Middle class access to grammars via tutorproof 11+ part 2

[boschy]

May I do this? only there were some contrasting views at the end of the last thread which I found interesting.

One was mine (sorry!): "I think fear actually drives a lot of those parents who are desperate to get their child into GS, so they can be 'protected' from these gangs of feral teenagers who apparently run rampage through every non-selective school in the country.

Because clearly if you are not 11+ material you are a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal who likes nothing better than beating up a geek before breakfast and then going to score behind the bike shed before chucking a chair at the maths teacher and making the lives of the nice but dim kids a misery."

And one was from gazzalw: "If you had the choice would you opt for a grammar school or a comprehensive that has gangs?"

Soooo, do people really think that all comprehensives have vicious gangs, and all GS children are angels? Or that only those of academic ability adequate enough to get them through the 11+ should not have to face behavioural disruption of any kind? If you are borderline, or struggling but still work hard, should you just have to put up with disruption because let's face it you're not academic?

PS, re the knuckle dragging Neanderthals I mention above, should have said - "and that's only the girls"

@talkin - Well, changing the benefits system would help shift the permanently unemployed.

The cleaning lady in our office is from Eastern Europe. She holds down 2 cleaning jobs and sends as much money as she can back home (MIL lives with husband and looks after kids in her absence).

When I look at people like her I find it hard to feel any empathy for my fellow countrymen who won't travel down the M1 in order to find a job.

Anyway, the subject in front of us is educating their children so I'll get off my soap box.

*TalkinPeace" - where have I slagged off the English system? And I pay tax and vote in... the UK.

bonsoir
if not teachers and parents, who else interacts with children on a day to day basis?
and what WOULD you do about the indigenous problem?

rabbit
if you have kids coming in from pre school illiterate, in nappies, that is where your EYFS coordinator should have got Ofsted involved in the first term they saw it - did they?

You cannot turnaround the lives of children whose parents (and grandparents, and great-grandparents) have been failed by society for generations at school. Governments need to tackle the jobs issue, the housing issue and the lack of any meaningful future of many indigenous parents. Expecting teachers/schools to sort it all out is ludicrous and teachers who try to take on the responsibility are... insane?

Bonsoir,

But that is rather different from your point earlier in the thread that:
"it is so important to try to get parents to care and do the work themselves. "

If you say that what is actually important is to get teachers, parents and a whole host of other agencies to work together to improve the life chances of all disadvantaged young people, then I can see a point where we might agree....

Lots of agencies are involved, TalkinPeace2, with the children with greatest needs, as you would expect. It seems to be seen as a general trend across the whole area, though, not just within one school's intake - the general attainment level of children on starting reception is slowly going down over time, not up, albeit in most cases it really isn't extreme (ie not feral children in nappies, just a higher proportion of children not having attained skills that used to be taken for granted...). Maybe the socio-economic status of the area is declining? Schools seem to think this is partly the case. Part of the issue, admittedly, is also with children who ought to be have been statemented before starting school not having been dealt with at an early enough stage when they clearly have significant needs and ought to be seeking the very limited places available in special schools - it tends to be left for the primary school to sort out. So a funding issue? Expert agencies dragging their feet? Nobody wanting to take ultimate responsibility?

No it's not. It's entirely consistent. You have to get to a situation where parents have meaningful lives and believe that their children will have meaningful futures in which parental time and energy are worth investing.

Many immigrants are in that situation: they arrive illiterate and penniless in a new country and believe in a future and work for it. But indigenous, static populations just dig in deeper in cycles of non-achievement. Only governments can tackle that. Not teachers (for whom I have the greatest of respect, but don't think they should take on the burdens I have outlined above).

which LEA?
Just that DH works all over the country and I'd be interested to see if he's noticed it.
I was not aware of ANY LEA where the EYFS figures were declining for other than migration reasons

Statements cost a LOT of money and are poorly resource allocated (because of pushy MC mums) - the issue you initially raised - literacy and nappies - has nothing to do with SEN : sort one point before muddying the water with others

The main point is that levels on entering for all children are declining, TalkinPeace2... there is no muddy water in that statement, is there?

Bonsoir - I agree with your comments about the indigenous static population but disagree that it is something that the government can noticeably impact.

Take the 2012 Olympics. The building work in the East End was supposed to benefit the local unemployed. Faced with insufficient local applicants, the various firms were forced to recruit Eastern Europeans.

Many immigrants come to this country and battle (and win) against illiteracy, poverty and racism. If you are third generation unemployed, in light of this, then government policies isn't going to resolve anything.

Bonsoir,

I just don't think that, on the ground, it's as complex as you make it sound.

If each time I set a piece of homework, I assume that every child has a literate adult to help them, access to the internet and space to spread out their books, I entrench existing advantage and disadvantage. If I write homework that the child can read for themselves, give access to the internet during lunchtimes (or not require it at all), minimise resource requirements (or provide them during a homework club, accessible to all and during the school day), and have a TA with specific responsibility for homework for the identified few who we know cannot complete it at home, then I make completion of the required work as independent as possible from home background.

There are lots of very simple adjustments that can add up to a big difference.

Hmm. I regularly see one of my aunt's neighbours in rural Kent (hardly deep poverty). She is a childminder and her husband is a farmer and they have four children, all schooled locally in state schools. She has a good grasp of the issues facing the local indigenous population because (a) she is part of it (b) she, like her husband, is highly literate (both went to private schools and are widely travelled - in their more affluent youth). They chose to stay in the rural area they grew up in and live on her husband's farm. Their children, despite educated parents, have few life prospects because they haven't seen or done anything much apart from go to school and their parents have no money or time or anything to give them. If these children are (severely) downwardly mobile, what hope is there for less educationally-advantaged rural peasantry? It is grinding poverty and lack of opportunity that is a massive part of the problem.

"the point of state education is that it separates the ability of the child from that of the parent"

absolutely
but
"and sadly nowadays, selective state schools (of all religious and secular hues)
UTTERLY fail on that front"

ANY school which required reading and times tables practice for children to have a good grasp does this

this is no reason to bash seletive schools!

requires reading and times tables practice by parents if children are to have a good grasp

kin hell

Brycie, I would say that the point of that comment is that selective education fails more than comprehensive on this. A child whose parents take no interest is less likely to help them prepare for the 11+, less likely to have taken any pre-school opportunities etc and therefore that child is far less likely to pass a GS entrance test (or even be entered- in my area, the test is done at the grammar school on a Saturday- that involves a parent taking the child there, on the right day, at the right time. In a comprehensive system, there isn't the same problem.

Oops, forgot to close the brackets

My point is, the way the current system works, a child cannot pass the test if the parent isn't on board.

So, TalkinPeace2 - you think the issue in our area is migration? I presume, therefore, that migration includes people moving from elsewhere in the UK to here, rather than just moving in from overseas? There certainly has been an increase in the population of people requiring school places here (but isn't that the case virtually everywhere? In which case, aren't schools around the country finding their EYFS figures are being affected by influxes of people who didn't grow up in the area?!...).

No interest eviltwins.

APMF: surely part of the problem you describe will be addressed by more rigorous primary education and higher expectations from very early on.

rabbit
I do not know where you like
you are extrapolating wildly from what I said ; I specifically excluded migrants from my comment
you said
levels on entering for all children are declining
please find the source data for that?

the question I was asking - that everybody wants to avoid - is , what do you do with LOCAL families of ENGLISH origin who have NEVER moved ; who under achieve ?

Bonsoir
sorry, but if your experience of the UK system is Kent - the most dysfunctional county of all - I have to take your comments with a massive dose of salt.

I'm not trying to avoid your question, TalkinPeace2 - my interpretation of the data is that LOCAL families of ENGLISH origin who have NEVER moved are not spending enough time talking to their children, or doing things with their children, and are relying on pre-schools and schools to do all the work for them...

And can I point out that YOU were the one to talk about migration, TalkinPeace2 - this is YOU talking: "I was not aware of ANY LEA where the EYFS figures were declining for other than migration reasons"

So don't get all high and mighty and read your own words before you accuse me of extrapolating wildly and bringing migration into the issue...

Rabbitstew: a dependency on the state has been created and it is very hard to shake off. The alternative remedies are : force people into the direst straits until the next generation or even the generation after that realises they will have to make some effort. Not possible in a civilised country. Or : use the state to separate the children from the parents' ethos. Instil high expectations: instil rigour: be demanding; teach them more.

In short: look at how prep schools get good results: remove the prejudice that it's wholly down to intake: look at what else is different.

source data for levels declining on entry to our children's school comes from teachers assessments moderated by the LEA.