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

Aris, no, that is my exact point.
He delivers curriculum, so he gets PE teachers having hissy fits at him because they are not into his subject.
The rest of the school whirls along around what he does : think big scale peripatetic music teacher. And he is one of many in the country.
So what they see is how the school really is, and they get to compare counties and sectors and ages and specialisms ....

The thing with a grammar school is that a lot of the hard work has already been removed from the "child centred learning" as the difficult kids have been sent to another school .... hence your own point about over confidence

Talkinpeace I am sure that your husband has a good insight into schools but he must recognise that as an outsider he will see a school putting on its best show, unless he jumps unexpectedly out of cupboards. It is quite natural to up your game a bit when a guest comes in.

Yes teachers shouldn't just stand at the front and lecture and then hand out homework that is rarely marked, but it does happen. Even in outstanding schools you will find members of staff who get away with this. At my son's grammar school there is a lot of lecturing and then hand out homework - although it is marked!

I have a son at a selective and he is in some subjects way ahead of his peers , he was way ahead of his peers when he was not at a selective. I suspect he would have achieved the same results wherever he went .

I know it has recently changed but if your child left primary school with a level 5 in the days when that was the highest they could achieve,that level 5 represented quite a wide range of ability from those who were actually a level 4 but had been coached to within an inch of their lives ( or over helped by a TA) to those working far in excess of a level 5.

I sometimes have ex grammar school students join my A level classes, usually they are not the top grammar students but by definition they should be towards the top of our comp/ secondary modern, this is not always the case. They do come to us brimming with the appearance of confidence though which will get them so far.

A good lesson will facilitate learning. The fact that you claim this school teaches in the way you say Habba proves that you don't know what you're talking about.

Agrees utterly with EvilTwins : the point of a lesson is to educate - from the Latin to Lead out - and "child centred learning" means teachers are clobbered if they do not make sure the class has understood what they are wiffling on about. Good thing too.

Yes, Habba, a teacher who stands and lectures a class would be judged inadequate in an observation. A whole school of teachers who do that = a while school of inadequate teachers = special measures.

The trouble with parents is that we only really get to experience the schools our children attend.
The trouble with teachers is that they only really experience the schools they work at and those their children attend.
The trouble with Inspectors is that even three hours' notice ensures they never, ever see schools as they normally are.
The trouble with politicians is that they walk around schools with such blinkered assumptions that it would be better if they had not disrupted lessons for the day and stayed away.

Which brings me round to DH and his ilk.
They go into schools for a day, are part of the curriculum, are welcomed by the pupils, staff and governors.
And as a result get a much more realistic view of how many, many types of schools actually work on a day to day basis than any other group of people I'm aware of.
He is not unique, and interestingly when he has a natter with the others in his field, they all share similar conclusions, regardless of their start point.

Gove is the organ grinder, but with an axe to grind.
Wilshaw is the monkey, many of whose pronouncements are not backed up by the research.
Neither of them is willing to let data get in the way of policy.
Neither of them is willing to let the dust settle enough to see how things actually are.

Upthread I made the point but it's worth mentioning again.

Whenever some parent complains about their school the usual suspects turn up to post about how great their school is. I don't live in your catchment so in what way does your great school invalidate my complaint about mine?

A school will be in special measures if a teacher stands in front of a class and lectures and occasionally hands out homework???

DS - at a non-selective - currently has pretty much the same NC levels (and slightly higher targets, as every child is pushed to achieve as highly as they can - being non-selective, they have to have lots of children OVER-achieve to get good final grades) as friends who go to localish selectives and had similar Year 6 SATS (5s / 6s)

Oh well if we're now going on what our children reckon....

Habba he still might not get them.... Not to be the voice of doom, but counting chicks and all that! Your posts above make an awful lot of speculative assumptions about both schools, not to mention the future and a hypothetical parallel universe where he went to the other school. It's a bit like me saying I know for sure dd would be snobby/anorexic/unhappy by now for absolute sure if she'd gone to a different school!

"DS reckons that he is about 18 months ahead of his mate's [sic]."

We had a child come from a selective private (primary) into one of my classes. She, and her parents, had been fed the line that she was working 2 years ahead of a state school, and parents were very upset that she was having to transfer to an 'ordinary village primary'.

She went straight onto our SEN list. Not only was she not 2 years ahead, she was nearly 2 years behind the majority of my class.

Now, I am not suggesting that in your son's case the situation is as extreme - but are you sure that his information is absolutely accurate? What NC level is he achieving at at the moment? How many children at the non-selective who were achieving exactly at the same level as he was at the end of primary are achieveing at that level? Of course, comparing a child at a selective with a child drawn at random from a non-selective will, statistically, mean that the child from the non-selective is working at a lower level - the non-selective has the full range of abilities whereas the selective does not, so that is a simple statistical truth. What you need to do is track ability matched children over a long period of time.

Habba - unless you've been to the school, you have absolutely no idea what the lessons are like. If it's as you describe, the school would be in special measures. Is it?

We have friends from primary school who are going to that school. Teacher stands up and talks. Homework is occasionally set and often not marked. DS reckons that he is about 18 months ahead of his mate's.

So, yes i do know what kind of schooling he would have got had he gone there.

And why do you assume that he is not getting a creative or diverse schooling at his selective?

Habba You don't know what he would have got if had gone to a normal school. He could have come out with better schooling, one that is more creative or diverse. This is what could give children the leading edge when they are competiting in the workplace in the future.

I don't think that the criticisms are contradictory.

In 2012 90% of kids at DS's selective scored A or A* in the core GCSE subjects. Based on that, Gove is right. Too many people are getting As.

If instead of going to this school, DS went to the unimpressive non selective that he was allocated, he might not get all those As.

The school would have failed him because he started school life at KS L5 and he most likely wouldn't get such a clean sweep of As. At the same time a lots of the kids at the selective will have translated those L5s into As.

I just think most state schools are doing a brilliant job. The national curriculum ensures that content is there, Ofsted deals with quality. What lets children down is inequality, caused by competetion, on a school, class and a personal level leaving children feeling second class or ignored.

There is no such thing as an inherently 'bright' child. They learn to be become bright.

Sorry, I've read a lot of the thread but not all. Sorry if a point already made is being repeated.

Lots of children get level 5s (and remember there is now level 6 too) and if they all got A and A*, Gove would be moaning that the GCSEs are too easy. Woops. He is already doing that. It is right that primaries cram for SATs. They have to or they get hammered by Ofsted. This is not right, but it is a matter of fact.

Primaries have brilliant pastoral care. They have a long history with a child and tend to know families very, very well. In primary staffrooms, there is lots of talk about families where staff can update each other or discuss concerns. There is simply not the capacity to do this to the same extent or to react as quickly in senior school.

Primaries have the capacity to fill gaps that secondaries do not. If I have a Y6 child who is not going to hit targets in maths, I can shuffle the curriculum so that the child gets extra support. This is very difficult to achieve in secondary.

I'm fed up with the DfE and Ofsted moaning. They don't have real solutions.

I will retire before my time is up, not because I don't enjoy teaching but because there are lots of things I want to do. I know quite a few of my colleagues who are passionate about teaching have similar plans, so retirement patterns may not be a reflection of the happiness of the profession.

aris
the sad thing is that many teachers have stopped enjoying it - hence why so many make it to 65 before taking retirement.
And being crapped on from on high will not persuade the waverers to stay.

DH chose not to teach in a school but he just loves what he does and jokes that even if certain other business plans came off he'd always put aside time to get that buzz of the lights turning on in 300 year 9 boys or seeing the spark light in year 2's (and their teachers)

Thought we'd established I'd got over that.

Defensive? Moi? You mean because you called me a drama teacher and I got upset? Nah, it's all white noise in cyberspace to me.

Most teachers that I work with feel the same as me. We are aware of the politics but day to day it has little effect.

Why would you teach if you didn't enjoy it? Yes the pay is OK and the pensions are good but many teachers could earn more elsewhere. Other than the holidays , the big draw of the job is that it is so rewarding.

you are lucky then that you enjoy your work as much as you do and that your school has not been messed about by politics as much as many.
keep up the good work