No Shit Sherlock : Supportive parents do more than good schools to boost children's exam results

[TalkinPeace2]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19923891

You don't say ....

[Hullygully]

And if sending reading home is wrong and it should be done in schools, then again it IS about resources, there isn't funding available to pay for enough staff to listen to all the children read.

Have you ever actually been in a school Brycie?!

[Hullygully]

What level of reading then?

There's no prescribed level within schools.

This is nonsense.

[Almondroca]

I'm with Brycie...

For me, it is the fundamentals of education that I feel should not be so dependant on parental input. Reading and times tables seem at our school (i.e. the school my boys attend) to be largely in the hands of parents. They are listened to and tested on these things at school, but I put their reading levels and (ahem...lack of) times tables knowledge down to my own input. And really this should not be the case.

Yes, I agree with posters who say that there will always be more input and resulting advantage from involved parents, but these basics of education should not be down to parents when it is so well known how much influence parents have on educational success.

Correct me if I am wrong Brycie, but I don't think Brycie is saying that parents shouldn't help their children, but more that schools should not assume that that will happen....children should be doing sufficient learning in school.

[Hullygully]

Define "sufficient learning"

[Brycie]

Yes helped with reading, a lot. Hully we're going to disagree here because I think there is time and there are the resources but there isn't the will to drop other stuff. You're going to reiterate that lack of will, I can tell, and there the conversation will end. The indispensability of rainforest projects, here it comes.

[TalkinPeace2]

My kids bring home hardly any homework - because their comp does NOT assume that there will be resources at home. It does NOT assume there will be computers, let alone parents at home.
BUT
For those children who do, there is an innate advantage.
NOTHING will ever change that.

[Brycie]

Amondroca thanks.
Hully sufficient learning would be defined I suppose by the failures of levels achieved at leaving primary? Or by good sound literacy, good sound numeracy and good sound basic science like growing cress and mapping the school.

[Hullygully]

Oh god the mad projects...

So if some children can read (because of home), do they get to do more fun project stuff/art while the others learn to read all day?

[Brycie]

TalkinPeace, I don't disagree with you but then I never did. I'm talking about basic essential work being sent home. Do you agree with me about that?

I'm also talking about primary not secondary.

[Brycie]

No they do harder reading, tougher maths, it's not as simplistic as you put it. "Reading all day" for example - wouldn't happen. I don't understand your opposition to something that would help reduce social mobility to be honest.

[Hullygully]

The school I helped in for years (state primary) had an extremely disadvantaged intake. In dd's class one third could read etc, one third struggled and one third didn't know the alphabet. One teacher, one part time TA. It was a farce and unfair on all the kids, hence my earlier point about the struggling third being taken off for intensive catch up sessions, which schools can't spare the funding for.

It's not about "will" it's about money. Oh, and the prescribed national curriculum.

[Hullygully]

No opposition, I've said twice that disadvantaged kids should have great input, I'm just saying why they don't and won't. Of course they SHOULD.

[Sonnet]

So, schools should not send work home as by doing so they are exacerbating the differences between children of supportiven parents and those that are not - it that what yu are saying Brycie?

And that will do what exactly - as those parenst who can and do support will continue to do so. Those that cannot or are unable will not and the gap will in fact widen.

It is a fact - along with the role that inherited intellegence plays.
To minimse the above schools need to support all students - I like the idea of another poster further up regarding "Homework Clubs".

My DC's school has a home work cklub at lunch time for those kids who for whatever reason cannot do theri homework at home - only issue is that you have to be a pretty motivated kid to go along!

[TalkinPeace2]

Brycie
Non selective state schools often DO NOT send essential work home.
My kids Primary did not - there were a couple of projects but staff tended to help those whose parents would / could not.
The secondary does not.

Only in the la la land of the selective schools - from which the children of unmotivated parents have already been excluded - is homework an obsession.

[Sonnet]

I'm beginning to agree that no one gives a shit about poor and factory fodder though. It's all, who cares if they don't read with their kids, I read with mine and it gives us a big old leg up and the rest can whistle.

I cannot see where anyone has said that - are we onthe same thread?

[choccyp1g]

My post was braodly in support of Brycie by the way.

[Hullygully]

My ideal school would run from 8 (breakfast club) and start at 9 and finish at 6. Within that day would be work suited to the child's level with catch-up where needed, loads of art, exercise, music and drama and space for individual interests. Nutitious balanced organic meals would be served. At the end of the day they go home with no work.

So that's a private school then (except for organic)...

[Brycie]

Every primary my children have been at, some state, some paying, all non selective (except by paying I suppose) has required reading at home and times tables at home. If primary schools don't do this any more then I applaud it.

[Sonnet]

Unfortuanatly Hullygully I agree!

[TalkinPeace2]

hullygully
8am is great if transport to school is provided - kids whose parents work night shifts are often up late - a real issue at primary school with some.
But yes, extended schools provision can be really important.
At DCs school, some kids get a free breakfast hidden on their electronic fingers - helps their results no end.

But Brycie if you want to increase social mobility, abolish ALL selection in state funded schools - THAT is what will work now.

[noblegiraffe]

Kids who are struggling are not left to flounder by schools. At my secondary it's the weak kids in bottom sets who have the smallest class sizes (a third of the size of top set!), LSA support, literacy groups, paired reading with the sixth form, intervention at GCSE. FSM kids get the pupil premium which should be spent on narrowing the gap, disadvantaged kids get free access to holiday activities.

Saying that no one cares about them is hugely insulting to schools.

[Hullygully]

Sonnet - re the factory fodder, I am assuming Brycie meant out there in the world rather than on this thread?

Yy abolish private schools and all selectives and dismantle the entire system of privilege and hierarchy. It's the only way.

[Hullygully]

Of course schools care! But they have such limited resources.

[TalkinPeace2]

hully
I did NOT say get rid of private schools.
Because
countries that have find the kids going to other countries that have not
and those who REALLY want their child educated in a particular way shoud be able to cough up and get it
BUT
normal state funded schools should not be selective (by academic or religion)
THEN you will get social mixing (within the limits of geography, I'm realistic)
THEN the detrimental impact of poor parenting can be mitigated.

noblegiragge
totally agree. At DCs school, the support given to those who will most benefit (which ain't the bright kids of bright parents) is fabulous)

[Hullygully]

countries that have find the kids going to other countries that have not

fine. bye bye those kids.