Solving the crisis in state education

[judetheobscure]

Thought I'd start a new thread as the state vs private thread is soooo long; and wanted to focus more on possible solutions.

So, fwiw, here are some ideas (aimed at secondary level):

Abolish private schools
Abolish "religious" schools
Abolish grammar schools, foundation schools, CTCs (are they still called this) and any other form of "specialist" school.

Create across-the-board comprehensive system.

Insist on setting. No mixed-ability classes for academic subjects. Allow plenty of opportunity to move "up" and "down" the sets.

Have units within the schools for problem pupils. Remove them from classes as soon as they become disruptive.

Problem pupils who don't improve and who don't have parents that support the school to be sent to boarding schools. (Not necessarily boarding schools for disruptive pupils but normal boarding schools.)

Restrict higher education to top 20%(ish).
Bring back apprenticeships. (Where's a plumber when you need one).
Money saved on universities can go to restoring student grant and better funding for schools.

Train more teachers and train them better. Don't allow teacher training institutions to spend 90% of the course on educational debates and "gender issues" etc. Classroom management and subject specific skills are far more important.

Anything I've missed (tongue-in-cheek)

The problem I have with church schools is they tend to have a much higher concentration of pro-active, supportive parents than "normal" schools. As has been mentioned a lot in the other education thread, all schools need a good nucleus of supportive parents. If we are really committed to equality of educational opportunity they must go.

Also, re. religious teaching - I do believe this should be done in an informative way rather than a brainwashing way. All religions should be discussed in all schools.

jude all religions are discussed in school- they have to it's part of the national curriculum. I'm not sure church schools brainwash! I think the reason church schools have such an active community is because that exists from the church. In the same way that a village shcool would tend to have active parents- because of the village sense of community. I'm not sure that aboloshing the schools would improve community spirit elsewhere!

I agree with musica, jimjams and others who made this point - why get rid of church schools if they are doing well? Why not improve the secular schools so you end up with a variety of schools for parents to choose from. Do we really want to stamp out all variation and end up with schools that are exactly the same? Because different parents want different things for their children. Don't they? How will you satisfy every parent if there is no variation?

What minister is going to play god and say I have the perfect education system, this is what it is, all schools will teach like so. I hope you all like it? There will be no other choices. Anyone like to hazard a guess how that would go down?

Mind you, this is not to say I think the state should fund church schools IF they discriminate on entry. Thank you to those on this thread who have pointed out the unfairness of the funding system. State funded church schools should be as open to anyone as local secular schools. So parents who want their children to go to a church school have that choice. What harm does it do to anyone? Why should all parents be deprived of that choice? Church schools that want to discriminate in terms of admissions should pay their way. Ahh... in an ideal world...

No, agh. I have to say (sorry, aloha, et al) that I hate the "all religious schools should be abolished" argument. Sheesh, you want idealism? While I believe it's necessary, it keeps things from being done. You want nothing to be done?

Anyway, tigermoth, don't get rid of them. But give the community a say in how the schools are run. Don't let it be so easy to become a voice of the Church. Just keep it a voice of the community. Voluntary controlled, um, we're all for saying "no" if the voluntary aided thing comes up, right? Do people get to vote on that? How does that actually work?

Must not watch Buffy while posting...

Jude, my dd goes to a church school (private, so generating different ire ), and as I have posted before she is not brainwashed. They study and celibrate all religions. There are also muslims, hindus, and jews at her school, as well as plenty of children who follow no religion at all. The school aims to promote the 'christian' ethos of love and care. Now, I belive that ethos is also followed by other relgions, but I think that is a very fine basis for the education of children, regardless of it's origin. And that is why we chose the school. But she is not brain washed, She has celibrated, eid, divali, chinese new year, chanaka, and the japanise new year. During the easter celibrations a jewish song was sung alonside the christian ones. The only major religion thay have not covered in much detail is Budism.....but then, she is only 6 so they have lots of time.

message withdrawn

Oh, and the Charity that governs dds school is building ties with, with the aim of funding, an inner city failing school. So in that instance funding is going from the private church sector, back into the state sector. That may be a better way of addressing the problem than simply closing down the religious (and or private) schools.

I went to school in the 60 and 70, and I remember just how good the 'one size fits all', 'lets have everything equal' comprehensive system worked then. Not. So I am not convinced that having one system will suit all children. In fact I am convinced that it will not.

To my mind what we have to do is decide what education is for. I fully agree with other poster who want greater choice re vocational/ academic. From 14 onwards children should not be pressured into studying things they have no interest or use for. It wastes their time, and more often than not they become disruptive.

Children with special educational needs need special education, not IEPs which nod at equal ops. It is meaningless for me to try to teach a child of 15 about the alkali earth metals when he or she has a reading age of 6, and doesn't see any reason why this information will be of use to them. Far better for that time to be spent raising their reading ability, coupled with good, monitored work experience.Some of the SEN pupils I know have been sent on first rate placements that have raised their self estime and confidence. Things like that should be available for a much wider range of pupils.

And this isn't about getting them out of my classroom because I don't want them there. It's about getting them to do something that they want to do, and will benfit them.

FOLLOW UP FROM MY LAST POST

I have now spoken to school about the girl in question and they are looking intio a possible "re-rengagement" programme for her. This will involve 3 days out of school during year 11 (possibly sooner). Most of this time will be spent at the nursery doing work experience and working towards her NVQ Level 2. The school have taken my comments really seriously and hopefully we might achieve something really positive for this girl. I do hope so. We now have to work out some form of contract to keep the whole thing together. She MUST behave at school 2 days a week and do some serious work towards her core subjects of she is to get the benefits of this other programme. This has to be a two way deal so I hope she will cotton on to it and see what an advantage this will be to her.

Good for you claire. I'm sure that the girl will benefit form your input. I hope it all works well.

Claireandrich, congrats! I hope my son gets at least one teacher who is as caring and insightful as you seem to be. I mean, I'm sure he'll have good teachers -- I just hope he gets to have some great ones, too.

But the trouble with the 60s and 70s was that nowhere was it truly comprehensive. Plus there were some serious misunderstandings about fundamental aspects of education.

claireandrich - well done - hope the girl takes advantage of this special arrangement.

Well, so far she is responding really well the opportunities being offered to her and is willing to discuss and think up some form of contract to tie the two together. The nursery involved is actually the one where my DD goes so I am going to chat to them again tonight and see exactly what they can do with her. They are very keen to take her under their wing anyway. We hope they may take her 2 days a week. Then she has 2 days in school and a day in college. She is already going for half term next week.

I think there are quite a few pupils in our school who would beneift from this re-rengagement programmes. If this one works out it would be nice to extend it further. We aren't talking of SEN pupils here. These are bright and able pupils who are just seriously underachieiving as they displike school so much.

Well, I suppose I should start working again! This is my free but I have my GNVQ lads here trying to finish their coursework. Deadline was yesterday!!!! Looks like I am marking all night again so it can be moderated tmorrow morning and posted in the afternoon. These boys love working close to the deadline, don't they!!!

SUCCESS!!!

The nursery has agreed to take this girl all 3 days a week and she will be in school doing a limited GCSE timetable the other 2. The nursery are followinpecial programme for her and are really looking forward to taking her under their wing. I just hope this girl does her bit now and keeps to the deal. I feel kind of under some pressure as it is my DD's nursery and I have been pushing for it with them as well as school. I know I didn't set it up so I can't take the credit/blame in full but you know what I mean.

I do see your point Jude, but! Where I went to school there were 2 comprehensives, and you went to which ever one was closer. I grew up in an amost totaly working class area, and as far as I can remember only one child lest the area to go to private school. Some kids went to a wesh speaking comp (no better than the one I went to) and some went to the catholic comp (ditto). So in miniatute we had the 'Comprehensive system'. All the the schools had parity, they all had the same catchment of class/race/whatever. And they were all still crap. I don't think the answer to the problems in the state sector will be easily solved by abolising all diversity.

hmb - why were they crap? - and don't get me started on social diversity ....

Why were they crap? Ohh, where to start! Under funded, lots of the teachers were way past their best, not interested in their subjects or the kids they taught (with one or two notable exceptions). Everything was paced to the middle of the class, so no differentiation for the faster, or more importantly, the slower kids. Excellence was not expected or even applauded. If you did well in a subject you got to be damn good at hiding it so the other kids didn't bully you. Violence between the kids was common, and kids were hit on a daily basis by the staff! I kid you not! Those of us who got an education got it in spite of the school, not because of it. For a year our english lessons consisted of the teacher coming into the classromm, telling us the page number and question numbers that we should do, and he would then leave the room. The staff were fed up, and so were the kids. It was dreadful. The comprehensive system at its very worst.

Sounds like a very poorly run comprehensive. Demoralised teaching staff etc. Btw I am not for a minute suggesting that all comprehensive schools as they are currently organised do a good job.

Mixed ability teaching has a lot to answer for. A well run comprehensive will have setting in all the key subjects - languages, maths, sciences etc. This enables teaches to pitch their lesson at the right ability level and means behavioural issues are minimised. If I were ever to return to teaching (I can safely say this is as likely as pigs flying) I would refuse to teach mixed ability.

Can I just say that I am not keen on setting for all subjects. I teach ICT at secondary and all my key stage 3 classes are setted. This works really well for the top sets and to an extent the middle ones. However the bottom groups are often a nightmare for teahcers. After a short time the children realise they are bottom set and they start behaving like it. I teach 3 bottom sets (throughout the key stage). The year 7 class is okay, the year 8 and 9 are terrible. The groups are a little smaller but the children's behaviour is appalling and there are no other pupils to pull them up. Also, within each set there are still wide variations and differentiated work is still needed.

At my last school - an excellent comp (top of league) only the core subjects were setted. The others, like mine, were not. This worked so much better for me. I was able to differentiate my own work throughout the lessons. The weaker pupils were pulled up by the stronger ones. The strongers ones learnt by helping others (a very good way to learn I think anyway) and were offered extension work to push them too. Naughty pupils were less noticeable as they were spread out between the classes more, and there behaviour was less tolerated by other pupils in the class.

I know others may have different opinions on this but I wanted to put my own current experience of this.

I teach English in a very challenging comp and think setting is the best thing the school ever did. It only works at the "bottom end" though if groups are kept small(less than 20) and given LSA support - then it can work marvellously as the kids get to work at their level rather than being dragged along at somebody else's level; they than make progress; therefore raised self esteem; therefore more progress.