A specialist maths school in every city

Errol

My point is that the model works and there are thousands not hundreds that benefit.
These schools also have a catchment area of The world, however, if we were to limit the schools specialising in Maths and STEM to UK children then we would be able to produce the finest scholars able to compete on a global scale.
So it would only take the same percentage of children as the Arts schools to make such a difference.

There's a big difference though, in that the supply of dedicated, talented pupils for those schools, and the demand for their output (how many ballet dancers are there in the country?) is miniscule compared to STEM.

The Royal Ballet School, Brit school and all the other specialist schools do attract the best teachers in the business though.
They are world famous in most cases, not just the best the LA has to offer.
To attract these teachers there needs to be kudos from gaining a teaching position there, like teaching the most talented and dedicated students who show potential.
I think as the schools specialising in the Arts have been established for many years now the government should use the same model as it works and is fully inclusive for all.

And where are all these maths teachers coming from?

I think a lot of maths and science graduates are put off teaching because they do not have either the skill set or desire to stand in front of 30 children who could not care less about learning maths or science and teach them maths or science.

It does not mean those same people would not have the skill set or desire to teach maths or science to enthusiastic A level students who they could inspire to look at the subject in more depth than the syllabus required.

By comparison, if you closed down the Royal Ballet School or the Brit School, you would not suddenly get more PE and drama teachers spread out over the other schools in the area. A lot of teachers want to specialise. It is just, for some reason, specialist schools in art have existed for years and become acceptable whereas specialist schools in maths have only just been introduced.

I think if there were fewer schools offering specialist Maths or STEM than the proposed every city and the school managed as a private school with charitable status, offering boarding, then they would attract not only the best teachers to the schools but leaders in the field to become an associate of the school.

I agree though the student would have to be sure it was what they wanted to do, be very able and show potential.

The government should offer the same scheme to Maths/ STEM as they do for Music, Dance and Drama.

And where are all these maths teachers coming from? It's a struggle getting teachers who can do Further Maths as it is.
We have SCITT trainees in Science every year, in the 10 years I've been there we've never had a Physics specialist.

I would guess that a large part of the success of the KCL school is its close association with a uni of the calibre of KCL, plus the large pool of potential students in london. They have to be not only able, but be very sure thats's the path they want to take - no chance of swapping a subject in the first term of yr 12 there, or starting 4 or 5 with more doors kept open. It might be possible to replicate, more or less, in large urban centres with a good university but there are going to be large swathes of the country where this is unlikely to be feasible.

I wonder if this isn't going to be just the same as the specialist college status that high schools used to have.
They did no more than any other school except the named subject happened to have a teacher who was actually qualified in the subject they taught.
My ds1 went to a sports college, the PE teacher was a normal PE teacher and they did actually do PE rather than sometimes have a different subject teacher to cover. The standard was no better than any other school.
My ds 2 school ws a technology college, pretty much the same too, except the named subject was compulsory at GCSE.

That makes the problem of where the maths and physics teachers come from even worse, doesn't it?

I'm a bit unclear - a college for high achieving maths/students (which is what some of you seem to be talking about) isnt necessarily the same thing as 'technical training'. That piece seems to be talking about 'technical routes' which are currently lower status than university graduates. I fully agree that 'technical routes' should be valued (more than random degree) but is this also supposed to cater for the kids who top grades to get onto good MEng courses?

The one in Exeter works excellently. The students who get into it have to be very keen and able at maths.
I think it could well encourage more graduates into teaching, as some, who lack the management skills required for general teaching, may well thrive teaching higher level maths to enthusiastic sixth form students.
They also run outreach classes for younger students.
The one thing I would alter is for it to teach all the stem subjects and so include chemistry and biology as well as maths, physics and IT.

Sounds good in theory I guess, but I'd like to know where they're going to get all these maths and science teachers from Apparently my sons school can't recruit them for love or money! According to the head they've been advertising for a maths teacher for 3 months and have had not one enquiry

Not terribly clear what they mean at the moment.

I'm guessing that by maths they mean STEM, but what happens if you want to do a mix, maybe maths, FM, economics and history? Or is it going to be a full sixth form which just happens to have a good enough maths department to offer several maths A levels?

Given both the raising of the participation age, and the demographic bulge that's been stressing younger-age school entry points, it does make sense to increase sixth form provision when there's still time to do so in a planned (rather than last-minute) way.

So it's a good thing there will be more places. It's a good thing to champion STEM. We have to wait and see what these colleges (and their entry procedures) will actually be like.

Bloody irritating to link it to BREXIT, though.

We looked at 4 comps for our son, and none of them made any provision for high achieving maths pupils. The best a couple could come up with was that they could do the UK Maths Challenge, the others just shrugged their shoulders. None of the 4 did further maths at GCSE. This kind of initiative has the potential to be popular and successful if done right.

It might at least partly compensate if they also took students from other schools or sixth form colleges for FM, STEP or extension classes in younger years.