Fed up with the education divide ?

I Have a "City and Guilds in TRAVEL AND TOURISM" Level 2 COTAC and I was Licensed to issue AIR TICKETS , you used to need to have passed an exam with 85% ( Believe it or not in 1991) and at the time you needed to know 135 Air Tickets. You needed to understand how they were distinct from each other and by able to advise clients/Customers which Ticketing Code was right for them.

The daft thing Is I started to write this post as a Joke, but I have just realised that 85% and understanding 135 different Air Ticketing codes Is actually not an easy thing to do.

At the time in the early 1990s City and Guilds as well as Btecs actually provided students with skills that made them employable and in "MANAGEMENT POSITIONS AS WELL"
The Whole emphasis has changed but that's not to say if properly used and not seen as (DUMPING GROUNDS ) for thick students City And Guilds and Btecs could not provide the same today.

Talkinnpeace sorry but i did not understand your second paragraph about seeing threads on MN about comps? Were you mistakenly referencing me? I wouldn't naturally expect lots of threads about kids entering comps as they're not selective. Entering comps isn't the problem, it's being in the catchment of a good comp that's the issue.

I don't see how you can say that most people do not have access to a good enough comp.

Schools drastically influencing house prices.
Parents moving from where they've happily lived for yrs simply to be near 'good comp'.
People moaning on MN about catchments, schools failing their children etc
Grammar area filled with parents tutoring thir kids to get into the grammar.
Non grammar area filed with parents tutoring thir kids to get into indies.
Gove trying to "improve/restructure education as opposed to simply maintaining the current system.
Personally i don't know anyone (except 3 friends all in catchment for outstanding school, and moved their just befire dc started yr 6) happy with their local comp, they simply shrug and hope it all turns out for the best.

Maybe the C&G exams were forgotten because they were judged inadequate for the modern world. I don't know.
LOL
you clearly have no idea what C&G are
they are alive and well and still highly respected

if you do not know what they are, you have no right to comment on vocational qualifications and the appropriateness of GCSEs to all people

For what I know BTECs are equivalent of A levels, so presumably they were designed with a view that everyone should get GCSEs. Maybe the C&G exams were forgotten because they were judged inadequate for the modern world. I don't know.

You need to decide what level of education is appropriate for a citizen that has the right to vote, to elect politicians which will define the future of their children, decide on euthanasia, cyber-surveillance, unmanned killing drones, climate change. They are already buying Google class. These kids will need to understand what is going on. Otherwise you kill democracy by ignorance.

You can't have a system with 60% success rate. It is not a good benchmark in any industry.

You can't have a system where 40% of 14-16 years old spend 2 year frustrated at school and get out with nothing to become NEETs. These two years put them off learning and hard work and undermine their employ-ability. At 16 people should have some sense of self worth, some qualifications, something they are good at that they can use directly on the job market, in further education, something respected and accepted.

If 20% they can't pass GCSEs, they should be doing BTECs at 14, not after GCSEs. After all the taxpayers are paying for 2 years of study and that should not go to waste.

Then GCSE should be the universal exams at 14? Then you separate into vocational and academic streams. 6th form would then be 4 years.

Gunznroses
The school catchment I live in is dire : but its a sponsored Academy so will be protected by the powers that be.

You do not hear lots of threads about people getting into comps around most of the country because in this county over 90% get their first choice - even when like me its not the catchment school

I don't see how you can say that most people do not have access to a good enough comp.

(Any is too many, of course. )

Gunznroses - I wonder?

I know there are many under-perfoming and undesirable schools (not just comps as it happens!) and here on MN we tend to hear, naturally, from parents who are not happy because they don't have good available options, parents who are assuming, on little evidence, that high FSM / EAL will lead to a situation in which their sensitive child will be 'eaten alive', parents busting a gut to get into a super selective, sometimes 'just because it is there' or parents agonising about whether to send a child to a private school, possibly for the same reason - and parents whose child is having a bad time. Sometimes in a comp, sometimes in another kind of school.

We don't hear from the great swathes of parents quietly appreciative of good comps the length and breadth of the land.

DD1's school has 40 per cent eligible for FMS pupil premium; last year's percentage of students getting five A*-C including English and Maths was 68 per cent, and it's on a sharp upward curve.

I think the bottom line is on average most people do not have access to a good enough comp. Its not that there aren't any, it's that its a lottery to find yourself in the catchment for one.

I don't want to have to move here and there to be in the right catchment, i want to know that wherever I choose to live the nearest school is "good enough" and i put thst in quotes because everyone's idea of a good school is different.

DS's comp:

24% FSM

NOT LEAFY. NO SPECIALISM. NO SCHOLARSHIPS

24.3% FSM
75% % GCSE A-C incl Maths and English
Best 8 VA: 1013.9 overall.
1027 - low attainers
1014 - middle attainers
1011 - high attainers

VanillaChocolate - I don't think it is fair to say that a system that does not produce 100% 5 GCSEs A-C incl maths and english amongst an intake which reflects the fuill range of ability is failing. The GCSE bands now encompass everything from what was a Grade 1 O level to a grade 5 CSE in old money. Many schools where students do not get 5 A-C get good BTecs and other quallifications and come out of school employable, trainable, further educatable. And in a proper comp, performing well, they will be supported to meet potential, not languish in a bottom set headed straight for NEET. In a school like DS's a child who went ito Yr 7 n with average SATS scores can easily end up in top sets and working at a high level. I have seen this happen in DS's year.
Except that most of the primary schools which surround this comp are also performing v well so children go in well prepared.

horsewater how would merging state and private education give vocational subjects the same status as academic subjects? I genuinely don't understand. State education at the moment is not exclusively one or the other.

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/aug/05/gcse-exams-tiering-michael-gove

Some of Gove's reforms are quite good and do benefit mobility. I truly believe his heart is in the right place and his intention is to allow movement from the bottom up Pupils are completely restricted by their background while schools stream them and limit them with tiering.

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/aug/05/gcse-exams-tiering-michael-gove

The only problem is his goal model is the private school and that still creates segregation and limitation.

If he could only give vocational subjects the same status as academic subjects by merging state and private education we might be onto a winner.

Of course everyone needs basic education, but GCSEs go too far into each subject for a lot of students. They should reach a certain stage in core subjects by the end of year 10 and then be allowed to drop them to focus on courses they enjoy.

Our current system is still modelled on the class system where some achieve and others doff their caps to the high achievers, accepting second place. In Germany they have a kind of segregation between the academic and vocational but it is a genuine choice and both sides are as respected as each other.

Vanilla
but the skills for care home workers and labourers are best assessed with C&G exams or Btecs, not GCSEs
only the narrow minded selective school fans cannot see the blindingly obvious
The Ebacc is not an appropriate measure for many children
it will not give them the skills they need for life

its a shame that C&G exams are not better known by the chattering classes, because they are great.

Talking,

I understand now that you are not a teacher. I don't mean to be personal.

However the attitude that a basic level of secondary education is an elite skill only attainable to the selected few must be a legacy of Victorian time. In a modern society people need skills. There aren't jobs for people without any qualifications in a global technological world.

Even for the most manual jobs you need enough maths ans science to understand health and safety. To wipe bottoms in a care home you need to be able to read a lot of policies and regulations (to prevent malpractice).

So the idea that we should move the goal post to the point where most fail is really staggering (and call this increasing standards). It helps those in public schools to compete for places at Oxbridge, but otherwise it is a catastrophic economic policy in a globalized world in 21 century.

You need to move the teaching, the curriculum and the assessment, and of course the resources to the place where everyone can succeed. Otherwise you will be paying for lack of education through benefits, prisons, NHS etc.

If you believe some 20% cause most problems, nationalise public schools and put those 20% there and see what happens. It will come out chipper at the end.

Certainly there are no other developed country where 40% failure is considered a success.
ROTFLMAO
the definition of "success" just gets altered till enough people are seen to succeed.

Have you ever darkened the door of a set 6 group for maths in a comp that does not select in any way shape or form?

or are you actually Chloe74 back under a new name ?

Mortorana,

Yes, I do think you can teach anyone without profound learning difficulties the GCSE curriculum in 5 subjects.

They do get that in other countries. Certainly there are no other developed country where 40% failure is considered a success.

UK maths curriculum lags more than a year being the German, the Dutch and the French by the way. They manage to teach it to much higher proportion of population. Unless the Brits are exceptionally stupid...

You say : "So the system sets them up for failure."
I agree. The system should be designed in a way that 100% get basic expected satisfactory level of secondary education.

Of course that means really reforming the system and looking at teaching methods, curriculum, assessment methods.

Leafiness again...

I feel like handing out tickets to DD1's school, Blu's DS's school and a number of other schools. Not a sodding leaf to be seen.

The trouble is that some of you are looking at this county's comprehensive system through rose-tinted glasses; your children are attending excellent comps - many in nice, leafy areas, or at least not truly representative of your local area or a fully comprehensive intake. Take marmite55 for example (apologies, but you did mention the name of your daughter's school on another thread and its 550 uniform). This particular girls' only 'comp' has a language specialism and 'selects' 10% on language aptitude, it has a sibling policy and then a 'fair banding' policy with a 75% inner catchment area. Gov performance tables show its intake as 63% high ability and its 5 GCSEs inc English and Maths was 91% - fantastic - however, the 5 GCSEs inc English and Maths for your local authority as a whole was a shameful 44.1%. Do the parents at all the other comps in your local authority think their children go to a good school?

I used a private school for my sons from 3 - 11. If the private schools had ben banned I'd have spent the £100k or there about the fees cost to move into the catchment of the very best state school I could find, thus depriving someone else of places. As an alternative I could have home educated with specialist additional tutors in Maths and languages, that would have taken me out of the economy and be something of a waste of my own education which the state paid a lot for ( Uni days were pre fees and when grant were paid). I'm sad that an independent education is now less available t all but the very rich.

Just read this:
because quite a few kids have physical and physiological and neurological differences that mean they will never pass GCSEs

This is really hogwash. SN pupils are easily used to explain away failure. but this is just a cynical distortion and denial of responsibility.

Don't tell me about SN, I have two DC with statements doing very well.
In good schools, kids with SN do as well as the normal once. It is when the school is crap that SN children are blamed for the failure. DC with SN struggle when their needs are not met.

If you struggle with some SN kids, you should be calling Educational Psychologists and what'it specialists to diagnose them properly and to fight for proper SN provisions and resources for them. You fail those pupils and you fail other pupils and your community if you don't. This attitude is just discrimination.

It is staggering that schools fight against parents when they request statements, but blame those SN kids for school failure. Clearly if these kids with SN get their needs met, there will be nobody to blame and nowhere to hide.

Vanilla- are you saying that all children are capable of getting 5 GCSEs at A*-C with English and Maths?

"Why is it OK to explain away the failure by blaming 'low attainers'. This must be rooted in Victorian disdain for the undeserving poor."

No. I am not explaining away failure. I am saying that if the benchmark is 5 GCSEs a*-c with English and maths, there are plenty of kids who, while capable of doing and achieving many things could not reach that target in a month of Sundays. So the system sets them up for failure.

I'm not a teacher.
What ever gave you that idea
Gove is definitely an arse though because he does not use evidence based decision making.
In my line of work its essential.