Rishis plan for education

[mids2019]

Compulsory maths and English until 18 under Sunak education reforms mol.im/a/11360205 via dailym.ai/android

So ok it's the DM but it seems the PMs plan for secondary education is to produce a baccalaureate type system forcing children to study maths and English to 18 and creating a greater focus
on vocational training.

Seems to me the style of education presented will be focused on the comprehensive sector leaving grammars and the independent to focus on academic variety to link to RG universities.

The idea if forcing students to take maths until 18 seems quite drastic as many arts specialists may not have a great mathematical strength and vice versa. STEM specialist for instance took physics, chemistry and maths at A level will potentially have to take English and those that do for instance doing English, English Lit and History would have add maths.

Do the older more academic universities wantthis necessarily?

Others have mentioned the question of where he is going to find the maths teachers, but I'd add I'm not sure if there are enough English teachers, either. This year, a £15,000 bursary is being offered to English teachers to train. There are already schools who can't recruit enough skilled English teachers.

The policy is dead in the water if he can't staff it. Or will staff be pulled onto post 16 provision, making provision for those in KS3 worse?

To make it viable, content would have to be cut from most post 16 qualifications too. Or else kids would do worse across the board.

I do actually think there is value in continuing to work on maths skills (as they are quickly lost) and English skills (especially if not taking any essay subjects) post 16, and the standard for a 4 is really low.

But I just don't think it's workable right now.

You'd have thought Rishi would have been aware of the 2017 Smith report given that it was his party that commissioned it.

Maybe, just maybe, he should ask people who know about stuff before spouting off things that he thinks sound good.

Yeah, I'm also genuinely curious as to how schools and colleges would be expected to run these classes with, presumably, no extra funding?

I also think it's probably less about what unis want, and more about ensuring 18yos have the necessary English and maths skills to succeed in employment.

But it's pointless without the teachers to staff it and the money to fund it.

I think it would be brilliant if they could pull it off. But they will need to magic the teachers out of thin air and actually out their hands in their pockets.

@MarshaBradyo well not all students would need it, but how would you determine that?

A-Level or top GCSE Maths students won't need to be taught how to analyse bar charts but if we're talking about life skills, they wouldn't only be taught numeracy based topics.

Teaching is under resourced as it is so I really don't see where funding incoming from in this economic climate. My only though is wholesale reduction of courses in the newer universities. .

I think the danger would be that some comprehensive effectively become feeders for FE colleges especially those that are historically low performing. Entry to RG universities and the p professions would be increasing limited to grammars, the private sector and the more high-performance comprensives.

it looks like the conservative levelling up agenda is focused on vocational training and not social mobility through raising the aspirations of working class.children to go to university.

I think locally living in a community with some deprived areas there has been an attitude that local kids don't need a great deal of.academic education and focus should be on vocational training and the government position echoes this. There may not be opportunities for chi often like these to show academic or creative potential as the school/community culture is against this.

The issue in this country is that the German system wouldn't work as we have such a strongly ingrained class system.

It's ok to have separate vocational and academic routes if there is the same status going through both, but there isn't so it would be divided by class.

Saying that a lot of trades now can earn better than 'professions' so maybe that will change. I do think we will need to change society first though

The German system was condemned by the United Nations for perpetuating social inequity.

You might think the vocational route is as valued there, but somehow it's the disadvantaged kids that get shunted onto it (the same way as they mysteriously don't get into grammar schools here).

Could this be reintroducing a grammar style educational system by stealth?

The focus on vocational qualifications seems to suggest that this is the 'preferre route' for the relatively non academic pupil

There are schools I am aware of who focus on getting children minimal educational qualifications for employment. This is certainly not a fault of the teachers but an indication of aspiration and complex social scnarios.

By promoting FE (though necessary) but omitting university aspiration you may be by default introduce a 2 tier educational system (but repackaged)

I guess not many cabinet ministers are advocating their children become sparkies or brickies and I think this refocus does have a class based element ti it

I agree with your earlier point about specialising too early @mids2019 , this is my primary objection to the 11+. Deciding on a child's future academic route via a single non-curriculum-based test taken on one random day is ridiculous. It would actually be quite hard to come up with a worse system imo.

All the pedagogical data indicates that children mature at different rates due to a vast range of internal and external factors including home situation, upbringing, parental input and support, style of learning, motivation, ability to take a test of a specific nature, a preference for focusing on a smaller number of subjects rather than a full range etc etc etc. To give just one random example, a child who has been brought up with no books in the house might nevertheless be totally captivated by reading and therefore catches up with his/her peers very quickly once given the opportunity to do so.

There's nothing wrong with offering a vocational route, but it should be an option for those who wish to pursue it, not something which is forced upon children deemed 'less academic' at a young age.

And absolutely there is a class element to the policy. It's the same as those people who call for more grammar schools are generally parents who assume their DCs will get into one. You don't see anyone calling for more Secondary Moderns.

Well, he has been listening to his 'social mobility ' commissioner who said there isn't such a thing as social mobility and seems to argue against university aspirations for most disadvantaged students...

comfyoldcardi · Yesterday 16:57
I would like clarity on what maths includes. I would love to see a really solid grounding in numeracy, how loans and mortgages work, budgeting, compound interest, pensions, tax, insurance. So many basic life skills that would be useful to young people. Not everyone can do A level maths but everyone needs to know how to manage their money.

^ this is sort of maths is key rather than more Pythagoras etc.

Neither seem to know how to improve a decimated system now

Get an education minister with experience in schooms. Pay properly. Incentivise at the 5, 10 and 15 year point with financial bonuses, quality training free of charge to aid promotion and salary increases for good quality teachers who don't want management responsibility. Improve PPA time and protect it. Value teacher experience and expect to pay for it. Trust teachers to do their jobs without micro management at every level of the sector. Accept that some children ate below average and will not pass no matter what you do. Build in quality vocational education whilst simultaneously making a concwrted effort to shift public.thinking on degree is the only way.

I've had great fun telling ds he won't be able to give up English next year...

But I agree, it won't happen simply through lack of staff. I don't think it's the worst idea I've heard as long as those doing A-level English/Maths don't have to also do the along side course and the course is aimed at promoting useful maths/English (like understanding basic statistics or using money). I don't think it's a good idea to continue teaching maths/English to A-level for everyone.

I think over time there has been a completely unwarranted decline of teaching as a career. Teachers/lecturers in a relatively deprived conservative community such as mine are stereotyped as a left leaning intellectual elite and academia generally is seen as pretentious. The appointment of Gillian Keegan with her background of being working class, leaving school at 16 and starting an apprenticeship and becoming a success really chimes with my community aspiration.

There is still a sense that RG universities are 'nit for the likes of us' quite widely in my town. The focus is on FE and growing the local economy

Is the government giving up on the aspiration of getting more working class children into university? It was a new Labour vision to improve social mobility by opening up university access but has really failed as a policy? (My view is there was some overshoot but some positives)

I think the government don't care about working class children, totally. They want the option for them that costs less- i.e. a crap education without subject specialist teachers and with large class sizes.

They're not willing to invest.

But they know that people probably won't tolerate really poor levels of English and maths in the workforce- hence English and maths up to 18.

Can you link to this, please? Genuine interest, not goady.

I was speaking to my cousin in Germany a month ago. She did say that for Germans in their 40s, the Head of their primary school dictated which tier of high school a DC had to go to; it was immutable; whereas now parents have a much bigger say (to the extent she worried about the academic standards of her DDs gymnasium).

E.g. here:

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/un-slaps-berlin-on-the-wrist-german-schools-perpetuate-inequality-report-says-a-473304.html

But, for those of you who are concerned (rightly) about the impact on university access for working class or disadvantaged children with a focus on "vocational" courses, can you also accept that some of those kids will do degrees that are rubbish and devalued and thereby effectively saddling themselves with a 9% additional tax rate for years?

I mean, if you did computing/plumbing/electrical engineering as a new vocational degree, wouldn't you be more likely to be employable than doing English or international relations at a university at the bottom of the league tables? (An ex bf did a computing degree at an ex poly, he is now in the states doing extremely well for himself, far better than more academic peers who went for standard degrees at middling universities). Employers have been bemoaning the standards of graduates for some time - isn't it in people's best interests, particularly if they come from low income backgrounds, to squeeze maximum utility from their degrees?

I guess, what I am saying is that it isn't necessarily a problem to repurpose some crap degrees for more vocational/useful purposes - funding should follow utility to a degree at least.

The problem is what happens at secondary school level to ensure that no one is steered away from an academic pathway too early and that pupils are well advised.

I'd have hated the idea of being forced to do maths and english at 6th form - I know what A levels I wanted from about the age of 10 and it was hard enough getting to GCSE to drop all the subjects I had zero interest in.

My sisters did IB and loved it - one of them cried after GCSEs about the subjects she'd have to drop.

My DD is only interested in music - has been like that since she was 2 - and is severely dyslexic. We found some great BTEC options for 6th form, and one of those - to DD's horror - has additional maths and English. But it's music industry specific, so they teach them about VAT and tax returns and how to work out royalties and split sheets. A thousand times more useful than more quadratic equations.

And the English course seems to be about ensuring that they have a good basic overview of the main cultural references in literature, and then a creative writing part that is designed to help them with song-writing.

If there are more courses like this then fantastic, but I often feel that the people designing curricula at the top are the kind who were phenomenally academic and don't really have any concept of catering for those who may not have either ability or interest. I also feel for any teacher trying to force an unwilling 17 year old to study something they wish they could drop.

I think vocational training can be something of a misnomer in this context as dentistry, law, medicine, teaching are all vacations yet connected to HE.

The trades would include skilled manual labour such as plumbing and carpentry which has been pointed out there is demand for. However such jobs can be hard from a physical perspective with particular stresses associated with self employment e.g. health insurance and pensions also bear in mind the most lucrative 'non academic' careers e.g. electricians are dominated by men My concern is the establishment of non academic routes at an early age at school (howwvet framed) that in reality cc an be funneling off students to potentially low renumeration work e.g. social care, warehouse operatives, delivery drivers

To the poster that mentioned lower level HE institutions offering crap courses I think there is a point there but I think it's actually difficult in practice to identify which degrees are truly poor value

Looking at the syllabus of our local FE college there is actually quite a lot if overlap with the newer universities

A lo of practical courses for in demand areas are offered e.g. carpentry, construction, hospitality, child care, car mechanics etc. However interspersed with these courses are courses like fashion, design, film and media studies, digital game development, sport science where the demand and future employment opportunities are dubious

I think it's quite easy to identify poor value though?

I mean, the question is whether you got paid more than average with an unrelated degree (history from Oxford) or use the degree to work in a related field.

All the useful courses you identify should help people to work in a related field. Lots of the non useful ones don't achieve either aim.

And the economy does actually need people to work in social care and as delivery drivers - it's not really sustainable to import people ad infinitem. People should be better remunerated for doing it and, critically, those who were not ready to do a degree at 18 (it is pretty easy to identify that at 16, tbh) should be able to do one later.