Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuing the discussion about the impact of VAT on independent schools…

I had no group projects ever at university.

Times have changed, your university experience is as relevant has mine (which probably predates yours).

Many degrees have group projects which have a significant weight in the end of year results.

In any case, you would expect on a degree course that the other student are of a certain level and want to be there.

Students can be disorganised, disengaged, lazy, incompetent or whatever - you might expect students paying £9k or £30k a year in fees on a well respected course to be up for it, but not all of them are. The other members of the group end up picking up the slack. Bit like the world of work.

“They also pretend not to notice that the initial example was about quiet girls and children with non-disruptive SEND being used as spacers. "Oh but my grammar/med/Oxbridge high flyer was also a mentor, isn't that marvellous!"
Embarrassing tone deafness. @Ubertomusic I’m just checking whether this is supposed to be a parody of me before I respond…

What an odd comparison- prefects in my school did no teaching and had no extra duties inside the classroom. I vaguely recall them being expected to help with school events and stop any bad behaviour outside the classroom. And wear a shiny badge.

What parents are complaining about here is their child having to supervise & teach a peer who is disruptive and less engaged in their work than themselves. Having had to supervise and teach university students who aren't engaged I can only imagine for a child (who has no training in managing behaviour, teaching, SEN or LD) it sounds ruddy awful and would rapidly put me off my schoolwork.

It doesn't sound like you've done much good as a governor if the results are 'appalling'

I'm sure that is the case for many courses and jobs.

It's also very possible to find degrees that don't have group projects.

Especially when you have an ND child who actively dislikes them and so they are checking that there are minimal modules which require that.

Not everyone is or needs to be a 'team player'.

Looking at my own degree - which still exists in broadly same format (bit more tech these days)... nope, no group work required. I worked in the same sector for over a decade and never did a group project at work either. I don't really ever do anything that isn't self-contained.

Nothing quite like teaching teens how to keep their heads down and not show ability in case they get lumbered being a dogsbody. No wonder productivity is at all time lows.

Oh boy. Wait until your DC get group projects at university. Because that is exactly what happens, and DC will have to be able to deal with it.

My ds had to do this as part of a group of five. Before the presentation one student from overseas returned to his home country; another one went into rehab for compulsive gambling; another said “oh sorry, I got the date wrong. I’ve booked a holiday and paid for it so I’m going”; that left ds and another student who had contributed zero to the project.
Would the absent students have been marked down for that or would they all have got equal marks?

But for the majority of students that aren’t deliberately avoiding degrees / careers that require any kind of collaboration, group work is often a necessity.

I didn’t have any group projects in either of my degrees, but my career has involved working in technical teams both within my own specialty and across allied disciplines.

Both DCs (STEM subjects, different universities) have had the same issue with group projects. Being able to manage group members that don’t pull their weight is a skill that’s useful to develop.

Or (as my old employer did) you just fire manage out the slackers.

I think it’s more the pp who can’t see that their super selective had a different cohort to @OhCrumbsWhereNowand others, or a comp.

It’s lacking some self awareness.

Quite - at work you can do that, obviously.
At uni I was put in a group with 3 who lived miles away and had no interest in reading any studies. These people simply dropped out weeks after our group work after bringing my grade down to the lowest I got in the whole 2 years. I ended up having to write the whole presentation, they then edited it while we were waiting to go on the stage, taking out all of the references because they wanted it all on 1 slide to "look better"... There was no way I could "manage" three 20+ who barely turned up for lectures. It's just a way of stopping tall poppy syndrome but has negative effects on those who really are trying to do the work.

Depends how aware your DC’s supervisor was as to what was happening and how the department would handle it I would imagine? Some appear to more rigid than others.

Orchestras get rid of rubbish players pretty quickly, not force everyone else to tutor them both in rehearsals and their spare time 😂

@IHeartHalloumiIt doesn't sound like you've done much good as a governor if the results are 'appalling'”

Sadly there’s not much I can do about the area of significant social deprivation that forms a big chunk of the catchment. Or the grammar school that creams off most of the higher achievers. All we can do is to try to make people think understand that the school’s results are good under the circumstances….

Exactly - the argument for choice is surely that - selective things should be for the best. Sadly not the way a lot of degrees have gone. My BSc was full of people who spent the first year having to learn how to write essays, which would have taken them out of the pool of applicants 20 years prior.

Ah yes, but that’s because nobody has followed their advice to close down every independent and grammar school. Nobody knows better than a parent of adult children, that closing schools is the best way you can improve them.

Both you and @KendricksGin but there is no need to respond really :) You are "selectively blind" on all threads and I think it's fine. You're not a policy maker (I hope).

The cumulative effect of the masses being deluded by hardcore socialist (or in fact any other) ideology is damaging to everyone, of course, not just the deluded masses themselves, but internet discussions are not going to solve this problem.

I’m not talking about orchestras, which is a pretty niche employment sector - a couple of thousand people in the UK?

Every job I’ve had once past the grad entry level I’ve been expected to mentor and develop people.

You can't really compare work to Uni in any sense though. If someone isn't doing work you can report them because they are getting paid. Most people don't work for love of their job but for the money. Those on my course just wanted to mess about and didn't put effort in so they left, if you had people like that at work are you telling me you would bend over backwards to pick up their slack over and over just because you are a "good mentor"? Sounds like a huge waste of time and salary. Once you get to a certain level you have to expect people to be able to do the job they are being paid for, surely. Just as I expected those students to understand why we needed references.

if you had people like that at work are you telling me you would bend over backwards to pick up their slack over and over just because you are a "good mentor"?

Nope, didn’t say that at all.

I said I was expected to mentor more junior colleagues because entry level grads need it (as opposed to orchestras that apparently don’t mentor and just kick people out).

At uni, you don’t get a choice and you pick up the slack. At work, they eventually get fired.

But in my line of work there’s deadlines to be met and financial penalties for not meeting them, so whether somebody’s slacking or is no longer there, the work still needs to be done by the other members of the team to meet the deadline.

It is however the prime example of a "group project" you were referring to 😂 Funnily enough, even at uni level many professions do not and, more importantly, cannot tolerate slackers. Think medicine, be it op theatre or psychiatry. Or military.

Your "wait until your DC get group projects at uni" is rather limited. My DC1 did pure maths and had no group projects either, like many PP and myself.

You were not talking about employment sector anyway, if I may remind you.

How is this relevant to Year 8 pupils tutoring other Y8 pupils in lessons? Are they "senior colleagues" and "graduates"?

@Ubertomusic

Your "wait until your DC get group projects at uni" is rather limited.

Or maybe your experience is rather limited?

It's not just my experience though, as some PP demonstrated 😁

At what point did I mention school children?

You brought up mentoring (or the lack of) at a professional level. I pointed out that in my profession, mentoring is standard practice.

You and one other poster so far?

My DC and their cohort generally have group projects as part of their degrees.

You were not talking about employment sector anyway, if I may remind you.

If I may remind you, I absolutely was when it comes to mentoring.