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

Its not like 25/30 years ago when because you had terrible handwriting or concentration issues you were branded unteachable and a dummy now is it. It makes me very angry with the Education i received from those so called professionals, i would not any of those run a *** in a BREWERY. I am glad that most kids today will be taught by skilled and commited teachers, not the ones i knew that when the teachers strike of 84/85 were seen in the pub at lunchtime forcing 12/13 yr old kids to walk round the town for lunch.

beatback
Exactly. Its called "child centred learning" : if their eyes are glazed over at the end of the lesson the teacher is the failure not the child.

At comps, the thing that EVERY child can do is found and built upon - even if its stock car racing or sheep shearing

as well as the girl I mentioned above who is entering a national maths contest tomorrow

Many years ago if you did not fit the mould or were anyway different requiring different teaching strategies. They were unable or not prepared to use them meaning that kids from the very top to the bottom were failed in so many ways. reading these threads it would appear that many of the wrongs of 25/30 years ago have been removed from the system and for most kids Education delivers their true potential.

PS Habba Please stop referring to my pupils. I'm not a teacher.
I'm an accountant. One who knows that the BEST accountants do not do Accountancy degrees. In fact when I was starting out, Accountancy degrees were worth less exemptions than a BSc - because the good firms wanted analytical akills not anoraks
Surely you expect the same from your firm's trainees?

Habba, surely you ought to be FOR a child aiming for the 'general' academic degree that would open the doors to a myriad of opportunities in the future, rather than a single-focus approach leading to a specific job? Surely that is the point of aiming as high as you can - it gives you more choice. That girl could still become an accountant with an excellent maths degree - the door is most definitely not closed BUT so many other doors are opened AS WELL. Why is that a bad thing in any way??? (genuinely puzzled here - am in 'maximum progress possible' thinking mode and can't see how anyone would NOT want a child to ake the maximum possible progress, even at degree level?)

Absolutely. And the brilliant thing about mixed ability schools is that if a child has one (or more) things that they are amazing at, or one or two things that they are truly poor at, then they can be appropriately grouped. One of my most SEN pupils, with very poor literacy and numeracy skills, was a genuinely brilliant, inspired artist. And another who found reading and writing exceptionally difficult was a very able natural mathematician. All could get access to the teaching they needed, simply through altering groupings or support. In a non mixed ability school, that isn't so easy to do.

You don't want her to aiming to be an accountant???

You convinced her and her parents that the DD should abandon the idea of doing a business degree and switch to maths instead???

I know that you have a 'I know better than you' attitude here on MN. It just didn't occur to me that you carried this over to your pupils and their parents.

teacherwith2kids
That is another reason why kids should be in mixed ability schools if not classes.
Mine are fully aware of how hard kids try to achieve what they find easy because they sit in the same room as them.

Kids who are always isolated from that (like I was) genuinely have no comprehension (as I did not till I was in my mid 20's)
which is why jerks like the current government made such daft decisions

Apologies, also meant to say that the pressure that would need to be put on those children who strive every sinew to reach a D is every bit as testing FOR THEM, and every bit as onorous FOR THEIR TEACHERS as the pressure that has to be put on an able child to reach an A. Probably more, in fact, becuase there may well be more barriers in the way. It is definitely not the case of 'not wanting to put too much pressure on kids'. To achieve the maximum progress for every child, pressure is put on all children, wherever they sit on the spectrum of abilities.

Excuse typos. Not sure what happened there in the middleQ

"I am not going to claim that they are representative of their profession but many teachers here on MN make it clear that the above puts too much pressure on kids and that kids should be made to feel that getting a manual job is just as worthy as getting a well paid office job for example. And that getting a GCSE 'D' in Maths/English is something that they should be happy with."

Hubba, surely you can see that it depends on the child, and the context? The focus should be on every child making maximum PROGRESS, not on the final finishing points.

And that isn't a soft option. I have taught in extremely mixed primaries, with a huge stread of abilities. There are children I have taught that I would be distraught to find out in years to come had not got A/A*s and gone on to university - because anything less would be poor progress given their starting points and capabiilities. There are other children for whom getting GCSEs at Grade D and becoming emplyable in a manual job would be absolutely EXTRAORDINARY progress involving superhuman efforts both by the and by their teachers and support assistants.

It is not a question of 'just as worthy as a well paid desk job' - that manual job, for that child, is an extremely worthy and heady aspiration, as hard to achieve for them as an Oxbridge degree and a high-flying management training job is for another. The job of teachers and schools is to achieve both ... and every gradation in between. And that is hard, but it is the job.

whereas I believe in non selective education so that all children are aware of and interact with each other.

Docks? Delete that.

backbeat, yes, I agree. It saddens me that some posters are quick to deride kids who work their docks socks off for that D grade.

Though i believe in Selective Education,i also know some have to be average and some below average. reading some of these posts it appears some people think being average/below is a shame on the familys, and that these DC"S should not be seen or heard because they might contaminate their offspring.

Evil. If you take a kid with a basic literacy level,and though hard work and good teaching they achieve a D and a good enough Education for their chosen Employment that needs to be recognized as a great achievement, and equal to a pupil with high literacy achieving a A or B. because in either circumstances it has enabled the student to advance to the next stage of career/life.

Habba
You seem to forget that I passed my ACCA exams first time and turned down a job with what was then a big 8.

I don't want her aiming to be an accountant. I consider that DEEPLY sad for a 15 year old.
She was thinking of doing accounting A level and then an accounting degree - now she is looking at the stars

I know what accountants do : I have Iris CT open in another tab.

Graduates with maths degrees are highly sought after by banks and other financial institutions with PhDs usually earning £100k by their late 20s and early 30s.

However, we like our accountant trainees to have a general knowledge of business. Contrary to what people think, accountants don't do complicated number crunching so a maths degree isn't essential and might even put you at a disadvantage compared to a candidate with A* A Level Maths and a business degree.

Sorry Talkin but you've might have given your student some bad advice if being an accountant is the end objective.

I converted them from thinking about Bournemouth or Portsmouth to Imperial College or Cambridge - child is more than capable.

But what happens to the kids who do not have friends as blunt as me?
worrying isn't it ....

Absolutely. Many of ours will only consider the local university as well, which is a shame as it's decidedly middle of the road.

Evil
the other tricky thing with kids where the parents have not gone to uni is to get the bright kids to set their sights high enough.

a kid at DCs school will go to uni. Neither of her parents did.
I finally had to take the three of them to task over a coffee to point out that doing "Business Studies" even if she does want to become an accountant would not be as useful as Maths (at which the child excels)

Now that they have looked at pure maths degrees, all can see that it will be perfect
but they had believed all the stuff about 'vocation' rather than 'pure learning'
luckily we are still friends and for the child the sky is the limit

I can only speak for my school, and I have to admit that it's incredibly difficult. We have a host of parents' evenings (which go on for hours in order to accommodate a range of working hours), not just for academic monitoring, but just so that parents can meet tutors etc. Head of 6th Form has organised events run by the school, the closest university and Student Finance (Student Finance attracted exactly 3 parents) and we have a lot of events which parents are invited to - sports, arts and so on. We send reviews home half termly, have a half-termly phone home fortnight and supply parents with numbers/email addresses to stay in touch. Form tutors are expected to make contact with parents whenever necessary - for both positive and negative reasons. However, it seems to be a case of being able to lead the horse to water but not make it drink.

We are a rural school and get kids from a wide area. A lot live in the city which is a few miles from school and don't drive. A lot have younger kids and don't want to drag them on the bus to bring them to school.

It's something we're working on, but convincing parents that university is a good option when no one in their family has ever gone before, and they are influenced by media reports of debt debt and more debt is so far proving incredibly difficult.

So, what are the schools doing to engage the parents Evil. Is there a 'culture of low expectation' in terms of getting parents involved?

The Head of our local comp was recently at our primary school for a parent forum on school organisation review (we are currently moving from 3 to 2 tier) and he commented on how involved our parents are and was seeking advice on how to 'reach out' to parents effectively. Hmm...

Ahh, hit send too soon.

So even when the opportunities are there and are encouraged by schools, if parents aren't interested, the DC won't necessarily get to take those opportunities.

Oh, and we are in a grammar area. I asked one of our brightest Yr 11s if she had sat the 11+ when she was in Yr 6 - she said yes, but that her parents had never collected the results Equally, our Head Girl, another very academic student, didn't even sit the exam as it would have meant having to get into the city nearby rather than attending the school she does go to, which is in the large village in which she already lived.