I'm just getting my head round Gove's changes to the exam system- and I am even mor horrified than I thought I would be!

Curlew, I sincerely hope that's not how it works, at least not in my kids' school.
But, from what you are saying, 85% of the pupils at your school should not be entered for the A-C paper as there is no point. Is that a comprehensive school you're talking about?

I totally agree with Bonsoir, the culture of holding back and labeling children as low ability is rampant and horrifying in the UK. There is a multitude of factors that join together so that happens:

• cultural factors (distrust or disrespect of intellect and of those who stick out).
• class-based capitalist philosophy (that the left-wing teachers are unaware of espousing) that you see reiterated in this thread, that we need manual labourers so why have (aspire, educate) more people than there are (perceived) high level jobs. It is a sort of eugenics, in fact, disguised as care and tolerance.
• it is much more work to differentiate and teach properly, all depending on individual teacher every year. Once you get a disrupted couple of years and children are not taught properly, they fall into 'low achievers' and then they're not exposed to higher level stuff which perpetuates the cycle.
• middle classes get out of this because they don't accept (as I didn't and many people on mumsent I've seen stories of) when they've been told by teachers that their children are a bit dim. They start working with their kids - and -miracle/miracle - kids are suddenly in the top. But it is quite hopeless for those who don't understand this, have no resources / can't support.

I understand that there are children who have difficulties but there are also many children who would have achieved higher but are actually held back.

Curlew there are people on this thread telling you it happened to them personally!!!

You just ignore any comments that don't chime with your world view!!!

At my nephews school, it's almost impossible to change sets and what have you because of timetabling!

curlew - that may be your personal experience, but it is not what the examination system in the UK tells us about the complex relationship of stakeholders in the school system.

Results from a study on setting by ability in maths, article here:
www.nottingham.ac.uk/csme/meas/papers/boaler.html

• Approximately one-third of the students taught in the highest ability groups were disadvantaged by their placement in these groups because of high expectations, fast-paced lessons and pressure to succeed. This particularly affected the most able girls.
• Students from a range of groups were severely disaffected by the limits placed upon their attainment. Students reported that they gave up on mathematics when they discovered their teachers had been preparing them for examinations that gave access to only the lowest grades.

• Social class had influenced setting decisions, resulting in disproportionate numbers of working-class students being allocated to low sets (even after ‘ability’ was taken into account).

• significant numbers of students experienced difficulties working at the pace of the particular set in which they were placed. For some students the pace was too slow, resulting in disaffection, while for others it was too fast, resulting in anxiety. Both responses led to lower levels of achievement than would have been expected, given the students’ attainment on entry to the school.

curlew OFSTED will never pick up on it.

These are DC who have not shown evidence that they can go beyond a C.

And whilst they are not exposed to the higher tier work, discussions, homework, whilst none of their peers are working to that higher level, they're unlikely to show any evidence that they could achieve beyond a C.

So as far as OFSTED are concerned, the child has achieved their potential.

I agree: I don't think that teachers are necessarily conscious of their mindset or actions. Certainly the ones I speak to aren't. They genuinely think they are doing the right thing by their pupils by making their own and their pupils lives easier and gentler.

I don't think teachers mean to hold children back. But some may set realistic, achievable, lower targets, because they are a safer bet.

No, because if DC are put on a lower-achieving track earlier on, OFSTED will not pick this up.

This issue is rampant in the UK.

"I still want to know what people think is in it for teachers to hold children back. It seems to be an article of Mumsnet faith that this happens- but nobody will ever say why!"

For an easy life, dressed up as kindness.

I think this is highly understandable and I don't blame teachers one bit for not taking a punt that may not pay off, given the constant pressure they're under.

I totally agree, BUT there should be more to education than an attainable GCSE result. The benefits of teaching beyond a certain grade may not be immediately obvious but will stay with children for life and they may be grateful for it later on.

wordfactory discussing and developing ideas is part of teaching any text, and teaching how to write essays is also totally normal and expected. Writing a draft to then rewrite in the CA would be frowned upon at the schools I've been at.

Sorry, yes Curlew, they had some time to write their notes to take in with them. But with coursework they could spend weeks and weeks perfecting one paragraph if they wanted to so I definitely think CA is the tougher option.

How it worked at DD's independent school was they were given the text and then spent some time brainstorming it.

Homework would be to come up with ideas about it. DD would discuss with me, and I'm certain so would the other girls.

In class there are ten in the top set and they would each give their ideas and develop them. The girls would then have lots and lots and lots of terrific ideas.

Previously, they had been taught in great detail how to structure essays to get the very best marks, so their task was to chose which ideas they wanted to use and frame them in the correct way.

DD would take an idea and prepare a draft of that idea. She wrote gazillions (discussing them along the way in detail), discarding the ones she was unhappy with. Eventually she ended up with enough for an essay.

She then prepared a crib sheet with enough key words to ensure she could rewrite that essay under exam conditions.

One thing that really strikes me on this thread is the opinions shout CA and coursework. In the (independent) schools I've worked at, this is how they worked:

Coursework-I taught the text and gave them the question. They wrote a draft which I read and gave some verbal feedback on. (Things like 'this bit doesn't make sense to me, are you sure you've thought this through?) They wrote the final piece.

CA-I taught the text and gave them the question. They wrote the CA under exam conditions.

To my mind CA is much more rigorous because there are no drafts and no feedback. To do it any other way in my schools was considered cheating.

Because teachers are under a hell of a lot of pressure to get as many students as possible to get a C grade.

If a child has never shown any evidence that they'll get above that, then some teachers will feel it is far safer to put them in for lower tier, where they can concentrate on the basics. You're asking less of the child.

And what's in it for teachers to do all that extra work at higher tier for a child they don't think will get higher than a C anyway? They're already stretched to breaking point.

I think this is highly understandable and I don't blame teachers one bit for not taking a punt that may not pay off, given the constant pressure they're under.

Relieved that maths will still be tiered. When you see students working really really hard at foundation, with superb teachers and they really struggle to get that D they are desperately hoping for then I would say no, they wouldn't benefit from higher level teaching. They struggle to follow foundation reaching.

foundation needs to be used carefully and for those who would genuinely be stretched to get their C. If C/D is their expected grade (not target) then they should go into Higher. Schools track so carefully and really do have a reasonable feel of where a child is at in their maths.

There are some schools who enter all of their kids for higher. The ones I know do it by only teaching a few subjects to the lower ability kids and teaching that really well to them. This means they can scrape a c but know nothing about many areas of maths.

Couthy, the results for the November exams are out, has your DD not been given them?

Look, I'm not saying that the teacher said 'come on girls, get your Mums to write the essay.'

But how on earth can she police the level of input from home? How can any teacher?

I've had friends and family members asking me to write their DC's essays for CA (I'm a writer and academic). I've seen threads on MN where posters are corralling stuff for their DC's CAs. If you search online you'll find CA essays for pupils to copy should they wish.

This goes on!

And even though I didn't do that for my DD (she's far far too opinionated and awkward), she received an amount of help from school and home that fell within the rules, that outweighs what most other pupils can expect.