to be horrified at Starkey

[amiheartless]

the comment he made to that lad in Jamies Dream School,
was appalling,
(for people who didnt see)
there was no provocation the class was joking around about evolution, about animals are faster and this lad pointed to his muscle ..and Starkey said,

'you're so fat im surprised you can move!'
I felt for the lad, my blood was boiling
when will teachers learn humiliation does not work as a teaching technique!!!

sorry rant over,

After working for the past 7 yrs in 14-16 PRU, hurrah to Starkey! Too much child centered pap and not enough real life learning.If any of my past pupils had given any of the verbal and physical abuse that they gave to me in the pub or in the street they would have been glassed or worse.What shit life had the architects son had? The lad who had the comments made to had been working with his dad for 2 yrs and only went to school 'for a laugh' yeh, big fucking laugh...Thought I was going to hate 'Jamie's School' but I love it,especially Prof Robert Winston,swoon...

LeQueen - Im not sure how much you would have learned with/from him tbh, he seems to be very busy in other areas. But he probably has very good assistants you could have learned from.

Just out of interest though, how would you respond to him calling you any sort of name, and other unjustified insults (perhaps relating to your work?)

Haven't ploughed through the whole thread, but the 25 minute version of the lesson on YouTube where they have edited out the disruption shows him in a better light. The kids applaud at the end of the class.

Starkey was wrong to insult the boy, but he was effectively a trainee teacher on his first day with the TV cameras in. I am not at all surprised something went wrong. His Bling lesson was carefully planned to appeal to the class, and to a large extent it did. I hope he moves on from this, and I hope the kid concerned also apologises for calling him a shortie, and then perhaps some decent learning can be done.

BTW this was not a child but a young man IMO, and the way the Head Teacher was banging on about 'modern childcare practice' was very odd and inappropriate. If they had demanded the kids behave like sensible young adults instead of indulging them like toddlers, they might have made more headway. A decent individual tutorial system seemed to be completely lacking in this 'school' which is how this might have been implemented.

And what Starkey was doing was expecting the pupils to sustain concentration on an extended narrative, as he presented the exposition, development and conclusion of an academic argument. This is an excellent skill for them to work on, and he had prepared the academic content of what he was talking about very well, and adapted it for the intellectual level and background knowledge of the pupils (many of whom seemed rather bright on the TV programme and I imagine capable of taking A Levels if they settled down and did some work, certainly that young women who asked all the intelligent questions). He did a lot right.

I saw the 25 min edited version and the lesson itself was excellent, as we might expect. But it is a destructive character flaw and he would do well to address it. It seemed to come out again when he was adressing the young woman, but he then corrected himself by calling her beautiful.

Boffinmum that is a good point that he was effectively a trainee teacher on his first day, and I too hope he can address this and move on from it.

I cant wait to see next week where the have a word with him

LeQueen why do you have such a fetish about your husband's grammar school? Nearly every post I've ever seen from you is about how your husband went to such a respectable and traditional school and is now a successful professional. :S

And what Starkey was doing was expecting the pupils to sustain concentration on an extended narrative, as he presented the exposition, development and conclusion of an academic argument. This is an excellent skill for them to work on

If you mean they need to work on their ability to concentrate, I agree but I don't think a good starting point is to make them listen to an entire lecture, whatever the subject. Had he got them engaged in some way, perhaps by actually doing something, introducing an element of mystery or something, he may well have found them motivated to listen later on in the lesson. From what I saw, he expected them to just sit and listen from the beginning. These pupils, bright as some or all of them may be, have not succeeded in their schooling. Expecting them to sit and listen for 45 minutes was never going to work. I have no doubt that the 'academic content' of what he was saying was sound but that's only a tiny part of the picture where lessons are concerned.

You compare him to a trainee teacher but I have been one myself and mentored several and I can tell you that they spend hours planning that first lesson. There are usually various problems with them, as you would expect, but I have never seen anyone expect to get away with expecting the pupils to listen for a whole lesson. Personally, I didn't see him do anything 'right'.

This is actually one class of (probably) average to bright sixth formers, and they could probably manage 20 minute chunks if there was a really solid verbal map of what was going to happen at the beginning. I think Starkey could have spent a bit more time on getting them to expect this and buy into it, and a bit less time on his personal autobiography. That way he might have got them to build up their mental stamina.

BTW I think the uniform idea is odd - I would have encouraged them to wear business dress, which I would have defined carefully in advance and checked each morning, and I would have had a whole day's study skills coaching before even thinking of embarking on formal lessons, which would have included very careful coaching on how to maintain a purposeful and calm classroom.

Each pupil would have had a tutor and a daily debriefing session of about 20 minutes, where they would be given support and encouragement to address their personal development issues. Each teacher would have been properly introduced as well, so they were familiar with the reasons for why each teacher had been selected.

I would love to get my hands on this lot, actually.

Sorry, but he was being an egocentric dick. He went in thinking they weren't worth anything, especially compared to him. That is an awful attitude for anyone to have, regardless of 'who you are'.

As a teacher I can be pretty tough on my students and very straight talking. But I am always respectful, and gain that (where it doesn't exist to begin with sometimes) in return. That reaps far greater rewards long term than throwing your weight around. If you have to resort to personal insults (criticise behaviour not the child) then you are struggling in my opinion.

I went to very traditional, highly selective schools (private then grammar for A-Levels) and was never spoken to in such a manner, maybe it went out with the Ark. We were dealt with very strictly and discipline was firm, but personal insults? Gratuitously? Nope.

These are children, whatever their behaviour. Those saying it was ok, would you be happy for your child to be spoken to in such a manner? Or do you think Starkey would for that matter?

I think he probably was flailing around trying to draw on things that might have been said in a 1950s grammar school of the type he attended. My DH certainly reports things like that happening to him at school. I also got the impression that he was very anxious for them to succeed, and get on in life just as he had, but was limited in classroom management tools and tact. I didn't for a minute get the impression he considered them worthless.

Anyway, he is well known for being cross and grumpy at Cambridge, but also a brilliant historian.

With regard to what I might have thought if this was my child, I would have marched him into school to apologise for insulting the teacher (even though it was in retaliation), and told him that there was a grain of truth in the weightist abuse and to take advantage of the Daley Thompson fitness regime and get himself sorted out. But then I'm pretty direct myself.

I thought David Starkey's comment was stupid and ill-judged but I was really appalled by the HT's reaction - lots of po-faced head-shaking and talk of disciplining him. The fact is, Starkey was the only one who had the balls to say to these students what should have been completely self-evident - that they have failed in education and that they are being given a very rare second chance, why don't they take it. The guy brought in a load of Saxon gold and they still wouldn't shut up - whatever you may think of his character, he is an amazing historian who can really bring the past to life and they ignored him .

Which is what I don't understand about Dream School - why the students are there? In Fifteen they had a chance to learn a trade but with this they have been told to turn up but with (apparently) no conditions on their attendance such as being respectful to their teachers, minimum standards of behaviour etc. On the basis of the first episode I just don't get what they are meant to take from this experience other than school probably isn't for them. Even if they do miraculously engage in one of he lessons given by the star turns and decide to go to college and retake their GCSEs, how are they going to react once they have boring old bog standard teachers teaching a conventional curriculum? I mean Ellen McArthur shows them how to sail - wtf?

JO is wasting his time with these 'children'. They do not want to learn. They may be capable of learning, and they may be really very bright, but they do not want it enough.

All they care about, it seems, is texting on their phones, shouting out over the teacher, and moaning to their parents about how they get no respect.

Admittedly they may have had difficult family situations, and lived in less than desirable areas, but that doesn't stop you wanting to learn.

Starkey told it to them straight...they had failed. The HT shaking his head in disbelief at this was frankly comical. I suppose his answer would be to hold the pupils hands throughout their lessons, whilst extolling on them how wonderful as human beings they were.

Too much pandering is the problem nowadays. Why do they need to be 'doing' anything in the lesson? A 20 minute attention span? FGS, they're not toddlers. If they can't sit for 1 hour, take notes, ask questions and listen then they deserve to fail.

As for Henry, well! He actually complained to his parents that he didn't really want to go sailing with Ellen Macarthur. what was he planning to do instead, sit in the conservatory and smoke?

Starkey should not have personally attacked that pupil, but when faced with a room full of such open disrespect, I think I may have felt a bit pissed off too.

I suspect most teachers do feel a little hacked off when disrespected, but deal with it more maturely without alienating their class.

Just must point out that 'queen' is most certainly a homophobic term. My step-dad would use it, and that's all he proof I need!

oh, just realised I'm four pages too late. Oh well...

That paradigms thing is totally brilliant, needafootmassage.

20 minute attention spans are completely normal, even in adult training situations. You need to change topic, ask a question or get people thinking about a problem to divide the session up to accommodate this.

In Cambridge, a two-hour session will be divided up into 2 x 50 minute sessions with a cognitive shift half way through each one and a comfort break at half time. Lectures are followed up with seminars (groups of about 20, like this one) and supervisions (i.e. tutorials) where students discuss the subject matter and associated reading they have done, in very small groups of between 2-6. A system like that would probably have worked well with these pupils.

With regard to the young woman who was clearly bright but caused her school(s) enough bother to throw her out, sitting her down and putting her in a position to be accountable for her own learning and behaviour, probably for the first time, with quite high demands made of her intellectually, might well have shocked her into action, especially if her mum was in on it as well.

I think a bit less 'Strictly Classroom' and fewer ties would help them (it's practically fancy dress to wear that at the age of 19 - reminded me when I dress up for 'school disco' type parties tbh). I am sure I could make headway with these pupils. Most good teachers could given resources like this.

Other things I would have done:

1. Made them feel awkward about walking out of lessons, so they stayed in. I would probably have stationed a top head teacher out there to discuss defections with them. That is the time to talk up their intelligence with them, work with them 1:1 and remind them of expectations.

1. Got them giving a (supervised) teaching session in a primary school, as well as to each other, on some of the subject matter they had covered, so they saw the teacher's point of view.

1. Put the classroom tables in a horseshoe shape to promote concentration.

1. Had them learn to drive at the same time, with a test at the end of the two months, so there was a vocational aspect to the course, and a reason for calming down, also for preparing for the theory test. Prize for the best driver at the end could have been a spin on a racetrack in a fun car of some kind.

1. Made expectations of classroom behaviour considerably more specific. This is where the head teacher was a bit lily-livered. These pupils needed training in appropriate classroom behaviour, and he waffled about childcare practice - not good.