Schools

[Judy1234]

The telegraph has some interesting articles on schools today - one about the BFS schools scheme - to rebuild every school in the UK although that seems to be giving some local councils an excuse to close successful schools.

And another below about clever children in state schools not being stretched because they are in mixed ability primary school groups.

Schools failing to nurture gifted children

By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:25am GMT 06/01/2008

Bright children are being failed by teachers who do not stretch them enough or give them the individual attention they need, Government research has found.

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Gifted pupils are routinely put in the wrong ability groups and are set targets that are too low, a study by the Department for Children, Schools and Families discovered. In many schools, young people who show early promise are left to fall behind.

Schools failing to nurture gifted children
Government has spent almost £400 million in the past decade on gifted and talented programmes

Almost a quarter of the 140,000 children who achieve an above-average level 3 in assessments at the age of seven do not go on to score high marks in tests at 11.

The results are a significant blow to the Government, which has spent almost £400 million in the past decade on gifted and talented programmes in an attempt to convince many middle-class parents that bright children will be nurtured in the state sector.

The report, Able Pupils Who Lose Momentum, found shortcomings in the 37 primaries across England visited by Government advisers.

One of the key problems uncovered by researchers was the failure to put children into ability sets or groups. Even when children were put in classes with children of similar abilities, clever children were still grouped with other "lower ability" pupils when carrying out work.

"Children often worked exclusively in mixed-ability groups and rarely worked with children who were making similar rates of progress," the report said.
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"They often perceived themselves as additional support to less able pupils. But the majority of children said they would have liked more opportunities to work in ability groups or independently."

Less than half of the schools had good systems to track and monitor children's progress.

Reviews of how children were doing were infrequent and it was not uncommon for targets to remain unchanged for more than a term.

In about one in four primaries that were visited, the targets set for bright children were often pitched at a low or rudimentary level.

Teachers over-emphasised simple functional skills, such as "join up your handwriting", "finish more worksheets" and "be neater".

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School advisers also found that some of the pupils, particularly girls, were "invisible children" because they were quiet and undemanding. As a result they received less of the teachers' time.

"Many children said they rarely received help from the teacher when working on their maths," the report said.

"Some expressed the view that their teachers always work with the pupils in the 'lower groups', while others said a few able children monopolised the teacher's time. Some children talked about wanting to do the more challenging work that these pupils were given."

The findings come as ministers announced a new measure in school league tables to show how bright children progress, in yet another attempt to force schools to focus on talented pupils.

Under guidelines, schools are expected to provide extra help to bright pupils, giving them more challenging work, after-hours classes and registering the most able with the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, established by the Government in 2002.

In reality, 35 per cent of primaries still do not identify their brightest pupils and one in 10 secondaries do not give them extra support.

Stephen Tommis, the director of the National Association for Gifted Children charity, said many pupils were still being failed by schools. "There is greater awareness than there has ever been, and gifted and talented children are on the political agenda," he said. "But it seems to be taking an awful long time for the idea to permeate through to the schools.

"Too many schools give no extra support. In some of the others, it is a matter of ticking boxes rather than sustained provision. Teachers need to realise that it is not elitist and it is not going to go away.

"During a career, teachers will meet hundreds of gifted children. They can provide them with opportunities or they can deny them.""

DS1 & DS2 go to a selective independent day school just outside London. The parents are more diverse than those out our local faith secondary school. The faith school parents would appear to prefer to spend their money on Mercedes and Jimmy Choos and although the school is a pretty good one in state school parlance, you would be horribly disappointed if you were paying for it.

Spokette - I thought black males were the most likely to fail education?

Spokette I think you raise an important point which really supports my arguments. If valuing education and aspiration is encouraged by your parents and part of your culture then you're much, much more likely to succeed academically regardless of what school you go to.

Where I work a big proportion of students are from ethnic minority backgrounds. A substantial number of our students who go on to get A grades have ethnic minority backgrounds. And a signficant number of these students ar the ones I mentioned earlier who choose to apply to universities close to home so that they can stay at home while they study for financial and cultural reasons.

For those of you who object to the word 'pushy' substitute 'supportive'. So supportive in fact that you are prepared to research your local schools and pay a lot of money (perhaps as much as a mortgage if you are paying for 2 or 3 children over 15 years). I'm not saying that being very supportive of your children's education is a bad thing; quite the opposite. But it is only a minority of parents who are willing and able to demonstrate their suppport of their children in this way (by sending them to private school).

Actually it's white, working class males Swedes. In fact, the fact that that the plight of black boys has made headline news so often when its white, working class boys who leave school with the least qualifications is interesting.

And boys and education is another really interesting issue when considering why children do not succeed at (state) schools. If you look at LEAs which still have single-sex state schools then the girls' school will get significantly better results than the equivalent boys' school in the same catchment. Girls are outperforming their brothers but also have greater aspirations and are more likely to go to university for the first time in our history.

HAR! I completely misread one of your last posts, Hurricane, and momentarily thought you were saying that children of Swedish origin did worst!

Research suggests that girls do better in girls' schools too (and many perhaps most? independent schools are single sex) but boys benefit academcially (and in other ways!) from being in mixed schools.

Oh, I see that now Bridie. Sorry. No anti-Swedish feeling here. In fact, don't get me started on the Scandinavian education system which is much better than ours (and has few private schools and no gramamr schools or faith schools that I know of).

No--my misreading. Interestingly I was reading a story about the Finnish system and how worried they are now after the school shooting.

I live in a very racially mixed area - 18% oif the area if hindu. This has hugely helped my children. Those parents are more likely to pay fees (when they can afford it) so they are overly represented in the private schools because immigrants always work hard - you've moved to another country usually for a better life economically so the one thing you really want is for your children to succeed. You realise how lucky they are to have that either free or paid for education and you make sure they make the most of it. This rubs off on the other children in the class.

And yes most immigrants do very well. For some reason black (but not asian) boys don't but that may just be for some of them lack of a father at home, something you hardly ever see in Indian families.

Let's hope all these girls doing better than boys can keep it up so that we don't have 6% of new Barclays capital "managing directors" as pictures in yesterday's FT being female and 94% male. We need the success to feed through so that one year it will not be noticeable even if 94% of the best talent at that level are female and 6% are men.

I think, Xenia & co, it's important for us to recognize that actually independent schools only educate a tiny minority of our students (7%). State v private is really not a relevant issue for the majority of our children just that private school parents are over-represented on this site (which says a lot about how we see define ourselves and our values as people and parents).

I would argue that private schools succeed largely BECAUSE they exclude (the poor, those with SEN, those without aspirations, those without supportive parents or parents at all....) whereas state education IS succeeding in all sorts of ways and succceeding in spite of and because of its commitment to educate and include all children.

Differences between class, wealth, family support, cultural values etc don't just exist between the 93% of students who attend state schools and the 7% of students who go to private schools but between different state schools and within them.

It would be fairly easy to check on the relative 'success' of students from different financial backgrounds because a lot of our students (from low income families) receive EMA. I am 99.9% certain that these students as a whole will achieve a lower A Level points score than those who don't receive EMA.

The media always like to highlight negativity towards black males because it helps to reinforce the stereotype of them being brainless muggers and rapist.

There is low achievement amongst black males but when you look at the demographics, they are largely concentrated in the poor, lower socio-economic class and more importantly, black people are not a homogenous mass. There is a divergence between the achievements of black males from Caribbean backgrounds compared to those African backgrounds. The stability of the family unit and the expectations that are contained within have a lot to do with it.

The same can be seen within the Asian community which despite what the media like to say, is not a homogenous mass either. Hindus and Sikhs tend to outperforms Muslims and even with the Muslims, there is a divergence between the predominant Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups.

The low performing groups all have one thing in common - poverty. Their parents out working in low paid jobs like cleaning for the rich (who pay for their kids to be separated from those said people) tend to be focused on making ends meet and some lack the skills or energy to inspire their children at school. It is very complex but poverty is the root cause.

Private school children are not an homogenous mass either.

Yes, Spokette but I also think, more positively, that the fact that black boys' (under)achievements has hit the news in a way that can't be said to the same extent about white boys' more pronounced underachievements is evidence about a dialogue which is taking place amongst the black community which is possibly not taking place amongst the white working class community to the same extent.

This aided by prominent black MPs like Diane Abbott (who chose to handle the issue in her personal life by opting out of state education for her own son) and a lot of criticism (some justified, some less so) about how the state system might be failing black boys.

Being aware of a problem and fighting your corner is an important starting point. And I'm not sure how much awareness and fighting (of the right sort) is going on amongst the parents of white boys living in poverty.

Generalisations I know.

I certainly agree about the povery point. The Indians and Pakistanis you read about in some unintegrated areas near Leeds seem to be a world away from the lawyers and doctors from those areas who live here particularly the ugandan asians who may have come here very poor but who were often very well educated back home.

One point I saw written was that there may be less social mobility now (although we have much more than many countries) because things hae panned out - people have had good chances to move up if they're clever etc and now you get left with people who have major problems physical and health and mental health issues and very low IQ and that inevitably they will not succeed. Not sure if that is correct or not but it's one theory - that because we have been so successful in giving people opportunities only those who have little chance of improving because their IQ if 90 or whatever are left and clearly they find it harder than others to hold full time jobs and do well. Depends on your views on whether any child can do well with the right start and how much environment plays a part.

Hurricane "the fact that black boys' (under)achievements has hit the news in a way that can't be said to the same extent about white boys' more pronounced underachievements is evidence about a dialogue which is taking place amongst the black community which is possibly not taking place amongst the white working class community to the same extent."

Absolutely Hurricane.

The dialogue needs to happen soon though because it is these disaffected youth who are being targetted by nationalistic groups who blame their underachievement on immigrants.

"Being aware of a problem and fighting your corner is an important starting point. And I'm not sure how much awareness and fighting (of the right sort) is going on amongst the parents of white boys living in poverty."

Hurricane, have been thinking about this statement and I wonder if maybe many of the poor working class white males have an entrenched apathy towards education whereas that is not the case with the other communities where there is still an element of hope that education is the passport to having more choice in life.

I think many of the whites from this group are perhaps the off-spring of those who use to work in the traditional heavy industries, these industries have virtually disappeared, the alternative career pathways require more soft skills and that is still alien to that group of people.

Just a thought.

I went to a meeting on the underrepresentation of white boys in tertiary education.

This is a topic of discussion in lots of schools and universities. One of the things that most of us agreed about is the negative effect of the introduction of student loans and the reduction in grants in encouraging children from 'non- typical' backgrounds in to university.

many white working class boys are loath to commit themselves to years of study and debt when they have few role models to show the long term benefits of a university education on lifetime employment and financial outcomes.

And while India boys are well represented, Bangladeshi boys are chronically under represented

That is interesting and depressing MB. I received a full grant when I went to university and without it, I would not have gone because we were too poor. The grant system provided invaluable financial support to people like me and in terms of the tax I have paid as well as the contribution I have made to the British economy, I have repaid that a thousand fold.

Why is the govt prepared to fund people who are out of work but is unwilling to extend that to people who want to gain an education that will benefit the country?

I also benefited from a full grant.

One of the other issues raised is that many of the 'new' jobs that are replacing the traditional heavy industry jobs are more attractive to girls than boys. So there isn't quite the same short fall of working class girls (although they are still under represented, it isn't as bad).

many of the 'new' degree courses are also more attractive to girls than boys, and continual assessment/ modular studies also means that girls tend to do better than boys.

I think this point about the descendants of the old working class heavy industry group is a good one. My town was an industrial revolution town, built for the manufacture of railways. Which doesn't happen in Britain any longer because it can be done more cheapily in China. The boys and girls I see here don't have a model of parents and grandparents working in the services or professional sectors--they built trains. They struggle to see themselves as working call centres or shops or providing other services or carrying out managerial or professional work.

Hurricane

I came across this website called blackboyscan. It is an initiative started in Birmingham and it maybe something that your school maybe interested in as it has a high ethnic population.

Bridie3, it is a real challenge isn't it? How can society change their entrenched views if not through education. Their reality is far removed from the aspirations that others may have for them.

I believe if you have a very very low family income you get grants still. I may be wrong but I think you can apply. Also no one pays the £3k a year fees unless and until they start earnings or the loans for that matter. Possibly the fees are lower too if you're very poor as well. I remember reading about the anomaly - poor family with cash in hand give loads to their university child who gets the grant and lower fees whilst very rich family chooses not to give a penny of help to a child like one of mine and they don't get any extra assistance. So I suppose the Government has tried to address that. Also my daughters years had to pay the university fee up front or take a loan and by the time mmy son went you don't unless you choose to, pay it and instead you borrow it and pay it back when you earn a certain amount. Even so I think it's a wise decision not to go to university for a lot of people if they'd just be one of many on a not very good course with poor A levels. When only 15% of people went when I went it meant a lot more than it does now.

It's a huge and possibly daunting task. Anyone who can do anything to inspire children from some of these backgrounds has my respect.