To ask what exactly is wrong with a '1950 s ' style education .

[mountford100]

I have just come across a thread on the Secondary Education board that suggests a couple of grammar schools are like travelling back to the 1950 s !

Does that mean they expect pupils to behave (not answer back) , work to their best of the ability do their homework, wear correct uniform at all times.
A school that has little or no time for a child seeking excuses as to why they can not abide with basic rules.

Why does there has to be a mitigating reason as why a child misbehaves other than just bad behaviour.

I am extremely grateful i was educated in a grammar school operating with many 1950 s principles (this is despite being near the bottom of the year) .

[Gilead]

Interesting Mountford that you slate comprehensives and remain entrenched in your position whilst ignoring posts that disagree with you. You mentioned a particular school, but upon hearing something you don't like you ignore it. In fact you persist in ignoring posts that put a different point of view, you just defend your punctuation etc.

[mountford100]

I am defending my punctuation because i have at least five posters calling me out on it.

I don't understand why saying something negative about standards today in schools is deemed to be slating comprehensive schools as a whole!

With regards to the two schools chosen , they clearly represent the extremes of the comprehensive schooling system!

The cohort of Parmiters is similar in nature to a standard grammar *non super selective, Harrop fold's cohort is more in line with an East Kent High schools.

However, comprehensive schools in some areas do not hold a candle to Upper Schools in Bucks or the excellent High Schools in Trafford for instance .

[Gilead]

The cohort of Parmiters is similar in nature to a standard grammar non super selective, Harrop fold's cohort is more in line with an East Kent High schools.*
But that's not true, is it. There is an entrance requirement for Parmiters.

[mountford100]

Parmiters is classed as a selective comprehensive which means up to 20% of pupils can be selected via the 11+.. other selection methods includes gifted Musicians (gifted musicians are usually quite academic) In theory only about 30% or so of Parmiter's cohort have been selected via selection. The reality of course is the catchment area or those who qualify via other regulations are largely in the high ability cohort.
The statistics in the cohort of the other sought after Comprehensives of Hertfordshire usually show about 75-80% high attaining pupils 17 % or so middle and token 2% of low ability pupils , i guess so their legal obligation of being a Comprehensive school can't be called in to question .

A 75/25% cohort split between high /middle ability pupils is consistent with an average grammar school that requires a pupil only to pass the 11+ i.e not score dependent or top 100 or so.

Harrop Fold despite being a fully comprehensive school has similar social and economic problems to that found in Margate for instance . The results are very similar to schools in Margate (despite not having the VAT element of pupils taken out 20% + 5%) Joke....

Why does Harrop Fold produce no better results than schools in Margate or the Isle Of Sheppey , if the fabled 25% taken out is the key to Margate and Sheppey's failures!

[mountford100]

Parmiter' = 25% via 11+, 10% by musical ability !

[Gilead]

I apologise, it's obviously changed since my son was there (he's mid thirties now). It's been a very long time since we lived in the Watford area too, so I'm not up to date. We still removed him for bullying though, it was rife.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

The reality of course is the catchment area or those who qualify via other regulations are largely in the high ability cohort

You do know the area around Parmiters ??

Just because it is in South Hertfordshire doesn't make it really middle class

[Moussemoose]

I wouldn't dream of mentioning a posters individual SPaG foibles unless it was directly related to the point of their post.

1959s education was 11+ then one size fits all. This is nonsense, we now attempt to differentiate and adapt to individual needs.

The OP wants this inadequate system while demonstrating why it is inadequate.

[Peregrina]

Furthermore, if my and DH's junior schools were typical, then they were streamed - and only the top stream had a chance of passing for the grammar. Effectively the selection was at 7.

[mountford100]

Moussemoose. I presume you suggesting spelling, grammar and punctuation are not equal to the sum of the parts of an individual !

I totally agree with that statement. However i do not think at the time of my education in the 1980 s any help would have been offered or available . My needs would not have been met at the non grammar school.

That school had made their assessment of my academic abilities based on how i behaved as an autistic 10 year old on an outward bound course.

I also believe today that appropriate help is not universally available for children with at secondary school.

We looked at the schools around the area for my DS 11 and found the grammar school was the most likely to support my sons autism appropriately.
The non selective schools kept telling me that they had autistic children at all levels of ability.

They also told me that some of the *melt downs made it difficult to put the bright autistic children in to the higher sets.

He has comfortably passed the 11+ and will start year 7 in September.

[mountford100]

Children with additional needs are not universally catered for.

[Moussemoose]

As I mentioned previously I am dyslexic as well. Clearly I do not agree with your initial statement:

Moussemoose. I presume you suggesting spelling, grammar and punctuation are not equal to the sum of the parts of an individual

I failed my 11+. My education was quiet poor until I was 16 but I still managed to get to university. I have taught myself lots of SPaG techniques. Techniques that should have been taught at school. However, this thread is not about education in the 70s, 80s or 90s but the 1959s.

Education today faces many challenges but a return to 1950s chalk and talk, rote learning and ignoring individual differences is NOT the answer.

I think when you say "1950s style education" you specifically mean discipline.

[Gilead]

mountford, your experience is yours alone. There are good and bad schools in all sectors. We refused to put ds in a particular middle school because they told us he'd have to help the other children whilst they caught him up. We found another school.
Both dds are on the spectrum too, and were catered for, without difficulty in their first high school and in sixth form college. That's my experience. Different to yours.
The school, the one school that decided your abilities when you were younger may not have been a great school at that point. On the other hand it may well have been. You may have got there and been nurtured, you don't know because you didn't attend. So you've come up with a lot of nonsense based on your sole experience of a school you didn't attend and a school that you attended that got you distinctly average grades. You really do need to be looking at the bigger picture.

[mountford100]

The point i was making is because someone may struggle with the appropriation of SPAG within the English Language , this does not determine their intelligence!

The discipline element to a 1950 s education (minus the Corporal Punishment element ) is a significant plus point , though some might argue that was the reason why it was.

The school you regard as average managed to send my older sister to Oxford University and my younger one to Bath University.

Personally despite in theory at the time with a C and two D s at A level i could have accessed University , i was unable to probably down to my condition.

I have met people educated in the 1980 s through the Open University with similar disabilities to me educated in Comprehensives that weren't allowed to take GCSE s.

Bearing that in mind i think my 'anachronistic' single sex grammar had created a silk purse out of a sow's ear just getting me to sit A levels 1991 !

[Gilead]

Bearing that in mind i think my 'anachronistic' single sex grammar had created a silk purse out of a sow's ear just getting me to sit A levels 1991 ! (sic)
You see, it's the thinking behind that that I find worrying. You don't know what a comprehensive would have done for you. You don't know the reasons why people in your situation were not allowed to take GCSEs. All of my children took their exams, they're all high achievers, they're all autistic. Have you accessed a classroom in a comprehensive recently? Was it all out war? I doubt it.

[GirlInterruptedOftenByKids]

I don't know maybe your DD will go to work in the Fabric Industry and may be responsible for putting images on the fabric !

Brocade: Shuttle Woven Fabrics

Adumbrate: To produce a faint image.

That's possible, but it's far more likely he's going to need to use capital letters - a topic that's skimmed over in Reception and never revisited under this curriculum. "Adumbrate" wasn't in my 90s-era dictionary btw and the other parents in ds' class had never heard the word either.

If your child visits a foreign country, they will need to take a dictionary with them. If your child lives through the next world war, the Internet may be switched off. If the Internet gets any more full of erroneous information, the definition for 'enlightenment' might read 'the switching on of a light' and your child won't know the difference. Do you really want them not to be able to use a dictionary?

I can't remember the last time I took a dictionary abroad! That's what online dictionaries are for! Unless ds is travelling abroad in the post-world-war era when the internet has been switched off, which isn't a totally feasible scenario and not one I'm going to panic about.

He hasn't done PE once this year (swimming yes, but most of that time is getting changed!). In the post-world-war world it sounds like anarchy might break out once the internet is switched off and in that case I'd prefer him to able to run than use a dictionary.

[Gilead]

Girlinterrupted, knowing how to find information other than via the internet is a useful skill. There are parts of the world, including in the UK where the internet is barely (if at all) accessible. Your child's teacher is teaching, that's what learning to use a dictionary is about.
Adumbrate is in my dictionary, but I have an exceptionally large copy of the OED.
Oh, and if your child goes to university, we don't accept that which is plagiarised from the internet. We even have software to detect it. Ergo, learning to research is a useful skill. Back where we started...

[GirlInterruptedOftenByKids]

I give up! Yes you're all right, this is a better use of their time than doing art, music, PE, creative writing, play time or all the other things that have been sacrificed for this archaic curriculum.

[hazell42]

It is not a 1950s world. They are not 1950s kids. Doesn't matter how much you wish they were.
Rose tinted glasses?

[Terrylene]

My mother left her 1950s education at 15, with nothing, having not passed the 11+. It was just a sort of holding by until you were old enough to leave school and go to night school and do something useful.

My MIL left her 1950s grammar school with a school certificate in Maths, English, French, Physics and Domestic Science - they just don't seem to have bothered with any other exams She got a job in an office.

My FIL left his 1950s grammar school at 15 with nothing, in order to work in the family business. Unfortunately, he got ill at 21 and could not carry on with this and had no qualifications to do anything else, so was lucky MIL got him a job where she worked.

DF's 1950s education was more of a success (apart from being treated like children in the 6th form, even though their peers had left school and worked for 3 years). His parents wanted him to stay at school and he got enough o levels and a levels to matriculate and get a degree and become a teacher.

[mountford100]

It certainly is not all out war at the * grammar that is a comprehensive but really is a grammar referenced up thread ! However, 10 minutes watching Educating Manchester shows that Harop Fold school really is a battle zone.

How an autistic or any child with additional needs could survive let alone thrive in such a chaotic environment is beyond me.

Clearly Educating Manchester highlights the need for academic separation to be available for pupils in Little Hulton .

What would a child getting 4 B or (6s) there have achieved in a highly structured, academic and selective environment! How much education did they miss every single day due to disruption in the classroom.

It is so bad now that behaviour/attitude that would have seen me or other posters 'expelled' is encouraged as a means of expression in schools like Harrop Fold .

N.B No blame attached to the school or teachers for this, they are just firefighting. The act of being perceived as the pupils friend by teachers in the corridor's or resource center, is just to stop the place going up like a Catherine Wheel.

[mountford100]

SPAG! mistake off like a Catherine Wheel.

[mountford100]

Terryline. With the number of kids who leave school today unable to string an English sentence correctly either written or vocally , perhaps schools would be better concentrating on such things ! This instead of having such students take 11 GCSEs in such places as Harrop Fold .

It is quite ironic that people are making me face trial in the 'star chamber' for my inexcusable treasonous defamation of the English Language . This despite no effort from other posters to condemn the truly shocking state of written and spoken English of some secondary school leavers today.

The reasons given why many autistic pupils in the 1980 s were refused entry to GCSE courses were uniform. This is because schools were incapable of looking past their first perceptions or had limited understanding of what autism is . Therefore the uniform answer was autistic pupils were not capable of undergoing any academic study . The schools believing it would be callous and un- caring for such children to be expected to produce work of academic rigour.

I have come to this conclusion based on my own experiences and other people These have been gathered through interactions via O.U study and adult support groups i have attended.

Furthermore i believe Autistic people have been so let down by the education system (certainly before the year 2000 ) . The Government should be paying compensation out to those affected by such incompetence/ignorance by those within the education community.

[Gilead]

I think Mountford it's because people feel, quite reasonably that it's unfair of you to judge unless you get it right. You don't. You don't know the reasons others don't get it right. Oh, and shocking written and spoken language skills of some school leavers; happened in the fifties too.