To think that a pupil premium should be paid for children who live in home where none of the parents have qualifications

[ReallyTired]

I think that the education of the parents has a more significant outcome on a child's attainment than income. (Especially as many working poor don't have much more money than those on benefits.)

I feel that children who live in households where no adult has five GCSEs or equivalent should get extra support at school. Often these families aren't entitled to benefits because the parents do work so currently don't get the pupil premium.

It is harder for uneducated parents to support their children with homework than someone with a degree. Better eduated mothers are better at getting their children's needs met as they are often more articulate. For example making sure that statemented child gets what they are legally entitled to. (Getting a child assesed by an ed pych so that the child's dyslexia is spotted.)

Unskilled people often do physically hard work for very long hours for very little money. I believe that a child with unskilled working parents is at a major disadvantage as their parents are time poor as well as cash poor.

Woowoo I'm sorry I didn't mean to suggest it was your ideal, just what was happening.
Traveller's education services didn't used to be a liason officer though even that's gone here now. They used to have proper travelling teachers who understood real barriers for different types of 'traveller', green cards, how to help base schools, how to help parents, how to help whole families, and provided something that allowed particular problems to be overcome. if you just take those kids and dump them in the classroom, well it sounds like you know what happens.

Why does everything come down to going to uni. What happens if you do not believe in a university education being the panacea for a good life. Met loads of people over the years with a degree and I can honestly say I would not swap my life for theirs.

Dd and ds are no way going to be doing A levels. Dd has just had her Ed Psych report saying she is in the bottom 1% of the country academically. Good job she can sing, dance and act then.

had to rely on the information handed down, and so much has turned out to be downright lies, the rest just often misleading.

Indeed, and you are right to be angry. But I think you're angry at the wrong people. A lot of the things you rail against (picking out examples, BTECs, subject choice, further maths) have been true since forever. Getting into a selective university with BTECs (previously HNCs or whatever) has always been hard. Doing the right A Levels has always mattered. Further Maths has always been a good idea for pretty well any STEM degree.

When Conservative education secretaries say this, the cry of "elitism" comes from the left and the teaching unions (as if they're distinguishable). The people who are happy to see schools with predominantly working class intakes teaching subject and qualification mixes that virtually guarantee that you cannot attend any selective university are not, in general, Michael Gove's acolytes. The push for "relevant" and "applicable" (ie, low status) qualifications has come from bien pensant educationalists who think that working class children are only capable of qualifications that the educationalists themselves would reject out of hand for their own children.

If someone said they were opening a school where the only A Levels available were English, History, French, German, Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Art and Music, with AS Biology available for prospective medics, they would be laughed to scorn. But (waves hands, waits for counter-examples) those A Levels cover the entry requirements for 95% or more of all degrees in the country. How many degrees can't you apply for with three A Levels out of that set? One of the classics streams at Cambridge requires you to have A Level Latin, there's presumably a few MFL degrees that require the matching A Level (but no school can offer all the possibilities), and what else?

Teaching any A Levels outside that set (plus, possibly, straight Economics) is a dubious endeavour: it doesn't open up any options (again, I await correction) and generally closes options down. Your local independent school, feeding most of its pupils into top universities, essentially offers two choices: "English, History, an MFL" and "Maths, two sciences, plus either a third science or further maths". That's it. Even if you don't go to university, those are the A Levels employers want.

But imagine your local comp switched to that curriculum for all its A Level candidates. Can you imagine the howls of "elitism" and "what use are those subjects?" and "where's the Business Studies and ICT and Photography and Law and Sociology?" More to the point, can you imagine the howls of "fucking Gove?"

The villains of this piece aren't the government. It's a bunch of people working in education who decided that if your mother has her hair in a scrunchie and you're on Free School Meals, you can't understand further maths and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. And that plays well with some parents (some parents, obviously not you) who would say "further maths, what's the good of that?" And we end up with a two tier education system, which you are absolutely right to be extremely cross about. And it's voices like yours which need to be heard.

Calculator? Casio FX83 is fine.

I would add that other than French, other language degrees are offered in ab initio formats that merely require an A-level in a language. If you have A-level French, you can still do a degree in Spanish or Japanese.

P.S. I was really annoyed to find out that A-level Law was considered a soft option after I'd started the course. I was considering law and it seemed like a good idea.

A level law is the clearest example of an A level usually only taken by people who are mis-advised. As you say, it sounds like a good idea if you want to do law. Sadly it isn't. 30 years ago some universities wouldn't even accept it as a third A level, even for law. It has changed a bit, but not much. Do any law degrees require or even recommend it? I've never seen one.

I am fairly certain that at best A-level Law is a "well, okay..." subject to a "well we'd prefer it if you didn't have it because it makes you think you know what you're doing" subject. Bit like A-level Biology for medicine, but far worse.

What about Psychology? Is it required for Psychology degrees or not? The only qualified practising Psychologist I know well enough to ask about their A-levels did take it.

If I had my time again, I'd probably still pick it, because most subjects required a GCSE in the same subject, and Law was the most interesting of what was left. The college nominally required that all students have 5 GCSEs before they do any A-level, but it was tacitly understood that it did not apply to me! But I did need to meet individual subject criteria. I was interested in the legal system and the things I learnt were worth learning. However, it was far harder than A-level Maths and it annoys me to this day that the hard A-level is the one that people dismiss!

Thankfully I worked out on my own that I should go nowhere near A-level Business Studies or Accountancy, because I talked to people taking it!

Friday it isn't the government I'm saying don't give more money to, it's that 'bunch of people working in education' who made those decisions and who carry on making those decisions, who I don't think should be more empowered to decide who gets what.

There is a two tier education system and IMO it's the people looking at and working in the top tier who want to hand over more money based on what they do, who don't understand that most of the kids they want to target are going to the second tier schools and most of them to the least desirable ones.

Why does the local comp have to switch to only that set of qualifications, though, is there a reason why can't it do both, and tell the truth about the difference between a physics degree and a media degree and educate people to know what the different options really mean, and if a BTEC in law might be a good road to become a paralegal but would end any hope of being a solicitor?

Common sense said they couldn't really be equal, but it was denied to my face again and again even after I had internet access and was able to pick peoples brains on here, and it's still denied by my LEA.

Why is it so hard to tell everyone the truth? What is it they are afraid will happen?

Sunshinemum when you say level 3's, is that at yr 6?
Is it a formal 'refusal to assess for statement or they've said he wont get one because EP and HT wont back it, and if it's the former have you appealed? If not get in there fast, the door is closing and soon will be pretty much barred.

My mum: 2 GCSEs
My dad: no qualifications

My brother: 2:2 degree from Nottingham Trent in Business
My sister: 2:2 degree from Kings College London in Human Biology
Me: 2 A levels and a diploma in English Literature and Creative Writing from OU

It is possible to succeed!

Neither my Mum or Dad had any qualifications and yet I ended up with a 1st BA Hons degree!

Can I respectfully suggest that you read the thread? Nobody has said that people from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot and have not been very successful.

Sunshine personally I reckon you need to go in all guns blazing to get that statement (or an early EHC plan if you prefer) but you need to know what it is you want in it, and what you want to achieve through it.

Ignore all the naysayers, or how much you've already lost, or how hard it is, because you don't have much to lose. Get over to the SN boards and ask for help. Money and legal help's great but I represented my child and lots have to.

Learn about the timescales and how you can be tricked into not being covered by them.
It's horrible to say assume you can't trust the information you're given about how AfA is going to suddenly rescue him but having read the evaluation I wouldn't.
AfA may in a longer term be a good thing in schools (or at least some schools) but right now if he's leaving yr 6, or just entered yr 7 on L3's, I wouldn't be hanging around for them to work out to make it really work on an individual level.

The final report evaluation (along with 100's more pages) said :
Our multilevel analyses demonstrated that schools characterised by higher attendance and achievement, stronger homeschool relations prior to the start of AfA, and smaller pupil populations tended to achieve better outcomes.

Conversely, schools with larger proportions of pupils eligible for FSM, speaking EAL, or at the latter stages of SEND provision (e.g. SA+, SSEN) were somewhat less successful. Our qualitative case studies reaffirmed the importance of such contextual factors.

Furthermore, they demonstrated that where AfA was successful it was seen as an opportunity to build on existing good practice rather than having to do something very different.

No shit Sherlock! who'd have pre guessed that?

Why does the local comp have to switch to only that set of qualifications, though, is there a reason why can't it do both, and tell the truth about the difference between a physics degree and a media degree and educate people to know what the different options really mean, and if a BTEC in law might be a good road to become a paralegal but would end any hope of being a solicitor?

An excellent question, and one someone who works in 11-18 education might like to answer. I can speculate, but it's only speculation.

I thought it was woth pulling this out for Sunshine but also for this thread.

Our quantitative analyses demonstrated that, generally speaking, pupils with stronger positive relationships, who attended school more regularly, and with higher levels of academic achievement at the beginning of the AfA pilot experienced relatively better outcomes.

Pupils at SA+ or with SSEN generally experienced less positive outcomes, as did pupils eligible for FSM.

In terms of identified primary need, there were few consistent findings across outcomes.
However, of particular note are pupils with BESD, who experienced accelerated academic progress, but were also at greatly increased risk
of less positive wider outcomes; this pattern also applied to a lesser extent to pupils with ASD.

Talking of further maths and attitudes towards it, my mother kicked up merry hell over me taking one than one Maths A-level and a science. She was convinced that I would be "over-specialised" and that I needed to take the further maths out, and replace it and the science with humanity subjects. I passionately wanted to go to Oxbridge and do maths, and then win the Fields Medal!

A-level Law was the only choice she approved of!

Patronising crap! What's an "ed pych"? .

I needed to take the further maths out, and replace it and the science with humanity subjects. I passionately wanted to go to Oxbridge and do maths, and then win the Fields Medal!

That's one of the things that people who don't understand come up with. A Levels involve specialising. English degrees are specialised. There's a whole discussion about whether that should be the case, the merits of the IB or an American-style Liberal Arts syllabus, and so on, but it is a reality that English degrees are specialised. Mixing sciences and humanities often leaves you unqualified, or marginal, for either. Instead of keeping options open, it closes options off.

And to trade Further Maths for A Level Law? What was your mother thinking?

Mind, a bloke I vaguely knew at primary school, whose parents still live near mine, did win the Fields Medal. He was Quite Odd.

Ooh why is Further Maths Alevel elitist? I did it at my nothing-special comp (with high levels of fsm) over 20 years ago.

Ofcourse people can do well going down the non academic route, but this is getting harder and harder. There are fewer vocational apprenticeships and often you need basic qualifications to get an apprenticeship.

If it was so easy for someone from a disadvantaged background to beat the odds and get good qualifications then more people from such backgrounds would do so.