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"

Lease will somebody tell me,in words of one syllable, what's wrong with the national curriculum?

brycie
I linked to the National Curriculum - find the module you are on about and link to it.

There are vastly different ways of teaching these subjects and the expectations of children to achieve. I can see there's no interest in what prep schools do differently, none at all. If a teacher can say - I've been in a prep school and we teach the same things in the same way with the same classroom layout and the same class size - great, love to hear it. But you have no interest in the views of a highly experienced education manager and provider. No interest at all! That's called prejudice.

Maybe private schools get children to do tonnes of sport without ever explaining to them why they think it is beneficial?... And get their children to debate and talk about current affairs without talking about politics or citizenship? Do they do everything in little discrete bits without relating it to the outside world or making connections between things? Or do they just think all state schools are too thick to weave things into mainstream subjects?

I am interested: tell me!

TP - hold your horses - I was reading it and I just replied! For example Maths - do they set higher targets? At what stage? How? Are they more traditional ? Do they experiment with different learning strategies ? What about discipline? Same with English - do they set waste of time colouring in homework for spelling tests in Y6 (bitter experience)? Is there more competition? But you aren't interested. I think I should go and do my ironing, no one is interested. But thanks for the conversation.

Surely the point of private schools is they don't all do things the same way? Or DO they all follow a "private schools' curriculum" rigidly and unimaginatively? Or is it the case that ALL state schools are forced to follow the national curriculum in a rigid and unimaginative way?

I mean, tell me about what prep schools do with the same class sizes, etc.

www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/primary/b00198824/citizenship/ks1
remember : this is NON STATUTORY : schools can integrate it into other lessons ....

seeker
lots!
it is now too prescriptive : but has been GREAT at clarifying what goes on in schools.
Sadly with more and more schools no longer bound to it, it becomes an irrelevance

www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/primary/b00199044/mathematics/ks1/breadth

Well yes it would be great to find out! I have no experience of prep (hence why I had to tutor my children at 10/11 and 12/13) except vicariously. The preps I know of had traditional academic lessons in the morning and sport or drama for the whole afternoon every day of the week. Yet somehow getting great results. So you have a more amenable intake, but about half or two thirds of the learning time, and are still getting better results. The results they get and how they get them are worth investigating and not just putting them down to selection. It's too important not to even try. If they do do things differently, and that difference turns out to be "better" - why should most children be excluded from the benefit?

Brycie, don't take it out on the ironing! What do you see as different and illuminating about how prep schools teach?

Yes, ok: so what should we learn from that? What is it that makes the difference, do you think?

Brycie
prep schools are not comparable to state schools because the cohort is so financially selected - even in the non academic ones - that they live in a little bubble.
Prep school teachers tend to get eaten for breakfast by classes of 30 mixed background state school kids.

Integrating it into other lessons is equally time consuming and can be even worse. We had Global Dimensions (I assume) integrated into maths - the Chinese, Arabic and something else, Russian I think, methods of long multiplication and division were taught to Y5s. Luckily my daughter is robust and mathematically talented - many other children might have been put off for life.

TalkinP: you are making an assumption - again. You put the entire difference down to selection.

Actually I will say again, this is what I think, and to keep repeating it and for you to keep rejecting it, is little more than tis tisn't tis tisn't, so again, thank you for the exchange.

Could make an amusing Channel 4 documentary - give a school of state school children a week's experience being taught in a private school by private school teachers and a school of privately educated children a week's experience being taught in the state school. Might make the private school classrooms a bit dangerously overcrowded, though.

Nit: I think your question is answered by my reply above yours and I think we cross posted, as I don't see what more I can add

Yes, ok, so then what do you think it is? If something's different, what is it? What are you driving at?

Oh, and the privately educated children would get an unfair idea of the amount of space available, availability of computers which work and pens which haven't run out of ink.

Brycie: not quite, although I get that you're frustrated by aspects of your dc's primary schools, I'm still not clear what it is you think prep school teachers do better?

One more thing: yes the class sizes are different.

Brycie
I have never been shown any empirical evidence that private prep schools do NOT do better because of their intake.
If you can find it I will analyse it.

Isn't using maths to integrate with global dimensions in the way outlined above just a silly idea of one teacher or group of teachers in one school, not an example of where state schools ALL go wrong? Isn't that just an example of a lack of intelligent teaching, not an example of the national curriculum making it impossible to teach well?

Mind you, it actually sounds quite interesting. Do they really do long division differently in Russia?