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!!

Don't know. I think I am very tired and got my wires crossed!

I have stacked shelves and I now teach !

troisgarcons Sun 23-Oct-11 10:46:38
Lesser qualifications of 'equal standing' have filtered their way in, simply in order to bolster league tables. Schools are run like business. You have to get bums-on-seats every september, if you cant get a cohort in then people get made redundant. 6th formers are vitally important to the funding, they bring a bounty with them...

There comes a big scrabble in Y8 and Y9 to find courses these children can cope with - voila! The BTEC! it's all internally moderated and they all swimmingly pass with a PE BTEC worth 4x C grade GCSE equivalents.

Yup. I teach BTEC diplomas at various levels at an FE college which is most definitely a business. It's a holding pen for kids to keep them off the dole and bring in the money.

The idea that a BTEC Extended Diploma is the equivalent of 3 A levels is a travesty that infuriates me every time I think about it. However once it became the expected that anyone regardless of ability could go to university there needed to be a parallel universe in which the weaker students could 'qualify'. An Extended Diploma is impossible to fail, as a student can resubmit course work as many times as they like. Until there's a sweeping reform of universities and places are only allocated to academically gifted students, BTECs will continue to hold some mis-placed academic currency.

spiderpig8 Sun 23-Oct-11 19:44:20
How is a 13/14 Yo supposed to know that BTECs , and GCSEs in soft subjects are worthless, with all the PC 'all subjects are equal' crap spouted in schools to protect the feelings of the 'meeja studies' teacher.They can't!

Most of the young people I teach wouldn't care, I'm afraid. They seek the easiest route to anything, and a BTEC at Level 2 leads to a BTEC at Level 3, which leads to university.

Yes, it would certainly be better to tell these children that unfortunately they are stupid and won't be getting any proper GCSEs so it might save everyone a lot of time and trouble if they could start truanting from year 8 onwards.

There are no 'meeja studies' teachers. Teachers don't go around saying 'French is better than Product Design, kiddies, and don't forget it!' because that would be fucking rude to the kids who aren't doing 11/12 'academic' GCSEs. It doesn't mean they don't know.

It's just - once again - if you don't slam your doors closed in the face of poor children or children who aren't very very bright, you're going to have to cater for them. And that can mean offering less academic options, sometimes.

It doesn't mean a child who wants to can't do 12 academic GCSEs, just because they might be in the same building as a child doing ASDAN, or food tech or whatever.

:o @ 'meeja' ! Obviously autocorrect for 'media' and eye dialect/ how students pronounce it in my school!

Yeah, I think she was trying to at once mock the (made up) profession, and the imagined pronunciation of people who Talk Like That.

It is actually an excellent school. OP (and others), have you watched things in your kids' schools? Their CVA is very impressive and that is what I would use as my guide rather than grades at the end (a child who gets straight As but would have got them even if they were locked in a cupboard for 2 years is no success, whereas helping a difficult child scrape a couple of Es is much more of an achievement and reflects a higher standard of teaching).

And I don't think that the ignorant comments (OP's included) on this thread are really just being ignorant about state education, but about children and education in general.

This week's episode, in which girls had a falling out was such an interesting reminder for me of my time teaching in an all girls' school. They can honestly be so, so evil to each other. I'm always surprised by how quickly adults forget this! And I've definitely seen it far worse in private schools than in state ones (smaller environment, less places to go, maybe higher ability and hence more emotionally manipulative).

I've worked in the state and private sector and would echo earlier comments about private school kids just maybe being more subtle with their debauchery and certainly having more money to spend on drugs. In my current (inner London state) school I have confiscated cannabis twice. In my last (private boarding school) I confiscated speed and coke too many times to count.

Teachers don't go around saying 'French is better than Product Design, kiddies, and don't forget it!'
Oh ho ho... Don't they Elaine? I think that you will find that there is a hierarchy.

I think some posters are very naive about the culture at grammar and private schools and have some fond, but blinkered view that students there are all happy, high achievers in a caring environment. All schools have their problems because the students attending have the same societal pressures of everyone their age. Schools that exclusively focus on academia are often poor on the pastoral elements and students emerge with atrocious social skills and low empathy and humanity. Conversely, some schools are great at pastoral care but fail to stretch high achievers, with too much focus given to turning Ds into Cs and not enough at turning Bs into A*s.

It depends what you want from your kids' education. For us, we wanted our children to reach their academic potential, but we also wanted them to emerge as rounded human beings, with good social skills and the ability to make sound life decisions. We also wanted them to meet friends from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. The pastoral element of school was very important to us, along with good PSHE and Citizenship provision, but tbh, we were primarily concerned that our academically-orientated children came out with a bunch of academic GCSEs at good grades.

The best schools IMO tailor the provision to the abilities of the students and help kids to achieve their potential in all areas, not just academia.

I teach a particularly 'dumb' subject in many people's opinion. :( !!!!

Ha ha, Kitty, so do I!

Of course it's right that the less academically able should be catered for in a meaningful way, but we should stop pretending that these courses are the equivalent of A Levels.

I think that if students want to go into FE/ HE, we owe it to them to ensure that their 'qualifications' will be recognised.
Not all are.

agree Gastro: but we should stop pretending that these courses are the equivalent of A Levels.

IME of my daughter choosing her options, teachers do not say x is better than y, or x is the same as y, just that x and y both exist because they take lots of children some of whom will want to do x and some y.

Because they have to take everyone. Not just rich and/or clever children.

Elaine all well and good when they are at school.
Schools are inclusive and cater for all abilities.
Paid employment and HE (universities) don't have to follow that rule, they take the most highly qualified, with the best qualifications.

I think teachers do say to students that a BTech in health and social care is not the choice to be made if you want to become a doctor for example.

Do parents think that teachers conspire to hold children back to spare the feelings of a fellow teacher ?

Sadly I am sure that a poster is going to tell me this does happen. In fact I am sure it happened in a school I taught at. Hopefully this is not common practice.

twinkly - I think teachers do say to students that a BTech in health and social care is not the choice to be made if you want to become a doctor for example.
Agree!

Yes, Kitty, I know. And I know what HE is, although thanks most awfully for the parenthetical gloss!

My point is that in a good school like Passmore's and the many many other excellent state comps, there will be children with 11/12/13 good GCSEs who will be among those with the good qualifications. It's just that those schools will also have had through their doors children for whom that isn't the appropriate course.

Err, obviously Elaine.

er obviously what?

My DS is doing a Btech in Music (rock music actually) and I am very proud of him.

I would love him to be a doctor (a paediatric oncologist if I am precise) but the acadmic life is not for him.

He is not stupid nor lazy. He loves music and is very talented. So he is studying music.

He has decided not to go to university because he doesnt want a huge debt. He wants to get a job, then travel to the states to work with his family in the music business then come back and perhaps go to university when he has some money behind him.

This may or may not come off but I think its a pretty good plan considering he is 17.

Reading back, Kitty, I'm not sure you and I are actually on opposing sides, actually.

All I am saying is that it is not my experience that, at state comps, bright children are coerced into doing Health And Social Care rather than German. I think comps care about their bright kids and want to do their best for them.

Btw, parentheses can be qualifying or explanatory. Take it as you will.

I think good schools care about all children regardless of ability.
Those in favour of this Mr. Drew school see this as a strength of the school.
It is often only when students leave and try to use their qualifications in the dragon's den of life that they find them to be worth less than they thought.

As I say, I'm not sure we're on opposing sides, really.