Selection get out clause

[mrz]

http://schoolsweek.co.uk/grammar-get-out-clause-confirmed-selection-permissable-within-trusts/?utmcontent=buffer81f1c&utmmmedium=social&utmsource=twitter.com&utmmcampaign=buffer

noblegiraffe, I respectfully disagree with your opinion. I have had teachers telling me you shouldn't teach your DC all through primary and secondary. The teachers have never picked up the slack!

Its great fun to mentally try the puzzles in maths (physics, chemistry etc) books every night. If I left it to teachers my DC would be brain dead. I think that is the socialist ideal that wants everyone equal at the bottom.

I'm not saying they shouldn't do extra maths, I'm saying that reading a textbook is pointless. You can't sit in bed propped up by pillows and leaf your way idly through Additional Maths, you need to be sat at a desk with something to write on and write with to get anything out of it.

noblegiraffe, Im sorry nobel your wrong we do it every night.

I'm not wrong, there is no way that your DC are getting much out of the Additional Maths textbook if they aren't actually doing maths as they go through it. Doing maths requires writing implements.

Expletive delitive. *

My DC and I use textbooks to discuss problems in maths, science and philosophy every night. The answer is actually irrelevant, its about how we would resolve the problem.

Why are teachers so desperate to hold children back?

I'm not desperate to hold children back what would be holding a child back in maths would be saying that the answer is irrelevant instead of giving them pen and paper and telling them to crack on and find it.

noblegiraffe are you deliberately being slow? we read and discuss the questions and the answer is irrelevant because it is (usually) so easy to work out with pen and paper (that we don't bother). FYI Maths aren't the only books we discuss or read at bedtime.

What is holding DC back in school is the primitive nature of the lessons (in the top set), not the lack of a pen and paper at bedtime.

Apologies to others for this tangent.

But if the maths you're doing is so trivial that you don't need pen and paper (really? Additional maths for OCR?) then you need to try something harder.

These are hard: solvemymaths.com/category/solve-my-maths/written-by-me/

Why would you pre-teach the curriculum when there is a wealth of material outside the curriculum? Why not "read" Euclides or Gauss or the Moscow problems instead of GCSE textbooks?

(Agree with Noble that you don't "read" maths books - you work through them although OCR additional maths doesn't really require that much working out. Also agree that it's giving the wrong message to say that the answer and working out are irrelevant - while working out you often see tricks or easier routes, additional features to the problem.)

mathsmum314 teachers even told us off for learning

I can’t say I’m surprised if your DC is learning “The answer is actually irrelevant, its about how we would resolve the problem”. I’m pretty sure the answers are crucial for gaining most academic qualifications.

To be fair "maths" is a broad topic. Some of it is almost philosophy. I remember an analytical philosophy course at uni that touched on matrix algebra, but from a totally different direction, iyswim.

I am willing to believe that mathsmum is discussing theory, history and context with her DC. I wouldn't be up to it myself, but I have known people who could.

Maths is a broad subject but she said her DS was reading 'Additional Maths for OCR' which is more 'calculate the equation of the tangent to the curve at x=4' than pondering infinite sets.

Ah! That is unusual then.

"My DC and I use textbooks to discuss problems in maths, science and philosophy every night."

In effect your dc is getting a one to one tutorial every night with someone who (I presume) is highly numerate/a mathematician.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that tests at 11 will not identify potential which hasn't already been developed by parents and teachers.

The concept that we can separate off those children who achieve highly at 11 as though they are somehow fundamentally different from all other children.

I know other children who are also being hothoused (by which I mean bought up in a family where there is a constant and fairly intense focus on attainment of knowledge and the development of skills which are academically useful). I'd suspect that a very high proportion of children at grammar schools come from families like this. The children aren't fundamentally different from the other children on the top table in primary except insofar as the amount of educational input they've had at home.

I like this tangent-can we keep it going?

minifingerz Couldn't that be a pro-grammar argument though ?If some children were so far ahead because of the extra help they were receiving at home it could then be argued that they couldn't be accommodated in a normal top set?

So 'to them that have more shall be given'?

Like banks increasing interests rates on higher value deposits, and the government handing over huge wads of cash to well off first time buyers - matching their deposits?

Ever widening the educational divide?

That is the pro-grammar argument. A few token FSM children and the rest children from advantaged backgrounds to be given even more in life.

And I imagine the policy will mean that nice one comp towns in Tory constituencies will be spared. No secondary moderns for them.

By the way, some figures on Lincs non selective schools

57% of them have 5 GCSE pass rates(E +M) under 50 per cent.
Of those 33% have rates under 30%.

Yet TM tells us new secondary moderns will be fine because grammars will be "helping" them. Perhaps she could ask the grammars in Lincs to "help" the secondary moderns there so we could test whether it works?

In spite of having post-graduate qualifications and being at a senior level in a professional job my reaction was "Fk!" or words to that effect when I read the 11 plus past papers and even the Bond books. Even the verbal reasoning I found tricky or ambiguous and could get one or two wrong out of ten questions. A lot of the non-verbal reasoning was a mystery to me, even when I saw the answers. With the maths I couldn't remember how to approach working out some of the questions. Fair enough, you can get answers to the tests but I felt that if I couldn't teach DD1 why an answer was right or wrong then I couldn't help her. So tutoring it was.

Why would you pre-teach the curriculum when there is a wealth of material outside the curriculum?

Because we are doing that exam ourselves as the comprehensive doesn't have the ability to offer it.

Maybe its not how most people learn/read maths but it works very well with my DC. If you don't like the word 'read', would 'look through' be more acceptable? We look the topics and read through the revision notes and examples etc. Then he can do all the calculations himself the next without needing my help.

If we weren't doing the exam we would probably be reading different maths/science books but there you go.

mathsmum314 Wed 05-Oct-16 16:40:24 If we weren't doing the exam we would probably be reading different maths/science books but there you go.

Whilst material like this would likely help with the maths aspect of the 11 plus, I'm not sure it would be the best grounding for the CEM VR and creative writing exams for some Grammar Schools (which is where many EAL parents struggle).

2StripedSocks Wed 05-Oct-16 17:12:53 Going by the book title I suspect Maths's DC is studying for Additional maths GCSE not the 11+

And?

What I find very interesting in this country is: if you are teaching your child when he/she is above average, you are a bad cop. Whist in my home country its opposite, your child is bright and if you dont give him/her extra, support, push them better then you are the lazy, bad one. I havent found away to do anything with my child yet because I am stuck in finding time and energy to do it(and I am lazy and I am worried about my laziness) and it means "normal"! If I do as maths mum then I'd better keep my mouth shut here as "pushy mummy" label will automatically fall to my head