Once the food is sorted let's.....

[happymerryberries]

.....keep the pressure on the government to sort out schools.

Let's have an end to kids who's behaviour is out of control, wrecking their chance of education and that of everyone in the classroom along with them.

Let's have an end to the pretence that inclusion can work for every child and stop the closure of special schools.

Let's have an end to education for SN on a shoe string budget, a policy that leave the most vulnerable out in the cold and adds to their problems.

Let's have a return to the realisation that rights come with responsibilites.

Let's have real funding for schools so that they can afford little luxuries like books.

Let's have specialist teachers in every school that can work with kids with EBD so that we can help them, and in doing so help all the other kids that suffer their behaviour.

Let's stop pretending that all kids will get 5 A* to C grades and get them literate and numerate and able to interact with other people in a reasonable way....then teach them French and Science.

Once Jamie has sorted out the food, lets sort out the rest!

There you go again, HMB, and you want respect?

one last go then since you need direction.

a quote form the post you can't be bothered to read

'Oh dear I have posted

'You seem to be missing the point utterly. There is no point in teaching science in the NC to some children because they simply cannot access it in any way that leads to sucess from their view point. I'm not anti teaching it to the because it is hard work for me but because it is counterproductive to them. All that they learn is that they cannot do it.

They don't need any more of that from the school system. They have already had 7 years before they get to me. And by the time they are in secondary school they fall behind their peers more and more with each passing year. ' and

'But would you like to exlain to me how I am supposed to teach a child of 14 who has a reading age of 6 about photosynthesis? How is he or she supposed to access that? And what will it do to enhance that child's life? For them to sit in the lessons, and fail to even complete the most basic KS2 SEN work sheets? For them to learn, yet again, that school is about failure for them? How do you think that makes them feel? I know what I would feel. I'd feel 'Fuck this I'll be a pain in the arse, a hard kid and that is why I fail, not because I'm thick'

But there you go, You know best. I don't want to teach them because it is too hard. You are being very offensive.

You have no idea how much effort I put into teaching kids like this. What extra support I am trying to get them. that I am working nmy spare time to set up a nurture group for chilren emotional disturbed bt their upbringing. I just don't want to teach them because it is too har. Now it is your turn to be told to get a life

I read that already - what new ideas are you trying to convey?

Seems clear enough to me.

Well I'd like you to coment on how you think that further failure helps a child progress for one?

For another, why, if I am just avoiding hard word to I choose to spend more time with these kids, helping to sort out their probelms.

And lastly, what advantages are we giving children teaching them work that the cannot access, which will not help them in later life, (since they cannot understand or retain it) or get any qualifications that will help them to get a job.

Thank you Carrie, I was begining to think I was going mad. And now I am off to bed.

It's a shame that this discussion has slid into a bit of a slanging match.

Americsot - I don't think that you get just how poor some of the literacy standards are. The words 'Science worksheet' are above some of these childrens capabilities, never mind the content of it. Teaching science (and some other NC subjects) to children like these, without a huge amount of extra help, isn't just hard, its impossible. These kids fail, day after day, until they just give up.

And my point has been that this matters for the kids. Not the teachers. It isn't helpful for the kids.

Agree hmb, some things should be taught as priority at the expense of everything else until basic life skills, reading and writing and basic maths are learnt.

What angers me is why should my dd be expected to go to school at 4 and sit learning the NC when she should be learning through play? Why do primary school kids have homework when they should be out living their lives? Why do even the brightest students leave school ill-equipped for the real world?

I really don't get why you would purposely design an educational system that makes you teach with an expectation of failure.

Perhaps that's where the misunderstanding lies...

Agree 100%

On the contrary, Potty - my Y7 form had rather a lot of "W" readers. I really do know what it is like to teach science to non-readers. As I said, it's not a breeze.

That was to wk btw, not you ameriscot.

The kids feel that they are failing. I don't tell them. They see it every day. When they see that everyone else is doing X and they can't, because they can't read it, they feel a failure.

And I didn't design the educational system

Thanks hmb - I used to be in top set in everything at school, and even I felt like I was failing because the NC had to be got through and pushed so hard. So in the end I did fail, did fine on my GCSE's and crap at A-level. If you push kids too hard they WILL crack, and if that happens to 'bright' kids how are kids with learning problems supposed to cope?

Oo-er...

And on the original topic, after food is sorted, lets have some organised active games in primary school playgrounds!

Well where I live (in Kent) 75% of the kids are set up to "fail".

If you don't pass your 11+, you don't go to a grammar school, and only 25% of pupils pass the 11+.

Secondary Moderns are seen as schools for the failures, there is frantic pressure to pass the 11+, all the "good" primary schools spend the whole of the last 2 years teaching children how to pass it (so they don't learn much else, apparantly!) and the 75% who don't pass, are made to feel like failures because they didn't.

How's that for a great educational design?

You didn't design this education system, HMB, but you did start a thread saying "let's change this, let's change that", which is tantamount to a design, IMO. But you didn't like when others (ie me) went along with your hypothetical situation.

Caligula,

I've only seen research data from Buckinghamshire, but ISTR that the cross section of pupils from grammar and upper schools did better at GCSE than an equivalent cohort in comprehensive schools.

I did my main teaching practice in a Bucks upper school and really didn't see a big difference compared to teaching in a Surrey comprehensive - at most, the top half of your top set was missing, but you still had enough pupils that some would be presented for the higher papers.

Sorry, don't understand - what does ISTR stand for? And what are upper schools? Grammar?

I think you're saying that even if pupils don't pass the 11+, some of them still will do GCSE's, A Levels etc? If so, yes, of course you're right, but the odds are stacked against them even psychologically, because there is no real presentation of secondary moderns in Kent as being anything other than a place where you go if you failed to get into a grammar. So it's very possible that kids who otherwise would have done well in exams, will not do because they've been labelled failures (and think of themselves as such) right from the time of 11 years old. And for parents and teachers to overcome that psychological barrier, is an enormous task.

ISTR = I seem to remember/recall

Upper schools - the Buckinghamshire term for secondary moderns.

I didn't see the failure aspect of the upper school I was in in Bucks. A lot of kids went on to do A-levels at the grammar school they failed to get into at 11+ or 12+. Research says that overall, the Bucks system of grammar and upper schools is more successful than comprehensives in an equivalent SEC area. How can you argue with data?

You can't argue with a vague recollection of research, Ameriscot, no.

Can you remember who did it? are we talking higher average grades, fewer students failing to get any GCSEs, what? Were the better results greater than the difference between any two regions? which other region was used and how did it compare to the average?

I really think the whole system is a ghastly idea. At least in a proper comprehensive you can move up or down a set.

blimey charlie - have you stopped to eat yet?

You can look it up on Google just a easily as me, Senora.

RE the 'Being set up for failure' issue

It may interest people to know that last years KS3 Sats paper in science had a tested reading age of 14. This was true of both 'level' papres. The children who sit it are often only 13. So the science Sats paper is often as much a test of the child's reading and comprehension of printed english as it is their understanding of science.

The children with the poorest reading skills can have a reader and scribe, in our school this happens if you are statemented for your reading difficulties. For that to happen you have to be 5 years behind your chronological age.

So there are large numbers of children who have probelms reading the text who have no assistance. This is not hypothetical btw