To think state schools should do more to push academic pupils?

[PickleM]

I've worked in both state and private schools. My observation with my own dc (in state schools) is that those who are very able academically could be given better opportunity to excel, but aren't. I see it as a great shame.

It seems like in order to tick the 'inclusive' box or help those who need more support, the children who are more capable aren't really given very challenging work.

An example would be that my dd is put in a very mixed ability group for maths and English. However, previously the class had different tables depending on level of work - those most able were given more challenging work. Those less able were given less challenging work. I've now been told by the teacher that this wasn't 'inclusive' enough for the slt. Apparently my dc is learning through 'coaching others'. I think she should give a higher level of work to those most able, I'm not interested in my dc 'coaching others' when she could be learning more complex work.

Private schools seem to have no issue with streaming children. Perhaps I've just been unlucky, ultimately it doesn't matter as I help my children learn at home, but what about capable children who don't have home support?

Op I can't Wade through all the pages but what age?

Primary year 3/4 possibly 5 I can sort of see why it maybe helpful to have her coaching others,and I agree it's such a great way to learn and embedded it.

But...I had with my dd sat next to highly disruptive children whose issues meant my dd would have no bearing on them.

She was used and had little to show for it.
The same started to happen at secondary so I eventually moved her to a grammar,( and for other issues)

I felt she had a lot to give but wasn't getting much back.

A few years ago oftesd said the brightest sx were being let down in comps and this is why progress 8 has been brought in to track progress.

I can't see how comps can suit all DC.
It's a crazy idea and we should have loads more types of school,not less.
I have one classic accadmically able child.
I have one less classically accadmically able child who needs a different way of teaching and who should be doing far more creative things and hand's on leaning.
We should be embraceing all the differences our DC have not being frightend of them...and corralling them all into one place so it seems like they are all the Same.
They. Are .not.

The difference with class size is time surely?you teach the concept to dc of total random ability?
Who has the time to concentrate on the DC who just don't get it, can't read properly yet?
Illegible writing?
DX needing special skills from a teacher who doesn't have them because they don't understand dyslexia?

The old trope about class sizes is largely a myth, though, certainly at primary school and for the most part up to A level. Or rather, it is a much less important factor than is typically supposed – the quality of teaching is significantly more important

No it isn't: www.aeuvic.asn.au/sites/default/files/class_size_research_summary.pdf

It is better to be in a class of 30 with a great teacher than in a class of 15 with an OK teacher, for example. There is plenty of pedagogic research to back this up

That's quite a claim. What research?

Yeah, I'm aware the EEF isn't perfect - just like Pisa isn't perfect - and would encourage anyone to maintain a critical attitude to educational research. There are so many interlocking variables that just isolating the effect of 1 can be impossible (and open to biased interpretation). I was really interested in the poster upthread whose school really had tried out different setting arrangements - being in a singe school reduces variability due to very different intakes etc - and monitored their results.

Well smaller class sizes will make it easier to be a good teacher.
Each teacher will have less students, so more chances to get to know students and adapt teaching to their needs, more time to mark work, less need for crowd control, more ability to give individual help where needed, more chance to ask all students questions in class to make them feel engaged and check for understanding.

I had this conversation with someone the other day. So clever kids teaching the less clever ones brings them up, but has no affect on the academic achievements of higher achievers - but based on GCSE levels - so kids who would get 9s, get 9's anyway - as they cannot achieve more highly. It doesnt take into account that they are bored, annoyed or stressed having to do a teachers jobs.

I mean maybe a brilliant teacher will do well with a larger class, but all things being equal smaller classes will be better.

At the extreme, with a very large class like some university lectures, there is little chance for interaction or responsiveness so pupils might as well be watching a video of a brilliant teacher with a TA to do behaviour management. Perhaps that will be the eventual government plan....

This is purely anecdotal, but I've recently retired from 15 years of teaching in Victoria, where class sizes are capped, by union agreement, at 25. Mostly classes were 22-23. Lots were 20.One was 10!!!!

You ceratinly get to know the students better and support them better at lower numbers; 20 was best. 10 is hard work, as you lose the sense of the group, harder to get discussions going.

This was English in an unstreamed, unsetted school.

Certainly!!!!!! Embarrassing English teacher typo! It's being upside down, the blood rushes to my head.

My state school doesn’t stream, we get fantastic results, much better than many, many other state schools that do. Streaming is very negative for pupils who are always in the bottom streams and doesn’t improve the performance of those in the top.

Inclusive teaching is just good teaching.

@noblegiraffe wow that article about the EEF conclusions on setting is quite damming. Makes you wonder what else they have wrong.

I do wonder how much the slight negative effect on lower attainers is down to behaviour. If lower attainers who wanted to learn were separated from those who are not attaining well because of behaviour issues perhaps this effect would disappear.

The thing about education research is that it is quite often poorly conducted, or different studies look at completely different things and then people lump them together so you end up with someone trying to do a meta analysis that is literally garbage in, garbage out.

Dylan Wiliam has talked about how teaching will never be a research-based profession because of this. For example you might have studies looking at the effectiveness of homework at primary and conclude that homework at primary is useless (as is often stated) but then you think about parents listening to to their child read and how vital this is, or perhaps something like practising times times. Then they might say 'oh but we were looking at homework tasks like 'build a volcano' or similar that is simply work for the parents and that turned out to be useless, we didn't mean don't listen to your child read'.

Wiliam said if something doesn't sound right, then you can probably dismiss the research on that basis. Like size of class doesn't matter. I mean, pfft, of course it does, despite what Hattie says.

And in teaching, so many other factors come into play that you can't control for, like the personality of the teacher, and the personality of the class.

The thing about education research is that it is quite often poorly conducted, or different studies look at completely different things and then people lump them together so you end up with someone trying to do a meta analysis that is literally garbage in, garbage out

This. I'm looking at you, John Hattie, you shyster.

ah, but a grammar school is basically a top set anyway! All the children there will be very able (of course there will be some variation).

interesting to see Hattie slated on here, lots of the research quoted on here about class sizes not mattering and setting having a negative effect is probably his. I’ve heard him quoted many times on leadership training so interesting to see he’s not rated in the real world (or mumsnet, anyway!)

This! 100%

@modgepodge it isn't just on here that Hattie is slated, there are some pretty robust criticisms of his methodology around on the internet e.g.
robertslavinsblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/john-hattie-is-wrong/

Hattie responds to the garbage in garbage out accusation with:

"The argument is that the quality of the research included in the Visible Learning dataset is more akin to junk food than organic produce grown with love. If the ingredients are junk, so the criticism goes, then so must be the results….

“…If we only included the perfect studies or meta-analyses, there would be insufficient data from which to draw conclusions. Indeed, in the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), which only allows RCTs [randomised controlled trials] and similarly high-quality designs, the median number of studies in each of the 500 reviews is two! It is hard to draw conclusions based on two studies.

“So, we have a choice to make. We either limit ourselves to collecting the perfect studies or we mine the lot but take great care over how we interpret the data and the conclusions that we draw from them. In the case of Visible Learning, the latter approach was taken.”

I think that he is wrong to say that there aren't enough good studies so it's fine to use crap ones. The correct approach would be to commission better studies and say the jury is out, not to bodge together a table ranking interventions based on crap that will then be wheeled out in INSETs as if inscribed on stone tablets.

I knew someone would say that. In Kent it's the highest achieving 25%, that doesn't necessarily corrleate to those who are most mathmatically able. There is still a wide range of ability.

Not my son's experience in any way whatsoever.
Bluntly, schools have no interest in very able children. They are judged on GCSE A-C, getting borderline kids over the threshold is what they focus on. Schools have been open about this with us

Entropy,

The school is wrong in saying this is what they are judged on - in 'the old days', and perhaps by parents who rely on raw results league tables, maybe. However, Ofsted and others now look at progress of ALL pupils, so a school that concentrates solely on the 3-4 or 4-5 borderline pupils will come horribly unstuck unless they are also making sure able pupils move from 8s to 9s.

There are far fewer at the top though, so concentrating in the middle creates the greatest return on effort.
I don’t really understand how it’s possible to be in mixed ability groups for subjects with different entry tiers?

I think there is a difference between ‘being in different groups that are targeting different tiers in the few subjects these exist’ in Y10/11, and being fully streamed for all subjects early in KS3?

My perspective is as a parent of two bright primary school children where the biggest issue is the pace in maths.

I think coaching others is useful (along with a range of other work). Probably the best comment in a school report about my Dd1 is that she 'effectively scaffolds peers learning in maths'. Unpacking a maths problem into steps and trying to understand what the gap is in a peer's thought process engages higher level thinking skills.

But there are issues for my DDs in maths lessons. The slow pace of teacher explanations and worked examples at the beginning of lessons bores them. DD1 whinged until I negotiated an alternative to her sitting through that, but I seemed to have to renegotiate every year. DD2 just switches off and day dreams, but apparently that's ok because she can still do all of the work. Some of the issue is also the curriculum. As an example, time is spent each year on place value (for a few years at least) with slightly larger numbers each year. Some children just get it, can extrapolate it to larger numbers and don't need it explained year after year.

They are judged on GCSE A-C, getting borderline kids over the threshold is what they focus on. Schools have been open about this with

Not any more it isn't. Progress 8 has, rightly, seen to that. I'm as likely to be asked why Delphine "only" got an 8 as why Bob "only" got a 3

It's interesting that low attainers are referred to many times in those links and with marginal results found.
My dd was a low attainer and that's because unfortunately no teacher had the skills to help her unlock her learning.
I had to rely on the kindness of strangers and also then, buy in help.
What's frightening is, she didn't need much at all!
Just a few tweaks here and there to help put her learning into context, visual aids and so on.
So I'm taking reports of impact on low attainers with a pinch of salt. Since my experience with dd I've linked up on FB site's a d spoken to many parents in rl and on here about it.
Most agree unfortunately not enough Sen strategy is taught in the pgce so teachers have no skills or knowledge on their lower attainers.
To insist it's in the pgce,to help tas access the tips, to roll out consultantations from Sen strategists would help enormously.
With reading for instance they just kept hitting the nut with the wrong hammer. Phonics!