Comprehensive school teaching - is it really this bad?

[jackstarbright]

I have just found this very disturbing article published in the Reader a few months ago. It's Gabriella Gruder-Poni's essay, 'Scenes from a PGCE'. here.

It provides one woman's view of teaching methods in a comprehensive school. Any comments?

Fascinating - thanks for posting.
I am sure it can be that bad, but no idea how widespread it might be. What worries me is the fact that she alludes to the school being considered one of the best in the area.

I would be interested to know more about the the author is - her background, what she's up to these days, where she did her PGCE etc?

Hi creditcrunched. Your reaction was the same as mine. I googled her and she now seems to be an academic. The article was reviewed by Boyd Tonkin in the Independent.here.

His review starts 'You don't, while browsing in a literary magazine, expect to have your heart broken....' Disturbing stuff even if (lets hope) not too widespread!

very interesting thanks for posting.

Like credit crunched, I would want a better explanation of what the author means by the article being about one of the best schools in the area. Is this meausered by "value added" - which could go some way to explain the apparently high levels of "functional illiteracy" referred to.

I do not accept that this is a top performing comprehensive - the school my DCs go to has 80%+ getting five good GCSEs inc maths & english.

As an academic it is probably in her interest to publish papers such as these which enable her to increase her public profile, sadly being done at the expense of a whole raft of schooling which in many cases does a wonderful job of educating and preparing its young people for the responsibilities of adulthood.

Rant over.....

I am seeing some of this sort of ideology with my DCs in primary school. Teachers subconciously (?) working to some sort of checklist about what constitutes ability. Not looking at what the child wants to express, a too rigid framework with no chance for a creative child to go 'off script'. Not seeing the bigger picture. Not having enough time to do what they'd like because they have to 'obey' the NC 'rules'.

My read of the article is that the other teachers were too insecure about their own abilities (?) to actively listen to what she had to say.

Although I agree with her argument, could she be seen as a bit of an intellectual snob? Surely pictures and celebrities have a place? They might be a starting point? Things have moved on.

I've seen in my DC's school that they are given targets which they can easily reach so self esteem isn't damaged. We were given impossibly difficult essays on Trollope in English Literature at 16 plus, I thought I couldn't possible manage but I got there. My teachers believed in me and I began to believe in myself.

I had to go in with no texts to do my mock A level English exam. I obviously had to have a very good working knowledge of all our texts to do myself justice in the exam.

In the late 1980s I remember seeing this question on Barchester Towers:

'The world of Trollope's novels has been described as a 'solid beef and a pudding' world. What do you think the critic meant, and is this an apt comment on 'Barchester Towers'?

When my teacher marked our essays she had no guidelines to cross reference against. She used her professional judgement to mark our work, were we answering the question? Could we back up our suggestions? I was scared when I saw this question but I knew I'd done my homework so planned the essay, really thought and off I went.

My fear is that you'd be taught in a much more dull way these days and this question would be seen as too difficult to set.

In the mid 50s, to pass O'level English children were expected to know what words like 'loquacious' were and put them in sentences to illustrate their meaning.

We've dumbed down a lot academically, it's about teaching things that are more relevant to every day life I believe. Does it matter if 16 year olds don't know who Chaucer was?

What's wrong with giving out a book list? How could this possibly be offensive to anyone? Reading is how you get a good vocab as she says.

Also what's wrong with doing a presentation on Sean Connery? If you're passionate about him, why not? Pictures of the young Sean would brighten up my day

By the way I was in a bog standard comp but we had some brilliant and inspiring teachers. I can remember not thinking I had the ability for S level English and they kept on at me to give it a go....

The trick of course is to nod, smile, toe the line and get your PGCE. Then get your job and teach as you want to, with nods to the appropriate bits of the NC that you have to hit. Subversion from the inside works!

in answer to your question - no, it's often worse.

As an English secondary school teacher I found myself getting defensive as I began to read but being completely honest her experiences are not so surprising.

Although many schools are not as bad as she describes, I think that the ethos she describes - dumbing down; not expecting too much, not extending the more able - is very common in secondary education. The way the NC is structured and the way textbooks are written do not explain and clarify things. I am aware that my own subject (modern languages) has terrible textbooks, which leads to a lack of understanding of how to form a sentence correctly and how to talk about anyone other than yourself!

I home educate my own 3 and my 8 year old DD has Spanish skills on a par with and above the 13/14 year olds that I teach at school! Not because she is more intelligent, just because I have taught her logically from the start.

I too have seen this defensive teacher attitude - at dd's primary school. I faced up to the head and suggested that the children were introduced to some classical or traditional music, instead of just listening to current pop music. Crikey, you'd have thought I'd suggested bringing back the cane. I was given some nonsense about classical music being elitist and that the children couldn't "access" it. Now that's what I call a bad attitude.

I just don't get this thing amongst some teachers that raising the bar equals snobbery and exclusivity.

On another subject, I was talking to a young friend who has just started doing English Language A Level. She said she was really enjoying it, as they were learning about persuasive language and studying The Apprentice. I asked how much time was devoted to studying English - ie advanced grammar - and she said NONE!!!! No English grammar in English Language A Level !!!!!! Who dreamt this up?!

I find this disturbing:

On one occasion a teacher held up a handout I had prepared. ?What?s wrong with this?? I couldn?t
answer. ?It?s all text!? she exclaimed.

Can it really be true that many year 9s (?) don't know all the letters in the alphabet? etc:

My supervisor never elaborated, but soon I came to see that many students did indeed have desperate
needs: about one third of them could barely read. Before my year in a comprehensive school I hadn?t understood what functional illiteracy was; I?d never
imagined that there were so many intermediate stages between not reading and reading.8 But many of my students were mired in a twilight zone between literacy
and illiteracy: they knew the letters of the alphabet (if not always their order); they could sound out most monosyllables; and they could understand short, simple
sentences consisting of short, simple words. Anything beyond that and they were at sea. This meant that anything that might engage their interest was too difficult, or at least, too difficult to be enjoyable, and so they fell further and further behind.

Can this be so:

But I dealt with professionals from two
universities and three schools, and everywhere I encountered the same poisonous
combination of classism and anti-intellectualism.

I agree with this:

Around this time I spoke to an Italian friend who was volunteering as a homework helper with a
Catholic organisation that had brought to Italy a number of war orphans from the Congo. One of
these orphans was a particularly eager student, so she was placed in one of the best high schools in
the city. She was doing well in Italian and Latin, but needed help with Ancient Greek. No one stopped
to ask, ?When will she ever need this?? She might become a poet, a translator, or a teacher, in Italy or
the Congo, or she might not, in which case her study of Greek will have been what it was always
meant to be ? an excellent mental exercise, and the key to another world.

Thanks so much for posting, interesting, thought provoking stuff.

scaryteacher, I hope there are lots like you!

gramercy we didn't study grammar at English A level either? (An excuse I sometimes use about the standard of mine)! 50% of our marks were on an unseen language paper, we had to talk about an essay or poem etc, an the other 50% on literature.

I would like to see the 'rules' of language logically taught and the rest of the subject delivered creatively.

Interesting this - I do sincerely hope that this is not as good a comprehensive as the author seems to suggest. Or perhaps it is just good from an Ofsted perspective, which IMO means nothing.

I have to say though that the experience of the author echoes my DH's stories about his working class comprehensive - things like the lack of ambition and the total disregard for those who wanted to learn beyond a C grade at GCSE. Hence I can actually believe a lot that has been said on there. However, from the article it is impossible to surmise whether this applies to all comprehensives (I sincerely hope not!).

Doesn't so much of it depend on the quality of the teacher?

If you've got someone passionate, well educated, committed, etc then they will want to empower the children in their care to question, debate and so get better at their subject.

This is truly shocking,I have to say that this article does back up a lot of things that I hear from various other sources.

Two of my friends have just done their PGCEs. They are both in their late 40s and were profoundly shocked by the experience; especially by the attitude of their own tutors. I would add that both of them felt a lot better once they got into schools and actually started teaching children.

There was a story on the Today programme earlier in the year about a 17 year old boy who was having terrible problems. He couldn't get a good job, and he couldn't go to college because he couldn't read properly. However, he had just got 7 GCSEs! His school had got him through just so they could say that they had attained their target, and then just spat him out at the end. He had qualifications, but no actual education.

JeffVadar what grades did this boy get? I think A-G is a pass?

Cortina - I don't remember off hand. I will see if I can find a reference to the story online though. My computer keeps freezing, so everything takes ages.

Really interesting comments - thank you.

I agree that the school described can't be an example of a 'good comprehensive'. Although, I still find it disturbing that this attitude would exist in education at all.

Gabriella Gruder-Poni appears to give up on the idea of being a teacher early in her training. But that, and her educational background (school in Italy and US, and Oxford Uni) gives a unique perspective to her observations.

I was a bit confused by the wide ability range she was teaching. Is that because comprehensive schools don't stream for English?

Thanks again for your comments,

Jack

I wrote the article. I'm glad people are reading it! I'm posting to answer some of the questions that people have raised.

My stories are drawn from experiences (as an observer or intern) at three schools; they feature no fewer than nine teachers ? which is to say everyone with whom I worked long term, and some whose classes I visited only once or twice. In the schools as in the university, there was no alternative to what I describe. The school I was in for my longest placement, and the source of most of my scenes, is in the top 25 percent of schools for five or more grades at A* to C, including English and maths; 69% of students achieved that level in 2009, down from 73% in 2008. According to OFSTED it "provides its students with an outstanding education." Mr. B, whom I quote on p. 7 ? "This will get them a C at GCSEs, which is all they need to do what they want to do in life" ? is head of English at the school.

As jackstarbright suggests, the schools I worked in did not stream for English.

I changed the names of my supervisors because I didn?t want the article to seem like a personal vendetta.

Mr. F., quoted on p. 1, "They'll never need those words," and throughout the article, runs the PGCE in English at the University of P? and taught nearly all sessions; he has been chair of the Department of Educational Studies Teaching Committee, vice-chair of the National Association for the Teaching of English, and was for several years UK representative to the International Federation for the Teaching of English. He is a consultant with the Secondary National Strategy, and an external examiner at three universities.

The University of P?'s PGCE programme is widely considered one of the very best in the country; in the most recent OFSTED inspection it was awarded ?the highest grades in all categories for every subject and for management and quality assurance." It was ranked in the top five in the league table published by the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham.

Mr. ?, quoted on p. 15, used to run the PGCE programme at the University of D?, and is now head of the Faculty of Education at that university; in addition, he is external examiner at four universities. D? also has a large and very well-regarded PGCE programme: it was deemed "very good with many outstanding features" by OFSTED, and is also in the University of Buckingham?s top 5.

I grew up in New York and in Italy, and moved back to New York right after the PGCE. I am not an academic, though I have taught in universities and continue to do so on a part-time basis, as an adjunct. (Believe me, it's not a career!) Currently my youngest students are eleven years old. I am lucky to have taught, since the PGCE, in institutions that expect a great deal from their students, regardless of their backgrounds.

Readers might also be interested in these posts from various sources. (The links are probably dead by now.)

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4486306.stm:

My stepson is supposed to be an above average-GCSE candidate and yet when he had English coursework from the school, essays appeared to require just filling in the blanks. A sheet was provided with a sentence followed by room for him to write in a line or sometimes two lines of his own text. They were even directed to the lines in the book/play that were needed. When he couldn't work out what was needed to fill in the gap I quizzed him about the plot and he wouldn't know. He hadn't even read all the book/play.
A school can legally use this scaffolding technique but yet the pupils therefore don't actually have to know anything. It wasn't like that in my day, although I believe we were the last year to get 100% coursework for English Literature GCSE due to cheating! I personally don't believe that any child who hands in an essay that has been "scaffolded" should achieve an A or B grade - what credit should a child get who has achieved an A grade without scaffolding?
Bec, south Wales

news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/merit-based-pay-for-teachers/#comments:

June 18th,
2007
9:38 am
...I am all for rewarding teachers for good work, but the manner in which this is done needs to be carefully considered. I used to work as a teacher in the US and now work in the UK. We have performance based pay related to student achievement that is measured on standardized tests and a coursework system that is ?moderated? externally by an exam board. I, my department and my school are all judged on those results. I am encouraged to ?bump up? grades on pieces of coursework that can?t be moderated and I spend my time making kids rewrite every piece of work that doesn?t meet their target grade. It is miserable for them and miserable for me. I often feel that I am even misleading society by coaching students so that they achieve grades on written work that I know they would never achieve on their own. I actually would prefer not to have the performance related pay and maintain my integrity as a teacher. However, as my school and department are also judged, I get a lot of pressure from above...
? Posted by Teaching Overseas

MarkHoward - 10:58pm Dec 22, 2004 GMT (# 120 of 121)

Far worse than anything Prince Charles may have said about people not getting ideas above their station, I heard from two right-on school teachers.

We were giving our time to help Coventry Trades Council celebrate its 100th anniversary.

One of the trades unionists said, "let's sponsor a debate between schools about the role of unions today".

The teachers piped up: "Ooh, can't have debates. Elitist. Grammar schools and all that."

I was gobsmacked. "What about Ben Tillet," I asked, "the shoemaker whose eloquent speeches inspired the London dockers? What's so wrong about learning to speak and inspire people? Don't working class kids have the right to be taught to communicate?"

There was silence from the right-on teachers. They were not the first or the last enemies of knowledge that I met in the teaching trade. But they were enemies of talent, enemies of aspiration, enemies of children.

[from a comments board on The Guardian's website]

It's largely not a portrait of English teaching at secondary that I recognise, thankfully, but I do recognise some of the ethos.

My year 7 this week have spent a happy hour with their spelling books and thesaurus extending their vocabulary. They know about main and subordinate clauses & fronted adverbials too

But I do think there is a common SMT mode of operation where results are everything and it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you do which can lead to a mechanistic approach.

The GCSE examiners' official feedback criticises the heavy scaffolding of students' essay responses where a whole class can all have the same opening sentence to every paragraph. Extensive spoon-feeding of students' work on a large scale must therefore happen widely in schools.

Pressure to get the A*-C results and simply the sheer amount of material that must be covered has led to explicit teaching to the examination.

There is at SMT reluctance to let students fail i.e. fall below C and, in my school, the demands are significantly higher.

Quite simply the students have been given a target, and, by hook or by crook, I am to ensure they meet or exceed it. I am held to account if they do not and have to provide a written account to say what I am doing for each individual student who is below target. Lazy swine is not an acceptable answer but giving up every lunchtime to 'help' them craft their essay is .

It totally skewed and not the way to foster a love of the subject but I do my damnedest to do so within the confines that I work.

Hmmm!

I'm rather agreeing with the stuff about not reading sufficiently demanding texts; I've just rebelled & spent half a term on 'Lord of the Flies' with my average ability year 9s - which has been a triumph.

The author of this piece is clearly providing a personal response to a limited & personal experience, though, & it'd be naive to extrapolate too widely...some of us do fight against that sort of cynicism.

I would echo Heated's comments re: SMT's expectations - we have a culture where you jolly well get everyone Cs for all coursework. In many cases, this effectively means 'annotating' a grade E first draft with 'suggestions' that, when dutifully reproduced in the second draft, miraculously produce a C grade piece of work.

I also do my damnedest to foster a love of my subject. It isn't helped when you DON'T scaffold an essay for super bright year 10s, & they subsequently achieve Bs - which means you'll spend 2 years teaching them the skills they need to get As & A*s - only to get bollocked (me, not them) for not getting the As they'd have got artificially if I'd spoonfed them an essay plan.

Not a scenario I recognise at all from my dd's school. She was taught about verbs etc in primary school.

But then we don't have grammar schools in our neck of the woods- so perhaps by definition we don't have comprehensives either; all state schools have a mixed intake and imo are all the better for it. At least it means the teachers can't write the pupils off; some of them are likely to be Oxbridge material. And they are divided into sets from infants.

Very interesting gobsmacked. I have recently completed a PGCE (not in English though).

I'm surprised that English is not streamed in all secondary schools. I can see the rationale for having Y7 mixed ability, but not from Y8 onwards. The school my dd's will go to is comprehensive, but streams in all subjects, and seems to get good results.

Surely if a child needs additional help with reading and writing they should be set accordingly. In primary schools, most children are set for literacy, so why not do this in secondary schools?

I have to confess that my grasp of grammar is patchy. But I have a BSc - not a degree in English. I do wonder whether some teachers are not confident in their own grasp of grammar, and that is why it is not taught well.