How do we ensure all UK children regardless of back ground/ability receive high quality education?

[happygardening]

Contrary to what some may think I'm not anti state ed and as someone who works with disadvantaged children it really matters to me that they receive a high quality broad education and they fulfil their potential. But sadly in many cases they are not (there are I know exceptions) frequently their parents cannot assist them for a variety of reasons.
Is there an answer to this problem or are they condemned by their circumstances which are not of their own making to remain at the bottom of the heap?
No judgey DM comments please.

No, word. I just think that super selectives are the worst possible option. And we shouldn't resort to them unless there really is no other way.

I think we can assume that SS provide what parents want.

No one has to apply. No one has to travel to them. Yet they are absurdly over subscribed.

Of course no school is nirvana, but one can assume that the parents feel the education is good enough, or certainly preferable to what they coyuld access in their local comprehensives.

I'm sure it is better than what they could get in their local comprehensive- I don't think anyone is suggesting that the comprehensives don't need to change! This thread is about what we do to ensure that all children get a high quality education. If we're talking about the top 10% ( which seems to be our focus) then we either have to roll out superselectives- which seems a logistical nightmare OR make sure that the comprehensives truly cater for all abilities. Which seems to me to be preferable for loads of reasons, not leas of which being that it can't actually be good for the 10% to be segregated from their peer group. AND we have the thorny issue of selection, and how that is made fair and egalitarian. Which I think we have shown on other threads is impossible.

The thread started well but it seemed to have morphed into yet another thread where a small bunch of MC SAHMs? are sitting around their laptops/iPads debating how to improve education for the top 10%.

Why do you automatically pick the "HEADLINE" and take the Micheal. Of course financial awareness is important to everbody. It is more likely that the bottom 20% dont understand intrest rates managing your weekly finances, and have probably come from families unaware how to manage financial arrangements. A lot of my extended family come from these groups, and have absolutely no intrest in french or history and no need for knowledge. A close friend of mine is a Senior French/German Teacher, In a northen comprehensive, she tells me that she does very little teaching of French/German,most of the time she is helping the kids with English/Maths. Another friend is a senior Politics lecturer at a 6th form college and her opinions,on the bottom 20% who they have to take are unprintable. The point is why do "MC" University educated people think that they know what teach the bottom 20% and have a utopian dream of education.

Not - out GS doesn't have a catchment area but it serves (as in, attracts pupils from) a 50 mile radius.

On the questions of what happens to kids who don't have access to superselectives, perhaps this map might be illuminating.

It shows where in the country the greatest concentrations of Oxbridge applicants were in 2011. Not successful candidates, just applications. It doesn't seem to have been corrected for population density, sadly (there's a city bias), but is still an indicator of aspiration. Or lack of it.

Oh sorry, it has been sort-of corrected for pop density. It's by consituency, and they're supposed to be of roughly similar populations.

I don't fancy wading through the population estimate database though!

HK I am not a SAHM. How very dare you!

That map makes my blood boil.

ach. *constituency

Couthymow I'm with you. Vocational courses must start earlier and be valued more. I find it despicable that children are only allowed to get a maximum of a grade C doing a vocational course. They put the same amount of hours in and the same amount of effort as an A* student.

wonderingagain
at DCs school (which is by no means perfect, just comprehensive)
vocational course s- car work, hair care, stable management start in year 10.

moonbells / justgivemefiveminutes
chillax
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8280657.stm
there are perfectly proportionate applications from around the country - but physical geography and demographic geography so not match.

There are more people inside the M25 than in the whole of Scotland and Wales and the South West combined.

I've only skimmed whats been written but it appears that many seem to be assuming that the most disadvantaged in our society and the bottom 10% in terms of acadmeic ability are one and the same thing.
Whilst we as educated MC"s continue to believe this the most disadvantaged will stay on the bottom of the heap undertaking poorly managed vocational courses if they're lucky. Maybe that suits us they wont be applying for those sought after places at the local grammar and they certainly wont be applying to the top 10 independent schools, or Oxbridge/RG university or ultimately the sort of job that requires a good degree that most on MN are hoping their DC's will be applying for.

My DS's school sets for everything including PE and yes he is one of the geeks in the bottom group for this. He is in top group for everything apart from Maths. You need to be level 7 or 8 for the top two sets Year 8 his school but there are 8 sets for every subject. He was a 6a for Maths so not quite up there although still well above average for a 12 year old but we have no grammars in our LEA and therefore I would say the too sets would be comparable. I was also top set for everything apart from Maths but still managed to get an A in my O'Level back in the day so my comp must have been a reasonable level back then.

All those who claim the bottom 20% should have debt advice - how bloody patronising. Most of the people I have seen who are most seriously in debt are well educated professionals living beyond their means.

I think it's only one person suggesting that it's impossible to teach the bottom 20 % anything and they should be offered advice on debt management. Best ignored.

Hear hear, happygardening!

Just made my blood boil as I have dealt with some really stupid people with high IQs who wonder why £1m as a bridging loan has got them into trouble?

It is a shame though the this country seems destined to fail to produce future great business people because schools now are so hung up on the magical five GCSEs.

Sorry Seeker been at work all day so catching up with this interesting thread. Nobody is going to reach consensus on here.

I'm actually quite shocked that many on MN imply/state/think that the most disadvantaged and the bottom 10% are one and the same. This after all not a DM forum.

I would just add from an employer's point of view with a real mix of employees that it would appear to be the less academic that are losing out most in state education or certainly over the last few years as they are trying to fit them into this formula for success when really trying to teach more employability to kids would really help. We have graduates who seem to think their qualifications are all they need who cannot spell and others who only reach their potential when they come into work and realise that they have great business brains despite failing in academic subjects in school. Keeping children in a comp is very grounding for top achieving kids who see other kids who are great at woodwork beating them every time. It is not lowering the aspirations of children but to be honest we have some very academic trainees who cannot cope with the stress of the work because everything came so easily at school.

Education is about the long-term good not just about 16, 18 or 21.

Random thought, following up on some previous posts

I've never quite understood how banning private schools (or grammar schools) will "low achievers" (academically or professionally).

Adding 10 private school kids to our local comp's 120+ year will not make the bottom quartile of that year better. It will mean that 10 other local kids that would have gone to the comp will have to travel further away to the next available comp and that the teachers will have an even more diverse range to teach - they have enough to do and have all told me that they are more effective with either able or less able kids but not both at the same time. At the open day I went to they agreed that having half a class of "bright kids" would make their jobs harder and not benefit anyone. (PS - whilst wealth and intelligence are not a rule, those private school kids took tests, so it's not just the money)

In addition, whilst I like the idea of people, communities and society staying in touch with each others lives it doesn't seem to happen in practice. At my local primary, the estate kids/parents stick together and the private householders/aspirational etc kids/parents stick together. It's all very friendly (mostly) but there's no "social integration" or "added social mobility" as a result. The fact that one kids Mum is a lawyer and the others is on benefits seems to do nothing to close the economic divide or stitch together the supposedly widening class gaps. (By the way, how does the Mum on benefits in a council flat afford iPhone and the BMW drive to school everyday?).

I do think that a centralised system for identifying gifted and talented kids would be useful that then automatically applied for fee assistance (if no grammar or suitable school is available) would be good.