Value added scores for independent schools

I agree with you, happygardening. Although sport, music and drama can, unfortunately, be examined, so that's your extra 2-3 subjects sorted...

Agggy I can't comment on all IGCSE examination boards but my DS is currently doing all IGCSE's and only one subject has course work which is worth 10% of the overall mark all the others are exams only satat the end of two years. Certainly from reading comments on here the MFL is considered to be significantly more rigorous and a friend says that the Cambridge IGCSE Latin in definitely more rigorous.
If I wrote that all state school do is spend their time doing crowd control stopping kids throwing chairs the the likes of Martorana would quickly attack me for making sweeping generalisations and she would be rIght. Of I said "Div" could not be replicated or be suitable in the state sector I would be accused of being elitist.
Let schools do what suits them and their pupils but I still struggle to see why many children are having their time tables filled up with 12 (I)GCSE, why can't they do 2-3 less and have more time to do sport, music, drama, (all non examined of course) Div, or how about voluntary work. Admittedly unmeasurable in terms value added scores but still of value.

If the Labour government made many museums and art galleries free-entry, and didn't close half so many libraries as the Tories, were they being anti-establishment?

Hmmm. Slow typing means I've crossed other posts and seem to be talking at cross purposes.

And how have I got myself to the position of arguing for Winchester and a coupla other places as bastions of the revolution? Since my history and reasoning are incontrovertibly correct I seem to have predicted an interesting future...

Or at least, that is the uncorrected interpretation of an awful lot of people...

You haven't yet described "real education," though, ZeroSomeGameThingy. Reading Shakespeare, finding out about Dali and listening to opera are the examples that happygardening gave, and they all sound very establishment to me. That is, for the establishment to enjoy, but not the hoi polloi. The establishment has always taken over what used to be anti-establishment, as a means of controlling it, and all those examples are safely enough in the past to be fully establishment and proud of it, now.

Ok, it's for a different thread, but across the globe, across centuries, a deeply held faith in what one might call the liberal arts has been the mainstay of the anti establishment classes. It's what the establishment stamps out first; free informed thought and speech, "the uses of literacy" close interrogation of history...

Why d'you think those things are being costed out of not just present day UK education but the entire span of life? Why do UK Conservative politicians pop up occasionally to encourage the populace into an ever greater devotion to Saturday night TV?...

It is incredibly depressing to see so many people here stating that "real education" (the sort that enables people to recognise the erosion of freedom for example) is is not for the likes of "others".

And sorry, but I really don't think someone would spend a colossal sum of money on school fees if they didn't really buy into the values of the school - why spend lots of money for your children to be taught things you disagree with? You do NOT get that sort of guaranteed commitment in a state school which contains some children whose parents don't even want them to be there.

It's not even the case that everyone has bought into the idea of 13 years of compulsory education, let alone being taught whatever a teacher fancies in div.

If you buy into something, you accept it as valid... you could always look it up in the dictionary...

Whatever their reasons for embracing those values, they are the values of the Establishment. Some people reject them purely for that reason (which is silly, but they do). Those who don't are buying into the values of the Establishment whether they mean to or not.

from a range of racial backgrounds, but their parents have all bought into the establishment in a big and expensive way.

Might I categorically state suggest that the vast majority of Plato-reading, gallery-visiting, theatre-attending, philosophy-debating families from - let's say - Iran, the West Indies, Argentina, Nigeria (especially now,) do not do those things to "buy into" the UK or European establishment . They do them and want their children to do them out of a belief in the inherent value of those activities. It would be gross (and unforgivably ignorant) to suggest otherwise.

(that was in reference to my comment about "home education" not about GCSEs versus iGCSEs...)

Lack of school homework and long summer holidays help.

As a teacher at a (very successful )state secondary one thing I would say is that the iGCSE is much easier. We constantly hear criticisms of corruption and Controlled Assessment but the iGCSE's still have coursework! We enter our weakest pupils for IGCSE because it is easier for them to get a higher grades. Until every pupil in the country takes the same exams no real comparison can be made.

And I guess I indulge in quite a lot of home education by ensuring my children are fully exposed to everything I value, regardless of what they are taught in school.

Once again I agree with rabbit. I know from my time on Mumsnet that what I value and what I want my DC to be exposed to isn't what most parents want. So I have to pay for it.

And yes, I'm sure that children at Winchester come from a range of racial backgrounds, but their parents have all bought into the establishment in a big and expensive way.

happygardening - it does rather go back, though, to the fact that not everyone is agreed on what it is most vital we expose ourselves to... You have chosen Winchester for your ds because its values mirror your values. I fear there would be a huge amount of scope for whiney parents to complain about a teacher's choice of mind-broadening subjects in a school full of children from diverse social and racial backgrounds.

....sorry - lenses, small screen etc. selective.

OP (While the world waits for Tansie to discover Advanced Search...) it's worth repeating that you're looking for the wrong thing.

Particularly at a very sective school , people aren't generally expecting value to be added - they just want their child to fulfill the potential they arrived with.

happy- with the best will in the world, many schools are trying to stop DC chucking chairs around, as it were.

I do think that by the very nature of being in a paid-for school, you have automatically shut out quite a lot of the sort of DC who certainly wouldn't benefit from 'Div'.

And few LEAs would support the channelling of cash towards such a relatively small group as those who would benefit from 'Div'. Maybe, with all due respect, if all you've known is the private sector, maybe you don't understand what state schools teach and why? And it's frankly absurd to compare WC DSs with the great mass of state school DC.

"Those who seek to learn will do it outside of school those who don't need to be guided tightly"
Utter rubbish for only a short period in our lives do we have the time to exposed to the many different things in our world. We need our schools to encourage us to be inquisitive questioning individuals who are able yo appreciate the many diverse things our world offers. This is what makes our society civilised, and how ideas are generated that will change our world. Not once have a I said Div should replace formal examination but I really struggle to see why so many children are being asked to do 12 GCSE's when they could be covering some of the subjects in a much more informal informative and enjoyable way, feeding their imaginations enabling them to think outside the box and also function more effectively in work.

I agree with you that the top third can and should 'stretch themselves' or have their parents do this for them, but what about those who don't have access to, or knowledge of wider culture. Even many of my degree-educated friends, I wouldn't call cultured in the ways being talked about.

(Not to mention the idea that the middle and bottom thirds might well enjoy this kind of stuff if exposed to it, too.)