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?

I think within the context of the thread - i.e. that schools are increasingly unable to even fully cover what is expected of them, dont have teachers etc - quite a lot of the support is probably actually about covering what the school is meant to be doing but cant

But none of us need school to give us a list to do this. The national curriculum is online and maps out what's typically covered by age. Remember that not all children are the same so just because a topic is in Year 2, doesn't mean all Year 2 children will master it. Some will be working lower and some will be working higher because there's a range of abilities.

What's better for my child educationally:

• me worrying that school haven't given me a list of topics for this term and getting annoyed?
• me looking at the national curriculum document online if I want to, having some age-appropriate games (most have a suggested range), some workbooks for their age (maybe lower or higher based on me knowing my child), and just support them developing mathematically?

It really makes no difference if I look at fractions in September with my child but they don't do fractions until March. It doesn't matter if my child enjoys times tables so we learn some from an older year group. They're developing mathematically in a way that's right for them as an individual.

I think the syllabus has changed quite a bit.
I loved the Letts books too and crammed from them. I've had two go through GCSE now and I don't think there's anything out there that's as good.

@NotAPsycho ,

‘I have never told you how to teach, I have said how schools and teachers can enable parents to help support for those years where their content doesn't match a study guide for that subject because the school has chosen their own content.’

But why do you think you know better than the school and teachers how to enable parents to best support their child’s learning? Teachers have a degree in their subject and a year’s postgraduate study. They are also constantly learning as they progress, Good teachers spend an awful lot of time thinking about how best to achieve progress for their pupils, and this goes far beyond what they do in the lesson. There are trade offs between lesson planning, marking, assessment, pastoral support etc etc.

And those teachers who don’t understand how to achieve compromise in the above may be fantastic but normally burn out and leave the profession within the first five years,

I am not convinced the kind of list you want would be helpful. What would you do with it? How would a list of what your pupil is covering help you to support them ?

But your kids don't need to know about vikings. It's a nice to have but they're never going to find that they struggle in life having never studied vikings. Most primary topics will be like that. In some respects I think it might be better not to have to learn about vikings in school because having to write about vikings is so much duller than visiting vikingy places.
If you have days out and trips here and there it's pretty impossible to not stumble across Vikings at some point and learn a little about them as you go.
Visit Holy island? There's the Vikings.
York? Vikings, plus lots of lovely Tudor architecture and a motte and bailey castle. What is a motte and bailey castle? Your child might wonder and what are the other types of castles? Then suddenly you're off visiting castles and then stumbling over other interesting things on your travels.

Google national curriculum. Job done.

There's some pretty good stuff to see in Denmark! A bit pricey though. I think this was far more interesting to my DC but also their heritage 😆

What's to say that I don't have the same qualifications as some of the teachers? Plus from experience and other threads, it is not necessarily the case that teachers have degrees in the subjects taught.
My point is that as the schools SMEs for the content the school has decided to teach, teachers can better enable parents to support the DC at home than each parent going off and trying to work it out for themselves and in doing so that should lessen the load on the teachers more long-term. I don't need a teacher to teach me, I need the relevant information to reinforce what has attempted to be taught in what might be a very disruptive environment.
I used the notes from a different school and asked my DC about them eg how would do this? What does this terminology mean? Do you know what the difference is between this or that, do you need to know how to do that? Yes? Right explain it to me, etc etc. I could also then look at their class notes and see if DC had taken good enough notes to cover what was on the knowledge organisers as a minimum and then talk to DC about how they might improve their notes.

@Kenthighst ,

‘I can ensure everything is ticked off. I can print out relevant resources online, get textbooks, get books for them in the library.
Basically I can see in say history vikings are in y4 history but my dc haven't touched vikings I can then cover with them myself at home, if school covers it great it reinforces my dc's knowledge, if school doesn't cover at least I have made an effort to plug an uncovered hole in the curriculum.’

But Is this for you or your child?

People who are desperate for these lists need to think how syllabi and schemes of work come about.

Firstly, the curriculum is what is termed ‘spiral’, so if you cover, say Energy, in Year 7, you discuss some basic concepts and understand conservation. This is then all recovered in KS4 with the addition of some basic equation and the concept of ‘work. If you go on to study it at KS5, it will be mass-energy conservation and you might need to resolve forces to work out the energy transferred. This is true in all science subjects and maths and, I think, to some extent in all subjects.

A lot of KS3 (and below) is about study skills and techniques. So, in the Viking example, children might be given two different sources and asked to compare them, or to write an essay and state their sources (literacy and vetting sources and an intro to referencing). Of course Vikings are chosen because of their perceiveD relevance and interest, But if you discussed any period in the same way with your child, you would be helping them with the same skills.

So, from your perspective, these lists are really important but, at KS3, to the school, the teacher and your child’s education, they aren’t.

@fkjekjfn9
Agree, it was pulling teeth trying to get sense out of the school as to what exactly they were covering or learning.

I have to say doing 11 plus work massively helped both dc eg word flash cards and higher level comprehsion..
I looked at oak academy and basically tried to fill gaps myself.

That sounds even better. Then you can get the children to help price it up to see if you can find a cost effective way of getting there.
It may even lead to an interesting conversation about the value of what they might experience travelling to and exploring Denmark for 5 days vs what they would miss in school. Who decides which is most worthwhile and on which values do they base it and whether the right thing to do is always black and white.

I teach English and English Lit. My daughter is in Yr 8 and already working at grade 5 - in all subjects! Want to know why? We haven’t tutored her - we talk. Every night since birth my husband and I have read to our children. Yes it’s hard now as she’s 13 but i say to her, it’s “our time”. Do not underestimate the power of just reading for pleasure can have.

I was sent a link to my daughter’s knowledge organisers. Have I looked at them? No! Random facts out of context means nothing. If I hear “sticky knowledge” one more time I’ll poke myself in the eye.

Just read! I never liked science but DS (9) is obsessed. We have subscribed to a magazine that he receives each month and I’m learning with him. He’ll be able to apply the knowledge in a meaningful way. Facts out of context won’t.

That's the whole problem, and I'm finding this increasingly in my own profession of teaching in a university as well.

Teachers are expected to do everything in addition to what they are actually trained and qualified to do: teach. We are not counsellors or providers of pastoral care. We are not crowd controllers. We are not educational psychologists. We are not even there to teach effective writing skills, basic syntax, or the techniques of planning and structuring essays. That job is meant to have been done during the pre-16 stage; the point of higher education is intended to be that it builds on something.

In France, there are behavioural people taking care of crowd control and specialists taking care of the specialist issues surrounding behaviour management, disability support and mental health. Teachers are employed to do precisely that: teach. In the UK these days you're lucky if you have a qualified teacher standing in front of the class.

Like the NHS, state education is crumbling. Our public services are in a dreadful mess as demand on them is being stretched too far, and resources are more finite than they ever were.

The teachers at my child's school do their best. They want to support their SEN children, but are completely stymied by the fact that no funding is available and the children most in need of support don't get it. Some find this genuinely distressing. It must be a tough job.

Also, when we read each night, we talk about what we read. I ask my children if they know what certain words means so they understand nuances of vocab. We also talk about the issues in the books we read.

I know it’s difficult. After teaching 5 lessons, being out the house from 7-6, the clubs etc … I literally talk all
day and sometimes I just want to fall asleep but I know my children deserve more.

Great advice. Similar aged daughter and we've taken her to Shakespeare from being 3 ( slightly older siblings, not pushy parents), but the Shakespeare is well acted, outdoors moving from scene to scene and pay what you feel, making it much more accessible to younger ones. It's just a thing we started doing and the kids all expect to go now it's a summer family tradition.

We've also read three of the books on the English lit curriculum. One really didn't grab her but the others provided. a lot to talk and debate about and had so much relevance to what is happening now.

To some extent I'm not worried about what her grades are. We don't have super selective sixth forms so she'll gain enough for the next step and hopefully with little stress and some enjoyment. In contrast I felt like I was on a complete treadmill and left burnt out with excellent grades.

That's an educational take on it that I wouldn't have even thought of, I think my DD would be more receptive to this way of learning about new ideas.

@OceanicBoundlessness Your DD will be successful - you’re not obsessed with grades for a start! I see so many parents who want a grade 9 and think a list of facts will achieve it - it won’t. A well rounded student can apply skills across all
subjects and knowledge beyond the curriculum is so helpful and actually makes pupils shine.

I did talk to my kids - did plays including Shakespeare the globe - days out to castles museums science museums -supportive games and work got them reading (and that took a lot with one) - they've still ended up in GCSE and A-level years with no subject teacher for part of their courses which let be honest is a massive disadvantage.

If I could afford private or could get tutors in our area I absolutely would - as much as we try and plug gaps with resource and our own education feels like they are being failed - and they're still lucky compare to some of their friends who don't have that. I'm not sure any changes/new initiatives with new government will be fast enough to affect their final years though must be hope it will for younger kids.

Seeing as my Head of Department (i.e. my boss) was asking me to do them by myself, yes, someone was. No issue with that per se, other people in my department had other tasks, but don't make it out like no one is asking, when you, as a parent, are asking on here that these are provided and schools oblige, even though similar resources are online for a price (that my school cannot afford to pay, so I get to make them in my own time for free instead).

"Core knowledge" in my subject (Science) looks different for different tiers and different again for the Triple pathway, so of course it has to be different "levels" as you call them. Therefore, 18 sets of knowledge organisers were needed.

The CGP books will contain said core knowledge and if it looks different to what your child has been taught, then please check you have the correct tier and correct exam board. If you want more than that, you are not asking for core knowledge, you are asking for detail that is, frankly, unreasonable, even if every school I have ever worked in has gone well beyond that in providing resources for the kids.

@ThrallsWife ,

The problem is that this work won’t help your pupils make educational gains. That is why it grates.

I think that, for the vast majority of teachers, they love teaching and will go above and beyond to help pupils. But a lot of what is asked of them is really inefficient, a lot of work for very little (or no) educational return.

As I asked above, what will parents use these fact lists for and they predictably responded to ‘tick off’ as if covering the facts will help their children become better learners. They won’t be marrying the lists to the assessment objectives or considering how best to reinforce the knowledge.

Ultimately parents, with the best will in the world, are not teachers (with the exceptions of those who are, obviously). They can best help their children by providing a supportive learning environment: quiet place to work, removing screens, having dinner together and having wide ranging conversations including a decent variety of complex words and sentence structures.

For my own boys, I help them in Maths and Sciences, which I am qualified to teach, but just let them get on with everything else, whilst buying them textbooks.

Wow I hope you're not seeking to buy some sort of tax break privilege by purchasing textbooks.

If you visit a doctor you do have to tell them what your symptoms are and when you retain a lawyer you do have to provide instructions....but I'm sure you don't ever tell a doctor what google says or tell your lawyer what your lawyer mate down the pub says.

All my teacher friends are very involved in their DCs education. The kids are well disciplined and pushed. Even in my 4 DCs classes over the years it has typically been the teacher parenrs asking the most questions and making lots of demands…

@Araminta1003 definitely agree re teachers children. They have all the advantages. My good friend is a teacher she is run ragged with her job but she still extends her dc at home (state school) & they play multiple instruments & every instrument going.
She certainly isn't leaving their education up to the school.

I realised, in one very large primary my kids attended for a time, the G&T group was 95% the children of teachers.

Interesting if nature / nurture we both great readers talk about books all the time take kids to theatres etc. Just what we would do anyway. Both teens effortlessly ace English / drama - maths and science less so…is it they have similar interests genetically or have we inculcated them?!

Probably a bit of both? I don't think it's ever purely 1 or the other.
I grew up as an avid reader, debated with my parents etc. DH grew up the complete opposite; hardly any books in house etc.
DD has been brought up in same way I was, she devours books, always been top reader in every class reading well above her age range, is excellent in debates etc
So although maybe some nature, how we have brought her up counts more I think?