To think that our current system of schooling is doing serious damage to society by failing those non-academic kids at risk of becoming disaffected young adults?

[myredcardigan]

I'm just ranting about this really because I seem to be posting this over and over again so it's obviously relevant to so many threads.

Seriously though, I think we need to do something about/for those kids who get to 14 and start to hate the thought of school. They're bored, they have no interest in academic work and they see no point in being there.

If those kids who aren't academic were offered something different,something worthwhile it could change the path they're heading down.

If a bored, truanting 14yr old was told she could study hairdressing for example, she'd have far more impetus to come to school.

But instead we force her to sit through English, maths, French and for what? It's not as if pummelling her with them for the next two years she is going to become proficient in them,is it?

We need to send these kids out into the world with something more useful than a school record which shows frequent absences and permanent exclusion. The least they deserve is a bit of direction.

Ok,rant over!

YANBU

I agree with you.

Far too much emphasis on academic qualifications when some are suited to them and some are suited to more practical qualifications.

Plus there are so many people with degrees etc it is becoming meaningless.

Neither is better they are just suited to different people.

SO why not let those who are not academice after gaining the basics that they will need, go on to do something a) that suits them better and b) is far more useful.

It's getting ridiculous.

Thanks, Expat. Just watching the John Prescott programme last night. I started off thinking, 'what a state!'

Then decided it was my (society's) fault as much as anyone!

TBH I think they should be teaching more practical skills anyway - such as cooking, mending a car, basic plumbing and wiring skills, sewing, budgeting, running a household.

Those things are just as useful as learning to read/write.

I agree, Capnjade.
What's the point of mincing off to uni with 3 good Alevel if you cannot feed yourself once there?

I wish I'd learned to type too. But it wasn't for the girls who did chemistry!

I agree entirely, but the educational establishment will always come back with 'but that's prejudiced. We should want all our kids to achieve the very best academic results they can, and if they struggle, the it's our job to engage them, not write them off as unteachable'.

Pauline Prescott for PM, btw!

Oh I SOOO agree with you.

The government has seemed to be hell bent on forcing everyone to be academic when some would be so much more engaged and end up much more useful members of society if they were to learn a trade whilst keeping up lessons in English and Maths that will be useful to them in real life. (Lets face it, how much of the maths/ ENglish literature you studied in school actually relevant to the majority of real life.)

I remember watching a programme where they took a set of not particularly high achieving teens and sent them back to a secondary modern type school where there were lots of vocational courses such as cookery and brick laying.

These kids, many of whom were truants and highly disaffected at school, thrived and their self esteem shot through the roof. They realised they were capable of achieving when in the academic environment all they did was fail- where,not surprisingly, they become bored and disruptive.

Having said that I hear there are new 14+ diplomas courses becoming available in some schools so perhaps these might redress the balance.

I agree in principle.

There was a thread about his last week. But one of the main problems with this is the engrained snobbery about academic qualifications and the sort of work you do. A kind of I'm alright attitude that prevails amongst a certain class of people - 'of course we need mechanics and hair dressers, it's just I don't want little X to be one. She could do so much better'. Why? If little X really wants to fix cars, and she can be good at it, who gives a flying t*ss. And the sort of engrained anti-intellectual inverted snobbery that is the reverse (and the result) of this - that education is pointless and poncey.

And education isn't and shouldn't be all about jobs. If DS#1 decides to be a mechanic for the rest of his life, I will be more than happy with that, but I'd also like him to enjoy Shakespeare, appreciate all kinds of music, be able to engage in reasoned debate etc.

"it's our job to engage them, not write them off as unteachable"

And that is part of the problem. You can't be a good hairdresser without training, you also need to be able to do maths, read well and write coherently. Doing a manual job is not the same as being written off. Infuriating snobbery!

Yup, I agree too. Blimey.

The economy needs a skills mix. All this Tony-talk of sending 50% to university makes me despair.

No point in putting everyone through the same identikit exams. Not everyone is academic and they only make non-academic people feel like failures. We need more vocational training, more apprenticeships.

Most people need to be literate and numerate. (If you are going to work as a plumber or hairdresser - no shame in that, DW's hairdresser has her own salon and employs staff, she's a small businesswoman - you need to be able to keep accounts and so on.)

But beyond that, it should be up for grabs, and from about 14 onwards, not 16 or 17 or 18.

Of course, suggest this to anyone who still has a chip on their shoulder about being branded a "failure" by the secondary modern and you may as well be suggesting sending their offspring out to the Childcatcher.

But maths from 14-16 is not necessary to get through life IMO. Arithmetic and basic English is needed. Alongside these courses should be catch-up lessons to make sure no child leaves illiterate or inumerate.

I want my kids to be happy and yes,successful. But success does not have to equate to university and highly paid career. If any (all) of them show signs of not being academic then I'll be first to steer them towards a trade.

They are more likely to develop an appreciation of music, art and literature if they are happy, well adjusted members of society.

Was that blimey because you agreed with me, UQD?

TBH I lose track of who I agree and disagree with on here. It was just because I seemed in tune with the general mood of an education thread!

And why is it looked down upon to do a trade and do it well? I couldn't cut hair for toffee,me. More than happy to pay for someone else who is qualified to do it for me.

Hairdressing is very low paid work.

I'd try to steer my own dd if I had one into a job that would pay better, but if she had her heart set on it I'd accept that.

Personally I don't see vocational training as 'failure' at all, but the prevailing educational ethos is that all kids need/ deserve an academic education.

I agree too. This sending 50% to university is a nonsense. Everyone should have the OPPORTUNITY but that isn't the same as everyone should go.

A university degree should be 'elitist' to a certain extent, ie only the academically minded ('intelligent') should go. But this is often construed as not being fair which is ridiculous.

What isn't, and wasn't in the past,
fair is those children who are academically minded not being given the chance to work towards going to university, which they are now. They are given a lot of encouragement and help to go to university which is right. But it has backfired now because those that aren't particularly academic are also being steered along the same course. They shouldn't be and now they feel failures if they don't go to 'college or uni', and, more often than not, if they do, they don't complete the course....because it's TOO hard for them!

I don't know what the answer is, because if anyone dare suggest that not everyone is suited to university (which SHOULD include a fairly rigorous academic course, or it's pointless), huge cries of 'unfairness' ensue.

Well quite myred. But that attitude is very prevalent and very destructive IMO.

morriszapp - that depends on how good you are. I have a friend that runs her own salon and is about to open another. She is doing very well.

I think all kids should have the opportunity to study academic subjects. And the people who devise the curriculum and train teachers should be doing their best to find ways of interesting the kids who are turned off.

But yes, it would be good if 14yos who are not interested in getting a whole heap of A* grades at GCSE or A levels could do vocational subjects - something where they had a chance of doing well. Might even give them the enthusiasm and confidence to work hard in the academic subjects as well.

Although you'd have to work hard to ensure girls don't end up being encouraged into hairdressing and boys into building whatever their natural inclination.

id rather eat my own shit than let dd become a hairdresser

oh and then there is childcare for fucks sake.

i really truly am not snobby about most things.

however when it comes to my children. unless she had a passion for it - then hairdressing or childcare, beauty, massage, alternative therapy, its all fecking dodfy low paid shit. for OTHER people not my daughter

why not say - ok the way we are teaching is not effective when it comes to some kids - however perhaps if we taught diferently - but there isn't the time, money for that.

thank god my daughter doesn't have this 'choice.'

Morris, I'd be steering them towards plumbing considering what we paid to have a new boiler installed recently!

To me,it's not just about discouraging the less academic kids from going to university. It's about offering an alternative to those kids who, by the time they reach 16 have lost any faith in themselves and lack aspiration because they don't see a point.

I'm not taking about the non-academic kids of supportive parents who will gently steer them towards an appropriate career. I'm talking about those kids who come out of school thinking society have given them nothing so why shouldn't they just take what they feel like and treat the world like shit. After all,nobody has ever treated them any different.

Very few hairdressers own their own salon of work for themselves, ditto beauticians etc.

Custardo put if far more strongly than I'd dare, but I have to admit that I feel like that too. I want my own kids to have professions, not jobs.

And becasue of growing up with parents with academic aspirations etc, it's unlikely that my (theoretical) kids would want to be hairdressers anyway.

mind you, i cant imagine choosing a career path - and feeling as though i were deciding my whole life - at 13 (in order to start the course at 14). was confusing enough choosing gcse 'options' at 14...

so i reckon there ought to be vastly improved/increased access to GOOD and open minded career counselling for all kids, most especially if they are likely to be making fairly major choices like this before they even know which way is up.

Hairdressing was just an example. There are hundreds of career paths which do not require 9GCSEs +. For those kids who are unlikely to get any,why not offer something that runs alongside the GCSE years. So they can be training to be a joiner whilst still doing 3GCSEs. School would be so much more attractive to them. They'd feel less of a failure and would be more likely to leave with those 3GCSEs and a careerat the ready.

not all hairdressers make much money, no. but then, not all hairdressers are any good. ditto a lot of professions, no?