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 ....

A lot people people earlier up suggested Breakfast clubs and homework clubs and hully wss particularly strong on the value of optimimum nutirtionf for lunchs (orry for speeling I'm tired). I agree with them all as long term hoped for aims. While we wait, children are being failed. I bet if all the teachers and unions lobbied or this change it could happen sooner. Much less complicated for the teachers too: less planning, with the lessons more straightforward every time.

It think it's out of fashion,k it's all about team work. That could mean that around a third of the class have their back to the teacher an d board, if there is one, and hve to crane every time. Not good. It also positions chldren beautifully for chatting, quiet bullying, distraction and nit exchange!

Never understood the teacher who compains about chatting disruption and fights about copying while she has six round tables of five in front of her. Itf it was me I'd be down to Ikea and keep one round table in the corner for emergency use.

Is the table arrangement generally up to the teacher or are there rules that have to be followed?

"Or they are going to have to take out some of the less "academic" work and replace it with extra literacy and maths."

Yes - this doesn't make it more boring and onerous though

I don't know maybe noble giraffe knows. I don't know why teachers go on with it when it flies in the face of common sense.

Hamish bear interesting re horseshoe, The link I offered shows the teacher' attention ratio in a "row" class room - a sort of T shap with the front row and a central corridor. The ones at the back and sides missed out. That would have to be fought against.

Am interested to see if the more ideological teachers and parents come back to the conversation.

Even if you increased times tables drilling at primary (and my primary colleagues assure me that plenty of times tables work goes on already) it still won't be as effective as 1-1 drilling from a parent or carer, because that is very personalised, to a point which simply can't be achieved in a classroom (same with hearing kids read, I expect). So for the kids who would do the homework were it set, you are swapping something effective for something less effective and removing other material from the curriculum to achieve it. And my child who knows his times tables is either bored to tears (ineffective education for him, ofsted rightly wouldn't approve) or speeding ahead with harder work, increasing the gap.
What would be needed (as others have said) would be an increase in the curriculum time devoted to times tables for those who need it as they are unsupported, without losing the extra curriculum material that the others have time to cover. And that comes down to money, resources and political will.

What others were saying about simply increasing school hours for those who are underachieving and unsupported being a problem is that these children can sometimes be disaffected with school to the point that they aren't even engaging with the work that is being currently presented to them at school. Keeping them in school for more hours will simply be more hours that they are sat there, not engaging.

My desks are all in rows, by the way, as are those of every teacher in my department (secondary maths) through their own choice. Thinking about it, so are most classrooms at my school. Sitting in groups would be to facilitate collaborative learning and group work.

The current issue of the Economist has a huge section about inequality and some specific articles about education and schools in "SuperZips"
This article was good
www.economist.com/node/21564417
(I had to read something while waiting for my DD to have her MRI scan this morning!!!)

yy noble giraffe

Brycie, I'm sorry you thought I was sneering, I wasn't, I was just frustrated because you ahve been ignoring the wider issues and focussing on one idea, which as most of us keep pointing out, won't cut the mustard.

If you are saying don't send ESSENTIAL (needs defining) work home, do it all in school, and other children aree still doing lots more outside school, then what you are essentially saying is let's produce well-drilled Sainos fodder rather than semi-illiterate. And not only that, they will be well-drilled and even more bored becaus eother parts of their education, that might have given them ideas and aspirations, will have given way to make space for drilling.

Francois Hollande is trying to extend the school day in France so that the need for homework is reduced to give all children the chance!

Thanks ok Hully no problem

Yes I would have assumed secondary maths would be in rows, I'm talking about primary.

"1-1 drilling from a parent or carer, because that is very personalised"

This interests me as it's not something that was available to me (or my "cohort" as you might call it) . It didn't cause an issue; all drilling was class based. Drilling tables is harder as the child gets older, because it's so boring. Perhaps they should start younger, before they learn about multiplication, and they're then ready to use them when they are taught about multiplication.

Brycie I agree. I don't know anyone my age whose parents told them their timestables or my parents age. It seems to be a relatively new development for this to be so common place now.

I agree there are huge wider issues but focussing on them, every single one, is a long term project and in the mean time children are being failed. I said earlier this is not anything to do with teacher bashing, it's the curriculum and low expectations. The curriculum my children experienced 100pc suited the middle class demographic right down to the ground and if others did badly it was the parents' fault (so that was ok )

Also changing the curriculum and making sure essential work done in school hours is cheap, that should mean it's take out of the political arena. It's political will that's needed, not money. It's the will to say: "this what children do not have in school that they need. From now on they will get it. In school."

When I was at primary school we used to singsong our times tables walking to the school playing field
When my sister was at school (different school, many years later) they did singsong in exactly the same way.
When I watched Sesame Street in the US they did the singsong method too
....
When my kids were at primary they most certainly did reciting tables on the way to school.
As did their friends when we gave lifts

Brycie
Academies are no longer bound by the national curriculum
private schools never were
how would you enforce this rule?

Why does "well-drilled" = Sainos fodder?Why the perjorate for children who know their tts? TTs are actually for something.

Ok perhaps a primary maths teacher wll be along to tell me that all chldren are now drilled and perfect in tts up to twelve by the time they are learning about fractions, geometry, algebra, probability, and ratio. Actually I know that's not true because it's the new, Gove aim - by the age of 9 - and I completely approve.

Children who have their tts at their finger tips by the time they are being introduced to those other concepts mentioned above have huge massive advantages. Children can think they're bad at fractions, because they can't work out LCD. Or they can't work out angles because they can't divide efficicently by x. Lots more examples would do nothing but bore. But the child who has his tts at his fingertips doesn't get disheartened and give up. He doesn't think "I'm bad at fractions" or "I'm rubbish at probability" simply because he doesn't know his tts. It's confidence boosting, he or she achieves, sef esteem rockets. THAT's what tts are for. Never think they're "just tt"s.

TalkinPeace - exactly, they should be teaching times tables from whenever, birth. If you know what I mean. Get them in there, however it's done, it's not oppressive, it's liberating. Singing, drilling, filling in lovely patterns on tt squares, just get them in there.

I'm talking about primary. Most academy primaries would follow the National Curriculum guidelines. No, preps don't and thats why they often do better.

I didn't say that Brycie. That's why I get frustrated.

I'll leave now rather than go in circles.

Brycie
what makes you think Primaries would follow the NC guidelines?
Evidence please?

"Essential work" - I missed that in your post Hully. Yes I did briefly mention earlier, all number bonds, all times tables, reading, extra reading practice, repeat maths practice (not worksheets sent home) basic science such as growth, senses, mapping. I wouldn't care what else got dropped except for games. History could be half hour of story reading at the end of the day up to Y5.

My daughter has suffered because I decided early on that as she's at school for six hours a day they should teach her times tables. I was told in year 5 by the teacher that they generally expect parents to teach them. It's a complete cop-out. If I'd known that I would have done it. It's another one of those unwritten expectations that schools have of parents that add to educational inequality.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree with most of what Brycie says.

More time was spent on tables in the past in primary schools because the focus was numeracy. This is not the case now. I teach in Scotland btw. Maths is taught from P1.

For example, children in P1 are taught the properties of 3D shapes and children in P7 are taught the properties of quadrilaterals. This simply didn't happen when I was at school in the 1980s. The focus then in primary was on numeracy.

This is a debate raging in my school (and the associated secondary) - should we return to that focus and leave Maths to the secondary school?