Chief Inspector of Schools acknowledges life outside M25

[lainiekazan]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22970674

How can this be said as if it's a revelation? Do poor people only live in Tower Hamlets? Why is it that on MN we have discussed this issue but now it's announced as if it's astounding that underachievers might actually be living in Wiltshire.

And, whilst they're at it, they might look at how clever children might not reach their potential if they live in a lower middle-class monocultural location.

[BoffinMum]

Schools need to be judged not only on how well they are doing, but also ow well the local area is doing, state and private.

[wonderingagain]

Ofsted did have some inclusion indicator added onto their scoring system recently, not sure how it worked, but it did make one of the local posh schools appoint an inclusion officer fairly sharpish. After telling me to send my dcs elsewhere if I didn't like it...

[TheMagicKeyCanFuckOff]

Yes, I agree. Successful oversubscribed ones are very competitive, we jut need to deal with the ones which couldn't care less!

I agree about OFSTED too. The focus should be on the children and they need to look at inclusion within schools especially, like you said. There are some big divides within schools based around wealth (and achievement in relation with it) and it needs dealing with fast. Whether a child is bright or not, trouble or not, they deserve a good education.

[wonderingagain]

MagicKey - I think you will find that the 'successful' oversubscribed schools are very competetive, the more privileged the parents the more demanding they tend to be. It doesn't take much for a school to fall off its pedestal.

It is a self-perpetuating cycle where the people that lose out are the children that fall between the cracks in the demographic - too 'bright' for the rough school, too 'challenging' for the posh school. Schools make it easier for themselves (understandably) by teaching to the general level. This keeps the majority of families within each school happy.

Ofsted needs to be more child-focused so they don't get blustered by schools and politicians. They should be looking properly at social exclusion and schools need to be severely reprimanded if they participate in it.

We desperately need a fairer admissions system in London particularly. It has ALWAYS been like this, it's nothing new, I grew up here, but it has got far worse than it ever was.

I think rural areas do have a more complacent demographic, less highly-strung and OCD about results. But Ofsted should be on top of this - they are not fit for purpose. It's not rocket science ffs.

[TheMagicKeyCanFuckOff]

Yes blueberry DS goes to a school with about 1500 pupils (he's 5) and they have a rooftop playground. The funding is getting less and less but the strain is increasing.

[blueberryupsidedown]

I just want to see more data on this. It's so easy for Lord Chief Inspector The Right bloody honorable Sir Michael Wilshaw to blame poor teaching when it's a lack of funding that is the issue. London has more teacher training facilities and as far as I know, trains more new teachers through PGCE and often the newly qualified teachers will stay in the borough where they are trained for a couple of years.

Also, how many children are we talking about? I want to see statistical data and facts about free school diners compared with achievement in primary schools, and compare the percentages between inner city london and other parts of the country. I could do without OFSTED carrying on with this image of being the 'enemy' of teachers and always blaming the teachers and leaders when school budgets are being slashed across the country. Not forgetting the shortage of school places... so many schools in our area (East London) now have 31 children in reception/year 1 classes. school libraries and computer suites have been turned into classrooms, and extra temporary classrooms have been put in playgrounds. Whatever has been achieved in urban areas will soon go down the drain if the government carries on like that. One primary school near us now has over 1000 pupils, not including the nursery.

[TheMagicKeyCanFuckOff]

Tbf, wonderingagain, that happens in urban schools too, especially in more inner city areas, like the one I'm in. Although there are more schools in one area, there are also more pupils and as a result there are tiny catchment areas and if you apply out of one, you have literally no chance, and there are even some primary aged children who are left without school places etc; In my area at least, schools aren't in competition with each other, as the kids go to the closest school, albeit about ten minutes away or so, because that's the only one you can get into (unless you are a LAC of course).

[wonderingagain]

Well there are going to be a lot more poor people living in rural england soon thanks to the caps on housing benefit, so they ought to do something about it.

I think it's down to neglect and a laid-back attitude more than anything. I think parents are less pushy or demanding and teachers are living an easy non-competetive rural life, probably everyone's quite content the way they are.

Urban schools are always in competition with each other and that's partly what drives them. In rural areas people tend to go to the school that's closest regardless of the ofsted reports.

[Scrazy]

I was surprised when DD was first thinking about universities to find that our 'affluent rural area' was a low participation area for locals going onto higher education. Then it all became obvious when we looked at A level results.

[Loa]

Its quite remarkable that the old ways are in many instances the way to
go forward.

At least there is a track record that can be evaluated - rather than assuming something will work because it suits a particular ideology.

[Loa]

Where we live small town in middle of countryside - several secondaries none great our side of town.

All the ones nearest to us - with poor results- have either become Academies and the one that hasn't and has produced improving results is not improving fast enough for ofstead and they want it to become a Academy.

Becoming Academies hasn't change much - but now they are Academies I presume the ability to move teachers around is not going to apply even if that could cure the general lack of ambition of the area.

[beatback]

Badskiingmum. Direct Grant Grammar Schools worked in a similar way to that. In the 1970s the local authority would pay the full fees for 25% of kids the school would pay for 25% on school scholarships and the other 50% would be full fee paying. Its quite remarkable that the old ways are in many instances the way to go forward.

[Talkinpeace]

you cant.

that's why I like true comps with lots of UC / MC kids who raise aspirations for everybody

[BadSkiingMum]

I like the idea of a state/independent hybrid, with sliding scale for fees. But how to prevent all sorts of people from manipulating the system?

[beatback]

Chunderella. Its great that the assisted places scheme helped you. The assisted places scheme as well educating people also enabled kids from less advantageous background to contemplate careers that they would not have dreamed of. On a other thread some teachers say that some of their brightest students are being put of university not just by the fees but also by "ITS NOT FOR THE LIKES OF US" one of the things that Grammar Schools and the assisted places scheme did was make the pupils think university education was just normal and the right way forward for academically able students.

[cakesaregood]

Interesting that others saw a different side of the IOW.

We considered living there, but would have left before secondary school - even before the change from 3 to 2 tier. Many families we met were looking to move back to the mainland before the end of year 5 to be in place for secondary applications on the mainland.

Thereby the fantastic teaching that they experienced was never recorded on the old value added data.

Anecdotally I'm sure we can all think of cases that prove and disprove the headlines. Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics!

[vole3]

I am in a village south of Norwich and my son is in a mixed year 1/2 class as there are currently only 118 children in the 3 years.
Next year they will have 2 reception, 1 year 1, 1 year 1/2 and 1 year 2 classes as there will be more than 120 children.
The biggest problem comes with the allocation of money for special needs as my sons school is grouped with at least 2 other schools. Getting individual help for those children that need it is very hard as whilst you could have a TA post for 3 or 4 children if they were all in one class or school, it doesn't work if they are in different geographical locations.

[Startail]

DH rented a bedsit in Bath, it's Georgian splender stopped with it's front wall.

Lovely yellow stone work facade and very scruffy minimal furnished digs within, no different to any red bricked terrace in a big city.

[beatback]

Meant to say Towns presumed less Afluent.

[beatback]

When people look at Bath they see the Royal Cresent and assume that is a true indicator of Bath, what people fail to understand is that most of the people born in bath will either end up working in low paid service work or be forced out of their own town ,and in towns like bath the distrubution bewtreen the rich and poor is evident in Education and Housing more so than some other less "PRESUMED" Afluent towns.

[mam29]

I must say theres lady I know from preschool

they live in fairly affluent area, own a house.
drive nice cars.
one income.

but they have 4kids the 2/4 goes seniors in september so thats £120 a month on school bus,

Think no 3 goes in 2years time so thats £180 a month.

round here 3 quite a common number,
many chose close gaps and multiple births seem much more common.

I pity the parents of twins going seniors.

combine with

taking away child benefit from one earner on 50k gross
taking tax relief off childcare ie aterschool clubs/childminder until childs 12 as new scheme only upto age 5 and both parents working.
high petrol costs. energy and living costs.

Eventually something has to give people are stressed.

picking a schools and cost of even a state school is minefeild I cant afford to live nearby to best performing juniors or seniors.

I cant coach mine for 11+ as theres no grammers.

Im not rc and thats best performing city school.

the good acedemies are banded by postcode and lottory only 10% on ability test.

brighton triallled lottory to make things fairer not sure it worked.

Right now bristol and many other cities are running out of school places.

Home education never seemed so attractive,

Moved my eldest from leafy suburban primary as could see how the teachers didet care , aspiration and attainment was low.

The teaching unions look after their own interests first.

Dont get make wrong there are so great teachers out there but seen my fair share of bad ones both when I went to school and at daughters last school.

Sats dont give true measure of school its more likly the affluent parents do tuition or more at home compared to say documentry on bbc about hartcliffe rough area of bristol where many adults could not read and they were teaching kids to read in year 7 as head says how can they possibly teach any other subjects if child cannot read and write.

How the heck did kids get to 11 and not read and write.

how did adults get to not learn that in 11years 4-16 when they were at school.

Its very depressing and stressful when you read education threads on mumsnet its real eye opener on how things are in uk.

I live and worked in Bath for a while which has some deprived areas yet seen as very affluent. distribution of weath and social mobility in uk is rubbish.

Also another thing think they scrapped is the intermediate micky mouse gnvq was equivilant to 4 gcses disguised the failure of many secondary schools recent years all schools acre about are the tables.

[Travelledtheworld]

If kids have nothing to aspire to, why bother with education ? Same applies to Scarborough even though the surf is crap.

[mam29]

Thanks beatback.

All I can say in my rural area where I grew up I knew my ex and few of his freinds had assisted places at nearby boys school.
So in my specific area it gave parents a choice as only one comprehensive in entire town.

Monmouthshire county council have closed many rural schools and opened up few super schools within the town giving parents less choice of primaries even.

Its true the infant and junior o the council estate always performed worse than the

the 2infants , junors and primaries in better part of town and even now even if non catholic everyone prefers the rc primary.
The town had no coe school.

I do think its getting much harder to measure as as education is fragemted too much.

wales has welsh meduim and devoled education.
scotland has completly different education system
so does northern ireland which still has grammer education.

I read that education in ireland is higher than uk and most of ireland is quite rural.

I think it was how articulate they were when on news.

So we really just talking about england which has

lea state schools
independents
free schools
faith schools coe, rc, jewish and muslim.
rather random schools cities just had go ahead for state steiner school apparently devon and hereford already have one.
A few state montesoris at primary level.
grammer schools in some counties exclude most poor kids where as in good old days gave poorer kids way out and some social mobility.

Its no accident that west london free school and bristol free school is basing itself on grammer/private school education system.

Labour claimed they making everything equal but social mobility decreased when they were in power.

Im not even sure how valuable ema was.

I forgot to mention the magic new pupil premuim is based on free school meals.

We need a another measure other than free school meals.

if they really wanted to make thi8ngs equal then maybe free breckfast clubs, free meals for all., free transport , and cheap after school clubs would really help expensive but would target much wider group then free school meal indicator.

In current economic climate even some middleclass cant afford independent for all we cant afird it for all 3of our kids.

So maybe an independent/state hybrid with sliding scale of fees depending on parental income -maybe linked to tax sytem might be answer.

I also think if oney was better targeted on facilities than going straight to parents who maybe did not chose to spend all their benefits on the kids then that be better.

I witnessed this by worker on some inner city estates where they feel as as hopeless and lacking aspiration as rural areas.

The cycle just keeps repeating.

I think the benefits system has stifled aspiration in past .

Im not exactly labours biggest fans but not currently agree with all changes current lot making.

Why do well in alevels if you cant afford to go to uni?

Why the heck is my local ex poly charging 9k a year.

Its not even flipping russel group.

Higher education is huge brick wall to some.

[beatback]

Do you no what the income threshold was? Was that just Labour propaganda,like Harold Wilson"s comment "COMPREHENSIVES A GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR ALL" . This is not labour bashing, the toffs who run the country have no idea about Education and secretly like working class kids getting bad educations and being kept in their place.