Fed up with the education divide ?

"Most of the parents I know who don't have higher level Qualifications are far more determined for the DCs to attend Grammar or Private schools , than those with higher level Qualifications."

We'll it's a crying shame that most of them don't actually manage to get their children into such schools, then isn't it? They are largely the preserve off he privileged, educated middle classes.

Er...if that were the case the only kids in comps would be the ones with graduate parents! Don't follow your logic.

Clavinova. The point you make about most of the Mumsnet crowd who like Comprehensive schools have children who are top set in everything. Most of these parents have themselves benefited from higher or post graduate level of study and have only seen positives in the education system. In many cases they are idealists and it makes them feel all ( Cuddly and warm inside) by not labelling or segregating their kids ( Although they still want top sets) and separation. These parents feel good inside because at least their kids can play with the other kids at "Play Time"

Most parents who don't have Higher or Post Graduate Qualifications , who had ordinary educations in comprehensive schools would sell a kidney to avoid their DC having the same education.

Most of the parents I know who don't have higher level Qualifications are far more determined for the DCs to attend Grammar or Private schools , than those with higher level Qualifications.

Gunznroses- how many children in the community where you taught didn't go to school at all?

Word- I'm surprised you don't know- as interested in education as you are. It's the sort of thing I know about my children's schools off the top of my head

I don't think we need to look at 5 A* to C as such; Gov performance tables show 'expected progress' in English and maths for each demographic - low/mid/high attainers on entry and disadvantaged pupils. Even Talkin's model comprehensive school in Hampshire scores badly for the low attainers and the disadvantaged:
Percentage of low attainers making expected progress in English 50%, expected progress in maths 25%, progress of disadvantaged in English 49%, maths 35%. Offering Latin, to quote "30 of the most able and motivated students" (ie, top set clique) has little effect on raising the bar in English and maths across the board. Are comprehensive schools really any different from the grammar/secondary modern set up? We only ever hear from parents with dc in top sets, are the other parents happy?

I think there is muddled thinking within the system regarding 'opening up potential' and 'minimum attainment'.

They want everyone to do bizarre abstract maths and learn to read a 500 year old language (Chaucer) and then when they can't do it or just don't get ig, tell them they've failed.

This is what has to change and it's typical of the education system in this country, bound by its stuffy top-down class-ridden history to have these contradictions.

What we need in the real world is realistic attainment with far more opportunity for movement up, down and sideways.

Horsewater - what difference does it make wether they were encouraged to go? Are you assuming it was their parents? Many went to school because they didn't want to end up like their parents, some went because they were escorting friends to school and developed a love of learning (like my mum) some were encouraged by neighbours, how does that make them diffetent?

But then 'the system' surely has to comprise other agencies than schools? If some children struggle so much that failure is nigh-on unavoidable, it's hardly reasonable to then suggest that the failure is a problem caused by schools!

I think we also need to be clearer on what we mean by 'failure' - why, for example, would 4 A-C grades be failure and 5 not? It's pretty arbitrary, isn't it? And it's not as if 5 A-C is going to open a huge amount of doors that 4 won't - only that it alters a school's ranking!

martorana I will try to dig out that information for you.

But bear with me; I'm in Egypt with my DC . Accessing stuff is hit and miss to say the least.

nit then I think we need to be brutally honest. We need to say that the system fails DC, not because of their lack of ability, but because they are poor!

Word given that, as you said, for 'the bottom 20%' the problem is more likely to be poverty and background than just lack of intelligence, do you really not see what I'm saying?

I'm not saying rich children are cleverer; I'm saying that, in a school that selects by wealth, the very problems you have set out which prevent many children from achieving as they should, are not there.

So it's smashing that your school does well by its brightest and its least academic - but it's hardly a model that should be held up as practicable by anyone else!

Gunznroses in the developing world there are plenty of children that don't go to school, the ones you saw will be the ones that were encouraged to go. It's different in the developed world, everyone has to have a chance.

Wouldn't GCSEs be devalued if everybody passed? Wouldn't they raise the bar if that started happening?

That's my point bird. And so I think we need to question a system that allows so a high proportion ti fail, not because of their lack of ability but because of their background. That seems to me quite indefensible.

The thing is that vocational courses are as hard to achieve and involve just as much work and effort as academic courses. It's just a different kind of effort that goes in, less theoretical, more functional. That is not recognised by schools or anyone else at the moment. The system however needs also to recognise that people's brains develop until the age of about 21 and change in a multitude of ways. There is a massive firing off of new brain cells at around 15 years, which could turn any 'vocational' student into an Oxford potential.

So great to have vocational validation and a little bit of streaming (within schools please) but it needs to be always considered that children's skills and abilities aren't determined at year 7 and will not always continue on that path. Things change and there needs to be flexibility.

I also agree with a lot of Gove's ideas, particularly with limiting tiering -which in my opinion is a bizarre hangover of the class system, forcing the average student into a pit they will never get out of.

However the competitive model that schools and parents subscribe to needs to be turned upside down to allow for true progress for all children.

The inclusion movement has had a massive effect in schools and really forced schools to re-think their attitudes and allow a child-led system to develop. When it began they were all thought of as slightly awkward lunatics but it really has shaken schools up and destabilise their top-down attitude.

I schooled in a third world country, the chikdren from the poorest backgrounds were some of the highest attainers, their oarents were illiterate. No one expected these kids to fail just because they didn't have electricity, water, walked miles to school etc, the same standards were expected of everyone (rightly or wrongly) these children were very high achievers. The reason for low attainment in this country is not because they are "poor" it is because of low ambition, nanny state ethos, where nobody has to take responsibility for themself. With the exception of children with SN/LD, the poor children don't achieve because no one expects them to, quite evident here. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to achieve 5Cs.

"juggling there is no selection by ability. The wptsit report confirms that the spread is very mixed with a normal proportion of low attainers at 11."

What %, out of interest? And what's the measure of "low ability?

Lots of special schools have closed which means that the students with Global Learning Difficulties are now in mainstream. Students with IQs below a certain level may struggle to get 5 GCSEs.

"There are several posters saying that a 40 percent failure rate is acceptable because those 40 percent don't have the ability. Apparently that group are well served by other qualifications. So everyone's happy."

I do think that is rather a simplistic way summing up of the discussion.

What has been said repeatedly by some is that the comprehensive model is failing because there is a group of children who do not get the magic 5. And that the private/selective model is succeeding because 100% do. Which is a bizarre argument to put it mildly.

Obviously, we need to be addressing the children who for whatever reason are not going to get the 5. But insisting they do GCSE history is not the way forward. What do people suggest is?

But private school does imply money, and thus a certain minimum of parental or home support on top of whatever the school is providing. Although it may take in children with a wide range of native intellect (for want of a better phrase), it doesn't suggest an intake simultaneously struggling with the effects of poverty and poor housing -- factors outside the school's control.

nit so you think all the girls will be clever just because their parents are rich?

juggling there is no selection by ability. The wptsit report confirms that the spread is very mixed with a normal proportion of low attainers at 11.

1. 40% not getting A*-C is not the same as 'a 40% failure rate'
2. Am not sure where this much-cited 40% comes from anyway
3. Am not sure anyone's said that acceptable because 40% don't have the ability
4. Still not sure what the private school has to do with anything. Are they going to be taking in any of that 40%?

Nope, I understand perfectly well thanks. There are several posters saying that a 40 percent failure rate is acceptable because those 40 percent don't have the ability. Apparently that group are well served by other qualifications. So everyone's happy.

So in fact your dd's school only has children who are capable of getting 5 GCSE's at A-C wordfactory

I would say this might be a sign that there has in fact been some selection by ability at some point, and the school does not actually admit across the whole ability spectrum, including those with SEN ?

You can comprehend that some children won't get 5 A*-Cs without 'dismissing' them!

And so if their problem isn't low ability but poverty and background, then how is it relevant what a private school does for children who are lower ability than others there but not, obviously, struggling with 'poverty and background'?