school leaving age

[frances5]

What do you think of proposals to raise the school leaving age to 18.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6135516.stm

I think its a horrendous idea. I would prefer that disaffected teens leave school at 16 and have the opportunity to study when they are older and more mature. Infact I think there is too much complusion in secondary education and children should be more or less free to study what they like from 14. I would even let them drop maths, science and English if they had at least a level 6 in their keystage 3 SATs. The school that I last worked at only allowed the really low ablity children to do college courses instead of GCSE.

Can you imagine what inner city schools would be like if children are forced to attend school over the age of 16? They are going to need the UN peacekeepers to keep discipline.

I think the same. Totally daft. Much better to get non academic kids onto some sort of jobs skill training schemes.

I don't agree at all about letting children drop their core subjects at 14, but I am strongly opposed to raising the school-leaving age to 18. I can't see the point of it at all. It will be chaos. Who is going to force all these 16 and 17 year olds to go to school, when as far as they are concerned they have finished and are ready to start earning. Craziness IMO.

I think this is so stupid. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should be forced to teach a group of 16 year olds who loath school and don't want to be there. Then tell me how we motivate them for two more years!

That would be me martinbishop.

I teach in an FE college where a large percentage of my students are there solely because their parents can still claim benefit for them if they are in full time education. It can be hell on whells some times.

TBH we get them too, but not as many, and we only have to accept them if they have a Grade B/C at GCSE, which weeds out the worst offenders.

I was form tutor to a boy who did nothing in school but disrupt lessons. He was skiving school for around 60% of the time.

He applied for the sixthform and was seriously shocked when we told him 'No chance!'

Level 7 in keystage 3 SATs is supposely the equivelent of a GCSE grade C. Surely if they have reached a certain standard in the basics then they should be OK for life. In practice no kid stupid enough to want to drop maths and english would ever achieve such a high standard in their keystage 3 SATs. Year 9s are often the worse age group and maybe a target of being allowed to give up a subject if they did well enough might moviate them to behave better in lessons.

I definately think the basics are important, but its a balance. At what age does complusion to study something just become a waste of time? Maybe the basics are best being taught without being called maths or english.