Ambition...what can schools do to foster ambition amongst their pupils?

[wordfactory]

I've been asked to take part in a debate about the above and frankly, I'm not sure what I think.

Can schools do much about fostering ambition? Or does it come from within? Or encouraged by the family? Is it even a good thing to have anyway?

What do parents and teachers think about this?

Thank you everyone for some great contributions.

Now I've slept on it, my ideas are starting to come together (isn't that always the way?).

I guess I'm a very ambitious person, in that I've always set myself goals that were way out of my comfort zone. And then I've kind of gone for it. Sometimes I've managed to reach my goal, sometimes not so much.

I didn't attend a school where ambition of any sort was fostered. Quite the reverse. But my inherent ambitiousness and my Mum's unswerving support fostered it.

But without that inherent ambition, can school really make an impact? I don't know. I guess it depends whether we see ambition as an integral personality trait, or outside conditioning. Maybe a combination of the two?

I think you may need to get parents on board as well. I was the first person in my family to go to University but my parents always held it out as a possibility (my Dad was the second to go to Uni when he retired).

If the children are surrounded by people who say Uni is too expensive, why can't you work in the factory/shop like your parent / sibling, why are you wasting your time on that you'll never be any good..., then the school is fighting a real up hill struggle.

Did my PGCE in 1999. Individuality or independent methods not sanctioned by tutors was very much frowned on.

Example: I did Modern Languages PGCE. By its very nature, around a third of the 40 strong group were Europeans. We'd all been taught languages in a very grammar-based way. Wanted to teach grammar. Told categorically "no!" by course leaders and tutors, this is not how we do it, we teach communicative language, grammar is divisive and elitist and all the other wrong -ists. We knuckle down and learn how to to teach their way.

Halfway through the year, directive from central govt forces tutors into volte-face about grammar, and suddenly we're "allowed", nay actually forced to teach grammar, grammar is persona grata again, and the tutors are pretending that's what's they'd been saying all along. The 15 or so of us who'd wanted to teach it in the first place were left thinking "WTF?".

I guess how central govt directives are implemented is up to individual SM teams but in all my placements around Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire I never encountered a school where SMTs didn't say "how high?" when asked to jump.

How much schools can do in the face of lack of parental support, is one of my big questions!

When Blair first came to power I was completely convinced by Education x 3. I really believed that education woudl be the biggest driver towards social mobility.

Now I wonder if school can drive those changes? And whether those changes even should be the responsibilty of teachers?

However good a school is, they work far better in a school/parent aprtnership.

duchesse the teaching of MFL went through a very barren period, coupled with many schools no longer requiring pupils to learn one.

MFL teachers country wide left in droves, so pissed off were they at the lack of importance placed upon MFL and the changes in curiculum.

The school I worked at was a proper Blair school, run by a company called 3e. Although they had a lot of initial success, and their methods were very proactive, creative and engaging, 8 years later the school was put in special measures. It's as though they never quite managed to "crack" that shell sealing out any sort of ambition among their intake population.

It was eventually put under the headship of a superhead from a neighbouring school - the school that was top of the tree in that town- and arguably the school that was the reason why there such a huge culture of under-achievement in my school. The top of the tree school changed its intake boundaries at will, redrew boundaries to suit catchment areas in any given year (actually withdrew a whole road from its catchment area for a year to effectively exclude a particular family) and essentially played every dirty trick in the book to keep top of the league tables.

I thought it quite fitting that that head ended up having to run the school he'd been using as a place to put the kids he didn't want tbh.

If that school managed to change the ambitions of even a handful of pupils though it was worth it imo. You just have to keep trying and trying and trying (ie display ambition for your pupils to see) and eventually it will start to happen. I don't think there are any overnight solutions though.

wordfactory, you're telling me!! Of the probably dozen or so idealistic, enthusiastic NQTs who taught in the same dept as me for those 2 years only about 3 are still in teaching. It was the start of the bite after they dropped the compulsion to do an MFL. I am so glad they are bringing back the encouragement for schools to keep as many pupils as possible doing a language- I view it as a basic cultural asset to children, and there is so much research highlighting the benefits of learning a foreign language on brain development.

A lot is about showing children possibilities: this can be sporting, academic, charity work and helping others...a big killer is the home attitude: DH suffered from his parents seeing no other road but leave school at 16 and "earn a wage" despite the fact he was easily bright enough to go to university. He also went to a shit school so everything was against him.

Amount of effort is also something interesting, children from immigrant families tend to work harder as they know becoming a doctor/lawyer etc is their route out of poverty. In most countries without any form of welfare the work hard ethic is drummed into children as it is literally the difference between eating and starving.

The middle classes trying to "protect" their child all over the place does them a huge disservice as they take their parent's wealth/house/big car for granted not realising that their parents worked for this. I am always baffled by fathers who work 300 hours a week with 6 figure salaries then try to protect their children from getting "upset" by anything, which includes being told their schoolwork is not up to scratch. How is their child going to obtain the skills to get the 6 figure job their parent has to provide the lifestyle they take for granted ????? (my brother is guilty of this).

I suppose you need to look at effort and outcomes. DD plays tennis, if she puts in no effort she loses the game, which she hates, it is a fabulous instant feedback loop: she didn't try - she lost. So she works hard at her tennis because she wants to win every match on Saturday.

Unfortunately school and life takes much longer for the lack of effort and ambition to show its crappy results.

The two most important factors in generating ambition in a youngster is their family and their peer group.

Who you go to school with is enormously influential. Their attitudes and life style choices are crucial in how you view your future. Academic competition is also vital in promoting ambition.

If you go to a school where you are bullied for being a 'bof' you do not stand a chance.
...'And all shall have prizes'... is the death knell of competiton and thus ambition.

I'm the sort who would work very hard at tennis & lose every match anyway (sigh). Some ambitions are truly lost causes.

I think of ambition & drive as very different things.

DD has lots of drive (good self-discipline) but is not sure what her ambitions are. She likes trying her best, or even doing well, those are reward in themselves.

DS has many ambitions, but no drive, very lazy lad. Yet he sometimes becomes highly motivated with very specific narrow targets (trying to get a new Scout badge), or external factors may motivate him strongly (like if I punish him for not doing homework). Tonnes of ambitions, no motivations.

I would just like schools to make the subjects interesting, exciting, transfer a love of the topic to the students who are open to that view. The best teaching is done with a lot of charisma (I couldn't do it either).

Ah yes, ragged the rudderless ambition is a big bug bear of mine.

Ambitions and goals must be ruddered to plans as to how to get there. I think young people can never be told enough times just how much effort/pain/risk/chutzpah/boring repetition certain ambitions take to achieve.

'To be brutal would you prefer that the doctors tried and failed to save a dying person or didn't make the effort because the result was likely to be negative'

But it wouldn't matter a jot to me how much effort a doctor put in if he or she was incompetent or made avoidable mistakes.

This is my point. Praising effort alone (which is incredibly difficult to measure anyway) is not necessarily helpful. Kids need to be aware of where they're performing in relation to where they want/need to be and in relation to their potential. Some kids are never going to get the grades to be Doctors and it does them no favours to suggest that if they only try a bit harder they'll reach their ambition. But we need to make them aware of the standard otherwise they'll never know if they can reach it or how much work they need to put in to reach it.

I don't think I suggested praising effort alone!

I think one way to counteract that attitude is reward achievements that come from effort where possible, so to some extent, its the effort that earns the reward rather than the end result.

Its simply about recognising the work that goes into getting the result not just the result. I think kids need to realise that in the long run hard work produces more results than flashes of genius.

I have no issue with being honest about their current level of achievement but I would like to see that coupled with a realistic set of goals for them to aim for.

I think it would be really great to discuss what ambition can mean. To often it means wanting to do well for yourself, rather than being ambitious to do things that help society as a whole. Something like the Right Livelihood awards might be relevant.

My school's motto was 'Members one of another' taken from one of Paul's Epistles. Unusually for mottos, I thought it was both helpful and meaningful for secondary age pupils - stressing the importance of every individual's contribution to the common good (and leading on from that our duty to do our best in whatever we are doing).