Competitively rank students by results say Gove

[noblegiraffe]

Our esteemed Education Secretary has praised an academy in London which ranks pupils every term by their results in each subject.

Now I'm sure that parents of the kid who comes top will be pleased and proud, but what about the poor kids who are less academically able or who have SEN who are destined to by told term after term that they are rubbish? That their achievements, though they may be the product of hard work and great determination are of less value than a more academically able student who has slacked off and winged a good result on the test? How will that do anything but completely demotivate them and destroy their self-esteem?

What the fuck is he thinking?

If any of you have any respect for Gove as Education Minister, I sincerely hope that this changes your mind.

I think there is something to be said for ranking the top 10% and sharing it with the school.

Jesus, it's bad enough when the children decide who is cleaver and who isn't. To have it officially published is ridiculous.

When I was teacher training, we did an activity called Star Power which has stuck with me throughout my teaching career.

You were assigned randomly into three groups and given chips with stars on them of different colours. I can't remember the exact details but let's say some of the chips were gold, some blue and some red. The gold ones were very valuable, the blue ones average and the red ones worthless.

One group was given loads of gold stars in their allocation, the middle group a few and the bottom group maybe 1. There was then some sort of game whereby you could acquire more gold stars but it was far easier to get them if you already had gold stars. If you gained some gold stars it was possible to go up a group. If you lost them, you were demoted.

People who got gold stars in the game were effusively praised for their gold star acquiring skills. Those who didn't were told off. Those who were demoted to a lower group were shamed.

We played this game as if it were a real game, we had no idea what was going on. At the end we were asked to discuss our feelings about the groups we were in.

The top group liked the praise but were very stressed about the possibility of demotion. In the middle group some people were trying hard to win stars and the possibility of moving to the top group, but were frustrated by how difficult it was given that they had fewer gold stars to start with. The bottom group basically gave up. What was the point in trying as they weren't going to get anywhere? They opted not to try and were fed up at being told off for how few stars they had when it wasn't their fault.

And that is how this system strikes me. Praising those with gold stars in the academic ability stakes for getting more gold stars than the less academically able. I constantly have to boost the bottom sets who feel worthless because they know they're bottom set to actually do the work.

Why do the top 10% need to be publicised? The kids already know who the top sets are. It's just more praise for having gold stars isn't it?

Can anyone shed more light on what the academy in question actually does?

The article just says it ranks them. It doesn't say whether that ranking information in published, either within or outside the school, or if it is simply used by teachers for performance monitoring.

I have no respect for Gove at all. He is bonkers.

Great post btw, Giraffe.

Praise effort not results.

My kid always come top in English.

Perhaps helped by the fact he is half English and bilingual.

He does less well with Italian grammar because his bilingualism causes interference and time at home is diluted by trying to keep up skills in his minority language.

It would make no sense to praise the high English results and be unimpressed with the Italian, given that he sweats bullets preping for the Italian exams and doesn't lift a finger for the English ones.

Being bright is as much luck of the draw as being bilingual is, so it makes more sense to focus on registering extensive efforts to improve.

And as for sending every school a copy of the bible... Sure, that will do wonders for the education system in Britain. Bonkers, I say.

It says that it competitively ranks them, scaevola, so I assume that the competition is to get the top place. This competition can't happen if the students are unaware of their ranking.

I know that back in the old days some teachers used to rearrange their seating plans from best to worst after every assessment so that kids were always aware of their ranking because of where they sat in the class. I'd like to think that things have moved on since then.

I agree with effort not results.

I'd have been top for results especially at uni but my ds's are not academically able and so would suffer (they have SN and SEN).

School prize gving last year upset me a little actually- loads of prizes for sub categories fo things (atheltics , football, rugby within sport etc) and yet only one for community service: something ds1 wasn;t even nomintaed for despite him (and his TA who was pleased to help) holding 3 cake sales throughout the year to raise funds for UNICEF and Shelterbox. now ds did get one for reading but I;ve spent the past decade encouraging empathy, charity, community spirit and the message he took home was 'why did I bother when I could have been practising rugby and got a trophy?)*

DS2 works very hard and was involved with the cake sales but we cannot do them now as the PTA has been formed and run them instead for the school, so he can't do them. I would lay cold cash that despite being kind, enthusiastic and doing his best he will receive not even a mention on prizegiving day in June.

(*Should mention he is trophy obsessed as a facet of his ASD).

yup we had that system at my primary school noble
every week we had to rearrange desks in order of our place in class
I like the star power game, very good

Don't start me on the bible thing. My girl is the biggest 10 year old Dawkins fan and HATES anything to do with religion at school. She doesn't mind studying it, like fiction literacy, because to her, that's what it is. She seethes about religious assemblies (every Wednesday) and the request for everyone to pray at the end of all the others (not a religious school). If she was given a bible, she'd use it as a doorstop or she'd throw it at him! And what the kids with other religious views are supposed to do with a bible, I can't think...I think the man needs to be brought into the modern day...he doesn't have a clue.

As this is a press article, describing what Gove said (not quoting his exact words) about what he's been told about a school, then I'm less sure that some posters that any particular word the journalist uses would encapsulate the schools practice.

Does anyone know the school; and whether and how it uses the rankings?

I've found which school it is: it's Burlington Danes, which was on the TES shortlist for outstanding school of the year.

Does anyone know the school, and how this ranking business actually works and what effect it has?

One bible per school - not per child. It will be used to prop the head's door open, or be stuck on a shelf in the library gathering dust.

Surely the Bibles should be a job for the Big Society?

I happen to know that the school Gove went to had 'class places" right through primary, every week some one was declared top of the class etc. They also had streaming in his secondary where a dc was called an 'A', a 'B' , or a 'c' through to 'e' depending on the class they were in, based on ability.

He probably thinks that's normal.

I thought stuff like this went out in the 1980s. It sounds like my shit comprehensive school which took decades to get over the fact it wasn't a grammar school any more and had to accept all kinds of children.

:( for your son peachy.

Even one bible per school speaks volumes about how the man thinks and that's not how I want state schools run. There are plenty of church affiliated schools for that and a lot that aren't still have way too much religion in their day to day running...my daughter's amongst them.

It's old fashioned and out of step with modern society. IMO religious activities in schools, like singing assemblies and faith assemblies, should be opt in only. But I guess that's another thread for another time.

Have e-mailed Gove and have asked for the £10 in cash instead of the bible, as we already have a set of 30 in school.

I think target setting already breeds a culture of failure. Ranking children by results is an idea of someone who has never struggled, and has never been at the 'bottom of the class'. The guy is obsessed by 'academic' achievement a-la-1950s-public-school.

The man's a twat of the highest order.

Still have to chuckle at that much-published picture of him reading an oh-so-thrilling optional SATs booklet with the two enthralled girls though!

Praising for effort is a totally dumb idea.

How do you know how hard anyone's worked?

And, is working hard always the right idea anyway. In work aren't we told to 'work smarter not harder'?

DD works really hard (I think - I have no idea).

She has severe dyslexia and never learns anything. I don't want her praised or rewarded for not learning anything. All that teaches her is that it's OK if you don't learn anything.

I want her to want to be top of the class. She needs to keep striving, and not be pleased with her abysmal results.

(Not saying whether I do or don't agree with the competitive achievement ranking :) )

My son is bright but bone effing idle
he can get A- without trying
but the little rat will get an A* if he thinks he'll beat certain other people and actually try

Gove is an arse who does not understand that teachers need to be left to make the professional judgement about what motivates the pupils in their school and class to do as well as they can

"Praising for effort is a totally dumb idea. How do you know how hard anyone's worked?"

If you think that teachers can't tell the difference between a kid that's motivated and engaged in the classroom and carefully completing their homework outside of it and a kid that slacks off, doesn't pay attention, rushes through the homework or doesn't do it, and yet still gets good marks in the test, then you're slightly underestimating the observation skills of teachers.

I feel sorry for your daughter if despite all her striving, all she hears is about how abysmal her results are.

Indigo, are you joking? Not sure if you are being ironic or not.

Gove is an idiot. It's just another reminder that this government have no idea about anything.
Learning is a process. The end product really doesn't matter.
We are all doomed.

Why is it OK to praise a child for a fantastic sporting, drama or music performance but not OK to praise the children who do well academically. Children have to learn that there are people who are better at things than they are. It doesn't give them an excuse to give up. We cannot wrap our children in cotton wool and wait for them to turn 18 before they realise they are not good at something.
I was pretty ordinary at school, yet my best friend was good at everything, head girl, won prizes all the time. At the time I felt rather overlooked, but in hindsight I did the minimum I could get away with and she worked hard. She deserved that public recognition. It took me until I was in my late 20s to realise that if I pulled my finger out I too could achieve. Perhaps they should have had a wooden spoon prize for underachievers at school, then I may have done something about it a bit earlier.

Underachievement and low attainment are not the same thing. Yotty you should have certainly been pulled up for your lack of effort at school.