views on education in other countries

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I wondered about education systems in other countries and what people thought of them. Which ones seem to get it right ? How is further education funded? What hours are children educated?

Erebus
Mountbatten Catchment : www3.hants.gov.uk/schooldetails?dfes=4015#catchment
Westgate : www3.hants.gov.uk/schooldetails?dfes=4012#catchment
Kings : www3.hants.gov.uk/schooldetails?dfes=4310#catchment
we may have fab schools round here but boy oh boy are the catchments a dogs dinner!

Which, to tie back to the thread
makes a bit of a mockery of the idea of "local schools".
Once the new Oasis building opens, the kids who live outside its gate will get a free bus to Mountbatten 4 miles away because the catchment / LEA boundary runs down the middle of the road : surreal huh!

Thornden catchment

Aha! I get what you mean re: some of the catchments in the area! But when you say 'Thornden's catchment is political' do you mean as in 'a political map' (one that shows man-made boundaries) as opposed to a 'physical map' (as in one that shows mountains and rivers)? Coz the fact remains, in viewing all of these, Thornden's alone represents a reasonably cohesive, dare I say 'local', oval area, no add-ons, albeit with the school itself on the far eastern reaches though bounded in that direction, physically, by the M3!

Can I ask, where are you? What's your 'situation'?

And I must say I thought Oasis was up and running!

Thornden - the fact that they have zero FSM implies that a lot more kids get in from the north of the catchment than the south.

I live in the catchment of Oasis Lord's Hill : One of Bliar/Broon's sponsored academies
They took one failing school and one plodding school and created a really failing school
Then they got allocated £13.6 million to build a brand new school on local open space - to be funded by selling the two existing schools for development.
The new building is SO FAR into one corner of the catchment that they may have to run free buses for the kids : if there are any left that is
The new building is planned for 900 kids - but the current years 7 and 8 are around 60 kids each : only around 400 on roll
And the gates of the new building open into the neighbouring LEA and school catchment!

hence why I have rather strong views about Academies, religious schools, parental choice etc etc :-)

OK, I get it! Is the new academy the building going up next to The Cedar School? Will that be Oasis Academy? Which I'd imagine would be practically in MB catchment!

And does Th really have zero FSM? I didn't know that! I'd agree that you just about absolutely have to be in catchment for Th to get in (which is why we moved! ), but I wouldn't say the north of the area is any wealthier than the south. But I tell you what- I am impressed by what I'm hearing about MB in Romsey. I know loads of DCs there, now. In fact I think it would probably suit my less academic DS2 better than Th will next year. There is one ishoo to consider re MB- the fact Romsey Community's catchment will become very circumscribed once the huge, 800 house Abbotswood estate is complete. The local primary (I/J) there (which my DSs attended prior to KW) is opening a whole new 30 DC class per year to accommodate them. So I wonder if Lords Hill might get 'pushed out' of MB as 'outliers' who'd now maybe choose Romsey Community can't any more as it'd be full thus choose MB and live closer.

Erebus
You are about right - and many of the people at the Cedar School
(an excellent 4 to 18 school for severely physically handicapped for those not from round here) are NOT happy that their playground will ALL be in lobbing distance from the five storey windows of a sink school.
I suspect that yes, once Abbotswood goes live then lots of the Soton kids will be pushed back to Soton schools.

The real hope for Oasis is immigrants. There are thousands and thousands of Poles in Southampton and they and their kids have a fantastic work ethic and excellent manners. They may well outnumber indigenous kids at Oasis soon which can only be a good thing.

Now THERE is a question for the main thread .....
What do Polish schools do that gives their kids (or at least the ones we see) SUCH a good work ethic?

Talkin- DO they give their kids such a good work ethic? Or are we seeing '1st generation-itis'?! Which I am certainly not condemning but the nature of the Poles - or any other immigrant group- who chose to move hundreds of miles to a foreign country, who may have a limited grasp of English and who won't necessarily find a supportive community here in the UK means that they are likely to have what it takes to succeed abroad, whereas those who don't won't leave their home countries, will they? I'm glad it's a force for good in your community.

I am actually surprised that you are saying there is still a significant Polish population in LH, tbh. I thought that the vast majority upped sticks for greener pastures once the recession hit. A friend in East Anglia has reported as much about where she lives but unfortunately they ended up pulling their DCs out of the local school as they were being subject to racism and social, linguistic and cultural exclusion by the overwhelmingly singular Easter European school population, but there you go. The school is now in danger of closure as so many have left to go home but the school has lost their local British DCs to other and private schools. However, I am by no means suggesting that this is anything other than an isolated event happening under a specific set of circumstances!

The children - coming up through the Southampton school system in significant numbers - have kept that ethic. The ones who live near me have excellent Soton accents when they speak in English.
Our Poles are unusual - in that the vast majority of them came from a small area of southern Poland - apparently Poles in other parts of Britain joke about their accent. But Southampton was much more welcoming than many towns and gave them decent jobs in the service and construction sectors. They have stayed, brought their families and work. If they stop working they go home - but the Polish edition of the Southampton Echo still sells in significant numbers.

Unlike many other immigrant communities, they are almost invisible till they speak or one has learned to recognise their still slightly different features and clothes sense.

I assume the bulk of the are Catholic but they are at all the schools around : they do their Churching in their own time!

None of the denominational schools round here are full of that denomination.

Well, I hadn't realised they came from a certain small area!That's interesting- I guess they do find levels of support here that must help in integration.

Do you think and hope Oasis might become a magnet for them from further afield in Soton? It would be interesting to see what that did to the results of the academy.

I was very worried about education in the UK and went to Germany a year ago. I'm British but I spent many years in Germany.

I think they stream kids too early over here. This causes a huge amount of stress during primary school years. But I'm not against streaming. Not just because more academic kids can get on with it, but also because less academic children can work without always being bottom of the class. But I do think the German system is a bit too rigid.

mousymouse mentioned going to the Gymasium (top set) being virually the only way to get to university. That is not true. Once you get the equivalent of GCSEs you can go on to do your A-levels and study. Actually a lot of my colleagues did that (one has a PhD and went to middle school)

What I really like about the system in Germany is the amount of subjects you have to take to get A-levels. You will not come across a primary school teacher (I can say in southern Germany for sure) without A-levels in German, English, another foreign language, maths and two sciences. Most teachers have much better subject knowledge than UK teachers. Teachers at Gymnasiums have to have subject degrees. It takes a good 5 years to study to become a teacher over here. The lessons are not fun and games, the lessons don't have starters or such - but it would be an absolute exception to see a teacher make spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes (apart from MFL, of course). I have never heard of some of the misconceptions seen in the UK being taught over here (see the thread about odd and even numbers). Given the choice I would prefer my kids to sit through dull but factually correct lessons rather than exciting fun lessons teaching wrong facts.

I spent about 3 years working in a (completely oversubscribed) secondary school in the UK and I was shocked by some of the teacher errors I saw. The lessons were at times fun and exciting - but the kids ended up confused. It's a great shame some UK teachers don't have sufficient subject knowledge - because then the UK system could be really good. Another thing I disliked in the UK was the disjointed teaching. Today fractions, tomorrow negative numbers, the day after tomorrow, geometry. Bizarre! It's obviously not working. We Brits are rarely particularly numerate. German teachers have far less freedom. There is a syllabus they have to get through and I know roughly when my kids will be doing what.

Children over here take their exercise books and books home with them. Brilliant. I know what they've been doing. It took me 6 weeks to get hold of one of my kid's exercise book in the UK. I never managed to get hold of the assessment test. I'm supposed to blindly trust the teacher. Once I had the exercise book I was shocked. It was all over the place and they were still colouring butterflies (lines of symmetry) in year 7.

What I dislike in Germany is the lack of community spirit in schools. Behaviour in primary schools can be really bad and bullying is rarely taken care of. A lot of the kids can be extremely arrogant and rude.

Another thing I'd like to mention is about learning to read: some European languages are phonetic. Obviously, it is a lot easier to get children to read. In Germany they can read after something silly like 2 to 3 months. I cannot imagine that that would be possible in English. That makes the primary school systems difficult to compare.

When it comes to chosing a school: I would say there are similar problems over here. You will also find people moving close to the chosen school or away from a bad school.

You are so right about french education. Firstly, schools do not recruit their own staff. They are allocated staff by the central Academy who can send a teacher anywhere, and take one away at the drop of a hat. This does not make for a good schooling system, as heads do not control how their teaching staff is made up.

Secondly, heads of colleges and lycées are nearly always non teaching, and have never taught. They recruit them from industry and they are simply bureaucrats, mainly disliked by their staff, with whom they have little in common.
Thirdly, the schools are extremely old fashioned both in outlook and in resources. Some, in bigger towns etc, are a little better equipped, but they tend to be the "show schools", and not all of them are anything like as well equipped.
Fourthly, the curriculum is extremely narrow minded and if your child does not conform they are heavily penalised. Their marks over the year are taken from several selected pieces of work, all marked out of twenty, then an average taken. You get your Moyen for each subject, and your overall moyen for the term and then the year. But you have to have worked exactly as they want you to.
This leads to the free thinking, slightly off the wall child continually receiving demoralisingly low marks.
At the same time as this is going on, the teachers are drinking heavily at lunch times (saw the bottles in the staff room myself, in CRATES).
Pupils regularly smoke weed at breaks (son's evidence) although discipline is usually quite good (surprisingly!).
Children in the more rural schools (huge percentage of the population) have little ambition beyond the local factories or farms.
If you want a better school for your child, you need to live in an affluent area of a large town or city, but as the initial poster said, even in a fee paying school, this does not mean your child will be well taught.
We took our DS out two and a half years ago and he has flown since then, years ahead of where he would be had he stayed in French school.
Oh, I forgot to say that they also impose doublement on children, which means that if they don't pass some subjects in one year, they redo the WHOLE year again, just because they didn't do so well in one or two subjects. Very demoralising.
Our french friend's very bright son spent five years in lycée instead of the normal three, due to having doubled two years. She moved his school for the last two of them.
Our older son went back to the UK for sixth form, not wanting to have to study EVERY subject (as in the Baccalaureat) but prefering to choose his best ones.
He is now studying physics at university.
Basically, french education is rubbish.

Wow French is a no then. Germany maybe (but it would be hard for dH and myself as we do not speak Germanm (or Italian ). I do like the idea of New Zealand, Canada. thanks everyone.

We are now living in Hong Kong and our 4 1/2 year old daughter attends a local Chinese school. The children are taught in Catonese and lessons in Mandarin and English. Local schools use rote learning systems which aren't always popular. The terms are long - this term is 17 weeks long with no half-term. We have nightly homework, lots of competitions to enter and weekly reading reports to complete. However, our daughter is loving school, has a mixture of friends from 10 different countries and is getting to grips with 2 difficult languages. It is certainly different from the UK!

I like the idea of Reception class in the UK, its a nice and playful way to start school, however I think the formal teaching of reading and writing at age 4 is insane.

Some said they didn't like the idea of holding children back a year if they didn't 'pass' a year. I went to school in Germany and was held back when I was 14 as I had other things on my mind. I wasn't the only one and didn't really mind too much. I feel I did much better the next year, I focused again and did well. I can't see what the big deal is. Had I stayed with my year I would have struggled.

I like the comprehensive system in the UK, unfortunately it didn't work in Germany.

pnod - I agree, I find it irritating that I don't seem to be able to find out what my DS (6) is doing in school, apart from vague statements, e.g. numbers to 50 and then by chance I find out he has done timetables?!

I taught in the UK too, and I have seen language teachers expected to teach a language they don't know, being told you can learn along with the kids!

The problem with some of these systems is that they don't cope very well with SEN kids. Holding a child back a year, if the method of teaching does not matching their needs, will not do any good (there are lots of parents in the US whose kids still can't read after 2 years in Kindergarten or grade 1). Similarly accelerating the very bright by a year will not help if they are always learning faster.

I was not talking about SEN kids though. Sure, just holding them back won't help, there needs to be constant support. But I think there is an obsession in the UK to keep all children with their chronological age group, never mind the child's development. E.g. DS (6) is a young, immature Y2 boy now and when we asked to start him in reception a year late we were told that he then had to start in Y1. He seemed OKish but this year the increased preassure seems to get to him. His teacher agrees that there is more preassure in Y2 and that DS still just wants to play. It makes me angry to have to leave him in this situation and I hope that he will somehow cope. If we lived in Germany he would have just started school and not be in his 3rd year aged only 6.

I think the system in the NL can be truly awful. You are sent to one of three types of school at 11, and the child's teacher has the power to decide which school the child goes to. My friend's disorganized, super bright but unconventional son was given the advice, as they call it, of going to third tier / vocational school, in spite of having top marks in their SAT equivalent. He ended up homeschooling after a massive legal battle as homeschooling isn't allowed in the Netherlands. It looks like their youngest child, who is very intelligent, will be given "middle" advice based on the fact that she completes work slowly (maths mainly). If you don't go to Gymnasium (top tier) you can't go to Uni, and this girl is a history buff with loads of information already at age 10.