How can state school parents try & bridge the educational gap that's rapidly forming?

[Kenthighst]

Following on from the excellent thread regarding the shambles of state education. What can us parents do to bridge the gap? Our state school children are being failed & we are being kept in the dark.
What can be done outside school to bridge the gap that has formed between state & private?

Encourage your children to be self motivated and study hard.

Some state schools may do the bare minimum but the internet is a vast resource if used well.

My child loves learning so I’m not worried. Those who aren’t self motivated to do well or have barriers to learning I feel sorry for. So grateful I don’t have a child with additional needs and feel sad for those that do, as they’re being failed by the system.

Private tutoring
Tutor them yourself
Use resources on internet
Books, Books , Books
Ensure basic maths skills are up to scratch before they enter secondary school. They should know their tables, practise them daily.
Check school syllabus find resources / past papers etc

My DCs went to decent schools but they still required help

How old is your child, @LoadsToLose? My DC used to love learning too but has had it pretty much knocked out of them by their experience of secondary education (doing GCSEs this year). Hopefully yours will have a different experience.

At Primary level, read with your children. Read to them, and listen to them read to you, over and over.

At Secondary level, what the poster above said in terms of encouragement. Also, I'd say, find out what's on their syllabus, and talk to them about it. Maybe read the books that they're reading in English. Take them on relevant trips - ie the Imperial War Museum. Support their extra-curricular interests. Fight to make sure that they get the extra time they need, if they qualify (and because everything takes so long, start early - so not the term they're also taking their GCSEs.) And, if you can afford it, tutoring boosts if and where necessary (which means you need to know what your DC are achieving in their tests, so you can see if they suddenly begin to struggle in, say, maths.)

9 years old… yes it’s very possible this might happen! Luckily secondary school is a good one but still state school with all the pressures

We are seeing a LOT of emotionally based school avoidance- the schools can’t cope. It’s a sudden explosion in need and schools can’t meet the increased need

Not a great deal more than good parents can already do tbh. Supporting reading and curiosity about the world, helping with homework, encouraging extra curricular activities, etc.

Beyond that it will come down to time and money - factors which for try e less well off are often indirect competition with each other.

My DC's education suffered because of Covid. Because they were bright and I have always supported their education they came out with a good set of GCSEs above average anyway, but I'm under no illusions that they would have got better than that had they been in private schools. It's not that the quality of the teachers or lessons are better, it's the resources put in to support them, the smaller class sizes, etc. Anyone with an average child who doesn't misbehave is just ignored in state schools where in a class of 32 students teachers inevitably have to concentrate on those who are struggling/disruptive.

Mine is still in reception but we have had a reading chest subscription for a year which has been brilliant. The books from school are dreadful and of a low level (they aren't apparently allowed to give harder books than the sounds they have been taught) so this gives her interesting books of an appropriate level.
Plus we do a maths worksheet each night.

Not vote Tory!

Private tutoring. My kid's school is absolutely lovely and a great environment, but it's basically childcare. They do the basics, but they're not going to get them the grades they need to go to university for example, unfortunately. We have an absolutely fantastic tutoring company who work with all three of my kids to "top up" what they're not learning at school. The kids love it, they've got an interest in learning and it's improved their grades. It's a win win win win win!

You need to ensure you give them the soft skills at home, the book learning aspect is down to whether they concentrate at school (I do advise buying study guides). My dd told me that she was far better prepared than some of her state school colleagues because we took her to cultural attractions, discussed politics and current affairs, had formal dinner parties that they took part in, diverse music exposure. She's a state educated female officer in the armed forces but these non education aspects helped her a lot. Even playing golf

I was going to hire private tutors, but dc prefers to work with me and I am actually perfectly capable because of my own qualifications. We are in year 9 and nothing has stumped me yet. How much work that involves has varied year to year depending on the quality and teaching style of her teachers.

Don’t vote Tory.

Be intelligent yourselves

That is the biggest factor in terms of a child’s attainment

At home:
Read, read, read. My parents had thousands of books at home, weekly trips to the library, watched adaptations on TV with us and audio books in the car.

Clubs - think outside of the box. We went to Badgers (junior St John's Ambulance), learned emergency health care, communication such as morse code and semaphore, and lots about the human body. Plus Young Archaeologists Club, learned loads about history.

At school - you might not be able to afford private, but if all the parents who could gave £500 directly to their primary school, it would make a huge difference. Much more efficient than having a PTA scrabbling round for fundraising all year - the same people can be making experiences happen.

Tbh when I did GCSEs/a levels several decades ago, I had to get the syllabus for subjects...BUT...I was allowed to take the course books home and then make my own notes from it. I have commented on the other thread about how learning resources didn't align with teacher expectations of model answer...where do you go from that?
I have looked at the resources indicated by the school and there is no clear references made to which parts of the syllabus the resource covers and as I already have a full time job, going through this would be painful and incredibly time consuming and am I going to do that for 8/9 subjects...no. I feel more help could be given to parents who want to support their children in terms of this.

Speak for yourself op but my kids are not being failed.

I think we ought to refrain from making massive generalisations and recognise that, despite funding cuts, COVID, attendance and shitty parenting, some schools are going over and above, staffed with some of the best trained teachers in the world.

I'm sorry for those who aren't as lucky - I'm hoping for better times ahead just as you are.

Some of the posters clearly have primary aged children. State primary is generally fine. That's why so many parents move to private in secondary. Peer becomes so important when they are teens. I have one in KS3 and I don't know what you can do to encourage. She used to read a lot and has now stopped. Her school performs very well academically and they very high expectation of homework already. DC tells me about disruptions from some of her classmates regularly. They only set for Maths and DC says that class is very quiet.

The nearby school where the other half of my DC's primary friends go to is very different. They don't get any homework in KS3 and they get much lower progress 8 and GCSE results. (They are still lovely kids. It's not a terrible state school). But if no one is doing homework, and the school sets a low expectation, it's much harder for a parent to change it.

@NotAPsycho only KS3 and I have noticed what DC was taught at school does not line up with any of the revision books I can find. They get tests at the end of each module. But I also have no idea how parents can set revision material to help their children study for them.

I'm hoping the actual GCSE years become easier because the school will cover material much more closely aligned to the exam board.

Access to arts and music as many secondary schools are dropping them. Can be anything they like - drama, drawing, museum visits, playing their own instrument, dancing - arts are shown time and again to be fantastic for mental health, creative thinking (essential in many areas of engineering and tech), building confidence and also just enjoyable.

Look for the free clubs, the under 25s groups, the workshops and encourage your child to have a go.

Check on school work. Ask them to show you the test and check where their issues are. Nothing is worse than gaps being not acknowledged.

I know that homework in primary is not seen fashionable but I found it's a great way to see what they learn and also if they are not keeping up.
Time tables is a must, easy to practice with lots of apps or websites.

It also means they are already used to some work at home so when secondary school hits and they are required to do homework/revisions/pre-learning they are not totally overwhelmed.

If you can't help them, get a tutor. DD was a typical middle child in primary, often overlooked as not the top 5% but not disruptive. So her maths issues grew and grew. 1/2 year tutoring and the problems were gone.

Go and do things with them, museums, galleries, encourage additional reading to school topics.

Read to your child even when they can read on their own, discuss their books with them, take them to plays.

Use a holiday for more than staying at an AI resort.

Yes, I agree. I think UK state primaries are often rather good. My kids emerged from a low scoring primary with a love of learning as well as the fundamentals. The problem is secondary, how you keep that spark alive through GCSEs and what you do when they are two thirds of the way through their GCSE course and you discover they haven’t had a specialist teacher in their subject for 6 months….
(Ironically we chose their secondary very carefully and it gets great Ofsted results, whereas the primary was just the one that had space when we moved here.)

This is my concern. My dc are moving towards secondary, we are not in a grammar & the many local privates near us are unaffordable so my only option barr homeschooling is to try & plug the gaps myself.
We have to remember our dc will still be competing with the private schools for uni places they will all sit the same exams.
The only thing for it is to try & use hometime to do as much as possible to emulate what the private schools do.

My ds went to a state primary and then an indie senior school on a scholarship.
He loved primary up until year 5 but then became bored, angry and frustrated because the teachers focused on getting the weaker pupils through SATs. So maybe keep an eye out for that.

Then:
Books - public library & regular trips to Smiths/Waterstone. We also had a class whatsapp group for swapping books.
Applying what they learn. Get your dcs involved in everything from cooking & the temperature of the oven, shopping (budgets) through checking tyre pressures, to using a cheap bike computer ( £10 online).
Understanding how to grow plants - water, light, warmth etc. Grow some tomato plants against a wall.
Geography - get an old fashioned Ordnance Survey map and explore your area during the Easter holidays. Show them how to read a map, different symbols, gradients, water etc.
I bought DS a second hand weather station off Gumtree and he plotted the weather through Xmas & new year.
Strategy - chess, sudoku, crosswords, scrabble,

Arts - look up the local theatre & arts companies. See what they have organised for the holidays.

Get them involved in as much as possible. Ask their opinion.

I know ppl won't like this but:

• get rid of your TV or put it somewhere so they have very limited access to it
• anything with screens that isn't being used for learning to be not be allowed before a certain age - no earlier than 12
• prioritise learning and reading and engage with the children

without 'easy entertainment' children will have no choice but to read extensively due to boredom. and once they make a habit of reading, they won't stop.

my parents were very strict and I don't agree with all aspects of how they parented me but the best thing they did for me was not allow access to TV until I was 12 (even then it was extremely limited). so I just read obsessively and it made learning at every stage of my life so much easier.