What do we think about the Tories proposed education policy?

[faraday]

here

This is just one article I read- there will be links here and in The Guardian on the same subject.

The bones of it seems to be that the Tories will effectively give parents 'vouchers' to spend where they want, school-wise, 'good' schools will be allowed to expand, and poorer DCs will get higher value 'vouchers' thus making those DCs more attractive to a school.

Can you see a 'middle-class backlash'?

Can we REALLY follow a Swedish model seeing as our societies are so very different?

MrsBadger - lovely kind suggestion, but it doesn't make economic sense (taxpayers' money needs to be allocated to those areas where there will be the biggest payback) and the fee paying parents of dim children who are desperately trying to get their children to maximum potential would doubtless be very resentful.

(am only riffing here, haven;t thought it all through)

but that biggest payback surely would be from investing in those at the very bottom?

surely those are the ones who are disaffected with school, have no home support, go to secondary at 11 not able to read well enough to keep up in any subject etc etc, the ones who turn out of least benefit to society at the end etc

could putting money in at the beginning stop them costing society so much in th elong term?

also addresses the issue of huge influxes of less-desirable kids into previously good schools as the proportions would be lower

And lots of parents send/sent their kids to independent schools that give assisted places / bursaries / means-tested schols etc without too much whining afaik

in fact when assisted places were abolished my school had a huge groundswell of support for fundraising for means-tested schols to replace them.

I actually think that the French way of investing massively in pre-school education (three years, full-time, from the calendar year of a child's third birthday) is the most effective way of redressing the imbalances of children's early years' development created by different home environments.

I read somewhere that école maternelle eats up 20% of the French education budget.

Choice is illusory if you live in a rural area, anyway. Our local HS has a GCSE passrate of 46%. There are High schools with recent GCSE passrates up to 66% -- but all 40min. or more travel time away. These relatively 'good' state high schools are understandably, quite strict about catchment areas, tend to have quite large class sizes, and can be heavily oversubscribed.

Or if we wanted the strongest chance of quality secondary we could go private (expensive obviously), and that would mean much longer bus rides for DC: from the age of 11 having to drag themselves and their bags into the city and back each day. No great choices in any of it.

Mrs Badger is right I think -- the biggest payback IS from investing in those at the very bottom.

The return on investment, in employable people, less crime and so on is enormous.

The trouble is there are uncomfortable truths about the way schools are run which many people don't like to hear.

Am not stating this as a truth, but i think private primary do so well NOT because of their intake (though this helps) but because they often move away from the national curriculum and give a very old fashioned education, with lot of boundaries, lots of sport and a more traditional approach.

These things are free. It is an issue of political will.

The trouble with assisted places, bursaries etc, as with grammar schools now, is that they are only accessible to 'those in the know' to a certain extent. Uninterested, unmotivated and badly educated parents are not going to know where to start with applying for an assisted place or to a grammar school.

"These things are free."

I'm not I get what you mean. Surely you are not implying that the additional infrastructure that private primary/prep schools have that allows them to have a "traditional" curriculum with lots of sport has no costs attached?

I agree stuffitllama.

An 'old fashioned' education, obviously without the corporal punishment and bullying teachers, is what is needed, to put it very bluntly.

I never thought I would think that but I really do think it is the solution now. Going too far the other way hasn't really worked, has it?

The change in thinking: the more traditional approach.

Sport has been run down in schools. The cornerstones of early education have been farmed out to parents. I think these things should change.

I just want to explain where I'm coming from: I have a very poor background. Some of the children in my school still wore clogs. But I had a very traditional education and school was a calm place where we learned, the focus was on learning. There was no homework, we did all our work in class. Large classes too. And children DID learn. There was very little disruption because firm boundaries were set. There was no spanking, only standing in the corner and so on. But there was very little involvement from parents: they trusted the school to do their job. If the school hadn't worked as it should, MY parents probably would have been able to make up the difference. But the children who benefitted the most were the least privileged, whose parents could never have helped.

Sorry just wanted to say why I'm such a fan of the old fashioned ways!

yy Anna, re early years funding - shame that seems to be in a shambles here too. I guess that was what Sure Start was meant to address, with th e problems mentioned by Faraday below.

I'm not sure how the whole assisted places scheme worked exactly, but iirc there was some emphasis on primary school teachers putting forward apt pupils rather than the ellbowy parents doing the work.

And I wonder if the things that stuffitllama suggest make preps better than state primaries (sport, less emphasis on NC, trad approach) is what the Tories are actually getting at with their 'uniforms and prefects' idea?

There are many, many things I don't like about the French education system, but in a general way I think that école maternelle is really great.

I can see where you are coming from too, stuffitllama!

For every child who would be genuinely distressed (and I am sure there would be a few...) with a more formal, disciplined education, I bet there would be a lot more who would genuinely benefit.

Is what you describe really old fashioned??? I had an old fashioned education including the beatings and yet I am surprised at how much DS had to learn. I am sure he is doing harder stuff than I did at his age. In fact my sister who is a teacher in Ireland also thinks that the education system here in the UK expects kids to do more than in Ireland at a mcuh earlier age. SHe thinks this risks lots of kids getting left behind at an earlier stage.

DS is very academic and yet hates school. I can't figure that out.

It is true that Y4-6 pupils now look at sequencing and probability -- that's new. Didn't used to happen until O or A level. I'm sure there are other areas too which have been extended.

But it's of no use introducing these unless the basics are in place. Being confident at the most basic academic levels -- that's what is missing for the children who are not getting enough out of school.

It's the teachers who should be installing them in their brains: not teaching them about the rainforest, or marking a five year old's poetry homework, or fannying about with oil lamps on Roman day.

It all goes wrong right at the beginning I think. Get that right, and other things fall into place.

you are all beginning to scare me... Why is strict old fashioned good? Can't kind, inclusion be good too. It doesn't need to not have firm boundaries of discipline. I think some of you are confusing the two. Children from less helpful backgrounds need to feel wanted, involved and cared for. It's quite simple really. Old fashioned strictness, even without beatings, can lose a fair chunk of them I'd say. I never want to go back to my primary school, that's for sure.

• faraday, I know we beg to differ, but : 'it IS instructive how many of the parents of whom we speak, when questioned about their own educational experience, can do no better than to tell us 'It was all borin', like. They made us do like work'n'stuff and they didn show me any respect so me and my mate bunked off the last year'..... who exactly are these people? Have you ever met any of them? It's not what I see or meet at the school gates in a v.run down inner city primary that's for sure.

Smee you want good schools yet you don't want what makes the schools good. Right now you are getting what you want. You want lax discipline you've got it. You want inclusion -- you've got it.

I've got to go for the children but will be back.

ps on the school uniform front I think you are wrong there too

stuffit, I'm not quite sure what you're saying. I want good schools - yep don't we all, but I don't want lax discipline, and never said that. A good school needs rules and strong discipline of course it does, but I happen to think it most productively comes from happy children who feel valued. They feel respected, so respect the school and abide by the rules, as they can see they work. It's not a ridiculous thing to strive for and personally I prefer that to a draconian system where they're terrified into behaving.
On the uniform issue, I'm not denying some schools with uniforms, etc do well - it's really not a huge deal, but a uniform in itself doesn't make a good school. How can it?

I mean discipline in exactly the same, wider sense smee: order, calmness and routines as well as firm boundaries. Without boundaries there is chaos: no different to the lives of some children. There is nothing draconian about that. Good discipline frees children: it frees them to learn.

You are the only one who mentioned terrifying children. Who has mentioned that? You have a very old fashioned view of a traditional education.

"Happy children who feel valued".. that's a kind of nothing thing to say. Well yes, everyone likes apple pie, but how are you going to bring about "happy children who feel valued"? My solution would be to show them that teachers they respect think it's worth their while to correct their work, improve their behaviour, make sure they're well presented and make sure they do their best. What's yours?

"happy children who feel valued" - we would all like children to be happy and valued, but I don't think that school alone is responsible for this, nor that school should have this as its primary goal.

Self-esteem derives from competence. Schools need to teach the skills that make for competent people.

No, school alone is not responsible for it, nor does it even have primary responsibility for it. But if it's abdicated by the parents?

I agree with you Anna re: competence and self-esteem. Very much so.

It's a fake self esteem which derives from "Well you can't do it but it doesn't matter, there are no winners or losers".

mmm, am a mite bemused by all this. stuffit, fwiw way back in the dark ages I went to a school that terrified children, and that's what I see as old fashioned, so yes maybe I am taking a darker slant than you intend. It did happen, and in some places still does and I'd hate to go back there. But actually I'm not disagreeing with you about the need for discipline? I keep saying it's important so I'm not quite sure why you keep insisting I think it's not. It's how it's achieved that I'm maybe differing with you on. + 'My solution would be to show them that teachers they respect think it's worth their while to correct their work, improve their behaviour, make sure they're well presented and make sure they do their best. What's yours?' -- well the same - yep, that sounds good to me. Honestly, I don't think we're very far apart are we? Feel free to jump on me again, but I think where I started objecting on this thread was earlier when people seemed to me to be discounting a whole swathe of the population. All I was ever trying to say is it's key to get everyone back and make them feel valued.
BSA, I think it's a pretty good primary goal isn't it, as happy children who feel valued learn far more effectively. It's been researched quite thoroughly and surely a happy child has high self esteem...?

I have a friend who didn't graduate from secondary school but got a general equivalency degree then went to a community college then a state college and then received his graduate degree from Yale. At the time of his attendance at Yale, many years ago, he was the only student to have attended a community college or to have received a G.E.D. and he was one of only a few that had attended state schools. I asked him once if there was a difference between himself and all the privately educated students, and he said absolutely-disipline. Where he would study like a beaver all week, cramming for exams and then binge/party on the weekends his fellow students, at least in his eyes, smoothly integrated the social and academic aspects of their education.

I have to say that I agree with Mrs Badger and faraday, overall, and would question how choice will be provided without over-providing and wonder what Sweden's experience has been over time with a similar program.

Broadly yes, but there's also been a fair amount written about privately educated children who have their lives very managed and organised for them by school activities/ parents running them to other things, so when they get to university some (not all), have problems with self management and depression. Private school children do seem to me to have an extraordinary amount of confidence, which is obviously great, but also has minuses too. Their expectations of life are high, as they're told they will achieve - I'm all for helping people realise their potential, but it seems to me that some times kids are set up for a fall, as surely they can't all have what they want. It's so hard to get the balance right though.

I wasn't having a pop at you Smee .. I truly find the view, that private schools succeed only because of their intake, very tiresome.

I think that's a minor crib you have there.

Take a look at private schools in big grammar areas, like Kent. A lot of them will not have the cream of the crop, because they will go to the fab grammars. But the schools bring out the best in areas other than academic and have great pastoral success.

What are the reasons for this? It is not just money and intake. Those reasons are just resentfully flung because it's something others have that we don't.