White British pupils underperforming because of parents

To be honest I'm not surprised. White working class kids are massively anti-intelligence and anti education as a rule. It comes from out 'us and them' English management style, compounded with class , and crappy twat culture where being the thickest and worst behaved is positive. Sadly this is compounded by girls in school who often reward 'bad boys' with notoriety and attention (of course this could also be a political tactic to increase relative grades). It better to be a drop out working for cash and fags, than to be a conformist.

The question is about how useful education is certainly when I was at school working class white kids saw no value in education relative to work, apart from minimum grades. Even then some bright kids rebelled and had to resit with their employer or at college.

Clearly we need to be looking at what Chinese girls are doing, because poor or not they seem to be miles ahead.

The schooling they get will be exactly the same. The variable will be the parents. And I must say that as a rule Chinese parents tend to be very driven and will push their children very hard.

Having been educated both in England and in a European School, I was able to witness first hand the different expectations of teacher input vs. parent input in several countries. My DD is at a school where parents hail from many different countries and it is also palpable that parents have wildly different expectations, according to their own cultures, of their input versus that of the teachers.

I think that in England we tend to expect teachers to work harder than parents and perhaps even than pupils at education. This is not at all true in many countries, where pupils and their parents are expected to work much harder than teachers. I'm not sure why we have got to a point where so much is expected of teachers.

ZedWoman it's very much my experience that PP is used for tuition; my DD and DS have both been part of intervention groups for more able children which was paid for using PP money; the school publish detailed reports of how PP is spent and it's available to parents of children in receipt of PP.

Twelly My children's schools publish the PP spending on the website. The biggest expenditure is on extra teaching assistants.
I can't comment on the quality at the secondary school as my kids are in top sets but my son in primary has had intervention lessons from TAs. He currently has spelling and handwriting help while his class are at assembly. The other days they do maths, reading and literacy. He is in y5 and there are 10 ish in each class and 60 in the year.
In y4 he went to spelling, literacy and phonics help. In y3 he went to extra phonics and literacy.
As a sceptic I believe that SATs are a major reason for these interventions but my son is now a free reader with pretty good handwriting so I'm very grateful.

I'm not sure about 'feminisation'. As far as I know girls have ALWAYS done better than boys, but in he past were held back (eg by 11+ pass scores being higher for girls, or parents not paying privately for girls, or being barred from university).

Here is the table I couldn't find earlier. Ignore the fact that the article is headlined about "poor white boys" and look at the two tables in the middle. It's not just about the poor white boys, they just happen to be at the very bottom of the league.

The pupil premium may in some cases be spent on tuition but in many it is used for additional settling time/experiences in for year 7 pupils, incentives to motivate, additional laptops etc. This is spent on those pp pupils which is the rule I believe. My point is that this has meant that there is more focus upon those groups and I do no think this raises standards. In addition the narrowing of the gaps between special need/ethnic groups and other pupils has means that the focus is on those groups. There has been a focus on making the lower group average not improving the average. It seems that a vast amount of support is in place to support certain groups but not the majority.

If children are doing better up to the age of 5, then surely it is schools that are lettingt the kids down

I teach reception. There is a girl in my class who speaks three languages. Her English is good, not that of a native speaker, but good.
There are a couple of children who are white-British who couldn't string a sentence together of more than three words. One wasn't entirely sure of his name. No SN that have yet been diagnosed, and I can't foresee there being any. Simply that no one has bothered to have a conversation with them.

My dd recently sat GCSE English, early and obtained an A in lit and A* in language. She had about 45% attendance and is on PP and has extra time for exams etc. She had been predicted a D. She got no help from school they wrote her off. DD is determined and we'll into junior school was from a A type social group. DD was cultured and had private tutors, homeschooled etc. We are probably now E type social group. Her teachers didn't know her history and wrote her off. DD wasn't written off at home and had an advantage during the start of life. I think school is part of the problem.

Children in receipt of PP funding have been the 'focus' since 2010.

..and those from ethnic minorities are more likely to be low income and hence receipt PPF

My friends moved from Poland about 10 years ago, they have built up a business that doesn't earn much but pays their rent. They have 2 dc and receive or at least did receive tax credits.
They pay a proportion of school fees but were state school until recently.
The children are usually working and their mum doesn't agree with them doing nothing.
They get down time but they have to work hard, it's expected of them.
The eldest received mostly A* at GCSE and along with her native Polish learned 2 languages at school, and another 4 privately outside school that friends taught her for free.
The girl has about 15 GCSE all together and will no doubt gain top marks at A level too.
I'm not saying the mum is right but she pushes like mad and expects the best at all times.

twelly do you have any idea about he grilling that a school's PP co-ordinator and nominated governor are put through by an Ofsted inspector? The spend of each item and it's effect on raising attainment are questioned. Why do you think it isn't used for tuition?

The focus on narrowing the gap of ethnic and special needs groups has brought down standards not raised them. If the money spent on the pupil premium was put in to tuition rather than trips to theme parks and additional fun activities then it would benefit more pupilss

My belief is that 'minority groups' have in thepast been targeted as prioities in schools.

Children in receipt of PP funding have been the 'focus' since 2010. The only 'minority group' which receives any sort of local focus is Travellers.

I taught in inner-city London between 2000 & 2004. White working class boys were the underachieving group in that school at that time.

I now teach in a rural school. We. Have very little ethnic diversity other than new eastern-European immigrants. 40% PP students and low parental interest.

Our biggest issue is PP boys

I don't think that boys' behaviour is worse than girls' in my school. In fact, the poorly behaved girls are vile, compared to the poorly behaved boys. One or two Ks4 girls are really quite unpleasant - rude, entitled, full of the unfairness of life (when asked to get away from the mirror and go to lesson/put phones away/put ties on) Their attitudes are not something they've learned at school. That much is clear from conversations with their parents.

"Educate the parents is the obvious answer. Would they engage? Not the ones here they wouldn't, no bloody chance"

I reckon they would if you increased child benefit but only made it payable if parents fully attended parenting courses and passed a test at the end...

If children are doing better up to the age of 5, then surely it is schools that are lettingt the kids down

I don't think so. It's the gap between kids who are native speakers of English and those who are not, which of course closes with relative ease as the non-English natives are immersed in English.

Oops.

Yep, definitely not the parents fault at all, how could it possibly be that they would be the biggest influence over their children...

Yep, definitely not pate