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]

Perhaps you need reading lessons too Brycie, you seem to be struggling with the content of what posts actually say whilst banging your own drum relentlessly.

[Brycie]

I don't think so: I quoted you directly and I quoted talkinpeace directly. Actually I copied and pasted so ..yknow.

[Hullygully]

You have quoted directly yes, but managed to miss the point.

Let me try again:

NOT SENDING WORK HOME IS FAR TOO SIMPLISTIC AND WILL MAKE VERY LITTLE DIFFERENCE.

[achillea]

mam29 agree with what you say, but I did all those things with mine at primary but now at secondary she tells me she hasn't got homework, or puts it off and puts it off, it is a complete nightmare. Many parents give up at this stage - believe me I am tempted. This is where her peers with pushy parents seem to do better - they have always encouraged academic competition (learning to read before school, sending to Kumon, learning times tables) and it seems that these fundamentals do give children an advantage.

Secondary schools seem to give confidence to those that have academic advantage but leave the others behind with low aspirations. I agree with you mam29 that what's needed is to provide children with less adademic advantage an alternative advantage - like more vocational subjects that they will be far better at than the penpushing kids, that will give them confidence. It may promote a two tier system but perhaps that's what is needed.

[Brycie]

It's not too simplistic -- it's a good start and it would make a difference if the work was then done in class. I think it just doesn't fit with your political views so you just can't bear the idea of it.

Whatever is the point of sending essential work home when it won't be done.

WHAT'S THE POINT.

[mummytime]

In my ideal world we wouldn't best focused on all children jumping through hoops at a required speed. Some people do take longer to achieve their full potential, however if kids don't get their 11 GCSE all at A or A* by 16 they are seen as failures or not as bright. The fact that learning is a lifelong process has also receded from the general consciousness at present, which is a huge mistake.

[Brycie]

I don't know what I've done to make you be so rude. I had a stomp around at first with lots of !!!! but it was pretty good humoured. And I get accused of living in a dream world (sneer) and have I ever been in a school (sneer sneer) - honestly is it really so tremendously knee-trembling to have your opinion challeneged.

[Brycie]

Mummytime: Gove is changing that.

[noblegiraffe]

Brycie, I'm a maths teacher, my DS is going to be drilled to within an inch of his life with times tables whether the school send it home or not. So he will have an advantage with this 'essential work' whatever school does. Other kids get drilled because the school sets times tables practice as homework. Brilliant, these kids know their times tables too. Others don't do the homework for various reasons. The school will still teach them their times tables, but it's not as effective due to class sizes etc. In the meantime the kids who know their times tables are busy doing harder work.

If you don't send times tables practice home then my kid will still know them brilliantly, the kids who would have known them well from homework know them less well due to class size etc and the kids who wouldn't have done the homework are in the same position. So it's my kid who gets the harder work and shoots ahead while the ones who could have done it at home are dragged down to the level of those that couldn't.

How is that an improvement?

[Whyamihere]

Even if there was a totally level playing field at schools and all core work done within schools and no home work sent home you would still have a gap because all the time you are sending children home to parents who see no value in education or just don't care then that is how most of the children will think, it's hard to fight against this attitude as a child.

[Brycie]

Noble that's a great reply, so much more informative than "do you live in a dream world". If only you'd said it earlier. Anyway onwards and upwards.

My experience is different, in that there was very little drilling in school (children that is not me), and what there was, came too late, year 4 5 6 and so on. That is slightly irrelevant. But surely your prediction would only come to pass if there was no increase in the time spent on essential work in school. If you just spent the same amount of time as is spent now, then I can see how what you predict would come to pass.

But times tables are important enough to ensure that all children have a good command, otherwise they'll just zone out with fractions, decimals, algy, geom, all the stuff they need tables for. It's all about confidence, self-esteem and not giving up. So I would say, if you're looking at that outcome, increase the amount of time spent on tts in school.

Earlier I mentioned about tt's being learned too late, in my opinion. Can you tell me the age you are talking about.

[Brycie]

WhyamIhere - yes, you would have a gap, but the gap should be minimised, not widened.

[teenagedreams]

Great post noblegiraffe

Just so you know, the new Ofsted framework includes homework. Cant see many schools not sending it home if they're aiming for good or better.

Don't agree often with Ofsted but this is one area that has it's importance, more so in primary than secondary.

[losingtrust]

It is interesting because when I grew up none of the parents in my area helped with homework and everything was done in old-fashioned state primaries where drilling was the norm and I think we benefitted from that and went on to be more self-motivated at secondary as a result. I now do the timestables with my DCs as for me it is essential and I was a bit shocked to find they did not do them in schools anymore although I have noticed a slight change with younger DC where the school seem to be doing a bit more now. For me not doing this in school will definitely leave some children at a complete disadvantage. I always did homework, read to children at night and even did extra phonics as both late bloomers. A family I know who were very well off (family skiing holidays etc) had no time to read with kids at night or do homework. Now in bottom groups at secondary despite having money. So it would probably benefit both financially advantaged and disadvantaged kids to do it all in schools.

[minipie]

Brycie if children are unable or unwilling to learn (due to the factors mam29 mentions), it's not going to help if you shift the learning to the schoolroom rather than the home. They will still be unable/unwilling regardless of whether it's at school or at home.

It's the parenting that needs to be addressed. Why is it that some people have children but then don't support them to do the best they can at school? How can these parents be encouraged and enabled to help their children? Or if that's impossible (eg because of the parents' attitude), how can they be discouraged from having children in the first place...?

That is a longer term solution of course and as you say, we need a short term solution in the meantime. But I don't think making school more onerous or more rigorous is going to help - it will simply make an unable or unwilling child feel even more excluded at school.

[Brycie]

Why would it be more onerous or more rigorous? Why will it make a child feel more excluded?

Addressing the parenting will take years and years. In the meantime children are failing.

[Brycie]

Minipie your post to me reads: we dont' want to upset and exclude the child less than we don't want to fail him.

[Brycie]

"so many parents already do extra work with their children at home that banning homework will only serve to increase the gap even further. "

It's not a ban on homework. It's ban on sending essential work home. It would ensure that essential work gets done by children with unsupportive parents.

I doubt an increase in focus in schools on maths, Engilsih and science will lead to more Kumon and more tutoring. It woudl probably lead to less. people do it because they arent getting it in the school days. At the moment we are giving tutoring a real value. That value needs to be taken away. If parents want, after school work children can help go further, faster if they want, be sportier, there always be the high focus children. Let's not give up on the other children because of them. Chances are the culture of tutoring could change.

I think we should bring separate desks back from Y3 plus as well. I bet that has people throwing aprons over heads and hiding under the stairsl

[minipie]

Well if the homework is to be done in schooltime as you suggest then by definition school time is going to have to be longer. Or they are going to have to take out some of the less "academic" work and replace it with extra literacy and maths. I would describe either as more onerous or rigorous, from the point of view of a child who doesn't like schoolwork.

[minipie]

No I am not saying "we dont' want to upset and exclude the child less than we don't want to fail him." I'm saying "insisting on more schoolwork is not going to make such a child more academically successful, and may in fact make him less academically successul, unless and until we sort out the home environment".

[Brycie]

.. "One of the more basic variables that can be altered in the classroom is the arrangement of the students? desks and chairs, and this issue has been quite well researched and debated by educationalists. Rows of desks are considered to be appropriate to individual work and increase time on-task (Galton et al, 1999). The research which specifically compares rows and tables (Wheldall et al, 1981; Wheldall & Lam, 1987; Hastings, 1995) suggests that less attentive and less successful pupils are particularly affected by the desk arrangement, with their on-task behaviour increasing very significantly when seated in rows instead of at tables.

It is pointed out by these authors that the vital mediating element between the physical environment and improved classroom climate could be the reduction in negative interactions between teacher and student, since the student in the rows arrangement is able to concentrate and so provokes fewer admonishments."

[Brycie]

Here's the link

[Brycie]

"insisting on more schoolwork is not going to make such a child more academically successful"

Why not?

[Hamishbear]

I know a prep - with an amazing reputation that has children at individual desks arranged in a horseshoe shape from about Y2. There are only sixteen in a class so very possible. Brycie I thought it was all about collaboration now and that had been proven to be a successful method - children grouped at tables?

If there's research that shows the row arrangement works why not more widespread? Just out of vogue?