Equality of Outcome: why?

[mmzz]

I genuinely don't understand why anyone would believe that equality of outcome is what schools should be optimising on. To me, the fair thing is equality of opportunity.
Please can some tell me why equality of outcome is fairer or better in any way, even economically for the country?
Who does it help? Who does it hinder? Is that fair or good?

"It seems to quite often be ignored that the pp gap is an average on population level, compared to the none pp population. Pp kids are often behind none pp children of the same ability, but that applies across the whole ability spectrum. Rather than all pp kids on an individual level being behind population average. "

People don't understand stats.

" I also find the assumption that high achievers and pp kids are often viewed as two entirely separate groups rather offensive. They aren't, bright pp kids aren't exactly hens teeth. "

Again, people don't understand stats. I'm not sure anyone on this thread has made that assumption, but yes, surely one of the main aims of equality has to be giving bright kids the same chance of success whatever their home circumstances.

FSM is a very blunt tool and can't be used to make assumptions about any individual, but it does give a picture of the overall level of poverty in a community and therefore how it might perform against the overall statistics.

Do you understand statistics, @Campervamp?

I do my best, but am not a statistician.

I umderstand the stats that the PP was talking about.

I understand that I cannot draw conclusions about my own children's prospects from looking st the overall A-C grade pass % , but need to look at the % in their ability cohort and the Progress 8. Which seems to defeat a lot of MNers.

I think the assumptions made by the PP are based on people not looking into the detail or context of what is said.,

Do you have a point to make, or just that question?

camper it wasn't directed at anyone on this thread, just a general observation. Jo public might not understand stats but the misunderstanding/ assumptions are also made by those who should know better.

I'm not sure I fully agree with your last paragraph. Or at least I disagree with how in rl this can be used to disguise failings.

Eg my area is deprived. But for the most part it's simply a case of poverty. Semi rural and due to local employment the average pp kid is from a working class home that for the first generation isn't in low paid but secure employment. Rather than the more complex problems you might find on say an inner city housing estate or in an area where the local industry was lost generations ago. But the local secondary gets away with providing a crap education by pretending it has hordes of kids from problematic backgrounds. Even the none crap secondary accessed by some has low aspirations for pupils.

Plus the pp doesn't take into account that a lot of people above fsm level will be only just above cut off.

I don't know if anyone watched it but on educating Manchester they had a disruptive boy. No idea if he was pp or not, but the program does point out the school isn't exactly in a leafy area. I found it quite telling that they first suspected adhd, and it was the senco who had to point out he just found the work too easy.

"I found it quite telling that they first suspected adhd, and it was the senco who had to point out he just found the work too easy."

I haven't been watching that but that sounds like a very telling example of how prejudice / prejudiced assumptions work against the least privileged, compounding disadvantage. In London schools black boys were allowed to under-achieve for years until the institutional bias of the schools was unpicked and work started to correct it.

It is complex. My sister teaches in a school where both rural and coastal deprivation take their toll, and it is quite different from the challenges in my kids' inner city London schools.

camper we experienced it on secondary open evenings. Young mum in council catchment, therefore assumptions about what we were looking for.

It isn't that complex around here. The farming and industrial estate employment that past generations did is now all zero hours. So many can't compete with the lower conditions desperately poor immigrants are willing to work for, and even those that are are worse off than past generations. Combined with public transport cuts that make it hard to go further afield. Of course there are problem families too but they aren't the majority.

I mean complex in that one size does not fit all in addressing under-achievement and disadvantage because many of the causes are different and the consequences also different.

Here we have intense overcrowding in housing, teen crime, violence, gangs, disaffection...but buses are free for anyone in f/t education and the public transport system is extremely good. Unemployment is high, but if you do get offered shifts miles away you can get there Day or night without a car. For example.

Sorry I should have said that round here it isn't complex, I agree that generally it is.

We have overcrowding but more down to lack of affordable housing, so usually it's just overcrowded bedrooms rather than space per se. But it's never been an area with flats let alone tower blocks, and the average 3 bed social house is the same size as the average private semi, plus nearly everyone has gardens and there are loads of open spaces.

We do get bored teens, but the majority are from poor but decent families, so more likely to be messing about in the park at night and low level drinking, quickly hidden from passers by because its a small community. Maybe low level graffiti and the odd broken window. Not gangs or knife crime. The few chaotic families are usually frowned on. I'm not sure how long that will last, the pressure on housing means that the traditional working class tenant is unlikely to get a house, and when the current older generations in them now pass away/ move, I can see them being replaced only by the most desperate, who will likely have bigger problems than just poverty.

However if eg a child isn't getting a good education at the school, it's very hard for a parent to top it up. Although there are libraries you need a car or to plan ahead for buses, you couldn't just call at one after school easily. Museums etc, again none without traveling a fair way. So something like a second mfl just isn't an option for most, school won't provide it and most people couldn't provide the resources to learn at home. And if the school themselves are encouraging a lack of aspiration there's no chance.

What about the internet?

We get that but I know plenty of families that can't afford wifi, so it's limited to mobiles. A lot will walk a couple of miles and hang about outside McDonald's for the wifi, but it's not conducive to study. And the police tend to move them on when they congregate.

That's awful. Does the school have wifi?

I thought mobile data was more expensive than home wifii?

Plusnet is £19 a month including line rental. That must be cheaper than several data packages for one family.

It is, but they'd still need a cheap payg for texts etc. So adding on a very small data package is still cheaper. Plus if you're short that month/ week you can skip a phone top up but not a direct debit.

I couldn't swear to it but I don't think the school let's them have free access. And given this is a school that proudly told me about their hotel and catering gcse when I asked about the absence of separate science, I very much doubt they'd be at all on board with supporting kids achieve outside lessons.

I think it's more than just that though. For generations you didn't need good quals for a secure if low income. Now we have a generation of parents who have realised they do, and their kids need them too. But not being highly educated themselves they don't know exactly how to support it.

That's where the education system should be playing it's part. But instead deprived kids in areas like mine don't get the good state schools. Instead they get a school that tells the parents and kids that their underachievement (due to school, not personal ability) is really great, and this pointless qualification is exactly what they need. When at a decent school the child wouldn't be subject to those low aspirations.

Dd has a casual friend that imo is equal ability to her. And her parents care just as much as I do. But they simply can't advocate for her in the way most of us could. This kid wouldn't have killed herself doing a maths GCSE at primary. Instead the parents and child were told how great both child and school were to teach her to level 5. Secondary are doing the same thing now, aren't they great to give her 53 mastery challenges for long division or some equally unsuitable topic. If this kid still cares enough to go on to a-level it will be a miracle. Meanwhile the school will still hit their targets for her so who cares about her future.

Ditto every average or below average kid that never got to prioritise areas that would lead to future employment. It was shove them on the courses they might pass with the least effort.

Admittedly the new measurements will mean kids like dd's friend probably won't be forced into getting the equivalent of 16 GCSEs with vocationals to boost the headline average pass figures, and shoving a struggling dc onto a GCSE and an nvq they'll never use so they get the equivalent of 5 passes, whilst failing important subjects, isn't going to be as easy. But I'm not kidding myself the new performance measurements will suddenly result in better outcomes.

Knowingly giving such bad advice is insupportable!
You know I have issues with the maths department at DS's school but it is a good school. The teachers wouldn't give such bad advice, but if they tried then the parents would be roasting everyone concerned alive.
I don't think good schools that just create themselves. There's a lot of components to it. You need a good HT who is very uncompromising in the rules they apply and the approach they take to achieving their vision. You need strict rules some of which the parents and students won't like. You need to be able to sack or retrain bad teachers, despite protests.
If you do all that, then you create a virtuous circle that teachers want to teach in and motivated parents start to fight for places at. Motivated parents tend to be motivated at home every evening as well as in September of year 6 when applying for a school place.

What does your school spend the pupil premium on? Wifi and some teaching websites might be a good use of funds.

The problem is the slt. Good teachers don't stick around at it as you can imagine, so they are understaffed and the staff who have been there long term are as bad as the slt. Or they are new and inexperienced, and soon as they wise up are off.

Luckily it's not my school. Obviously I can't swear to where the pp money goes, but for years they were obsessed with borderline pass kids, I do know other kids Sen funding went to prop up that so no reason pp wouldn't too. And they have a lovely shiny gym and jazzy sports kits and other unnecessary shite.

To be fair the other local school that deprived kids can reasonably expect to attend isn't that bad. Pastorally it's good, and it does very well at helping average and below kids reach potential. It's just crap academically for dc above that. Low aspirations. They do have plenty of good staff, but the slt have low expectations of what deprived kids can achieve. However despite the intake being the same as the first school they do in fairness provide a very different experience to the first school.

We also have great comprehensives and great church schools, but they aren't an option for many round here. Dd's scholarship and bursary was a possibility in the way the truly good comprehensive wasn't.

mmzz
Get your DS into Maths contests. With the right training and he is good enough, he could get noticed by the UKMT by the end of this year.

He does attend the school UKMT contests. They are usually team ones. Sometimes they ask DS, sometimes its someone else. They consider everyone in the top 2 sets to be G&T, so they like to give as many people as possible a chance to do the competitions. (Surprise, surprise - the school tends not to get beyond the first round in those competitions!)

He also does the individual ones. He does quite well in those, but the school does no preparation at all. It just hosts them and lets the kids out of their lesson to do the actual exams. Despite this, DS has managed to get a merit in the kangaroos for the last two years running. I get him to do a couple of past papers at home as preparation. I don't know what he could do if he was better prepared - maybe make the Olympiad??

Yes equality of opportunity not of outcome! You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink!

The educational debate in the U.K. is all about cutting up the cake and who gets how much of what goodies. Nobody seems to stop and think that every year we are baking a worse and smaller cake.

We are a small, rainy and overpopulated island in the Atlantic. Unless we have enough really smart, well-educated people to make our economy work we will end up living in mud huts.

Aiming for equality of outcome where that means shortchanging the bright children is not going to work.

This kind of stuff is the reason socialism/communism will never work.

I don't know what he could do if he was better prepared - maybe make the Olympiad??

If he is bored in maths lessons and 'only' making the Kangaroo round, then yes, there's lots of potential for extra maths work outside of the school curriculum that will extend him and at the same time give him something to work towards (qualifying for the Olympiad - which then brings in a completely different style of maths question).
The UKMT have books to help with preparation shop.ukmt.org.uk/ukmt-books

The concept of 'holding bright children back' in order to achieve 'equality of outcome' or for any other reason is either a myth or a very bad and totally irresponsible school.

With Progress 8 it is about EVERY CHILD hitting or exceeding his or her floor targets. There is no longer pressure at a particular grade boundary i.e. C/D. A school holding back any group would not hit its floor targets. I don't believe there is such a school.

What you seem to be describing is a teacher or school which does not know how to effectively stretch your son. That's not the same thing at all as holding him back as some sort of policy. You need to have a better conversation with him. Why on earth would you not tell them he is doing additional work outside of school? No rational teacher or school would think this is anything other than a good thing.

Why would I not tell them?

Turn it the other way, what benefit is there to telling them? The only one I can think of is that the extension course will be training DS to take the Further Maths exam in June. If he is to sit it, the school need to agree to enter him, but DS doesn't want to add another exam as it would need revision time.

Reasons to not tell them:

1. It means contacting the teacher concerned for yet another conversation that either directly address, or at least implies, that DS is not being challenged. Previous efforts that has got me nowhere on any of the last 4 times (plus 1 parents nights) that I have tried to do it. I just get lip service to challenging everyone and false promises to improve.

1. The teacher tends to get a bit stroppy with parents who don't think everything he does is ideal (he's becoming known for it) and I don't want to put myself through that again, especially as he'll be in charge of at least one of my children for another 3 years minimum. Apparently, each parent starts out thinking that its just them who has had an unpleasant call with him and then they learn on the grapevine that they aren't alone.

1. DS really does not want me to contact the SLT about it. He's already stressed with the other GCSEs and I don't want to stress him further by needlessly going against his expressed wishes.

and progress 8 doesn't mean every child. It does not include any measure for a boy who will get level 9 whether challenged or not

I haven't followed the conversation so don't know which year he is in. But he can start doing Maths challenge papers to the point where he get through the Olympiad round at ease. At the same time, start learning to solve Olympiad problems so he is ready to to take them when he is qualified. The turn around between receiving the results of the Maths challenge and the follow on round is too short so preparation needs to start much earlier.
He can do the Intermediate and Senior now. By next year he should be ready to take the Senior Maths Challenge and do the British Maths Olympiads if he qualifies. As a minimum he will qualify for the age group Olympiads. The UKMT books are quite good. Some of the books from Art of Problem Solving are good. If you don't want to spend money on things you are not sure about, there are lots of free materials online. I would recommend the Canadian Olympiad training materials.

I also agree that the grade 9 is not a measure of outstanding mathematicians. I had a lot of 9s in my group last summer and I would consider 3 of them very good. The rest were good and hard working, being taught by a qualified mathematician and knew how to teach. I currently have a few year 10 students who just started their GCSE coursr but given about 4 weeks intense revision they can walk the GCSE paper and get a 9 now. A grade 9 does not say much about a gifted mathematician I'm afraid.