to think most would not really want a secondary modern

[inkyfingers]

OK, tell me why the 'grammar school system' is good for the 85% who don't get a place? I love the pace and challenge etc the GS offers (as many MNers tell me), but how does the alternative serve the huge majority of pupils? (cos surely a 'system' has to benefit as many as possible??).

If it's a really good wheeze, then the GS supporters would surely be happy if their own DC don't get places?

My dyslexic DS was being kept in at break to learn his spellings in French. I pointed out to the teacher that she could keep him in every break until Christmas and he still wouldn't be able to learn the spellings! He couldn't manage spelling in English. (threaten to shoot him if he didn't know them and he still couldn't!!) You can be a brilliant teacher-it is no good if they don't have the aptitude. He isn't academic and he isn't suited to a grammar school education.

Ho ho at my boy being a model of patience, he just enjoyed teaching maths because he was good at it. However, I do agree it wouldn't work when they get older.
Even now, (Y5), I think using children as teachers would be embarassing for most children.

A lot of independent schools are non selective and they manage to get most of their kids through GCSEs. Why? Middle class parents who will walk if the school doesn't. It is expected.

Many of the kids we write off as not being 'bright' would get reasonable if not good GCSEs in the private sector in the right circumstances. Left in the state sector some are barely taught to write.

What a waste of the country's biggest asset, its brainpower.

Comprehensives are the same Boffin! Parents will walk if they don't get the results-I was certainly ready to when they were not helping DS2 -but they got their act together-with a certain amount of pushing. He got 8 GCSEs grade A-C and I really don't think that he could do better anywhere-he simply isn't a straight A student. There is nothing wrong in that-he has lots of other strengths.

I fondly believe that my DS is "grammar school material", but am going for the local comprehensive, because they do stream for most subjects. If they were mainly teaching in mixed ability classes, my attitude would be different. It also helps that our nearest is a "true" comprehensive, as there are no grammars nearby to us.

I agree, Boffinmum. I don't buy in to the theory that some dc's will achieve under any circumstances. Many will be affected by their environment. If the teaching is poor I believe it puts all children at a disadvantage & if course work isn't taught properly I think even the brightest could struggle to achieve good results. That coupled with a general attitude in a school that it's not cool to be clever can drag anyone down.

I think that people take the worst example they know of comprehensives and think they are all the same! They stream in my area and- since the cleverest are all there- the top streams are like grammar schools. It is good to have all abilities together for sport etc. My DS may not be an A student but many of his friends are.

Actually I agree with BoffinMum, at least about languages GCSE which is what I know about. From what I've seen of my own children's GCSE work, I certainly believe that most children, given an environment that is free of petty low-level disruption, resource shortages and excessive staff absence (usually due to stress and depression rather than the fecklessness some would like to think it is), and with reasonably competent subject knowledge on the part of teachers, most children would achieve at least a B. There is nothing mysterious or mythical about a B. GCSEs are really not that hard if you've sat through 5 years of secondary schooling, progressing to more difficult work each year. A year 7 who listens and works hard could get a D in languages GCSE. So, in year 11, they should be doing a lot better than a D, you should think.

My experience of the "bog-standard" comprehensive however was that many pupils become more and more reluctant to learn anything new beyond age 12/13, with the result that many stagnate from round about year 8/9 onwards. This is irrespective of teaching quality- even very good teachers note this happening. Some children simply seem to make a decision to not get any better at the subject, despite the fact that they are perfectly able to.

There is almost a culture of mediocrity- it's seen as uncool to learn anything that your teachers want you to, pupils get bored and need to entertain themselves whilst not doing any work, so they turn to low-level disruption, thereby scuppering the chances of those who do want to learn of actually getting anything done, as the teacher then has to spend time dealing with disruption. Pupils who do well despite that environment are the ones where the lesson is written on the board, with exercise and page numbers, and are thus able to follow the lesson by themselves with little or no teacher input.

Appeals to parents to help with discipline issues often result in lame excuses: "It's a personality clash", "I was never any good at x subject so little johnny won't either", "Little Johnny is as good as gold at home, it must be something you're doing wrong", all of which amount to a refusal to support the teacher in their attempts to deal with disruption. All you need is 2-3 like this per class to really ruin a whole lesson. What you get in many schools is 8-9 per class. With a very firm hand, it is possible to make around 5-6 back down again, but you are still left with an intractable chorum of 2-3 disrupters. Your only hope as a teacher is to get the parents of one or two on board, leaving one out on a limb with no cronies to support him/her.

My friend gave me a copy of Machiavelli's "The Prince" when I qualified as a teacher. She'd been teaching for 8 years by then and had wisdom.

I'd agree that there are a recalcitrant minority who don't want to be in school. However, I would also argue that they have not learned everything they need to have learned by the age of 13. My dad left school at 15 with no qualifications and was apprenticed to the gas board. Firstly, that was two extra years of schooling, and secondly he had a proper job for life (almost) to go to.

I teach in a challenging school, and we have to work bloody hard to engage some (many!) of our students. I work on the principle that these children must not, for all our sakes, be left to their own devices from the age of 13. That the despised vocational curriculum actually has a lot to offer these students. That they learn something useful while following it, even if it isn't the difference between ionic and covalent bonding. And if they are not gaining any benefit from their time in my classroom, then I am not doing my job properly.

LeQ, in my darkest teaching days I used to wish I had a ray gun to just whoosh the disrupters out of my classroom and into a padded cell field somewhere where they could run around and let off steam a very long way away from my well-prepared lessons. It was the stress of the seeming utter futility of a lot of what I did on a day to day basis that ground down my health. Well, that and the 70 hour weeks. Most of the time I really loved teaching (in fact my heart still beats faster -in a good way- when I think about being in school, the constant and refreshing pace, the frequent changes of activity). I wish I had the energy required to go back into teaching, but it damn near killed me and my family life the last time and I'm afraid I'm just not that altruistic.

LeQueen read up on intelligence, you might surprise yourself. I used to think as you do and it caused me to have all sorts of self limiting & largely inaccurate beliefs. Not only that I fear if I was told by a teacher early on my son wasn't academic, I would begin to mentally rule out all sort of academic/educational pathways even early on.

There do seem to be genetic differences in 'intelligence' but they are far from being a life sentence and are not as large as people used to think. There is, for all of us, a wide envelope of variation around the base point that depends on experience, encouragement and self belief.

I see what you are saying, some do learn faster than others. Some have a high IQ (but there is more to being intelligent that passing a logical reasoning test) and others do not. But it's not as simple as that and we can't use this sort of test as a blunt instrument at 11 to decide if a child is academic or not.

Minds are capable of not just being filled but expanded. It is a healthy thing to look for ways in which a young person's mind can be stretched and changed rather than to label them with a certain amount of 'brain power' that won't change. To give a low brow example Jade Goody could be seen as 'intelligent' as Kate Middleton if she was born into a different family, if she was stimulated and supported. Le Queen would you say one was dim and another was bright and this genetic inheritance was set in stone at birth?

I am borrowing some of this from Claxton again and he and others have written around the subject recently.

Ideally all children should have every chance of developing any talent they may have, and go as far as they possibly can but arguments break out when the resources are limited. Who is worthy of the 'best' in other words more academic education? Who is worthy of grammar school? We need to begin to value other types of 'smart' too, practical, intuitive intelligence etc. Being good at abstract reasoning needed by IQ tests may help with projects in the future but it's contribution is often quite small compared to many other personal skills and attitudes.

Statistics shocker! 50% of people in this country are of above average intelligence!

Because people have taught in bad comprehensive schools with disruptive classes and de motivated pupils they make the assumption that all comprehensives are the same. They are not. If there isn't a grammar school, to cream off, the best are in the comprehensive. DCs are pulled up or down by the majority.If the majority want to do well in life and value education it pulls up the rest. When the top are regularly going to good universities they are seen as the cool ones. Even when I was at a secondary modern the most popular DCs were the ones at the top of the A stream.
I supply teach, in primary schools, so I have first hand knowledge of the disruption caused in classes. Luckily I can afford to vote with my feet and I simply refuse further visits.
I find that the schools that I go back to because I enjoy it are the ones with a strong Head and supportive staff-it is nothing to do with the DCs. I love one school, with DCs from very difficult backgrounds, because there is zero tolerance for bad behaviour and as a supply teacher I will get help and back up. If I go to a school where no one wants to know, and you are just supposed to close the door and get on with it, I will hate it and be stuck with crowd control.
Some comprehensive schools are excellent.

I do think it helps a lot if you can send major trouble makers to a strong head and get them bollocked.

Expecting individual teachers to discipline hardline deviants whilst continue teaching 29 other kids as if nothing were happening is patently unrealistic.

You have to have back up and the pupils have to know that you have backup and there will be consequences-they can't do as they like because you are a supply teacher!

TBH even for permanent members of staff all too often there is the attitude from the senior management team that discipline is the classroom teacher's problem and that if anything has to be sent further up the ladder then it is a failure on the part of the teacher.

They don't seem to realise that sometimes coming down hard early on can reap great dividends in terms of classroom outcomes.

I taught one group in an independent girls' secondary once who weren't very motivated but at least they were quiet about it!

Of course it doesn't happen in a grammar school because you will find in the comprehensive that the pupils who ware going onto 6th form, Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Bristol etc etc are perfectly polite and motivated and want to learn! They are there in their thousands.
People will insist on thinking that Comprehensives are full of thick DCs who have no ambition and are rude and disruptive. Why on earth would I send my DCs to a Comprehensive if the poor teacher just had to do crowd control and can't teach? I'm not mad-I would HE if that was my only choice! I care passionately about education and my DSs have the best. Their friends at the comprehensive have all been polite, friendly and motivated.They have no time for time wasters and they don't think they are 'cool'-luckily neither does the school and they don't tolerate it-if they did they wouldn't be sending lots of DCs to the best universities every year.

Many of the teachers at my DSs Comprehensive send their own DCs to the school-I think that shows confidence. They wouldn't do it if they had the sorts of lessons described on here as the norm!

If that were true, would it follow that there would be even more in a secondary modern than in a comprehensive? So the majority of motivated students in a secondary modern would be even more at risk of disruption to their classes? And we're back with them mattering less again.

Our students tend actually to be much more respectful to our cover supervisors than supply teachers, usually because our cover supervisors are rather better at the job of covering a lesson, and (not unrelated) know the students well.

And they wouldn't sneer (or want to sneer) at a child who struggled in lessons because of poor literacy skills. And that is a massive problem in secondary schools when it comes to lack of motivation and disruptive behaviour. It's hard to manage as a secondary subject teacher, and the children get a raw deal in all directions IMO.