to be absolutely horrified by Educating Essex

[spiderpig8]

i would stick pins in my eyes before i sent my kids to a place like that!!
I was watching it woth DS1 who is 16 and he was absolutely speechless at the lack of discipline and the immaturity of the pupils.
Where to start?

Why aren't they all seated in rows facing the front? They seem to be sitting clustered around tables like infants, .No wonder they don't concentrate and are disruptive.
The girls look like hookers with thick make up and very short skirts
If that was top set maths?? At 16 learning how to work out the area of a circle?? The teacher was uninspiring and unenthusiastic. And I had t laugh when it zoomed in on Carrie's so-called 9 GCSEs.She had b in English and |C in maths and that was it.the rest were btecs , functional skills, citizenship and crap that isn't worth the paper it's written on.

The head and deputy are twerps.Skating about in swivel chairs in the corridor, allowing the kids to snowball them.They try to be the kids mates rather than their role models.How can they command any respect?
Most of all allowing their pupils to appear on national television , making serious false allegations against staff, and sending abusive bullying texts.
And this is an ofsted outstanding school!!

maypole, there are other options than keeping them in the classroom 'at the expense of all' without permanently excluding them.

Trois that is absolute bollocks. We declare our A star rate and I am held accountable for every missed grade. We have students resit above the C grade.

I love this programme. I think what some posters are forgetting is that in grammar/private schools the parents are necessarily very interested in their DC's education.

Passmores is a comprehensive school that takes everybody. Many parents are not particularly interested in their DC's education, but the DC still have to be educated. In grammar/private schools if a DC isn't working properly they can relatively quickly be excluded or the parents will pressure their DC to work better. Passmores prides itself in not excluding pupils as they are the bottom line for these pupils. I think they are doing a sterling job.

The kids are very like the kids where I went to secondary school. I think the pastoral care at Passmores is excellent - much better than my school. But I do think the everyday discipline is poore.g. mobile phones,swearing at teachers and throwing snowballs at teachers.

I think teachers that think a zero tolerance on these issues is impossible to enforce are wrong. With these issues you need either a zero tolerance or an acceptance like at Passmores - the middle ground doesn't work. My school was lax with some things like dress, but tough on swearing at teachers. So because when kids started school it was dealt with toughly, it rarely happened.

I think kids from challenging backgrounds are used to changing rules at home. So generally they will only follow them if they are strictly and consistently enforced. Its kind of like with toddlers - if you let them run around the supermarket one week and then don't the next week , you will have a massive fight on your hands every time you try to stop them.

The kid who swore at Mr Drew in the first episode was excluded. How is that an acceptance?

Passmores is representative of a state comp in a working class area. The majority of the kids do not aspire to university and were not raised to. It would be pointless to force every one of those 14-16 year olds to study tough GCSE subjects they don't need or care about.

I went to a school like this one and I have to say it's a fairly accurate representation. Nevertheless, I went on to study for a worthwhile degree at a worthwhile uni as did a few of my peers. There's bound to be a distruptive element in any state secondary and this show just happens to showcase it because it's more entertaining.

The school achieved an 'outstanding' ranking from Ofsted because it is deserved it. The teachers obviously had a good rapport with the kids and were dealing exceptionally well with very challenging situations.

trois are you sure about that triple science ruling? Maybe it was just your school because I have seriously not heard that at all.

It would be a timetabling nightmare to offer it to everyone who got a level 5 in year 9. Most schools would not be willing to offer it to such average attaining students because of the rush to fit three GCSE courses into the space of two would mean they are likely to fail. Level 5 students in year 9 are on course to grade a grade C, so thats a huge risk.

If you sacrifice so much of the timetable to give triple science enough time to run for all those students, they would have to give up another GCSE option to do it.

I can't see the Government realistically doing this.

'What is pi? Where did it come from?'
is my favourite quote from this show. I love it, it's so true.

I teach maths. One of my year 11 form, who is predicted an A* asked me this question (I had worksheets from yr 8 laying around)
I agree that this is a fairly representative view of secondary school, they didn't show all the children, just a dozen or so. Having been in my very large comp for only a few months I could pick out a dozen year 11's who would come across in exactly the same way, ignoring the other 200 kids completely.

And FWIW I went to 2 secondary schools. ONe private all girls, where the girls were sexually active, drinking, doing speed, coke and E from 13 or 14, to a state comp where this behaviour started much later, and was mostly weed and alcohol.
I woudl never send my kids private.

So there.

Exactly my experience spongebob - am totally with you. Also the kids that bought the weed in my comp all bought it from the local private school boys who hung about outside our school like proper dealers. Nice. No, definitely not for my DCs.

I was sure there were other kids swearing when talking to the teachers. The kid excluded was being verbally abusive and swearing.

'What is pi? Where did it come from?'
is my favourite quote from this show. I love it, it's so true.

I love the look on her face as she asks herself it, genuine questioning and puzzlement :-)

trois are you sure about that triple science ruling? Maybe it was just your school because I have seriously not heard that at all.

Its borough wide diktat from LA - my assumption it was country wide (apologies) I can check with Bromley as we have co-joined meetings.

It would be a timetabling nightmare to offer it to everyone who got a level 5 in year 9

It becomes an option, and moves out of compulsory subject area.

twinklytroll

Trois that is absolute bollocks. We declare our A star rate and I am held accountable for every missed grade. We have students resit above the C grade.

You clearly have a better intake than we have; I've explained the grammars do this - but do me a favour and go check any website that publishes official results - coz I cant see it on the BBC or the Times, stripping down results like that ..... 5 AC and 5 A-C inc E&M, then one A*-G

triple science - link please

That's interesting about triple science, no problem for my DC then as they are level 6 in year 8. In fact the only question they asked on the open evening was "can I do triple science because I only want to come here if I can" and they confirmed that it wasn't a problem because of SATS grades from primary school.

troisgarcons, the league tables include the value added result.

And even if parents only look at the A*-C, Ofsted won't. If the students are not making the expected level of progress for their ability between KS2 and KS4, the most the school can get is a Satisfactory.

My school isn't a grammar and we certainly make sure that A kids are pushed towards getting As, so you saying that non-selective schools don't do this is rubbish.

so you saying that non-selective schools don't do this is rubbish.

go back and read properly - I never said children weren't pushed accordingly. I said schools couldnt afford to send in borderline exams to be remarked if they didnt make a jot of difference to the published statistics. Schools simply CANNOT afford it - unless they are backed by a big academy (which we aren't)

Wiki threw up the first link - Im not ploughing through the DofE (my typo - its L6 not L5, again apologies)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Award_Science

In 2008 the Government introduced an entitlement for all public schools to offer a Triple Science course to students who achieve a level 6 or above from September.

Specialist colleges must offer all students the opportunity for Triple Science which will be rolled out in the following stages:[citation needed]
from September 2008 for Science Colleges
from September 2009 for Engineering and Technology colleges
From September 2010 for Maths and Computing colleges

But we do borderline exams to be remarked regardless of what grade boundary they are - and we are not backed by a big academy. It will not affect the statistics published for example on the BBC website - but schools should not just be about league tables. However parents can and do get hold of a statistics. I have certainly seen A statistic published somewere publically as I know the A* rate for other schools in the local area.

We may have a nice ( but certainly not perfect) intake in terms of pupils behaviour but not in terms of educational background. We are not a grammar - in fact we lose a few pupils to the grammar.

My point is that there are many different types of school and I admit there are some schools that neglect able students ( I have worked in them) however that is not the case necessarily. By suggesting it is you are simply scare mongering and convincing parents of able children that they have no choice but to pay for an education - whether that is school fees or by paying for a tutor to get into a grammar.

DS1 is 15 and watched the latest episode. He goes to a 'good' comp and says in his school the phones would be confiscated, makeup removed, skirts lengthened, swearing etc punished and much more discipline in lessons.
But what shocked him most was the bitching and bullying. He was horrified at the way the girls ostracised that poor girl Ashleigh and said that in his school of course everyone enjoys a gossip but he has never seen that sort of bitchiness.
I was quite pleased about that.

Trois, you said 'Simplistically, other than the grammars (who I gather are making all their B grade GCSE maths resit it this November) no school really cares, from a statistical POV where a GCSE is grase A*,A,B or C .... it's C and above that get published.'

Which is very misleading if you were just talking about remarks. My school offers resits to any student who wants to try to improve their grade (although they have to pay for it).

In our school, the advent of the English Baccalaureate made a big difference to the numbers offered the option to study triple science from Y10 onwards.

The school only had the resources to offer the EB to 90ish students from an intake of 250. This meant that those students were told they had to choose a modern foreign language and either History/Geography, so were left with two other options. The majority of students choosing Triple Science (one option) came from the EB cohort of only 90ish students. In one or two exceptional cases, students on other pathways (mix of GCSEs/BTECS or BTECS/Vocational subjects) were allowed to study Triple Science, but only if their Key Stage 3 grades were at L7 and above for science, in Year 9.

Therefore the majority of students in a cohort study Core Science, regardless of their Key Stage 2 results in Y6 and on entry to the school.

level 6 makes much more sense and is in line with what we offer...but I am stiil surprised its an entitlement!!!

forwarding link to HOD...

we offer it to level 6 upwards because I pushed for it, not because they can opt for it....