Read this.

[teejay100000]

www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/why%20can%27t%20they%20read.pdf

Thanks, Claig.

There are lots of good reasons for going to university even if you're not one of Breton's intellectual elite:

1.) Enjoying learning about a particular subject for its own sake.

2.) Developing transferrable skills which will be useful for any job.

3.) Meeting new people and ideas. Ideally moving away from home and learning how to live independently. Raising aspirations.

4.) It is a passport into a better career with greater potential for earning and for progression.

Going on to become a bricklayer or unemployed does not negate any of those four things.

I agree with you that there has been dumbing down and it is not a good thing. I am opposed to it because it is deceiving young people, they are being charged an arm and a leg to study for 3 years and then find that many employers don't value their achievement because they have lost faith in the standard.

But I don't think it really affects the elite universities. Degrees fron those will still be considered something. It will only affect some people at other universities. The elite universities are like the Premier League, but there is still room for universities in the lower leagues.

Going to university is not solely and never has been about getting a good job (although it is likely to be a further step towards this) or being more special or clever than the person next to you. What a said little view that is.

And, as it happens, I know several people who've done Media Studies degrees who've gone on to have very successful careers that they wouldn't otherwise have. One is a producer at ITN, another is a deputy head of a school, another is a social worker.

'Sad' that should say. Sad, sad, sad that so many people, having benefited from HE themselves, want to deny others those opportunies.

fivecandles I think you have a very narrow view of synthetic phonics and exactly what a bright child needs to master.
As maizie pointed out in the words minute and minute the letter "i" represents different sounds which even if a child had both words in their vocabulary they would need to understand.
In English there are roughly 44 phonemes but there are 150+ ways of representing those phonemes which is the next step in teaching after all the snakes and ants. You may call it spelling patterns but nevertheless it is phonics. Children are for example taught that /ai/ /ay/ /a_e/ /eigh/ /aigh/ /ey/ and /ea/ are ways of writing the same sound they are also taught that /ea/ can be /e/ in read or /ee/ in read or /ay/ in great so when they encounter new words they can try all the alternatives.

But, Claig, I think you need to give young people more credit. Nobody thinks that going to university is a passport to a job. It never was. Most jobs require further training and always have. That's always been the case for teaching, medicine, social work. And there are other jobs where you have to start at the very bottom. That's always been the way. But you are still at an advantage if you've been to university in terms of employment as well as in other respects. And you will still earn more over your lifetime than you would if you hadn't been.

5candles wrote "I am not a snob and I am not snobby about manual occupations such as painting"

I'm not so sure! If a less able child enjoys fence painting, gets satisfaction from doing so, and can earn money why did you take umbrage when I suggested it? It's what they can do and they may do it very well.

5candles wrote: "but I would be absolutely livid if somebody like you said to my child or anybody else's that he or she is not entitled to an academic education."

I have never said that your hypothetical child is not entitled to an academic education. I have simply argued that in order to obtain a place in HE your hypothetical child has to demonstrate that s/he meets the standard.

In the same way it would be no good you kicking up a fuss if your child wanted to be a member of the Olympic swimming team but the coach decided s/he wasn't good enough. Your child would have to go away and strive to improve their performance in order to try again later.

mrz, really that continues to confirm my point. Unless you have a particular interest in linguistics or teaching reading that stuff is really, really boring compared to actually reading a good book.

Your responses sort of highlight the problem. You and your approach are very interested in the detail and not so much interested in the bigger picture. I'm not really getting a sense of the joy of reading or creativity from your posts.

My dd1 did synthetic phonics and it is now automatic. She has a reading age and NC levels way beyond her years and reads voraciously. Doing the phonics stuff in class bores her because she is way beyond it now.

fivecandles, I agree with you. You are definitely at an advantage if you go to university. It is a passport to higher things and it opens doors that would otherwise be closed. In an age when so many do go to university, you are now more than ever at a disadvantage if you don't go.
Now, when employers can pick and choose, they will choose people with degrees rather than without.

But I think that when young people are taking out £20,000 loans to study, then they do have to have one eye out for future job prospects. As you said, far fewer working class people go to university and that is partly due to these outrageous fees. We all know that parents tell their children that they have to pass their GCSEs and then stay on at school to get good A levels, because this is the first step in getting a good career. I don't think many teenagers stay on at school because they have a love of chemistry and want to study it to A level standard.

'I'm not so sure! If a less able child enjoys fence painting, gets satisfaction from doing so, and can earn money why did you take umbrage when I suggested it? It's what they can do and they may do it very well. '

You are really struggling with some very simple concepts. Which university did you go to again? Not an elite one I guess.

I am very happy for a child to do fence painting and delighted when people choose to do fence painting for a living and enjoy their job. I like a bit of fence painting myself from time to time. I am not very happy at your idea that children should do fence painting instead of getting an academic education or at your assumption that it is possible or desirable to divide children into 'academic' or 'vocational' with vocational meaning that they are denied an academic education and all that that entails. This is going back to the days of the secondary modern. God, even the Tories don't think like that any more.

I object very strongly to your title.

'Read this'

What is 'this' and why, exactly, should I read it? The first post provides no further explanation.

The whole point of teaching phonics is so that it becomes automatic no one expects children to continue to blend words for the rest of their lives but like anything in life they need to be taught before they can apply and use and unfortunately that process (even for bright children) takes time.
I don't know your daughter so can't comment but many children who say they are bored by something find it difficult not easy and it is an avoidance technique to do something they find easier.

'I have simply argued that in order to obtain a place in HE your hypothetical child has to demonstrate that s/he meets the standard.'

And I have countered that argument several times which you have ignored.

Children DO have to demonstrate 'the standard'. They have to achieve increasingly good A Level results to get into HE. Did you read the letter from the Oxford admissions tutor? The 'standard' to get into Oxford is now 3 A Level grades at A together with 9+ A grades at GCSE AS A MINIMUM.

Plus today unlike in your day students have to pay to go to university.

What more do you want from them? Their souls?

Have you read anything I've posted or is it that you're struggling to understand it?

Agreed Claig and I do understand that there is a real need for working class kids in particular to ensure that they're getting value for money in going to university.

If they bring in a graduate tax and get rid of tuition fees this may help.

I don't think it is true that everyone in HE has had to demonstrate "good" results.
I have mentored degree students who a few years ago wouldn't have been accepted on FE courses.

No, you don't know my daughter mrz but straight away you cast doubts on what I've said about her and assume that she's actually struggling when she is bored. She has a reading age and an NC level well beyond her years and is quite capable of reading a range of fiction independently. She's currently reading the Narnia books. She read A Christmas Carol recently.

I do hope you don't make those assumptions of your own students. If they say they're bored or they seem bored then they probably are. And the reason would be because synthetic phonics is a way into things that are more interesitng i.e. reading. It is boring of itself.

Like counting from 1-100 when you're ready for algebra.

5candles wrote "You are really struggling with some very simple concepts. Which university did you go to again? Not an elite one I guess"

I could make precisely the same comment about you. You appear unable to grasp a perfectly simple concept that, whether you care to admit the fact or not, higher academic education must, by its very nature, be elitist.

I am not advocating telling someone they cannot go on to HE. I am simply arguing for the best and not any old Tom, Dick, Harry, Mary, or Jane who has managed to scrape Cs in some dumbed down A levels.

Breton, I am afraid that you are terribly out of date.

Teaching and learning shouldn't be the same now as back when you and I were at school because the world has changed. Information is not the currency it once was; as you identified yourself, students can easily get the information they seek - they don't need you, they just need Google. But what they do need is to be able to process that information, to refine it and understand it and apply it to what they are studying.

A teacher imparting knowledge is not helping their students to develop the skills and attributes they will need in the world as it is today.

Well, mrz, as I've said several times now it depends which university. To get into a Russell Group university you will need A grades at A level and a really good personal statement and references. And did you read the link earlier that said this year up to 200,000 students will not get places at university? So you can be assured that it is going to get much much more competitive and certainly more than when you and I went to university.

I really hope that you're confident that all your kids are going to get A grades. I do wonder if some of you talking about how 'dumbed down' everything is and how you shouldn't be allowed to go to university unless you have 10 A*s at A Level and are fluent in at least 3 languages are going to be back her complaining that your own kids haven't got the places they want in a few years. I'm already conscious of how hard my own kids are going to have to work to get what was relatively easy for me (not because I'm brighter but because things were less competitive then).

'I could make precisely the same comment about you. You appear unable to grasp a perfectly simple concept that, whether you care to admit the fact or not, higher academic education must, by its very nature, be elitist. '

How many times??? Do you not read?? It IS elitist. Is. Is. Is.

fivecandles until recently I taught reception children and in my last class had a child with a reading age of 10.6+ (that's as far as the test measures) at age 5. He also achieved a NC level 2b using last year's SAT paper while still in reception...but does he know everything he needs to know? perhaps you think we should stop teaching him ? yes he's doing exceptionally well especially as he couldn't read at all when he started school and his mum was concerned he still wasn't showing any interest at Christmas

fivecandles so you are effectively saying that unless the degree is from a Russell group university it is pretty worthless??

Mrz, once again you're missing my point. I understand synthetic phonics is your particular thing. That's great. But (learning about) synthetic phonics once you can read confidently is not very interesting. Sorry. If you can read Dickens why not be allowed to read Dickens and enjoy him? There are other ways of enjoying and improving your English skills than breaking words down into phonemes FGS!! I used to think that Michael Rosen etc were exaggerating but if all teachers are as dogged and dull in their approach as you are no wonder kids are put off reading. Lighten up. What about a bit of creativity?

5candles: I have consistently argued that HE must, and should be, elitist and in order to achieve this only the very best should be considered by rigorous and stringent testing.

At present A levels do not meet that standard. Their modification is currently under discussion in order to move them back to something more akin to A levels of the past. Whether this will be accepted, and how it will be achieved, is another matter.

God, no mrz. In fact, I've said earlier that the standard of TEACHING you get at your local ex poly is likely to be better. You'll probably get a lecturer with a teaching qualification rather than a post-graduate student for a start.

What I'm saying is that it is hard to get into university and some universities are harder than others with some being almost impossible.