"We need elitism in schools" Do you agree with Dave?

[Pantone]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8751220/David-Cameron-we-need-elitism-in-schools.html

What do you think of this?

What is it you think he's saying, married?

DC seems to be having another U turn this time on education as some one who doesn't support grammar schools he now wants elitism, high standards and strict discipline. God politicians talk a load of b-ks

I don't think the grammar schools are going to fair so well under the new Ofsted, which, coincidentally (with Cameron's speech) focusses on 'coasting' children.

I was so impressed with the article I wrote down what I thought was the key sentence in my notebook pointydog. "discipline works, rigour works, freedom for schools works, having high expectations works". I think what he means is that schools need to ensure that young people leave education as well educated as they are well qualified and that the focus needs to revert back to teaching useful things. Things like ensuring every young person can manage sufficient mental arithmetic and work out percentages well enough to manage their own lives and contribute something to the workplace. To ensure that young people leave school able to construct a grammatically correct sentence. Also that schools should be teaching high standards of behaviour and instilling the difference betwween right and wrong - that schools should be places where every child can look to the staff to be the sort of role models that may be lacking in their home lives.

I say that as a parent whose children attended the local state primary (cofe) and sometimes watched in horror as every government initiative was grasped and retailed without thought for its substance and that included partitioning (maths - multiplication), and two years of it, when research (and common sense) was available to evidence that it was not at all helpful and no substitute for multiplication tables. Also as a parent who removed, at the end of y8, a child from an excellent London comprehensive with a superb reputation, because under new management and a revised admissions code behaviour was deteriorating before our eyes and excuse after excuse was made for lack of discipline and lack of action with scant regard for those children whose education was continually disrupted by those who didn't want to learn. Five or six pupils persistently diluted the education of their year group because the head's hands (and possibly philosophy) was tied by procedure and the fact that had she excluded them her overstretched budget would have had to continue to pay for them.

Cameron has said the words I would now love to see him put his money where his mouth is. In fact, I think I'm going to write to him today.

Elitism isn't always a popular word, but if you changed - not the sentiment - just the word to "excellence" then it would be a "motherhood and apple pie" platitude.

Of course we all want schools where every pupil does as well as they possibly can!

He doesn't really say what his idea of "best" is in terms of actual outcomes - what fool would? But consistent discipline, high standards (if that is what is meant by rigour) and - crucially -high expectations are vital in success, pretty much in anything. Look at examples such as Mossbury in Hackey for what it can look like in practice.

I'm not so sure what he's on about in the "freedom for schools" bit. Just trying to link a named policy with obvious factors? Or do any coalition wonks know if it is likely other freedoms were in mind?

Just as a question - do you think that there are really schools which DO NOT want every child to do their best and achieve what they are capable of?

There may be schools who are (for a variety of reasons, many not under the school's control) less good at delivering this. But are there really lots of schools that don't INTEND to achieve this?

There is a tendency, though, to ascribe too much power to schools to turn around children's lives and to operate independently of all the other factors in their lives. A school may be the most disciplined environment a particular child experiences, the one which demands the highest standards from him or her - but if the out of school environment is one of insufficient sleep, homelessness or poor housing, insufficient and poor food, drug taking (by adults around the child or by their peers or by the child), alcohol, entrenched worklessness, domestic violence etc (all of which are factors even in my small rural village primary) then is it realistic for a school to counteract all of these? To try to do so, of course, that goes without saying - but to genuinely overcome it?

I'm a bit puzzled, marriedinwhite - partitioning is not a 'method of multiplication' or an alternative to times tables learning, it is a process of taking a number into its constituent parts (for example but not always tens and units) to enable efficient calculation of all 4 operations. It enables a child to take e.g. 67 + 56 into (60+50) + (7+6) and calculate it mentally very quickly. It also allows them to take 193 - 56 into (133 + 60) - 56 which is easily mentally calculated as 137.

Partitioning is a precursor to the 'column' addition and subtraction that we know and love, and also to the 'grid' method of multiplication which is a version of the method of long multiplication familiar to many adults that makes the 'real size' (e.g. the fact that the 6 in 635 is in fact 6 hundreds) of numbers explicit. Times table learning is separate and another useful precursor - so in calculation e.g. 635 x 7, partitioning would take the calculation apart into (600 + 30 + 5) x 7, and times table learning would make the (6x7x100)+(3x7x10) + (5x7) calculation easy. They are complementary, not alternatives. Did the school hold a 'maths information evening' for parents? Many schools do as the 'vocabulary of maths' is different now even though the 'underlying maths' is the same.

It's embarrassing that so many would prefer mediocrity to elitism. :(

I can't bear the thought of having to send my children to a state school without discipline and strived for excellence - just so that someone else's badly behaved - or perhaps, just not academically able youngster won't feel put upon.

Teacherwith2kids - I'd expect everyone to agree with your first paragraph: but the way this thread title is worded, that means agreeing with DC and that's not something that really happens on MN.

And his points, as quoted by marriedinwhite above, support your second paragraph about the basics needed to achieve it in practice - especially the high expectations.

I would not prefer mediocrity to elitism.

I believe in EVERY child (even if not the elite) should receive an education suitable to them, that stretches them to schieve their full potential. 'Elitism' implies that this is only for the few. It should be for EVERY child.

I have never been into a school that does not strive for excellence for THEIR PUPILS. That might not be an arbitrary level of qualification, it means 'the best that child can do'.

I have only been into 1 school that i would not send my (very bright) child to. That was a grammar school - because it did not strive. It took in very bright children, and could churn out very good results without any effort...so it took that easy route.

Alpine, do you talk from experience? Have you been into lots of schools which have no discupline? Or are you going from newspaper reports etc? If so, why not make some appointments with schools, and go round to visit them? You might be pleasantly surprised....

Meditrina,

The point I am making is that 'high expectations in school' are just words if the home and outside school environment are not addressed. I can have all the expectations in the world of some children I teach, but it does not outweigh the huge disadvantages outside school they are battling against. A concerted approach inside AND OUTSIDE school is needed rather than claiming that schools are 'not doing enough'.

I have contradicted myself, apologies.

In general, in 'plain vanilla' state schools, with a full range of abilities, i have not been into one that does not strive for excellence for all.

However, in a selective state grammar school, I did encounter the 'we don't need to try, our kids will do well anyway' attitude - whereas in a really tough non-selective state secondary I instead found a really strong 'we know where every kid is in their learning, we know their next step, we're here to help them make it' attitude, both for the bright kids and the ones who were never going to be 'the elite'.

teacherwith2kids thank you for putting in a very complex way what I tried to summarise above. Yes they did have information evenings and your thorough explanation has reinforced my view that partitioning is very useful when the foundation stones such as number bonds, multiplication tables, and understanding of 10s, units, 100s etc have not been properly and thoroughly laid down. It was and is in my opinion a lazy way of getting to the right answer without the appropriate ground work being done and whilst it may have supported sats results in the short term was going to do little to reinforce the foundation and help young people in later years. I am very pleased its use ceased at dc's school after two to three years.

I agree with you that the role of a school is not to turn children's lives around; that is the role of other agencies together with the parents. However, it is the role of a school to set down the rules for acceptable standards of behaviour to ensure that all children are able to learn in an environment conducive to learning and to ensure there are procedures in place to support badly behaved and disruptive children to quieten down and allow others to learn even if they are unable to do so themselves. It goes without saying that it is the role of the school also to ensure that every member of the teaching staff provides lessons that are at least good if not excellent - Ofsted's "satisfactory" is not acceptable in my book.

If the behavior of some affects the others benefitting fully from good, or more hopefully, excellent lessons there must be procedures to support action for them to be removed so that the other 26 or 27 in the class can learn and fulfil their potential. With that need to come the resources that are required for those who are rightly displaced to receive the specialist education and social support they need and which is often not available in their homes. It is a diseconomy to continue to allow them to prevent the majority from learning and reaching their potential and it is neither respectful to other children, to professional teaching staff or to local communities and society as a whole to allow the current situation to continue.

And yes, I do think there are schools that don't want every child to do their best and fulfil their potential and that there are politically minded heads who will do their best to counteract excellence at every turn in an attempt to drag the best down to the lowest common denominator. An example is the school from which we removed our daughter on 20th July 2011 at the end of Y8 - where a "gang" of socially dysfunctional and disruptive children were allowed to continue to disrupt and intimidate for two years and from what I have heard have kicked off again within a week of being back at school. If that school wanted every child to flourish the head would have ensured they were permanently excluded by the end of the first year if not the first term. The refrain was always "this is a London comprehensive and we have to cater to children from all different sorts of backgrounds". In my opinion catering to the five of six mentioned above meant the school was not catering to the other 100 or so in the year group and therefore was not endeavouring to ensure every child did their best and fulfilled their potential. There were occasions when a 45 minute lesson was disruped for 30 minutes or more.

I will also mention, in the context of excellence, although I am sure you will disagree, looking at your thread name, I would not send my child to any school where the children were referred to as kids. That, in my opinion, is a stepping stone along the way towards diluted standards.

teacher Perhaps it's just that we understand the meaning of the word "elitism" differently. To me, it implies that some children are more academically gifted than others - it implies that we need to strive and work to be the very best.

My personal experience of schools spans grammar, boarding and comprehensive - as a pupil. I also read newspapers and know some children. What e

What experience do you feel I must have to comment upon this thread?

Oh dear, sorry for the multiple posts.

I believe that it's a tragedy that we're letting down our brilliant students by accommodating the LCD as was pointed out within the first few posts on page one.

But just imagine how much worse it would be for those children without your expectations for them!

The government (any government, not just this one) has a role in what happens in schools and in the welfare system, but cannot police the insides of everyone's house. So by that measure every government would always fall short as it cannot ever (short of a pretty literal Big Brother) tackle all the factors. It would seem defeatist to me to disparage schools-based issues because they are not the whole influence on the child.

But perhaps there is a case to be made for even less government attention to schools. Mind you, it wouldn't appeal to me.

Dave Cameron seemed to generalise and has offended a lot of struggling but high performing schools in poorer areas.

There were problems in some schools before Cameron came on the scene
and there will be problems after he has left politics and cosied back to the Oxfoprdshire countryside.

Benefits cut for parents of truant children? Its a headline grabber which probably wont amount to anything.

I have been in JPs courts when the mothers of truanting children were in the dock. Put there by the \County Council. (It was always mums.)

It is unlikely that even cameron will cut their benefits. But it gets him a few "tough" headlines. Blair Mk 2 has studied well on press manipulation.

(Incidently Tone gave an half hour interview to Humphries this morning.)

I've not read everyone's comments on here but here's my view for what it's worth........ I've been a teacher in an average comp for 6 years and am currently on sabbatical as a university lecturer so I've got a hand on take on these things.

What I don't like about the current system: clever kids in average schools don't have enough good teacher and don't routinely get the opportunities like music, DofE, sport that their equivalents in private schools get, there is too much emphasis on the middle C/D borderline kids because of league table pressure, too many 'equivalent' qualifications which are worthless to the kids, too much emphasis on doing things because you get a piece of paper (certificate, GCSE etc) for doing it rather than learning because learning is good, quite honestly there are a lot of bone idle kids who wouldn't know hard work if it bit them on the bum and complain if they're asked to write more than 3 sentences, too little homework in state schools (because teachers are over stretched and teaching too many periods to be able to chase up missed work and mark it all), GCSEs aren't really discriminating subjects that kids are good at so they make unwise choices for A-level, very little in the way of decent quality education for non academic kids, no-one seems to value anything that doesn't have a certificate attached!

I could probably go on..........

We don't need elitism but we do need some competition and I think the word is excellence. We also need to go a bit back to basics as the current qualifications regime is far too complicated and confusing for parents.

A few things I'd like to see.......

Kids taking less but more rigorous GCSEs
The return of subjects like home economics which taught kids real skills like cookery and budgeting and were actually difficult but in a practical rather than academic way.

Schools providing vocational education on site perhaps in partnership with other local schools. At my school I suggested getting a local motor mechanic into school 2 days a week and buying a couple of scrap cars and offering training on site but this was turned down because of 'health and safety' and 'how would we show that the kids have learned something?' (ie, where is the piece of paper to prove it)
A real focus on every kids leaving school with a decent level of English and maths, being able to read at an age somewhere near their chronological age (at present this is lost in the race to get them a few Cs in GCSE or equivalents).
Smaller class sizes on the whole
Less curriculum changeover, stop changing things every few years so teachers can actually get on with teaching instead of preparing for the next curriculum change!

I'll get off my soapbox now....... Maybe I should open a free school!

kritur I would gladly send mine. :)

Maybe you are Katherine Burbalsingh!

To answer Alpine: 'Elitism' for me = great education for the few, bad education for the many. What I want, what I strive towards, what I know i don't quite make it to but believe me it's not for want of trying, is great education for the many in which every child makes all the progress they can.

I listened with interest to DC's comment on inviting Eton and others to set up state schools. What he conveniently seems to be ignoring is that schools like Eton are exceedingly selective and are charging the parents £31 000+ a year. In these circumstances you cant help but provide fantastic facilities, achieve outstanding exam results with 40% Oxbridge entry and hundreds of extra curricular activities. This government or any other for that matter is never going to provide this level of funding.

Private schools sponsoring state academies is a recycled Blair policy, and some already exist.

A lot of this particular DC speech could have come straight from dear Tony's mouth.

teacher see to me, your explanation means you want to see the brilliant students dragged down. Is it because you have so much 'paperwork' that you don't have the time or chance to see that some children are more intelligent than others? I don't understand why letting the really 'great' ones streak ahead will be at the detriment of others. I would not want you teaching my child, knowing that you would rather he be mediocre than shine (if he is able). What a sorry state we find ourselves in when teachers which to inhibit learning. :(