WARNING this is a state v private education thread

[icarriedawatermelon2]

AIBU to feel that this is so unfair and that my DS should have the chance to experience all this? AIBU to feel really quite crap and that I have failed him?

To cut a long story short he is at nursery in an amazing prep school. He is there because it is on our door step and the nursery package was the best around in terms of flexible hours, extras etc. Anyway thats not the issue.

The issue is I have seen just how much is available to the children there but more importantly the amazing care of all the students, small classes, amazing setting, child centered learning, freedom to climb trees, etc.

We would be killing ourselves to send our children there :(
Our local state school has a lovely head, but is full to bursting, no space outside etc etc lots of heart there but you just can't compare the two schools.

My DC are every bit worth the best IMO! It makes me MAD that we can't afford it :(

Ok rant over....feel better for getting it out.

noblegiraffe There in is the rub is it not if you cannot teach without a projector and a laptop and using powerpoint then that speaks volumes. Considering that exams are the easiest they have ever been in physics etc and yet most of us managed to learn a lot more without needing to see a regurgitated powerpoint presentation or .gif on a screen to understand.

Yes progress is fine and dandy but if you can't do the job without them you are missing many tools of the craft that once was teaching. Crumbs you could get a decent 5th former to do all the classes for 1-4th if all they have to do is present powerpoint on a magic board.

@NovackNGood. I think that's unfair : a good powerpoint should contain far less than the speaker says (so no, you couldn't get a 5th former to do it) and depending on the nature of the material you're presenting it might be far more natural to use slides than chalk and talk.

Teaching does often require a visual support - for some subjects a blackboard is fine but for others you might need something more. We had a textbook - a powerpoint presentation could fill the same role.

Novack thanks for the implied insult to my teaching ability. I can teach without a computer and projector, thanks. I said I wouldn't be happy teaching without a computer and projector. I don't use powerpoint either, as it happens.

Teaching without a computer would lose the access to all the marvellous databases tracking student achievement and behaviour which means that we can keep tabs on them across the school. Electronic registers mean that we can tell if a student is probably bunking because they were in the lesson before ours and we can fire off an email to check.

A projector means that we can pre-prepare a lot of our lesson in advance so that we don't have to waste time writing stuff on the whiteboard when we can just stick it up on the screen. The internet is full of wonderful and dynamic resources which means we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we step in front of a class.
I'm a maths teacher, I can manipulate 3D shapes on-screen and show their nets, plot graphs instantly, exploring dynamically how changing an equation changes their shape.

I use my bog-standard whiteboard and pen an awful lot. But go back to teaching without a computer and projector because people could do it in the olden days? Fuck that.

What is pre-prepare??? You mean preparation??

I was lucky enough to grow up in Sweden while its school system was still top quality

What has happened since then in Sweden, there may be some lessons?

Get it sorted before the lesson? At the most basic level, instead of having to hand-write my title, date, lesson objectives on the board as the kids come in, I can project them from where I saved them earlier, then stand at the door and greet them instead.

I used to teach in the days of chalk and talk and think a white-board would be a fabulous addition to anyone's resources, and to what was possible !
What's not to like ?
Or perhaps we should go back to slates ?

Oh, when I said "white-board" I meant one of these fancy computer/ projector attached "white-boards"

• Mind you in my day - 1992 in the East End of London (so back in the last century ) - it was a black-board with chalk

So you mean prepare. From prae and parare.

Ae you one of those maths teachers who talks of 'angle measures' instead of protractor, and 'circle drawer; instead of a pair of compasses?

And I repeat ICT should not be necessary at all if you have the craft. Does not mean you need to get rid of it but you should easily be able to cope without it

Investing in magic boards etc whilst doing nothing to enable heads to easily get rid of the poor ineffectual teachers has not improved education in GB.

"Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
pre-prepare
verb
(usu as adj. pre-prepared) prepare or produce (something, especially food) in advance."

ICT isn't necessary. Neither are textbooks or worksheets. We could get kids to do questions via dictation onto a slate. But why make the job harder and less efficient than it need be simply to satisfy luddites, Novack?

Hardly a luddite am I if I am using the internet. :)

And I say again it is prepare.

ICT isn't about making the job easier for a lazy teacher. It's about enhancing the learning experience. It's a fact that children retain information better if it's presented to them in a visually stimulating way.

Why would any good teacher want to return to a day dominated by chalk and talk? Dull for the kids and for us.

We could give al children a ipad but o wait, you'd think that was a slate. They could read their lesson in .pdf format on their ipad too sold to them by Rupert Murdoch and have their exams marked by his company too, if Govey gets his way. And hey we can just use CBT for all the lessons and let the kids go at their own pace and level and get rid of you altogether if you can't chalk and talk.

Crikey, Novack and you criticise my use of English.

It's called using the patois you might understand.

Oh I see, you're not actually worth discussing this with. Good to know.

Nobody has said they cannot chalk and talk. But whilst it has its place, it isn't actually the best all round method and certainly if you stuck to just that, you're lessons would simply not be as good as they could be. Good teachers use a variety of methods wherever they are appropriate and the use of of ICT is very much part of this approach

There is no reason for all classes not to be CBT based and the role of the teacher can be to help the strugglers and the bright ones can move ahead at their own pace. It certainly wold allow the weeding out of the chaff.

i did not say you need to turn your back on ICT I said the CRAFT of being a teacher is lacking so much these days and if someone can't deliver a good lesson with a black board and chalk then they are lacking compared to those of yesteryear.

To get back to the original point. There is no reason for state schools to be the same standard as the private sector at all unless the parents are going to start to pay something or at least allow that teaching salaries should be different depending on the part of the country they live in.

I think the assumption that teachers of 'yesteryear' were of a higher standard is a poor one. In fact, there are far less poor teachers now than there was 40yrs ago. Teaching these days requires more skill, better planning and better delivery. Standing at the front of the class talking 'at' the kids is no longer acceptable thank goodness.
40yrs ago, many teachers had excellent subject knowledge but couldn't impart that knowledge for toffee. Yet they got away with standing at the front droning on with a list of facts to be copied from the board. Never mind the amount of wasted time actually writing it on the board. Today, lessons are far more stimulating and interactive thanks in part to modern technology. This cannot be a bad thing.

Yet far less of the subject matter is taught and the exams are the easiest they have ever been. What a conundrum.

I havent read all of the thread. However my 2 pence.

Went to a bogstandard comp. No aspirations and no one really pushed us to make us the best we could be whether that be a top hairdresser, plumber of CEO!

Did not want that for my children. Got some extra qualifcations, met the right man, recognised that if you want to get paid more you need to offer more. There are plenty of threads on here talking about not being able to find a role that fits in with school hours, wondering whether to work or not, take a career break etc. I spent tons on childcare to carry on a demanding role. The result is that we able to afford private schools and they are worth every penny.

I agree, lovingthecoast. There have been lots of advances in teaching methods since the old days when a teacher could talk at a class, occasionally throwing a board rubber at the kid who was falling asleep.

Also, parents are churning out kids of much lower quality these days and such methods would simply not work on them

OP here again.
Thank you for so many interesting posts. Emotionally drained now from thinking so much!

I just want a happy, rounded child who has every chance I can give him. I also want him to have a happy childhood and not feel any of our financial pressure, have mummy around to be there for him etc. I guess now I have to weight that up. Working full time to struggle to pay???

My other real concern is that we have many good state primary schools. This is not the case for our secondary choices and so I really have to consider what we would do if we had then not been able to save for secondary inde because we had paid for prep etc.

I do worry we will be judged a little at the inde, already I have noticed a little of them and us. I guess some parents may feel it is 'wrong' to use pre prep and not the main school.... that might be more my perception and not the reality though.

Whatmeworry Tue 29-May-12 15:06:46
"I was lucky enough to grow up in Sweden while its school system was still top quality

What has happened since then in Sweden, there may be some lessons?"

Free schools. A move away from a comprehensive school system with robust quality controls.