Should teachers have to take tougher tests before they qualify?

[Solopower1]

What do you think?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20083249

I think because we are all aware that Ronaldo is trying to wind us up we are assuming that every statement he makes is designed to be offensive .

Having read it back I think he is just saying that it was a shame the lessons were disrupted at the posters school.

No jabed that is not what you said ... a reminder of what you did say

"Good behaviour manager then?

OK lets disect it shall we mrz? The poster said no one would dare disrupt her teaching .

I said good behaviour manager then

She had said she worked in a state school,

I said

In a stateschool.

She said that her lessons had been disrupted in her school ( a private one) and that she had learned nothing.

I said

"Shame about the teaching."

Mm, so what did you mean when you said it was a shame she found herself unable to teach in a private school?

And why dont you just admit you read it wrongly, rather than digging this rather tortuous pit for yourself?

Jabed, could you explain this bit:
"I didnt judge the teaching. I just it was a shame she had found herslf unable to teach in aprivate school despite her good discipline record in state schools."?

because that was the point that it was clear to me that you had misread.

Prediction: Jabed now tells us he has something better to do. He goes away, and returns this evening, makes about seventeen posts in a row, and suggests he feels bullied and targeted by some posters who insist on picking apart some of his least logical posts to look for sense. He is sorry, ladies, but he cannot explain everything, and also his fat fingers force him to make errors of basic comprehension. And now, ladies, he is off to listen to Liberace, so please excuse him if he leaves us to our chatter. And then the same again tomorrow.

Ron further to my last post - the label 'plate glass' referred to the clutch of post Robbins report (1963) new build universities and it was a comment on, surprise surprise, their architecture. Exeter was more typically (and perhaps rightly) lumped in with the redbricks, starting life as a college of London as many of them did, but a bit later than the rest and in a less metropolitan setting. And not being made of plate glass.

I was led to believe at school that plate glass referred to a bunch of post universities we were not to touch with a barge pole because they were " new" and not up to the same reputation. Not that they may not be good ( never crossed my mind really. I was going to Cambridge and that was it. It never crossed my mind I would not get in either - luckily I was right I guess - opr my arrogance and expectation were such that they were shing through).

I always associateRobbins with the extension of university education to Polytechnics ( which did expand the provision greatly in the 1960's).

BTW Exeter was never lumped in with the red bricks. I have to differ with you there. I knew exactly who the red bricks were.

what I said TW2K - shame that with such a good discipline record she found herself in a state school. I still think private schools are best.

Ah, wrong prediction, steaming - Jabed will return to an ealier point in the thread to deflect attention from a later misreading.

Jabed, it is of course possible that what your school led you to believe MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRONG. You mention yourself that you weren't looking at Exeter, and so knew nothing about it - which has therefore led you to make wrong statements about it on this thread. How abaout you just say 'sorry, I realise that you have better information than I do' and move on?

Jabed, if you live where I do, unfortunately for your theory, the state schools are significantly better.....

So she had a bad experience in a private school ( hence I am sorry her teaching was bad - sorry re phrase that - that she did not learn because of disruption)

See how these things happen? Normally I might have taken that out and re written it. I took quite a lot out of the post we are talking about.

I do feel its a shame she has not experienced teaching in a private school. I think everyone should before they comment on the experience of others. I have done both.

Look folks I know you dislike my strong opinions. I am willing to discuss, debate and even banter with you but I do I get on your backs like you are on mine all the time?

Do I pick up all your comments and say rude things about them? Do I criticise your kids or send warnings about your parenting into the ether?

Back off. If you want me to leave MN then I wil. Just say it. Lets not do the bullying thing please.

Sorry Jabed - it's not going to happen to me. Why should I teach in a school much less interesting, much less good, much less well-equipped [in terms of teachong - I acknowledge that the sports facilities are better] and where children make significantly less progress than they do in mine?

She did experience teaching in a private school. She received it. She teaches in a state school and hasn't tried to teach in a private school. I imagine she would find herself very able to do so, if she wanted. But your posts was both rude and nonsensical, and now you're writhing about in ever more ridiculous contortions trying to avoid admitting that your rudeness was based on you not having understood.

Don't make this about your ds, please: I've never said anything about him or how he will turn out, and have more than once suggested threads would go better if they didn't get derailed into discussion of his future.

Ron the awarding of degrees by polytechnics came later than the plate glass unis. And I can assure you, Exeter was considered (not entirely accurately) redbrick in the 60s and 70s, even if you did not realise that. This was partly because it was not part of the plate glass group. And it was built mainly of brick. But mainly because of the date it wass founded and its original role as a college of London. As I said, I do know about this - which you clearly do not - because of having a husband who used to be an academic there.

Of course these days the main constituent ingredient of the campus seems to be fireworks followed closely by bad drivers and oversees students who like to walk in the middle of the road.

Reading through the last part of this thread it does look like a mob jumping on a bandwaggon.

I've no desire to teach in a private school, I believe in inclusivity. Every child, regardless of ability or background, deserves a personalised education. I don't need to do any behaviour management because I set out my stall from the off, putting firm boundaries in place, which students choose not to test.

Apologies for huge bigheaded rant but one or two people on here have jumped to conclusions about the 'best' kind of education for all children... And it's not what I'd consider the best.

Ronaldo I dont think the SM failed the lower ability pupils as often as now btw. Children with difficulties were identified and removed to special schools which could help them. I can think of a couple of such pupils with me who managedto learn some basic skills and held down jobs after leaving - all because they got the specialist teaching they needed.

Were you not streamed in your SM school? If so, were you really all that aware of what the lower ability children were doing? Have to say that the one truly illiterate adult I have met went to SM school just a few years before you did. Not low ability, just a poor attender, but definitely no extra help or specialist teaching.

Should a bully have really been in a grammar school? Was he , as the 1944 act said " would benefit from a grammar school education"?

The 1944 did not say anything of the kind.

It may look like a mob jumping onto a bandwaggon, but Ronaldo has said some things which he has passed off as fact, which a little bit of checking would show him is wrong e.g. he doesn't know which the 'plate glass' universities were, so he seems to have made up a few names and lumped them all in together. (Incidentally Mordion - I think Lancaster was one also).

Just because he or his teachers didn't know about them he assumes that they weren't very good. Well, I went to one, Essex and can tell you that e.g. its Department of Government, which is partly where I studied, quickly established a reputation and was highly thought of.

The Polys came along in about 1970. Mostly they had been 'Colleges of Technology' which had been awarding London University external degrees. They then shelved their lower level work and started awarding degrees from the Council of National Academic Awards. Then in 1992 they turned into Universities and started to award their own degrees and the CNAA disappeared.

He talks about bullies not going to grammar school. I laughed out loud at that one. My brother's school in particular was notorious for it - in my brother's case he was a big lad, so was left alone. My school, had not so much bullying, although there were a few, but constant bitchiness, despite or because of being a grammar school, or because that's how teenage girls are?

Whichever poster said that she felt discipline in class was due to the teacher I largely agree with. We had some who were hopeless and their lessons were chaos. We had others you wouldn't have dreamed of messing around with. Of course, being a grammar school they always had the option of throwing you out if your behaviour wasn't deemed to be up to standard.

I agree with Narrie, this makes for uncomfortable reading. I'm quite interested in reading ronaldo's posts and I am not happy with the way everything he posts is picked over. Maybe there is past history I am not aware of but I haven't found ronaldo's posts on this thread to justify the way he is being treated. It does not come across as a reasonable discussion atm. Otherwise the thread has been quite interesting reading for me.

Jabed - my dad went to a SM. He failed the 11+, but then his own father had just suddenly died, leaving my dad with an older brother about to go to university and a widowed mother who was in a dreadful state. It's hardly surprising the exam didn't go his way. He left school at 14 with no qualifications. He wasn't a bully, but wasn't able to concentrate, for obvious reasons, and was, by his own admission, a bit of a disruptive element.

He is in no way unintelligent - as an adult he put himself through university to Master's level (Birmingham, so not Oxbridge, but definitely Red Brick). The SM system failed him. If a similar thing happened to a child today, there would be all sorts of support available to him. Your first post in this thread (before I even realised you were you) said that you didn't care what happened to disruptive children, as long as they were kicked out of the school (presumably) you happen to teach in (given that your DS is HE, and therefore unlikely to have to deal with disruptive classmates at present).

As teachers, we have a duty of care to all our students, even the disruptive ones. And I agree that discipline is very often due to the teacher. Kids aren't stupid - they know if a teacher doesn't give a s**t and behave accordingly.

Would this work?

Aims: 1) to reduce disruptive behaviour in class, 2) to provide support for children and teachers in disruptive situations.

Materials: a computer in each classroom

Method
Teacher takes online register at any point during lesson. Marks people who are being miildly disruptive in yellow; worst cases in red.

Member of SMT is online, monitoring situation. Yellows will get a visit from member of SMT at some point during the day; reds get visited immediately.

Children get warned that T is doing this. System automatically triggers a letter home or a telephone call.

Advantages: 1) It is the individual children who are tracked throughout the day, so they are seen as the problem, not teaching methods. 2) No-one is demonised - clean slate every day. 3) If one individual is seen to play up in one T's lessons but not in others, or if one T uses the system more than others, then support is available from SMT.

Another possibility is a team of monitors, who are not teachers, but are solely responsible for discipline. (This is done in France, I believe - or at least it was). A teacher has a problem with a child, the monitor removes the person from the room. Instantly.

The problem with this sort of thing is that I imagine the monitors could be seen as a pseudo police force. Plus they would cost. Also, nowadays they would probably be run by private contractors and not given adequate training.

Btw, educational psychologists - shouldn't each school have one attached?

I worked in a school that had welfare leaders or a similar title that weed not teachers and were solely responsible for behaviour. They caused utter chaos because they had never been teachers and had no insight into how much disruption could be caused by little things like talking out of turn. Caused huge divisions in the staff and before long the school was in special measures with poor attendance and behaviour being highlighted ( the areas of responsibility for these solely pastoral staff)

With the right people it could work, but in this case it caused chaos