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?

IME good independent schools do teach grammar though ...

I'm sure some of them do, but I teach lots of students from good independent schools with 3 As at A-Level who don't understand how to use an apostrophe. So it's obviously not across the board.

The MD of British gas doesn't appear to understand how to use an apostrophe either (you're/your error in one of his posts tonight). No idea where he was educated, but it does show apostrophe use isn't a requirement for getting on in todays society.

There is absolutely no question, IMO, that education has been 'dumbed down' massively over the years (state and private), so I am not in the slightest bit surprised at the findings of the trainee teacher.

Children are taught to pass the exam, in a grammar school this is now aimed at passing at A*/A and no less, at GCSE certainly. If they think outside the box, or write too much, they are at risk of getting a lower grade, and they are told this.I find it quite extraordinary (and depressing).

At grammar schools, certainly, the staff have learnt to play the game, inform the pupils and, hey presto, they all get top grades now (as they do in the private sector) What about the schools where the teachers aren't prepared to inform the pupils of what they need to do, there is a possibility that there are bright pupils who aren't getting the grades they deserve, quite possibly by doing too much rather than not enough.

In very simplistic terms, I actually think if A levels (and possibly GCSEs) were made much harder it would be better for all.

Getting a string of A*s would be the exception rather than the norm (as it is becoming in many schools) and the vast majority of pupils would be in the 'average' ability and the teaching would be tailored thus. It would stop the discrepancy between the private/state sector where distinctly average pupils in some schools come out with all As and in other schools, those same 'average' pupils, come out with much lower grades. It would also stop those who really are not very academic coming out with a set of worthless GCSEs in worthless subjects, just for the sake of the league tables. Those children could actually be taught something worthwhile and useful for their futures, instead of being fooled into thinking a grade D in Tourism or something is actually equal to a grade C or above in Physics, for instance.

At the other end of the scale, there are some students getting top grades in some subjects who could easily work to a much higher standard who have been awarded the same grade as someone who has not really understood the subject but who has ticked all the right boxes and regurgitated the right facts.

At the moment the education system is failing those at the top and the bottom of the scale.

Interesting article, however the experience of someone on a placement bears little relation to being in the job, being scrutinised constantly and having to adhere to a rigid framework laid down by the govt. ofsted and your line manager/senior management team.

Good teachers work within the above and make their subject relevant and interesting. Some teachers stick to the letter of 'the law' and are curriculum delivery operators rather than teachers.

Parents should bear some responsibility for this. How many parents judge a school based on the headline pass rates - and then go on to complain that kids are being taught to pass tests?!

I just think that is wrong, I am mindful of the fact that many of my students want, expect to get A/A* but I do not teach solely to the exam. I would be in trouble if I did.

I often teach beyond what is exoected from the exam syllabus, I do however think much more should be expected to get an A*, so there we may be in agreement.

For example with my GCSE group at the moment I am looking at the problem of evil. A fair few of the students had an interest in Freud. For the exam they probably only need to know a few points, but as my second degree is psychology and they were interested we spent a lesson discussing Freud. This will not improve their exam results but it will broaden their education and enable them to pursue an interest.

Last week we were looking at the case of Loeb and Leopold and they were fascinated by Nietzsche so next week we will be looking at his ideas and how they have been applied. This is not even on the exam syllabus, although I can help them make it relevant.

I know that exam results are important, my students need them and sadly in this day and age of league tables and intenet searches so does my school.

I don't however feel I am sucessful if I enable a pupil to get an A* but he has no interest in what he has studied and will never look at it again. I would rather a student achieved a b but insteasd they had a passion in their bellies for learning and left my room wanting to know more.

On Friday at the start of my lesson I had students at my desk wanting to share with me what they had found out following on from our previous lesson. One even had a book for me to read from her Dad! On the way out one stopped and said "Thanks Miss for a great lesson, I had never thought of things in that way before but my head hurts" That means much more to me than a student flashing an A* exam script at me.

I note that one of the lessons disparagingly referred to in the article involved a science lesson with the pupils 'being' particles. I do that. I model (or get my pupils to model) everything I possibly can in Science. Even, or indeed especially, my A level students. I always tell them that a 2D static picture is a limited representation. It's not new. It's how I learned Science at school. And I'm pretty old...

I thought that about the science lesson as well TFM. Infact when I was teaching Aristotle to my year 8s we did something similar.

Are you a science specialist TFM?

Science and Psychology.

Good good. Because in a lesson last week a student asked me about Newton's Law of Inertia. They said it proved that you do not need an external force to make something move and therefore the cosmological argument was invalid.

Is this correct?

i think you don't need Newton to invalidate the Cosmoligal Argument.

Biologist

Anyway...

Did Newton have a Law of inertia ? Is the student thinking of Galileo? Newton's first law is that an object in a state of uniform motion will remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. So to make something move (from stationary) you need a force. To stop something that is moving from moving you need a force.

I'm assuming the cosmological argument is RE and not Physics?

No I don't either, but she mentioned it and bamboozled me. She is studying physics so I have sent her away to quiz her physics teacher.

Yes it is an RE lesson.

I said that it is possible to refer to Newton's law to say that to male something move from stationary you need a force and a Christian would say that this would support the idea of a prime mover.

The student then said what about the Law of Inertia Miss. I looked up tot the heavens and no inspiration came.

I may ask my grandad he is a physicist.

this article is a highly partial piece - some of the methods she describes in tones of disbelief i actually think sound quite fun so long as other 'serious' teaching is also done...

maybe she could re-title it 'i was right, everyone else was wrong.'

and you can still set according to ability in a comprehensive school, what she is railing against is mixed-ability lessons, which she has deliberately conflated with comprehensive schools.

i too think mixed ability teaching is a bad idea in secondary school. but even then i wouldn't charcterise it all as being as she describes - she has taken a single school and made out all are like that!

al three of the comps i went to were vastly better than that....(even though 2 of them have since closed and re-opened as academies..mwah hah hah..)

LELB- when you say 'being scrutinised constantly and having to adhere to a rigid framework laid down by the govt. ofsted and your line manager/senior management team' I think you mean that this is what happens when you ARE in the job, and not training.

If so, I feel (as a PGCE student) scrutinised constantly. I am, literally, watched during almost every lesson I teach. And I have to adhere to a very set way of doing things (e.g. every lesson has to have a starter, even if I feel it's not really appropriate for the topic).

Apologies if you meant it the other way around.

Completely agree with Wilf.

To the author/gobsmacked2 - you misspelled 'practise' in your essay.

You are scrutinised constantly as a student teacher and I think that is what LELB means.

As a teacher I don't feel under scrutiny at all, even when I was inspected by OFSTED last week I taught in a way I wanted to and do normally.

Oh I do hope so.

I'm sick of being watched and scrutinised all the time. I can't wait to have my own classes and own routines with no one looking on disapprovingly or feeling totally self-conscious.

For anyone who couldn't use my original link, sorry, and here's a link to the Reader online website. The PGCE article is the second one on that page - so you need to scroll down a bit.

thereaderonline.co.uk/category/the-reader-magazine/the-reader-35/

I think you stop being bothered as well. I teach with my door open , so people can see and hear what I am doing. Colleagues pop in and out, people ask to come and watch me all the time. It just does not bother me and I don't see it as being negative.

I am an AST, with many years of teaching experience and many, many outstanding lessons over the years (OFSTED rated and in-school PM observations) BUT recently, with the scrutiny of results etc I feel as if I am teaching in a goldfish bowl - and it has stopped being fun. I used to love being observed; now I feel as if 'they' are just waiting to catch me doing something wrong, so they can say 'so THAT'S why they're not all getting A stars / or Cs (when they came in below L2!).

I am sure that is not the case at all Janeite. I like being the centre of attention so love being observed.

This is why many of us pay for the best schools and of course parents can do a lot at home. My parents were great at talking about words and their meanings and for some reason one of my 11 year olds has suddenly become a little grammar policeman which rather pleases me. His late granny would be very proud and she taught classes of 40 children after the war in poor bits of Newcastle and felt they were all good enough to know how to speak and write correctly.

It is low expectation that you can get in some state schools (and indeed some comprehensive useless private ones) and high expectations and standards that you can get in the better private schools. I want the children to be stretched. I want them to sing in latin and indeed learn it. I want things to be hard for them and for them to get red marks on their work and know if they're doing well or badly, within reason and I want them to achieve the best they can. I am not sure my local comp which gets 37% A- C in proper GCSEs compared with 99% A/A* of my daughter's school really does stretch all children anything like enough.

If you do not have to deal with low level disruption, Morosky, you are unbelievable unusual and rather fortunate/gifted.

Thanks Morosky. Maybe I'm just feeling paranoid!

Xenia - compare the starting levels of pupils at your local comp with the private and look at the CVA before you make assumptions based purely on levels.

Re: disruption - I'm in an inner-city comp in an extremely deprived area, with low GCSE results - but I get very, very little disruption in my classes. Have taught in other schools that were 'better' in terms of results but nowhere near as pleasant places to teach in.