OECD Study puts England at bottom for Maths and Literacy

[missinglalaland]

A major study by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development puts England's 16 to 24 year olds at 22nd for Literacy and 21st for Numeracy out of 24 developed countries. Ouch!

What can we do to fix this? More money? Less permissiveness? Sorting by ability? Different teacher training? Longer school years? Different methods?

Clifftopcaffe your experience with dc's primary school is the same as mine. You have said it so much better than I ever could. Thank you.

rabbit balance is all, no?

My DC's primary school walked the line down the middle.

Probably far more rote learning than many parents would be comfortable with (and more homework too) but balanced well with creativity. The children were never bored. Academic attainment was excellent.

But the parents were on board with it. I get the sense that lots and lots of parents would not be on board with that sort of education for their DC.

I agree, wordfactory, that a good balance between committing knowledge to memory and embedding skills and then using that knowledge and those skills in novel and productive expression is something of an educational ideal (right through school).

The maths teaching in primary schools is dire I was told my dcs could only used the grid method for long multiplication and chunking for long division in class. Both methods IMO are long winded and cumbersome and all my dcs prefer my quicker 'old fashion' methods.

This is also a problem that we are finding that teachers dont like students to do things outside of the box. Even if they get the right answer....

I never understood this policy.

If you wan to advertise sierra, you must pay MN the appropriate fee. I have reported your post.

Australia. Why isn't anyone talking about Australia?

Australia has wealth inequalities every bit as stark as England's. It is also just as multicultural, so like England it doesn't have the advantages of homogeneity. Yet it did comparatively well, finishing 5th and 6th on the list.

I don't reckon it's enough to say that simple wealth inequalities cause poor performance. If that were true, Australia (and Canada - also pretty unequal) would have done much worse than it did. I think it is because in the UK there is a particularly high perception that if you are poor, the odds are against you. This is for historical reasons to do with class. I grew up in the UK but left a decade ago for NZ. Now, NZ's wealth inequality is on some measures even greater than Britain's. However, the perception people (rightly or wrongly) hold is that society is nevertheless fair, and if you work hard at school or after you leave it, you will get on. There is relatively little tolerance for people who complain about their lot. I expect that the attitude in Australia is similar.

NZ wasn't included in this survey, which was a pity, because I would have been interested to see how it performed. I will make the comment that in my experience, Kiwis seem much quicker at basic arithmetic than British people, and tend to be better at spelling and punctuation. However, having a good prose style, turn of phrase isn't really considered as important. Once again, I reckon class has something to do with this, as in the UK being erudite was traditionally a sign of being up the social scale.

I have to say I don't reckon NZ or Aus would come out particularly flash in a survey on modern languages or humanities.

As an aside, Germany and France didn't do particularly well in the surveys, and they tend not to. If the French and the Germans one meets seem fearsomely well-educated, bear in mind that both those countries have their back blocks and sink towns that one is unlikely to visit or meet people from.

The report won't be published in French until 28 October so the French press hasn't yet reacted. Given the mad dumbing down reforms to primary and now nursery education of the Socialist administration, I'm sure the press ( which is very anti the reforms) will have a field day.

Peillon deserves to lose his ministerial post now.

Toadinthehole, I have noticed that about New Zealanders I work with - wasn't sure if it was because the ones granted visa were the better qualified. Interesting comments about perceptions of class (or maybe self-fulfilling prophecies).

Straggle,

I think that must be true to an extent re visas. However, I understand that upwards of 10% of New Zealanders hold British citizenship and thus have work rights, and I imagine an even greater percentage would qualify for ancestry visas, which aren't granted on the basis of skills.

The current prime minister grew up in a council house in a one-parent family, and was educated through the state system. He worked as a currency trader and is now very rich. While his background is generally known, he hasn't ever based his election campaign on it: the implication being that social mobility is taken for granted.

It's almost inconceivable to see a politician reach the top with that background here. If they went to a comprehensive school and/or are the children of immigrants the rightwing press still make them out to be elitist or misfits in some other way - 'not one of us'. Maybe it's worse in Australia for that?

36% of Australian DC are privately educated That's across the board. Where I lived, 'MC', Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 62% were.

You can't really make a comparison, especially seeing as there is some truth that it's hard to get into Australia, something like 20% of Australians are 'foreign born' therefore had to get a visa, and therefore had to be 'good enough' to get that visa or come from families that valued 'talent'.

Australia makes a Big Deal about its elitist schools, believe me. There is a definite pecking order. And another thing Australia seems to do which is considered anathema here is to start 'training' its less academically able young far sooner that we do. The DC are one a path towards a trade at 13 or 14 in some states.

Straggle - Alan Johnson was orphaned at 12, brought up by his older sister in a council flat, stacked shelves in Tescos and worked as a postman.

He then went on to become Secretary of State, Home Secretary, and sec of state for education. And never was there a whisper about his background, mostly because he chooses not to trade on it.

As someone who works with very many teachers (and has done for many years) I see how ill trained they are to understand and remedy difficulties with literacy and numeracy both in the early and late stages (by which time it really is too late).
They just haven't got the skills to do it. No fault of their own. Those that do, tend to be the ones who have put a lot of personal time and effort into researching and using evidence based data driven methods of doing so. There aren't many of those about.

It enrages me to hear Christine Blower, of the aptly named NUT, bleating about how phonics testing at 5 stigmatises and 'fails' five year olds. No it doesn't you numpty, it stigmatises and fails useless methods of teaching.
If the child hasn't learnt, the teacher hasn't taught.

Also agree 100% with Clifftopcafe and I could have written exactly the same post.

Yes, Clifftop, I agree with everything you say too and in the many excellent classes I work in, this is what is happening. It is also what I do with my own children after school on a daily basis as I know otherwise, they won't be taught it Sadly, I view school as being essentially an occasion for socialising rather than one for learning.
Expectations are low and interest and motivation is low from all directions. I have just had a phone call telling me I have been chosen to be a governor at my child's school (over 800 pupils). I was delighted as I assumed competition would be stiff and I spent a while working on my mission statement.

How wrong I was. I was the only person trying.

The biggest problem England has related to this, is that this report
illustrates the huge difference in social economic circumstances.

England probably is one of the worst countries for social mobility in the
developed or rich G 20 countries. The OECD report goes on to state that
in England if you are born in to poor social economic circumstances, you are 8 times more likely to stay there.

I think in England the level of education people get is stark those from middle class backgrounds probably get an education that is superior to what many of us over the age of 40 got. An example of this is the home work both my niece and nephew were doing from Yr 10, it was very challenging and certainly i could not have coped with it at their age. The difference is they were both grammar school pupils, niece is 2nd year RG
Uni nephew is L6 grammar School. However the most disturbing aspect was that the Times gave an example of a couple of questions from the test. One
question had a picture of an ear and different spellings.Another question
had a temperature gauge set to 80 degrees centigrade and asked what the temperature would be if reduced by 30 degrees centigrade, so you can see pretty simple questions. I think this illustrates the difference in education between the haves and have not's.

Very controversially, I think the end result of decades of social security policy has come home to roost, along with a decimation of our manufacturing industries and reliance on posh young men in red braces to run our economy.

We have, still, one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the developed world. It stands to reason that, among the many young people who get accidentally pregnant and use the event as a trigger to pull their socks up, decide to get a decent education so as to be able to provide for themselves and their baby, thus maybe even achieve a better life-outcome than they otherwise may have done; there are a fair slab more who shrug, 'safe' in the knowledge it doesn't matter, thus leave school with nothing, certainly no education - whose DC stand little chance of getting the support they'll need to succeed at school themselves. With the best will in the world, it's quite hard to pick up and run with your DC's Y8 or 9 chemistry homework to assist them if you're out of your depth with Y4 English, a situation that just might also involve your poverty, your sub-optimal housing, a limited support network, no culture of self-reliance or self-improvement (see remarks made by others that our OECD standing might be better if our teachers spent more time teaching and less social-working!).

I also think it would be hard to model desirable behaviours such as regular work-going, self-study (and the self-discipline to do it) to gain advancement at work and so forth, plus demonstration of the visible signs of 'success' such as a nice enough home, a reliable car, even foreign holidays if you can bring none of that to your 'domestic table'.

This is absolutely not a 'bash the poor' tirade, it's meant to be a further exploration as to why the UK does relatively so badly against other countries with different policies towards benefits, views regarding single parenthood, social responsibility, cycles of entrenched poverty. (Though again, I think if you were to take the DC who were tested from certain areas of the country, the results would be very different from if you took the DC from, often, the neighbouring borough).

We are quite a divided nation and, to me, it seems we want to keep it that way if we're on the winning side. We absolutely would refuse to pay the sorts of taxes the 'more successful' Scandinavian countries do; we don't have a cohesive social 'pact' with each other, we don't have industries that can employ (thus empower) our academically less able like Germany does.

Erebus

I think England can fairly be compared with Australia, albeit unfavourably.

I would beware of giving the impression that 36% of Australians attend the antipodean equivalent of Porridge Prep or Buggery College. "Private" schools in Australia are mostly run by the RC or Anglican churches and are funded by the state, much like CofE schools are in England.

While it is true that Australia has a high percentage of foreign-born residents, that can pose a great many challenges to do with literacy in English - which Australian schools have to their credit clearly overcome. It is worth remembering that it has been argued that England's multiculturalism (compared to Japan and Finland) is high, and this imposes a disadvantage on the education system. Clearly this is not so for Oz - most of whose immigrants do not come from culturally similar places like New Zealand, the UK, or Ireland.

Interesting remarks about Australians' approach to trade. It isn't so much like that here in NZ, but learning a trade isn't seen at all as second class - probably because tradies get paid as well as many people in the traditional professions and there is no snob factor involved.

I agree, Erebus, that there is a culture of low aspiration in the UK - not just among the disadvantaged themselves but among policy makers and NGOs who seem to believe that the kind course of action is to prop up people who are failing to fend adequately for themselves. Generations of propping has made it seem normal to not need to work hard at school or elsewhere in order to live as an adult.

Toad tbf, you've actually contradicted yourself a little! In one post you say:"Australia has wealth inequalities every bit as stark as England's"; in the next you say:"but learning a trade isn't seen at all as second class - probably because tradies get paid as well as many people in the traditional professions". Indeed they do!

From my experience, by and large, whilst it's no social nirvana, there is a smaller wealth gap by a fair chalk in Australia, compared to the UK. Where I lived, in our similarly priced houses, the family upper side of me had a lawyer and a physio as parents (Anglican private), below, a plasterer and his SAH wife (RC school). We were IT management and HCP, looking at the closest private, which was Lutheran-lite! (fees of about AU$ 8500 a year)

And by virtue of selecting a school other than the nearest state one for your DC, you are making a 'value statement' regarding your opinion of education! That in itself increases your DC's educational chances and thus performance.

Regarding immigration; again, if your immigrants have had to jump through hoops to get visas, the fact they or maybe more pertinently, their DC's mother tongue isn't English poses less of a barrier than low aspiration- here in the UK there are many stories of non-English speaking DC aceing their class in English 4 years later, because they're motivated and from backgrounds that value education.

Yes valuing education is key. However, when it translates into having to take the lion share of your children's education at home whilst sending them to school, there is something fundamentally wrong with the system as a whole.

Children at primary should go to school and learn things like timetables and handwriting, spellings and grammar. They are there all day after all. Then come home and do baking, dressing up and singing. Unfortunately at the moment the balance is swung the other way. It isn't even about choosing the MC class school in leafy suburb/village, because actually in my limited experience it can be even worse there.

Erebus,

My remark about well-paid tradies actually referred to NZ. However, I expect it is true for Australia too. However, the fact that people other than professionals can earn a decent income doesn't mean wealth inequality has to be less. There are well-paid tradies, poorly-paid tradies, very well-paid owners of business interests, and poorly-paid marginal workers and unemployed. It is different to the UK where if you want to earn decent money (and social respect), by and large you need a degree and membership of a profession.

Statistically, Australia is as unequal as the UK (as is NZ, despite its historic wealth equality for non-Maori).

Re immigration: while I do believe that immigrant families (and those of immigrant extraction) are perhaps more likely to value education, I doubt this is true across the board - it will depend on the culture of the immigrants and their own level of education. Furthermore, it does not follow that immigrant children will do well even if their parents value education. Mrs Toad works with such children a lot. Most are hard workers - some are going off the rails due to cultural dislocation - but generally they will have a lot of ground to make up. Some go on to do very well - some fail.