to be horrified at the behaviour in bohunt school

[SEsofty]

Just watched the programme about Chinese teachers in uk. Whilst I appreciate that it is reality tv and thus exaggeration for effect I was still horrified with the apparent number of children who were talking in class.

I'm not that accident and went to a very normal school but talking whilst teacher did simply didn't happen. I don't agree with the Chinese methods but talking whilst someone is trying to teach you is simply rude.

I've taught in schools in that general area and I can say from experience that that is exactly how many children beyond year 7 behave. In the last school I taught in we had multiple minor incidents in every lesson and the school as a whole had something more serious happen at least weekly (think fairly serious vandalism, assaults on teachers, crapping in corridors etc...)

I have heard so many stories from teachers.
Carterton comp: desks thrown over, no teaching. Deputy head walked in and bolloxed students with a speech that the teacher was actually trying to teach the something. As if that was some sort of rarity.
Notorious 'school for boys' (Central foundation) I have witnessed two 'survivors' of this school falling over each other at a dinner party to discuss war stories.
One was hospitalised after trying to break up a fight.
The other had her purse stilen. She knew who it was when the class announced that they knew her birthday. She also had to call a999 in class and have two taken away in ambulances, another in a police car.
Could go on......

Mehitabel:
'I also don't want the survival of the fittest. Some simply won't keep up. Do we just sacrifice them? My uncle had a system like that- it gave him a stammer that he still had in his 80s.
My husband did- to a certain extent - he has blotted his school days out - he hated it so much.
I have very happy memories of my school days - which were not like that. '

This is a straw man set of anecdotes posing as argument against reasonable better discipline in schools, the sort that would make it possible for students to actually learn.

I can add my tuppence worth to it all the same -- all those girls in the lower streams in the Irish school I attended in the late 70s and 80s who found themselves in classes dominated by attention seekers who had mentally checked out of education, and who were actually deprived of a chance to get decent qualifications as a result.

'I wouldn't like the mental problems that would result.'
There were plenty of mental problems in that school, plenty of frustration and exasperation, both in school and among students trying to find jobs afterwards. It is very depressing to start out at eighteen in full knowledge that you had the one bite at the cherry and that Cs and Ds and a sprinkling of Es and Fs in ordinary level papers are going to get you a job as a cashier in Dunnes if you are lucky enough to have scored a part time job there over your last years in school.

The idea that it is cruel or wrong in any way to try to 'inflict' a dose of reality, accountability and appropriate challenge into the lives of teenagers is absurd. Schools that do not try to take account of post education reality and get students to focus on that too are betraying their students. Children are not going to be 5 years old forever. Teenagers are not children.

"In my day you could get decent jobs after fairly mediocre O'levels - and certainly with a 2:2 - and work your way up. Lots of people were really successful in later life that didn't particularly shine in education."

There was a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth too.

"The idea that it is cruel or wrong in any way to try to 'inflict' a dose of reality, accountability and appropriate challenge into the lives of teenagers is absurd"

Did someone mention straw men?

Can someone more knowledgable than me- perhaps one of the Chinese contributors? -tell me what happens to the Chinese school students who can't keep up and whose families are too poor to have them tutored? And do we know what % of the school population do they constitute?

Have things changed so drastically since I was at uni, that that's not the teaching style any more? Assuming some of those kids in the programme will eventually end up in tertiary education, are they expecting to be entertained during a lecture?

Yes and yes, I'm afraid.

Bertrand. I think the children who fail in China from 'poor' backgrounds end up if 'lucky' in sweat shops ! . Those that are unlucky end up in 'labour' camps or having a bullet put in the back of their head. As the Chinese teacher said 'survive or die' translated meaning either achieve or end up in the two predicaments stated by me.

Any way , I have an idea for a follow up to this program ' do Unionised Public sector workers work hard enough'. This entails five 'managers' from China coming in stating how they work 15 hours a day, and how much productivity is lost though 'stupid' health and safety rules.

One of the comments being, how stupid to have 'rules' and regulations when dealing with 'explosive' materials!

Quite rightly this would be laughed at, so why do you call children asked to work in a 'culturally' bullying and dogmatic, that are not prepared to buy in to it.

Culturally bullying and dogmatic system.

My point was that those people who got jobs without top exam results climbed to the top of their particular career once they actually started in work. Many people don't reach their potential until later in life.
Employers are now finding that top results don't make for the best employees. Something China is finding out.

Well. In my family, my brother wasn't an A grade student but my parents captured on this early by providing extra tuition. We didn't have money but we had a good neighbour who was a maths wizz and tutored my brother. We'd send our neighbour back home with a lovely cooked meal!

I'm doing the same. I tutor my friend's son (they are German but go to a bi-lingual school called Europa (look it up!) And I teach him Mandarin. In exchange, his Mum tutors my DD in piano.

So you don't have to have money to get ahead. One can be resourceful. I think what we do great is not the can't do but can do attitude and we as parents are really watchful and on the ball- involved in guiding our children. Another thing, culturally, we are more likely to have stay at home mums. At least, from the part of Asia I am from. We are middle class professionals and mums generally don't work (or need to).

The above isn't unique to Asians. I see it across many UK families (my German friends for example. Dad is a doctor. Mother is a virtuoso pianist. )

I find it fascinating to find out what happened to contemporaries from school. Exam results have very little to do with who became the real high flyers in careers.
Education doesn't stop after full time education.
Everyone needs a bit of failure and to learn from mistakes.

"We are middle class professionals and mums generally don't work (or need to)."

What happens to working class kids?

Probably end up with a bullet in the head. (That's a joke!).

Well, like I said - I kind of live in a middle class bubble. Having said that, I know a number of Chinese mums from less wealthier backgrounds (none of the mums work) but their children do really well at school. I'm sure there are loads of Chinese that are your average grade c student in the UK. Just that I don't know any myself (truth!).

Gosh. I do think that's rather a telling answer, to be honest........,,

No Chinese students lower than average? Just like mumsnet really.

Bohunt school features GCSE results that are squarely in the average bracket, as shown by this table. Only in Statistics, Global Perspectives, and Chinese and Polish did the majority of students achieve A* - A. In the case of Chinese and Polish (both immigrant languages) a total of four students sat exams, two in each language.

Mehitabel: 'My point was that those people who got jobs without top exam results climbed to the top of their particular career once they actually started in work.'

In order to do that you have to actually get work, and not surprisingly employers look at proven ability (and even willingness) to work as a means of weeding out applicants.

The complacent idea that this is changing and that therefore second rate academic results will get you a job is wishful thinking. What employers do if they decide that academic results are not the be all and end all is look for individuals who manage the excellent results as well as demonstrating multiple soft skills and lots of provable involvement in areas separate from schoolwork -- volunteering, starting up a small business, setting up a charity, excellence in sport or music or art, etc.

As to people becoming high flyers despite poor results in school -- an indictment of the entire system there. Why bother with school at all if it is so irrelevant?

Your comments about signing agreements and hand picking students who can be guaranteed to behave for Royal visits are an implicit acknowledgement of the fact that poor behaviour goes on and is not stopped in the average school.

The remark about being able to know who will behave and who will not is followed by a question to parents of teens as to how they know their DCs will behave.

BR -- indeed, you do need to train children beginning at age five. It doesn't have to be draconian, harsh, Victorian, square peg in round hole, etc. Just respecting the fact that children need rules and thrive in orderly environments, and can be expected to take ownership of their own studies.

Actually, the training should be started earlier, at home, but it is not too late to start in school.

mathanxiety
Bohunt school features GCSE results that are squarely in the average bracket
Really?
what makes you say that?

it is WAY above the national average
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=136643
and their VA is sky high

I watched the last episode and was unimpressed with the headmaster's response. He appeared to be condoning (some of the) children's vile behaviour.
I don't particularly like the Chinese Teachers' style of teaching but the school agreed to the experiment aware of the nature of the education system in China. Manners and respect for people who are committed and passionate in what they are trying to achieve is something I try to instill in by own children and a healthy respect for different ways of doing things. I would hope that teachers at Bohunt would hold these values. The headmaster and his sidekick did not appear reinforce respect for the Chinese teachers.

Another thing that puts me off Bohunt, and in particular the headteacher, is that he agreed for his school to be filmed. Anyone with half a brain cell would work out that wasn't a good idea.

TalkinPeace,
The results were not spread evenly between A*, A, B and C.
'A* - C bracket' is a misleading term.

The majority of students achieved a B or lower in every subject except in Art and Design: Photography, Chinese, Global Perspectives, Physics, Polish, and Stats. So we are looking at niche interests, languages spoken by immigrant families, and subjects that only students committed to studying hard might choose.

So how do you define "average" results? And "good results?"

mathanxiety
Its a COMP - which bit of that do you find hard to comprehend?

Maths, English, Science, MFL, Humanities are compulsory
intelligence is in a normal distribution
and you are surprised that the grades reflect this fact?

what grade distribution would you expect in a non selective school in non option subjects?

Apart from the 36% who get 5 A*-As of course.

Reading this thread with interest (former Bohunt parent).

The school does some very slick marketing of itself and is keen to be seen to be innovative etc. This project looks like a step too far though...it's causing a lot of angst locally with the focus on poor behaviour etc.

It's not a selective school, but children with extra needs are not exactly welcomed (IME). The open day each year is simultaneously very exciting and impressive (to children) and a strong message to parents to not apply if your child cannot/will not behave well and work hard.

We have gone elsewhere with our younger children....