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?

Snorkie - I think he has plenty of time left to change his mind, and has talked about swapping Latin for Art. Geology is an AS level rather than a GCSE, but they do it instead of one of their GCSE options.

For all I know, he could completely change his mind. Having sent him to a school where a lot of the choices are made for him (having to do a MFL for example), I don't want to choose his options for him. I would rather he made his own decisions, as I was not allowed to at his age.

I really feel that I have hijacked this thread.

I agree they need to make their own mistakes choices and I'd be really tempted by the geology too - especially if there are any good field trips involved. Spread at GCSE's probably not too critical in the long run, unless he wants to do something uber-competative, but I'm slightly surprised that a good grammar would allow a narrow choice like that.

He's likely to do better if he's happy too.

Threads are for hijacking aren't they? But to attempt to get it back on track I'll say that the only piece of GCSE English coursework DS has shown me (after the second revision) bore little resemblance to the 'conventional' English essay I was taught at school. When I gently suggested that perhaps it needed an introduction & conclusion summarising what he was going to say & relating it all to the title better he told me they'd been told GCSE examiners didn't like that. So he handed it in as was & scored very highly I beleive (I'm fairly certain that it wasn't the product of a cloze activity though).

You do know that they will all be fine anyway, don't you? Geology or cookery or whatever? And all this angst will have been for nothing?

I hope so quattro! I'm actually worried dd is veering towards a too difficult set that doesn't play to her strengths & that she's unlikely to gain good grades at. But if it's what she wants to do...

It is a good point about what the school allows.

A major part of wanting him to go to the school was that I didn't want to have to be in charge of DS and his education; I wanted him to be in a school that I could trust so that I didn't spend my whole time worrying over and attempting to organise his education, revision etc. I suspect that he will receive guidance on GCSEs from the school, and they will have a degree of control over subject combinations.

I find English to be a mystery; maybe an English teacher can come on and shed some light on how they are meant to approach work. DS is told to write every paragraph as PEE - point, evidence, explanation. I have heard no mention of conclusions and introductions. But I try to ramble on here rather than interfere in real life.

"But I try to ramble on here rather than interfere in real life." - It's the best way I think.

No idea about the English, but ds used PEE a lot too & from that one piece of work he showed me (which was probably his best, as he seemed very proud of it) the analysis they do is well beyond what was needed to get an A at O-level in 'the old days' (which I managed using a formulaic approach, so the standards can't have been that high even then). So I'm not completely persuaded that standards have slipped (it may be easier to get a grade C nowadays though).

"PEE" (I've never heard this expression before though I am extremely well acquainted with the concept) sounds like an excellent tool to teach children when they are learning to write essays. This is how children will need to communicate in later life, once they are thrown to the wolves in RL and the working world.

50% of students at good universities come from private schools?!!!! What utter tosh!

Even Cambridge has 57% of its intake from the state sector. Bristol is over 60% state educated, UCL and LSE around 65%. Plenty of other good-quality institutions have much higher rates than this (Surrey, Sussex, Liverpool).

If the state sector is so bad then obviously it must be admitting uber-bright children that are able to go to good universities despite the apparent crapness of the entire system.

But surely, Unis should have 96% from the state sector to reflect the population at large?

Litchick - yes that would be true if the academic ability of those entering private secondary was broadly similar to the academic ability of those entering the state sector (and actually some of the post-92 i.e. ex-polys do have that percentage).

But, almost by definition, those in the private system are going to have more academic ability due to both their genes and environment, than those in the state system.

However I believe wholeheartedly that having the type of background and ability that most private school pupils have, but going to a state secondary (caveat - not a truly awful sink one, just one that's at least bog-standard) will still enable a child to go to a good university if they want. And the statistics I quoted back that up.

Dc's ordinary state sector school have got 5 into oxbridge over the last 2 or 3 years and are nudging ds in that direction. It's a hugely improved school going from a sink school less than 10 years ago to one of the best performing schools in our area and consequently attracting higher performing pupils.
Although the current 6th form would have started when it was still a very low performing school.

PEE sounds dreadful.

LOL at Swedington MN's resident reactionary

Bonsoir

Kathy (if you're still here) - I am sure that DS1 would come out of the Grammar School with excellent GCSEs and A levels, I just don't think that's enough.

What sells the private school to me is the enthusiasm surrounding everything there, rather than the impression being given "we're a state school with limited resources, your son will do well academically, what more can you ask of us?" which is what I have had for 7 years in the state primary that he currently attends. I think the exam syllabuses (syllabi?) are so weakened now that they just aren't enough of an education by themselves. This school does a lot of IGCSEs and seems less interested in teaching to the tests, more interested in actual education in all its forms.

Why do state schools use so many acronyms?

Gosh yes, heaps more advantages in the private sector than just better exam rsults. I'm not even sure I pay for better exam results. There are grammars in Bucks etc I could use if that was what mattered only.

Yes some universities might have more than 50% from the state sector but my 50% is not that wrong and I don't by the way count Sussex etc as in the very best. Roughly 50% is not too bad to work on, obviously ignore ex polys. I haven't done research and I did have a child at Bristol but it is certainly not 94% from the state sector and given a lot of private schools are for pretty dull not very clever children (the rich have children with low IQs by the way from time to time) I don't see why the proportion at good universities isn't as reflective of state school proportions etc as we had in the 1960s with grammar schools. The reason must be that grammar schools worked to help clever poor chidlren out of poverty and state comps have failed.

English teacher here, as requested

Point Evidence Explanation is a standard teaching tool in English to remind students that the heart of a good or excellent essay in English Literature is one that analyses the effects of the techniques the writer uses rather than simply being able to identify them. So, for an example, a student may be able to recognise alliteration when they see it, and then quote an example of it, but that is well-nigh useless unless they can explain the effect it creates in the poem.

Asking the student to use PEE simply reminds them that if they are aiming for a grade C or above, they need to be able to analyse.

A good teacher should also be requiring introductions and conclusions still, by the way!

Sorry to correct you Xenia - but there is NO university in England that has less than 50% of entrants from the state sector. Oxford has the largest proportion of privately educated entrants - 48%. Bristol has 61.5% of it's undergraduate entrants from the state sector.

Sussex and the other smaller ones I mentioned are part of the 94 group of small research intensive universities - pretty much as good as the Russell group but smaller.

As to why the proportions aren't the same - it's fairly basic statistics really. You are looking at two different cohort types, one with an overall average ability - a standard bell curve (some poor academically, most in the middle, and some bright) the other with an overall high acaemic ability - a very skewed bell curve (a very few poor, or thick as you like to say Xenia , some average, but most bright).

(its not it's and fewer nor less by the way - the bits above making me wince)

48 is nearly 50%. It's pretty good isn't it? The private schools do so very well and those of us lucky to be able to pay tend to feel it's worth it. It also ensures the individual child is more likely to go to a good university if most of the chidlren in your class are doing so. A friend's child at a state school went to an ex poly recently. She got some of the best A levels in the comprehensive. her father is clever. He should be able in 2 second internet searching to know given the career she's picked it hugely matters if you're at an ex poly or not but the school and he have either not told her or peer presssure is so high that she wants to follow her friends to the ex poly. I think if you buy a good privaet school place you can ensure the whole cohort is going to decent places given how much peer pressure matters at teenage stage.

Don't agree about the curve entirely. There are plenty of private schools who do good value added for the less bright child.

I understand that if you strip state grammars and private schools out you have even fewer children at good universities. Haven't looked up that stats for that.

I also notice that more people from private schools seem to speak and write better.

Happy to be corrected on the points of pedantry Xenia - the perils of multi-tasking at work (Russell Group if you must know!).

Your friend's child was daft, as was the father. Most parents I know understand what is and what isn't the right institution, and I have a good knowledge of the whole thing from a professional pov.

Totally agree there will be good private schools for value added. There are good state ones for value added too. But the academic intake curve for privately educated children is definitely skewed - no children from sink estates at our nearby boarding school! That will also explain the fact that privately educated people tend to speak and write better - generally they're brighter.

But that doesn't mean that someone from a state school can't also speak and write well, and go to Oxford (52% of their intake of course manage it), have a city-type career, be well read in the classics etc etc etc. And their parents could use the fees they would have been paying to fund ski trips, music lessons, pensions, university costs etc!

Xenia has pretty much just listed my gcse's..which were from a comp...(though i did greek , never got the gsce in latin..)

more traditional comps still do pretty much what they've always done...they offer eg. media studies for those that want, but its far fro compulsorary...

smallwhitecat...
my sister works as a prep school teacher. For years she has been telling me that very average students in private schools will within a couple of years be outperforming the brightest children in the state sector. She found it abhorrent that the state system was failing so many bright children in the state sector. She also highlighted that state education in northern cities (where we grew up) was markedly worse than state education were she now lives and teaches (Bucks/Herts).
The state system is much worse now than when I was at school. Then we had streaming, good behaviour and aspiration.
Not like today where children seem to be lost in a homogenised state system thats not catering for the very bright or not so bright and thus is failing both.
Ofsted recently produced a report outlining how Bright children are being failed by the system.
No surprise to me as I see my very bright DSD languishing in a sink school in a northern inner city...

Xenia "(its not it's and fewer nor less by the way - the bits above making me wince)"

Do you mean fewer not less?