We've done crap again in the international education league.

[mrswarbouys]

Leading to lots of talk on radio today with politicians spouting their lofty rhetoric and pointless statistics. What I'd like to know is what do people believe could be the reason why we're doing so badly?

"It's interesting to see these recommendations for poorer areas. Can't see it happening in the current financial climate" Indeed, Pointy.

Only this week I heard that in my city (outs self further!!) they are cutting the number of Sure Start Children's Centres from 12 to 4. It is out for consultation until the new year (Jan)

Am thinking of starting an online petition against that, as feel strongly that a good start in early years care and education, and the support given to families, makes such a positive difference

Cannot believe we are taking such regressive steps, flying in the face of all research and evidence about what is needed.

www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-UK.pdf

I recommend reading the actual report. It's quite interesting and there are some big positives for the UK education system.

Very little has changed since 2006, 2009. Other countries are simply scoring more highly.
UK is at the mean. It's not top for a variety of reasons but it is at the median point along with Ireland, Sweden, France for example. It's quite a way ahead of the USA.

I'd rate it an Ofsted GOOD. It's more a question of whether or not the UK wishes to push it's students into the OUTSTANDING grade and the cost of doing so. Improving truancy ratings would be a good start apparently, as well as socio-disadvantaged students. Both of these areas are far more about cultural values and the importance of education than the actual quality of the teaching.

I should add I am not in the least advocating that those who can should learn tables by rote, just that you also should recognise there are other teaching methods that suit different learning styles and use those as well to the benefit of a greater part of the class.

Sorry those who can shouldn't learn by rote not good at proof reading either....

MILLY I totally get that, I was talking about support for NT children living in deprived areas and with more difficult family lives. Support for children with dyslexia and other difficulties is another kettle of fish entirely and I would concur with shooting that there has to be a range of available teaching methods so that all children get a shot at a good education. It is simply not the case that one size fits all, and that also applies to rote learning. One size may fit the majority, but that isn't good enough.

oscar I agree with everything that you have said. Unfortunately everyone seems to want to bewail the fact that we aren't top, and of course bad news makes better headlines than 'actually we are doing quite a few things well and here are some constructive suggestions about what you could be doing better'. There are some inconvenient truths in the report that the government would rather we did not know about because it does not suit its agenda of 1950s one size fits all education on the cheap.

Summer we are talking about UK not abroad. Yes if you want to live and work abroad and you are trained in a certain career where there is demand fine but most people want to live in their home country and have a career relationships etc. And whether you like it or not the UK is built on people selling each other over priced houses and drinking bubbly milky coffee There is very little industry and youth unemployment is rising.

I think we should also remember that progress is being made in helping poorer students to have better outcomes. The London challenge which Boris recently tried to muscle in on for a bit of kudos, though he has no responsibility for education, has achieved dramatic improvements in attainment for pupils from poor backgrounds. They have done so through a combination of effective leadership and processes, and sharing best practise, not political dogma. They have proved there is no reason why a school in a deprived area cannot be outstanding and enable it's pupils to achieve their potential. OFSTED has recognised that what has been achieved in London now needs to be achieved in the rest of the country especially in comps in leafy suburbs who do particularly badly by their pupils from poor backgrounds. Doubtless that would go a long way to improve our PISA scores and without Gove poking his nose in.

I've just done the test. Embarrassingly I got two answers wrong .... because I didn't read the question properly. some things never change

I think aspiration plays a part.

kids want to be famous reality tv, music, model or footballers.

very few good role models in the main stream.

Plus was touched upon before.

working hard wont guarantee a good job and better life than parents..

The catchments for good schools favour the wealthy.
The high cost higher education,
The fact uk has so many unemployed graduates or low paid doing unskilled part time work.

The head of ofsted said the problems with education are in the leafy suburbs, rural areas and seaside towns where choice is limited I grew up in small rural welsh town with only 1 comp.

I only have 1 child in school year 3 and 2nd starts sept and educational standards locally are inconsistant.

I by no means advocated completely ignoring the logic and patterns in maths. Where the "beautiful mind" stuff is concerned, a lot of it cannot be "taught", you either get it or don't. IMHO it is a talent (or inborn IQ), spotting patterns, building mathematical models etc. It is not something people can be instructed upon. Like playing a musical instrument, some people instinctively get it, and others no amount of instruction will help.

With maths, I can see it with my son and it is fascinating. I deliberately do not explain why it works so, I wait for him to make that link and discover a pattern. Normally he does not make me wait. He will work it out based on experience. Knowing models is only any good if you know how to apply them. Too often I witnessed the situation in this country when people struggle with mathematical basics, like calculating percentages, ratios, mental arithmetic with 2-3 digit numbers, beginner algebra, like squared roots etc. This is a far cry from the "beautiful mind".

On the other hand, I value very much the independent thinking in the education system here, creative writing, essays, scientific investigations. Making your individual contribution, not simply conforming to what is considered to be the right answer. This is fantastic.

However, if people grow complacent, it is hardly helping improve standards and move forward. Sometimes a bit of constructive criticism is a good thing.

I also feel that it is going to get increasingly difficult to ignore international competition. I had quite a bit of involvement with graduate schemes, and more often than not businesses choose an overseas graduate over a home-grown one, because not only have they got higher skills, they are humble and do not have the attitude that the world owes them a living. Unless the borders are completely closed off, indigenous population is bound to find themselves competing with skilled and hard-working foreigners, in this country.

I also feel that it is going to get increasingly difficult to ignore international competition. I had quite a bit of involvement with graduate schemes, and more often than not businesses choose an overseas graduate over a home-grown one, because not only have they got higher skills, they are humble and do not have the attitude that the world owes them a living. Unless the borders are completely closed off, indigenous population is bound to find themselves competing with skilled and hard-working foreigners, in this country

I completely agree with this. I also have a lot of involvement not only with graduate recruitment but junior management roles and we have been increasing looking for candidates from Asia Pac, India, HK and Singapore being favourites.

But if China had been forced to include its PISA data from the whole country rather than just Shanghai

so that it included peasants who never leave their farms

or India had chosen to take part in this round

then we might have a more realistic impression of how diverse countries truly are

look at where the USA came after all : and they are the only global superpower

I agree, being a former expat myself, but the illusions of entitlement are a feature of British culture frankly and one that gets manifested along with gross cultural insensitivity wherever we operate around the world, often leaving a bad reputation. I am not sure you can address that in the education system, except in improving MFL teaching including non European languages (and please don't come out with the "everyone speaks English thing, of course they do, but learning language helps develop the appreciation of differences, especially a non European one, and a little knowledge and cultural sensitivity really does go a long way when people's perceptions of you start at such a low point) . You could start with Davcam and cronies indulging crowd pleasing stereotypes left right and centre, if they are conducting themselves in the way they did on the last "trade mission" to China books.google.co.uk/books?id=tq1viJQK1AsC&pg=PT3&lpg=PT3&dq=David+Cameron+Poppy+China+Julia+Lovell&source=bl&ots=QspnohabwZ&sig=op73iUWeAW4R6kNmiddcv-QucbQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iYyfUuPaBZCUhQfvtoHwBg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=David%20Cameron%20Poppy%20China%20Julia%20Lovell&f=false

The employment rates from area studies and language courses at good universities in international markets are amongst the best going. You even have natives from other cultures studying their own cultures in the UK, alongside the many studying other subjects.

In reality though the young people who are going to be competing in International markets will have experienced the best opportunities, state and private, the British Education system has to offer and they are not the ones who would not do well in PISA tests.

This blog by a ex-adviser of Gove is really interesting on PISA:

samfreedman1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/10-things-you-should-know-about-pisa.html

The Far East is dominant, Scandinavia is in decline (especially Sweden), emerging economies are on the rise, Germany and Poland have reduced selection in schools (Poland till after 16 - and it has twice as many high performers in maths as UK/the average).

Unqualified teachers and free schools certainly aren't working in Sweden or the US.

Blueberry you are right.

When I began my training contract in the early nineties there was one foreign trainee in my batch (a very quiet Japanese woman).

These days the amount of applicants from overseas is sky high, and the percentage of those successful ever increasing. DH has had trainees from everyhwere from Belgium to Saudi Arabia.

Thanks Word

Straggle, thanks for posting the link, very interesting. I absolutely agree with this point he makes:

High expectations are absolutely key. The OECD argue that the single biggest reason why the Far East does so well is that they do not have the fixation with innate ability that many Western countries have

I think the problem with education in some countries it is all about learning by rote reams of facts and figures and with no full understanding about what is actually happening in the world around and it appears to be held in much higher esteem than basic common sense.

I have a friend from one of the countries who put it that in her country the majority of people were incredibly highly qualified but you could not hold a conversation outside of what they had learned from a book. They had no personal opinion on anything, they would just quote verbatim from text they had learned. She was amazed that in this country that you could ask someone who had absolutely no qualifications for an opinion on something and they would give a well thought out coherent answer and actually be able to talk to them about anything. We in this country have opinions on our government, we do not take everything that anyone in power says as correct.
I think the only problem we have is that we start education too early and write children off too soon. In the case of my son he was not only nearly a year behind other children who were in the same class because of his birth date but being a boy he was probably another year behind that too.
I found it very interesting that through out reception and year 1 when the class was streamed all the boys apart from one who was an only child and was the eldest in the class were all on the bottom table. That was 12 boys out of a class of 26.

The biggest concern for me in all of this is the idea that the government is thinking about demanding that teachers teach to the PISA tests in order to improve the UK's rankings.

So we could be abandoning the idea altogether of preparing young people to be a valued and valuable part of society when they leave school, and instead teaching them to compete with young people in those countries where there is no such thing as a child spending too much time studying

Absolutely, TalkinPeace. I was discussing this with dd's piano teacher yesterday and we agreed that the statistics are a bit picky. He was saying that from the sample of children he sees (obviously naice, leafy children) he sees no evidence of place no. 28.

So, in, say, Korea, did they choose this type of child from urban/semi-urban areas and compare these with a child from, say, Grimsby? Likewise in the US were they looking at Connecticut pupils or ones from, say, where HoneyBooBoo comes from (is it Georgia?).

I have family in Finland. They have all had mental breakdowns. The cousin raised to speak five languages is/was an international lawyer. At the moment she is on lithium and hasn't worked for three years. (May be just as dodgy a sample as the educational league tables one, though!!)

Well I work with people from Asia Pac every day and they have very well formed opinons on everything, I don't recognise the picture depicted here of automatic robots. Granted, we don't talk about politics but in the work arena they certainly hold their own in terms of ideas, value add and performance.

Many actually have deep spiritual and philosophical aptitudes, I noticed some of the quotes and thoughts brought on the table by our Indian colleagues especially, have some very interesting perspectives on things.

On a recent company trip to India we were absolutely trashed to bits in terms of our policies and operations, many of the audience in our conference were people well below our grades and I was surprised in my possibly ignorant attitude, as I was expecting lots of people nodding and agreeing, but that isn't the case at all.

I agree that a proportion of the foreign high achievers may be one-trick ponies.

I was reading somewhere about a management consultancy, can't remember which one, was turning off the world superstar achievers because they lacked that je ne sais quoi that oils the wheels of business.

I think it's more the case with Eurotrashy types. All that glisters is not gold comes to mind.

Yup, I work with many colleagues from Asia Pacific and they're certainly not drones... they could run rings round many a supposedly creative MNer .

lainiekazan not sure what piano has to do with Maths and English, with respect. I have a son who is an absolute demon at piano but can't spell, read or do maths for toffee and we have to do all of those with him at home every day. I am not sure his piano teacher has the full picture...unless you are saying that we should measure music in the PISA tests, which could be a very valid consideration.

Music theory?

And piano teacher likes a bit of convo with his pupils.