Aibu to think education at the moment is a race to the bottom?

[Bridgetjoneski]

I get there is a staffing crisis but I feel the bar has been set so low that if bright kids don't have clued in parents & guardians who have an insight into what's going on they will slip through the cracks.. My y7 has no homework more often than she does.. When she does it's literally 10 minutes..
Her school is a very mixed demographic & it seems they want all kids to tick all boxes, not stretching or expanding the curriculum.. It just feels it's a race to the bottom. And some parents very much seem to see school as a baby sitting service..

What you're describing isn't a race to the bottom, but yes, education in general is.

• who can use the least amount of money
• how can the least amount of resources be used or teachers be made to buy their own
• how can the least amount of staff have the most volume of work squeezed out of them
• how can the student : staff ratio be stretched even further
• how many students can be put into a room without an adequate number of desks
• is supply cheaper than an existing member of staff (usually no, but increasingly unqualified cover supervisors are used, who are half the cost and may therefore work out cheaper even if they're agency), so if someone leaves can we get away with cover
• can we use the shitty free version of the website rather than pay for quality to tick the homework box
• for students, who can look the coolest to their peers by overtly giving the least amount of fucks about their work

KS3 always gets the worst deal as everyone panicks over Y11, especially at this time of the year.

Maybe I'm especially bitter this week. I'm doing an extra 2 days' worth of work due to absent staff and a requirement to give up every afternoon for a Y11 cohort that couldn't be less interested and I am not even given the grace of a photocopying budget despite having to somehow resource all of that. Because schools are that broke.

Can confirm, i remember my year 8 very well and how boring it was/how much it dragged. It felt as though we were just left to it as we didn’t have tests or exams whereas we did in every other year. (Should say this was more that 25 years ago and it still stick in my mind!)

It's only year 7. Have you asked for more homework from individual teachers? Is it a good school? Was this your first choice. Because our school is excellent and once they are set, then once they start GCSE's there's plenty of homework and the top sets are full of bright children working hard (some of them! Some of them are so bright they don't actually need to do much work) so it'll all even out then. When will she be set for English and maths?

Octavia64 · Yesterday 14:40
Secondary schools are very different from each other.

There are very selective grammar schools and they will be stretching their students.

There are massive comps where students will be in mixed ability groups.

There are failing schools where few students go because of their bad reputation and they struggle to get staff.

All schools are different.

Yes - this.

If your child is academic it's very frustrating for them to be left to jog along in their comfort zone - they need to be stretched and challenged, and I worry that non-selective schools don't or can't do this. Non-academic children may do better without the stress of being challenged in this way and I've always wondered how comprehensive schools manage to combine these needs.

My son went to a grammar school and I just couldn't imagine how he'd have managed in a school without that competitive, high-achieving, swotty ethos. He'd have been bored, lonely and miserable.

My daughter was completely different and would have been crushed in a grammar school. Unfortunately parents don't often have a choice as to where their children go and that's the problem.

Plenty of comprehensives have very good GCSE results. Obviously across the board they don’t do as well. But their brightest students do as well those in grammar. Just because you can’t see how it can work doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of evidence it works. If you are in a grammar area, then of course the comprehensives don’t have a top set. The brights students have already been creamed off the top. It’s not true in comprehensive areas. Do you then think that no one succeeds in exams in non grammar areas?

Isn’t Brampton Manor in London one of the best in exam results? It isn’t selective for year 7, only for sixth form. Many comprehensive areas have selective sixth forms.

It’s funny that you think she had a choice. There are no grammar schools within a 100 mile radius of where I live. There are 4 independents, all in cities nowhere near where we live or work, and there is no public transport to get there. DD would possibly manage to get a scholarship for one of those, but DS has ADHD and autism, and has no chance. Should I send them to different schools in different directions and spend my whole day driving around to accommodate their attendance?
Luckily we have great state schools nearby so this isn’t a problem for us, but your post shows a lack of understanding that not everyone lives in a place where your suggestions are in any way possible.

To be honest your school just sounds rubbish. Ours seems much more proactive and focused in individual development. Did you research schools thoroughly?

Brampton Major has a very specific ethos which is very obvious when you look around. Parents not willing to push their DC to the full and sign up to the ethos would never put it down as a first choice. So it is selective in a sense attracting a certain type of family. They do very well with poorer immigrant children whose parents are willing to do what the school demands.

Some people in London get more choice because the public transport system works and there are all sorts of semi selective comps now with banding tests, music and sports aptitude test. The remaining grammars are incredibly selective and require some extensive preparation even for very bright children so they are not for the faint hearted. Plenty of parents are simply not willing to put a 9/10 year old through the process, however bright.

you felt this wasn't right for your child, did you start preparing them for 11 plus, scholarships/ burseries??
If not, why not?

Is this a joke? Most areas do not have grammars. These days the scholarships and bursaries offered by most private schools often only cover a tiny percentage of the fee unless you are on very low income. For most middle class families with high mortgage costs etc, its simply not possible to consider private schools.

In most areas there's also very little real choice of schools, it will depend where you can afford to live & what transport is offered. Where I live the schools are all a bus ride away, there aren't public bus routes to most of them & the council only provides school coaches to the nearest secondary (not the grammars, even if you've got a place). It can be a nightmare for a working parent to work out how to get a child to a different school.

The focus in state education at the moment is very much on levelling and reducing the attainment gaps between poorer children and everyone else. Its also heavily focussed on getting the highest possible proportion to "age related expectations" which thus becomes almost a floor standard rather than an average.

Its impossible to have these targets AND try to stretch & challenge your more able learners (which tends to open the gap more, not less).

Gosh where do you all live that you have a choice of schools?

Bright students do well at GCSE without having to be stretched and challenged because GCSEs are easy for those children. It doesn't encourage them to do their best or be confident at speaking in front of peers or to take pride in their work - a few GCSE As from the brightest students are not an indicator that a school is doing a great job.

The entire curriculum is unfit for purpose now.

People are still not grasping how much AI is going to impact the next generation.

@Probablygreen
I think you were unfair to @Pinkiepromise789 . She makes a very valid point. We all make choices. You choose to live where you do, as do we all. If people want, they can and do make provisions, prior to even having children, or once they've had children, to question where they live and if schools are good. If you choose to live somewhere where the schools are not great, then at least own that choice. People have 14 years of schooling, prior to gcse's starting, that they could've moved or made other choices during that time, if they had chosen to make good schooling their top priority.

I do own it. I chose to live near my family, in a place where both DH and I have good jobs for which we don’t have to commute so we can spend time with our kids instead. We live near some really good state schools, one of which is one of the top performing secondary schools in the country. We invest a lot in our children’s education. That doesn’t take away from the fact that whilst we have a choice which great state school we send our children to, there are no grammar or independent options available to us as a middle class family.
According to your logic, if you live in the North, you’ve chosen not to care about your child’s education. I don’t think it really works like that.

But they are doing this by dragging down the top not improving the bottom.

Was the same 40 years ago. I went to a shirt comprehensive and basically educated myself. Got my maths O-level age 10 and by the time I was in what is now year 6, I was getting work sent down from the high school.

Move to the high school was awful.. Full of troglodytes who had no intention of working. The school was right next to the jail and the joke was it was a free pass for most of the boys from one to the other. The girls were mostly concerned with smoking, shagging and getting pregnant.

There was one top stream and 5 remedial streams - and the top stream was not all that good. I spent four years (because I was moved up a year in an attempt to get me out in case I got corrupted) being bullied and ignored. The year I left hated me and the year I moved into hated me even more as I was younger and still got better grades.

Maths and Physics A-levels were passed at age 12. Computer science and geography at 13. Still had to attend those classes and the teachers great idea was to get me to help out the rest of the class (who were older than me) - you can imagine how well that went down. By the time I was doing the rest of my GCSE's I was doing the subjects I liked less as I'd already passed the others.

how did I end up there? My parents were poor. I sat an entrance exam for the local private school and passed with flying colours but as I needed a scholarship I had to pass the interview. There was no training or guidance given on the correct answers as my primary school had never had anyone even dram of applying. When asked why did I want to go ABC Private school my answer was, "If the other options was XYZ Comp which would you choose".

What was my point in all this?

Grammar school would have been my saviour and I'll always regret I was born too late to take advantage of it and I fell sorry for bright kids in a shit school. Even with the best teachers, you cannot isolate them from the Neanderthals that lurk in the bottom sets.

Loads of reports show homework is utterly pointless. I don’t think that’s an accurate indicator of a school’s ability to teach.

“The entire curriculum is unfit for purpose now.

People are still not grasping how much AI is going to impact the next generation.”

I think most DCs learn digital skills out of school anyway. It is part of their day to day lives, deeply ingrained and they do mentor each other. GCSEs are an exercise in memory and organisation skills and being “on top of it”. And also about exam technique and revising correctly, Most of life is about figuring out the system as well, passing hurdles to prove to others that they want you on their team etc. In most schools GCSEs are only a big deal from lent term of year 10 onwards so as long as you don’t have gaps and focus then, a DC should be fine. I agree that before that broader Education has to come from parents. But I disagree that it has to be very academically old fashioned, culturally focussed. We are middle class so the DCs all play several instruments, speak foreign languages (that one was hard work), have travelled and have historical awareness. But I would never judge a young person at interview on whether they have these class and cultural markers. I am more interested in how their mind works and their work ethic and legal skills.

Homework for a 7 year old ?

We want well rounded individuals in the future not rote machines

State grammar had very little homework until gcse, they got most work done in class. A disruptive class may mean more needs to be done at home.

Some people do have a choice, but lots really don't.
Lots of areas have no grammar schools and even with bursaries, lots of parents could not afford private school.
If researching schools - which lots of people do where I live - means moving to a good catchment, this again is for wealthier parents.
I do believe that kids with clued in parents can do fairly well (fairly, I say, not very) in almost any school, which I think is what the OP is saying.
The problem is for kids of parents who for whatever reason think that schools are providing the education and they don't have to.

Plenty of comprehensives have very good GCSE results. Obviously across the board they don’t do as well. But their brightest students do as well those in grammar. Just because you can’t see how it can work doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of evidence it works. If you are in a grammar area, then of course the comprehensives don’t have a top set. The brights students have already been creamed off the top. It’s not true in comprehensive areas. Do you then think that no one succeeds in exams in non grammar areas?

No, and we do have 2 really excellent comps in our area. But my son wanted a single-sex school and, when we did our school open day visits, the GS stood out as being right for him. It was a scruffy Edwardian building with peeling paint, but with fantastic, confident, articulate, enthusiastic boys and really well-qualified staff who could push the students to their full potential They were ther because the school (as with in independent school) gave them the chance to actually teach and convey a passion for their subject, not merely to practise riot control.

I don't care about how smart a school is in terms of appearance - it doesn't bother me. What I wanted for my children were schools were the other families would support the school and valued education for their children. I didn't want any nonsense with lessons being disrupted.

• for students, who can look the coolest to their peers by overtly giving the least amount of fucks about their work

And this, in a nutshell, was precisely what I wanted to avoid. I used to hear from my friends whose children were at the good co-ed comps that they were very pressured in this way, and also in terms of grooming and personal presentation. I agree that comps can get good results, but what I appreciated was the GS ethos: that purposeful, rather high-pressure, competitive and highly-motivated approach to everything. At my son's GS, it was certainly NOT cool to not work. I suspect that comprehensives, by their very definition, can't provide that sort of atmosphere.

@Probablygreen ok, you say you do own it, and your other reasons why you choose to live where you love also sound completely sound. We have good schools round us, there are lots of good schools. I said nothing about North or South. (the tv series with Patrick Swayze I liked years ago!) How you got to my comment be comparing it to N v S I'm not sure. Ds1 was very keen on Durham Uni for years, but he course was not quite right.