Would you be prepared to pay more tax to get better state education for all?

[happygardening]

Any other suggestions welcome to ensure that all where ever they live and whatever their background have access to education of the highest quality.

rabbitstew

In my notes above with the school costs - I forgot to take into account that boys schools in my area cost quite a bit more than girls schools.

I think that's because of more sports maybe, but DH thinks it's becaus "boys are simply more difficult" (note: that's a joke).

Sorry, Tasmania- I really don't understand that. Why would you need more teachers?

I dont see the problem with large schools if that is what it takes to have high quality comprehensive education. It isnt like they are taught in classes of 3000. Big schools allow economies of scale. A big school could allow teachers to teach and managers to manage.

Mind I guess that my more relaxed attitude comes from my oldest now attending a school where there are close to 700 students in the 6th form alone. Sometimes people do get very precious and assume that small means better when all too often it just means a lack of facilities and little choice.

I am the only person to give reasons why educating very clever children in a separate school is a good plan and no one had really given good replies back to my good reasons. Very talented high IQ children often work very hard and achieve much. Their sport and music can be extremely good. Yes there may well be children good at sports at private schools but it is also easier to be bright and not be derided for it and my post about teenagers generally following their peers is very valid.

The brightest children do best in schools with only with those like them in it. Even if you take a school like my daughter's North London Collegiate where I assume everyone has an IQ of say 120+ you still get a broad spread of pupils - you get the genius types and then the lower ends and the hard working and the less so but the entire ethos of the place is kind of coherent in a way that mixed ability schools cannot achieve.

This also applies from age 4 or 5 which is when many of us pick selective schools so that the primary school years are also solely spent amongst other bright children.

Seeker - it was in my post. According to someone else's point of view (who probably shares your viewpoint on so many levels):

What works at Eton will not work in the majority of the state sector.

Someone said that it was to do with teachers who are good at teaching bright kids may not be the best at teaching the less bright ones.

That would mean... at ONE school, you need teachers for the bright ones, and teachers for not so bright ones... for pretty much the same subjects.

Big schools allow economies of scale.

WTM - Where do we plant those big schools in this small country, I wonder? How do all the kids get to one single place?

Have you never worked in a large corporation? "Big" also means bureaucracy. Everyone who knows about economies of scale also knows that it follows a U-shaped curve because of the diseconomies of scale.

I doubt the teaching will be good either - because from my experience in working in big companies, people tend to get away with a lot more of "doing nothing" than at smaller companies where your work is more visible. What private schools often provide parents is that whole nurturing/incubating aspect that such a state school could not provide, because people will get "lost in the system".

Well, no.

In most comprehensive schools, there will be a range of teachers in every department. Say in Maths you might have the ex-Cambridge matho who, although he CAN teach a nyone, has a particular gift with the highest achievers. And another teacher in the same department might have a sepcific ability to make abstract concepts concrete for those who find them more difficult.

Timetableing reflects that. the first teacher will teach a variety of classes, buyt may have more 'top sets' than the second, who might have more 'lower sets'.

Many teachers sit between the two extremes - fine at both, but not exceptional at either - and their timetabling will reflect that balance of skills.

Honestly, it happens all the time.

There are a very tiny % - probably

Apologies for typing.

So Xenia, I agree with you that those children whose exceptionally high IQ - perhaps top 0.1%, that '1 in 1000' or even 1 in 10,000 level referred to in the literacture as 'exceptionally gifted' - may need specialist schooling, in the same way as those with abilities at the extreme at the other end of the IQ scale do.

I just think - and I know a '1 in 10,000' child, and he is genuinely different from an 'all round bright' child with an IQ of 120+, of whom I know many - that they are rarer than you do.

So to return to the point of this thread:

Yes, i would be prepared to pay more tax (if needed, as I suspect that the dismantling of the grammar school and private school endowments would release some cash) to create a comprehensive state school system for all, with appropriate and high quality Special School provision for those who cannot reasonable be educated in mainstream due to the rarity or severity of their exceptional need.

teacherwith2kids

A child with an IQ of 120+ is not that rare.

Me and my brother (stepsisters not tested), and presumably DH, too (never tested, but much more intelligent than us) have an IQ of over 130.

"The brightest children do best in schools with only with those like them in it. Even if you take a school like my daughter's North London Collegiate where I assume everyone has an IQ of say 120+ you still get a broad spread of pupils - you get the genius types and then the lower ends and the hard working and the less so but the entire ethos of the place is kind of coherent in a way that mixed ability schools cannot achieve."

What utter twaddle.
Many of our most famous and successful schools have been entierly mixed ability until very recently. Are you seriously contending that they had no coherent ethos? That hard work, a sense of community, team spirit and commitment can only be fostered where there is academic selection?

^^ And Xenia did say that an IQ of over 120 still gives a broad spectrum of pupils.

But the fact is that putting someone with an IQ of 120 with one of over 130 would more likely be able to work with them than someone, say, below 100.

That's the point I was making, exactly.

Xenia thinks that a child with IQ of 120+ needs to be educated separately. Everyone in my family has IQs over that level, and there is no reason whatever to educate us separately.

Those with IQs that put them in the top 0.1%, about 148-149 - yes, now that IS rare and needs special education.

Tasmania. Have you ever heard of sets??

Children with abilities in a subject that are widely different are not taught together in comprehensives.

So those with IQs of 120 are likely to be working with those of IQs of around the same level - or, rather more usefully, with abilities IN THAT SUBJECT like their own.

But equally, those children with lower IQs who are brilliant at, say, Art or D&T, will be in top sets for those subjects...

Speical educational needs, in most instances, can be met effectviely in a mainstream school environment. Filtering off children of different types and abilities into separate institutions no doubt makes it easier for the teachers who work in them - much easier than the focus on the individual and management of their school career that you find in high-quality mixed-ability schools - but our aim is surely to secure what is in the best interests of children, not teachers who fancy an easier life.

Tasmania - I have and still do work for large multi-national corporations both in operational and central roles so, yes, I do actually know quite a lot about them. A 3000 student school in is not, in corporate terms, very big at all.

You suggested that large schools would be necessary and I do agree that there will an optimal size for an effective school. I merely suggest that 3000 is not an impossible size. You provided that number and seemed to imply that it was frightening.

I dont know what the optimal size for an effective fully setted comprehensive school is. I would be interested to see some genuine research into this.

I'm not sure why pastoral care/nurturing/incubating would be less possible in a big school than a small school. If anything I think that it is easier to be isolated in a small school than a large school. However that is just my own experience.

I havent seen a lot of the 'doing nothing' in big companies. These days people doing nothing tend to find themselves out of the door.

"Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why clever children need to be educated in a different school to less clever one"
Because when your innate ability at anything whether it be math playing the violin or ballet puts you in a tiny minority it is not possible to be with other like-minded individuals in a normal non selective environment. But at a specialist school whether it be The Royal Ballet, The Yehudi Menuhin School or a super selective you will be with other with similar or even greater talent than you have and an opportunity to learn from each other, set a bench mark to aspire too and provide an environment to spark ideas or techniques etc. Potential Olympic sportsman train with other potential Olympic sportsman Hussain Bolt does wish to run against me he wants to practice with other talented runners most would except that this is obvious why is it not obvious if you are the Hussain Bolt of the math world or any other academic subject?

These days people doing nothing tend to find themselves out of the door.

Not my experience. I worked for smaller companies before, and the above statement would be correct there...

Children with abilities in a subject that are widely different are not taught together in comprehensives.

Yes - so if they are not even taught together, are in different classrooms, then what's the point even having them in one and the same school?

Xenia does make a good point about the school ethos. How many people keep on blabbering about the "school ethos made such a difference". It's very difficult to bring essentially very, very different people under one school ethos...

"Those with IQs that put them in the top 0.1%, about 148-149 - yes, now that IS rare and needs special education."
These are the "clever children" I'm talking about and those with even higher IQ's not the 120+ clever children.

Potential Olympic sportsman train with other potential Olympic sportsman

Yes - why does Mo Farah train with Galen Rupp and vice versa??? Why couldn't they both just stick to their local running teams rather than train together in the Nike Oregon Project?

But Hussain Bolt could perhaps be in a maths, English or geography class with you, Happy!

I am pretty sure I remember who said clever children would be beaten up in a lunch queue with less clever ones, but my memory may be wrong.