Fed up with the education divide ?

farewell ...

I don't use the italics for emphasis as such, more to give the rhythm of my real speech. If MN is a conversation, I like the idea that my posts (vaguely) express who I am.

Plus, I cannot abide blocks of unadulterated same font text. I drive my editor wild with all manner of oddities in my novels!!!!

Think of it as a personal literary tic. No more.

I have no issue with choosing a private school over state but it shouldn't have to be a choice made due to lack of confidence in the State system or a particular catchment school.
There would be a great benefit to be had if schools did have pastoral care professionals supporting the education. I wonder if Life coaches of a sort in secondary school could help provide pupils from dysfunctional / difficult backgrounds a grounding, self esteem and aspiration ( beyond celebrities and footballers / drinking/drugs) so the dysfunctional or antipathy and perhaps poverty cycle has a chance to be broken.
We seem to be heaping this responsibility onto schools and teachers but almost everyone acknowledges learning needs to be supported outside the classroom. The reality is some children will never have this and teachers cannot become social workers but these children should be given extra pastoral support .
Grammar schools are great for academic children who are supported with parents interested in education but this isn't closing the divide you talk about you are just adding a bit more to your half and not addressing wider issue.

Mrs T2007

I think we're saying the same thing but in different ways.

A NC Level 5 should be a NC Level 5 whether you're in Bristol/ Birmingham/ Bath/ Brighton/ Bradford/ Banbury/ Barnard Castle/ Bridlington/ Buxton/ Burton-on-Trent/ Bishop's Stortford/ Billericay/ Brixton/ etc...

Thus when families move - imagine that? - the marks are 'real' and the school doesn't need to totally reassess the kid all over.

Blu 'travelator to glory'. I love that phrase so much I want to marry it (or at least use it and claim it as my own.

Wordfactory - something that's been bugging me for ages: what's with the weird and sometimes random use of italics. Often when talking about the fabulousness of your life and your children's schools? Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's a right faff putting the little hat things either side of a word so I'm wondering what you think it conveys?

How much is Gove consulting with people who actually have experience of education (beyond having been to private school a few decades previously)? This Government has a particular weakness for deciding what it wants to do first, and then pretending to do a little bit of quick consultation afterwards but only actually talking to or listening to those that will tell it what it wants to hear. The dismissal of the Head of Ofsted was a great example of surrounding yourself with those who tell you what they think you want to hear. It shouldn't be so difficult to set up a genuine task force, employing the best in the field, to look at what would work best. And then implement and leave well alone for 20 yrs.

NC levels are to go, & rightly so.

I have seen pupils come into school allegedly on a level 5 for English. And my target grades (& now pay) will be decided by that level. It's crackers.

What we really need is for control of education to be taken out of politicians hands and into those of people who actually have a clue instead of spouting the latest political crowdpleasing sound bite without one iota of thought about the effect it will have on the children subjected to their halfbrained policies!

Hello johnbunyan

and presuming this is 'for real'

and because I'm rather fed up with Michael Rosen's letter's from 'a parent' (www.theguardian.com/profile/michaelrosen) as if he represented mainstream Britain....

So here's what I think would level the playing field:

1. Agreed national targets which OFSTED enforces

1. Surprise inspections on core subjects (so OFSTED show up and check maths/ English (Reading/ Writing) teaching that day - what was homework did it actually bear any resemblance to what was done in class? Was it differentiated into low/ middle/ high achiever ability groups at least? Did lessons/ homework challenge the bright spark? Did lessons/ homework make things clearer for the struggling pupil? (It bothers me as a parent that children in DD1's Y6 class are reading Jaqueline Wilson for age 8 readers and do not know their times tables to even x10, let alone x12. Now I've ensured my DD1 does know her times tables to x12 and have ensured access to high quality children's fiction - but not everyone has the chutzpah/ pig headedness to go their own way and ignore the school - I can assure you the school have repeatedly told me it's not necessary to know times tables to x12, long division is best left until secondary school, really The Hobbit is best left for Secondary School, etc... repeatedly)

1. Actual reporting of results (optional SATs, in class tests, etc....) & results which a parent can relate to collection of national statistics - in the way KS2 NC Levels relate.

1. Guidance that class work does wing its way home. What is so difficult about sending home a marked quiz or a worksheet (unmarked/ but demonstrating what they're doing) (There has been a discussion elsewhere on Mumsnet about the fact that schools are not sending any work home www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1015060-head-teachers-sanctioning-the-disposal-of-children-s-workbooks/AllOnOnePage). Parents are not seeing what's going on - save for 5 minutes before a parent/ teacher meeting. I really query a system whereby schools are less than transparent about what is going on - e.g. curriculum for term describes maths as 4a,4b & 4c will be covered - with no explanation of what that might mean.)

1. Regardless of whether you are a state maintained school or an academy - the LEA has authority over you. OFSTED has authority over you. I think academies (currently very well funded from all accounts - albeit my source is the Guardian) largely are currently feeding their children well & teaching them well - but they are free of the food requirements & teaching qualification requirements state maintained schools are under. One does have to ask is the system going to be abused in future, when perhaps money is tighter. This is a real loop hole in the system - I suspect a 'carrot' to attract conversion from state to ?QUANGO sector - but schools are in fact one of those arms of government, largely paid for by taxpayers, which really should have oversight. I don't know if I would go so far as to insist on elected School Boards - but a system of checks & balances means that schools play fair and children's educational years (so crucial to every child) aren't blighted by organisations more concerned about profit than education.

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Here's what I think would benefit state schools with 'outliers' - the poorly performing student and the G&T student - both of whom can be sorely neglected in schools (possibly also in independent sector).

There should be an overarching system whereby the best teachers (state & independent sector) are used to support struggling students and G&T students - because helping either of the groups is important for society.

The struggling student may never be a high flyer - but s/he does deserve to leave primary - secondary in some cases - literate/ numerate and it's what employers crave. (Just as their is a music service for delivery of peripatetic music lessons - should there be a service to help struggling children (as proven by end KS1 SATs in KS2 Lower - so that by the time of KS2 SATs the majority (let's say 70%) are back on target?)

The G&T student with a real flair for writing/ science/ etc.... - again providing opportunities (maybe one day a month such students from throughout the catchment meat at a local University/ independent school/ comprehensive for inspiring tuition challenging them/ expanding their abilities and inspiring them).

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Yes it costs money - but I think we need to ask what is the cost of letting struggling students flounder? What is the cost of letting G&T students with real flairs for certain subjects whither through boredom/ peer pressure (which is largely anti-hard work in schools).

Schwew

Sorry to rant - but lovely to get that off my chest!

PSBD

A quick google reveals that Prescott and Betty Boothroyd both failed. Neither had an education portfolio, did they?

Oh and finally: it is valid, you know, to add in the experiences of people who attended secondary moderns. Strange but true. Anyone advocating the grammar system is also advocating a second-tier system, albeit one euphemistically described as 'more appropriate for the less academic'.

I'm also interested in those politicians who'd attended secondary moderns: who were they? And why did they precede the people who'd done well in, and want to perpetuate, grammar schools? So people who'd failed the 11 plus went on to become politicians, in large enough numbers to influence educational policy; while people who'd passed went and did something else?

'the more traditionally academic child who feels held back in many instances '

Please demonstrate examples - proper, across the population examples not anecdotal - of these 'traditionally academic children'. Because you're not just saying 'state schools are holding bright kids back', you're saying how those kids feel. Just interested in how you know?

I actually feel my daughters are being rather better educated than I was, as it happens.

NB if private schools ceased to exist in this country, only a tiny minority of parents might send their children abroad, presumably most likely to the USA and at great expense. All energies from all sectors of the population would be ploughed into the state sector. I think that this would produce better educated children on average, and that the good universities and careers would end up with more able and motivated candidates, rather than those who had risen to the top due to special treatment and steering.

Mini I'm sure those schools are lovely and the parents are very happy.

But that's not what I want for my DC. I've visited lots and nope, not for me. The few I'd really rate are the super selectives - Colyton et al, but even they're under resourced.

I know this is a minority view. I've said so several times. Fortunately for me I'm able to indulge my flights of fancy.

So as my DC would say 'everyone's a winner.'

Matorana No they are not an exception and the ones i referred to were not in the news. It's quite commonplace around here to hear parents talking about going in to sort the teacher out, i've walked past dad's at ds old primary frothing at the mouth by the class door in the presence of their smirking dc, and then you the ones that are newsworthy.

There are many parents who quiet frankly do not believe their children should be disciplined at all and constantly quote "well they should be respected first". I think as a society we just have very different values now, this has really blurred the lines between students and teachers coupled with increasingly liberalist ideologies it's hard to see who is in charge.

As far as state schools managing children with difficult behaviours are concerned what exactly do they do ? (i know they can get extra funding for support) but to what degree, and how do tney actually identify children who may be struggling or is it only the worst cases they pickup ? Because dc was never spotted up as having a behavioural problem, he was considered alright.

"And actually I don't want comprehensive. I think trying to be all tings to all men is a recipe for under achievement."

What - you don't think that the best comprehensives in the country, those which have a representative number of very high ability children, those which are well resourced and have a good record of improving outcomes for the full range of children they take in, just simply aren't good enough? Because they are comprehensives trying to be 'all things to all men'?

"don't assume that the calm and harmonious atmosphere is all because the difficult ones have been booted out, That is not always the case"

No, indeed. But it's USUALLY the case.

Yes, private schools do accommodate children with special needs. What they don't do is accommodate children from very poor families, where there is inadequate parenting and a deep disrespect and disregard for education. It is these children, more than children like my DS (who has ASD and is in a state mainstream), whose behaviour is generally the most damaging.

OP - I have a suggestion: that the most socially disadvantaged, disruptive, unsupported and difficult children (not necessarily those with diagnosed special needs) be given bursaries and accommodated by private schools.

That would take the burden off the state sector and would provide these children with the wrap around care and pastoral support that they really need that private schools regularly boast about.

Scotland is pretty much all comprehensives and with the latest Curriculum for Excellence now rolling out into the public exam years some schools have reduced subjects down to a maximum of six. They discourage doing all three sciences.

Unsurprisingly the private schools have not followed suit, thus the divide will widen. I'm fed up and would prefer a school like wordfactory describes.

OK - we need to have a look at the evidence on what is good for the MAJORITY of children, and for the country as a whole.

I personally believe that comprehensives with a representative intake of ability are best for the majority of children.

I think separating children into different schools by intellect and income is socially disastrous for the majority of children.

There is no reason comprehensives can't stream intake, allowing flexibility for children to move up and down through the streams if their performance at school improves or declines.

It would stop all this bloody grammar school bollocks of separating a small number of bright (and usually thoroughly well coached and prepared) children off from those who are marginally less bright, or (more usually) just as bright but sadly less well-prepared for testing at 11.

As I said, I do know I'm an outlier .

Mart what do I want?

Ah well...

I want my DC's schools to be independent of the state for one. I don't want their education to be led by whatever fool is the Education Minister at the time.

I want the school to be accountable first and formost to me. Not to the LEA or the state.

And actually I don't want comprehensive. I think trying to be all tings to all men is a recipe for under achievement.

Purpleroses, I meant that a random allocation of all children to schools would minimise the "state-independent ideological divide" that the OP posted about. If the OECD report is correct then this would lead to very similar results for schools across the sectors.

It wouldn't solve socio-economic inequality, no.

Maddadam - but if what you've said is right that wouldn't work at all. If the difference is all down to the home environment you'd need to swap all the kids around into different homes! (and even that wouldn't actually remove the advantages some kids get - it would just rearrange which kids get them)

Small class sizes -- we have those. Tiny primary, and undersubscribed secondary.
Homework -- fine from secondary. Reading, spelling, spot of maths also fine at primary. Anything involving hours of parental input and a dedicated construction team not fine.
Early introduction of (meaningful) language lessons -- would be nice, yes.
Daily sports oh god. No no no brings out the worst sort of bullying side in many, many children and indeed adults. Daily exercise would be good though.
exams -- if you must
high parental involvement -- well, this is something we've resigned ourselves to as more than one child has needed masses of parental support
zero tolerance discipline -- ah. You should have put that one first. I have yet to see a private school that could offer anything at all to support autistic DS, so the zero-tolerance would mean simply removing him from the first scream on day 1.

I should probably also add that yes, it is also important to me that my children's school offers them some of the rich socio-economic and ethnic diversity of the area in which they live, because I think that is rather fabulous and it would be a pity not to take advantage of it. And policies which include disabled children, and are explicitly tolerant of gay kids too.

Along with a rigorous and demanding academic curriculum and structure, obviously.

Fortunately my local authority has provided this, albeit in the form of a school which is distinctly unleafy. There aren't even any beaten-up old Volvos outside

Gunznroses- do you think it's possible that the parents marching down to the school and insisting on their child's right to be a brat is newsworthy is because it's the
exception rather than the norm?