What three things would you change about schools in general / your child's school?

[Racingsnake]

Everyone seems to like to moan about teachers / school / education, but no-one ever says how they would do it better. What 3 things would you change?

Here are mine:

1. Start formal education at 6 not 4
2. Halve class sizes. Whatever the gov't says about class sizes having no effect on chn, I am sure I would teach 16 better than 32
3. Reliable ICT that works, so that the teacher can use it to open up the world to the classroom, entertain and inspire

Carbonel, there is no doult there are some children who are ready for an early start. At the moment no child has the option. I am not against advanced children starting early, but I think its important to avoid mistakes being made.

If a child who is advanced was seen by an ed pscyh and the ed pscyh agreed an early start was appriopate, then why not? Often parents are right about their ablites, but not always.

I remember very smug parent telling me that their child was intellectually on a different plane to my son because my son was not walking at two years old. However at the age of seven my son has over taken the child in question in quite a few areas. (Admitally not in PE, lol...)

It can be difficult to tell at a young age what is gifted and what is a different development pattern.

Cory - that is partly what I am driving at. There is a local primary to us with an uber competitive head. They are forever boasting about their success and last time got an 'outstanding'.However, there was extensive 'coaching' of the 'right' children.

Reallytired. My DS1 (now 6) is an "overtaker" too having also had receptive language delay. I try not to feel smug as he outperforms the kids whose parents looked at me with pity and made crude assumptions about his future. I try, but I don't try that hard .

Carbonel, you are quite right it is not always about ability. Mature/advanced kids may be left to cope when they could be thriving - agreed. I think that a focus on sorting out the summer-born issue (on which we are currently going backwards) would help both groups, freeing up TAs to have fun challenging the kids who are already ahead to strive a little more and reach a little higher.
I do understand your points as I had a completely mismatch betweem my academic abilities (top of nearly everything most of the time) and my social abilities (very immature and crippling shyness) throughout school. Of course, there is a feminist issue here as one of the main causes of my shyness was being typecast as the girl who was brainer than the boys and whom therefore the boys wouldn't want to chase in the playground, but that's for another thread!