay.

So my DC know that if they want to replicate their current lifestyle, or something akin to it, they will need a well paying job!

Evil I am thinking more of final career options rather than university .

I think that if you come from a lower to middle income family your idea of a comfortable life tends to be different than if you come from a family that earns in excess of, say 150k a year . That number was picked randomly but I was thinking that two senior leaders in a school could earn 100k between them and I am thinking of families who earn far in excess of what most education professionals could .

I suspect most of us pick a career wanting to be financially comfortable . That idea of comfort is usually similar to what we have at home or a bit better, unless we grew up in dire poverty.

So if you come from a family that spent 50k a year on school fees you will factor that into your job search and will look for a job that gives you 50k spare income to spend in fees.

If course it does not always work that way, sometimes being very poor makes you want to be very rich . DH and I are very much driven by a fear of poverty and so we both chose high earning careers first time round.

evil I think DC who have wealthy parents (which will include most who pay for private school) don't think long and hard about the cost.

Either their parents will pay, or they will take a loan feeling fairly confident of paying it off.

Or, more usually, a mixture of the two.

Why do they choose the courses they do and then the careers they do? I suspect there willbe all manner of reasons, but I'm certain one of them is simply that it seems emminently doable. Their parents do them. Their friends' parents do them. They know these people aren't super human...ergo why shouldn't they be able to do them?

Their schools also support them in considering these sorts of careers. The teachers know what they're about, what will be needed etc pupils receive the right advice.

And Habba, really? I can't slag off Michael Gove because he earns more than me?