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!!

I don't know what Pi is. I know it's 3.142 but anything more than that or what the fuck it's actually for is Pi in the sky to me .

I have 11 GCSEs at A*-C (including C in maths) and a 2.1 degree. Not knowing what Pi actually is, or where it came from, isn't exactly a great measure of intellect, is it?

As for those of you who say why not insist phones are banned, or handed in at the start of each lesson, those children who are using their phones will just refuse to hand them in and then walk out or cause a confrontation with the teacher at the start of every lesson, which can continue for a good chunk of the lesson, including the time taken to summon a member of SLT to deal with the fact that a child isn't following instructions, the confrontation in class between the child(ren) and SLT...and so on. It's not as simple as getting them to hand their phones in, or tuck their shirts in, or take their make up off. Teachers have to learn to choose their battles, otherwise every day is just becomes a constant battle.

Absolutely clopper

And more settings appropriate for children with SN's who would prefer to be in a more specialised setting.

Maybe it will happen.

Mainly, ruby.

I love Educating Essex. I think many of the staff seem totally inspirational and would happily send my children to that school. My son who is in a similar Ofsted Outstanding comp, watched it with me and said the school obviously has loads of money as the facilities etc seem 100 times better than those in his school....which is a bit sad, but there you go.
I would have loved him to go to the local shiny, regimented, traditional aspirational secondary school but we didn't get in. Because we are too poor to live in the (tiny) catchment area.
However the school he is in has a 97.5 per cent pass rate of 5 or more a*-c grades and the environment is friendly but disciplined.

Many schools seem to have an attitude of ''what can you do for this school?'' rather than ''what can we do for your child'?''

''The big plus of grammar schools is the fact none of them give a shit about each others back grounds - they all truely mix in be it race, creed, colour, wealth. '' - obviously things have changed somewhat since i was at a selective grammar - the snobbery was HIDEOUS!

As for those of you who say why not insist phones are banned, or handed in at the start of each lesson, those children who are using their phones will just refuse to hand them in and then walk out or cause a confrontation with the teacher at the start of every lesson, which can continue for a good chunk of the lesson, including the time taken to summon a member of SLT to deal with the fact that a child isn't following instructions,

We went zero tolerance on phones, including break and lunch at the begining of this academic year. First week was a bit rough. They are either more adept at hiding them, but there have been no confiscations for the past 2 weeks. We also went zero tolerance on make up and jewelry. No orange girls or boys with cubic zirconia disco balls in their ears. The parent who thought FCUK inscribed in the back of her Y7 boys head wasn't happy to have to take him and have him completely shaved either.

The mind boggles with how much lesson time would be taken up every lesson if every phone had to be handed in, then doled back out at the end. I can think of a couple of classes where that might be a good idea, but those are exactly the classes where it would cause even more teaching time to be lost than would be if phone use was dealt with if and when it came up.

And as a maths teacher I can't stand it any longer. Pi is what you get if you divide the circumference (perimeter) of any circle by its diameter (the distance across the middle of the circle).
Any circle in the universe. Measure the distance around the outside, divide by the distance across the middle and you get a little bit more than 3.
This is very useful because it is quite tricky to measure the circumference of a circle (needs a piece of string) but you can easily measure the diameter, then simply multiply by pi and hey presto, you've got the distance around the edge. Pi then comes up again in lots of other circle-related formulae.

Pi is a constant, for any circle in the world...no matter how big or small, if you divide the circumference by the diameter you will get Pi.

It is also known as archimedes constant, I think (iirc) he was the first dude to approximate it.

Pi, the golden ratio, e...all fascinating stuff.

Noble, great minds!! The Pi thing was driving me crackers too

I too love Educating Essex- I find it utterly charming. The care the children get is astonishing.

as for Pi- thanks for clearing that up. I thought Pythagoras invented it and that it was to do with triangles. Ds said otherwise

''The big plus of grammar schools is the fact none of them give a shit about each others back grounds - they all truely mix in be it race, creed, colour, wealth. '' - obviously things have changed somewhat since i was at a selective grammar - the snobbery was HIDEOUS!

Well I can only say my son doesnt give a toss ... his best mates are
(a) Sikh ~ SAHM and Nan with no english , Dad in mainstream finance
(b) Black Nigerian ~ Mum social worker, Dad armed response unit
(c) lapsed Irish Catholic (divorced parents, blended step family) # SAHM, SD a sparkie, Dad someting IT but currently unemployed, grtandparents very loaded estate agents though!
(d) Born Again Christian ~ Mum primary school sec, dunno about Dad
(e) The loaded child ~ SAHSM, Dad a builder. Lovely house on a private estate with a pool and room for a pony!

Suits me!

DD is now watching a recorded epsiode.

She says it is a bit like that at her school.

SHJ has your DS watched at all?

And that school had very little black children so they can't trot that usual one out for the students poor behaviour

Spiderpig you are aptly named. I'm keeping my fingers under control and not writing any more, self-control being an essential quality in any teacher today.

"This is one reason it perhaps behoves mothers to pick decent paying careers and then pay school fees to avoid this kind of thing. It certainly helps to segregate your children from not to bright children and disruptive children"

My son was shocked my son informs me they are not allowed to leave their seat unless told to also their uniform was sloppy and in his school they get checked in the playground in the mooring they don't even get in the school with out the correct uniform

maypoleAnd that school had very little black children so they can't trot that usual one out for the students poor behaviour

White boys to white single mothers are statistically the lowest achievers.

ds has only seen the title sequence, BTM- hence the Pi debate

would love him to see it-if only to get a comparison/ some idea of what goes on at his school- but no means of recording!

"And that school had very little black children so they can't trot that usual one out for the students poor behaviour"

Jesus fucking Christ. Just piss off back to the BNP.

quite right allfalldown - she was actually asking a really difficult question, shows huge intellectual curiosity compared with those who just "know the number"

I thought it was a fantastic series, the bits I saw, and it did remind me of my teaching days (30+yrs ago!) the kids are generally brilliant and some of those staff are superb. Of course they've edited it to get the juicy bits for TV - you just have to take that into account!

I have worked in schools that have backed away from banning mobile phones and it reflected the fact that management were almost ruled by a number if students . I encountered chaos in some lessons and many staff were threatened or assaulted . Ultimately we had to accept that we had created the environment in which such behaviour flourished. At this school girls wore heavy make up , uniform was floured and kids were often on mobiles. We prided ourselves on keeping pupils that most schools could not . In reality we sacrificed the many for the few. Most departments had at least one vacancy as staff did not stay.

Young people need clear guidelines, an example being you are not allowed your phone around the school site during school hours ever. I have never had an issue with a phone in my present school. I may confiscate one or two a year but there is never a fuss made. Our young people are very aware who is in control and where the boundaries lie.

ah. my grammar school (and to be fair, we are going back to 1908...
was in a small northern town. I was the only child from a broken home for years.
There were no black children, no Asian children. very few children from 'normal' families; it was all ski-ing holidays, holidays in France, pony riding and tennis lessons.
The sort of children whose parents were trying to save a few bob on private school and were desperately keen to do social climbing.
I felt very out on a limb. There were about 6 of us in my year who were from modest working class stock. I was one of only 3 children in my primary school (the Bog standard primary) who passed the 11plus. When we got to grammar, nearly everyone had had private coaching to get there.

I'm glad your son's experience is different.

The phones thing is interesting. If many private sc hools can ban phones which is something which costs nothing to implement (nor do many of the other things which work so well in the private sector) I don't see why the state schools cannot. If phones are a distraction in class either have them handed in at the start of the day and given back or just ban them from school .You are there to learn not to text friends.

Surely it would not be that hard to employ someone as children arrive in the morning to frisk them for phones