The glass ceiling for very able children

[var123]

Has anyone else encountered the sense that the school is merely paying lip service to the ideals that they will challenge all children and work to bring all the children in the class to their potential?

I bumped along it a couple of days ago in a face to face conversation with one of the teacher's at my children's secondary.

He was full of buzzwords (like resilience and challenge) but there was a complete vacuum when it came to detail about how he planned to achieve that wrt to my children. In fact, he kept lapsing into telling me how my DC might help the others "by inspiring the less able".

Honestly, has there ever been a human being born into this world, who feels inspired to keep ploughing away at something due to being in the presence of someone who learned to do it without breaking stride?? People who struggle and then succeed are the inspiring ones because they make you feel like if you can do it, then maybe you can too. The ones who always find it easy and are just waiting for you to catch up so they can move on are just disheartening to contemplate.

Fri 15-Jan-16 23:08:01
Fri 15-Jan-16 22:30:01
Fri 15-Jan-16 22:13:47

etc

Here's another one:-
BertrandRussell Thu 14-Jan-16 22:03:03
"But BetrandRussell, why would you want a poor, but very able, child to get an A so that another child could get his C?"

If that is the trade off, then yes. There are very few doors that can be opened by an A* that cannot be equally opened by an A. The same cannot be said about a C and a D.

So when I say that the move from a D to a C for a child is a much more significant and useful move than the move from an A to an A* and when you read my post of 08.43 this morning, you actually think I'm saying "I hate clever kids and want to deprive them at all costs"

Right.

I am not going back over any more of them because they irritate me. You know what you views are, and they are strongly held. You clearly think you are right, but I wonder if the parents whose children's education that you are trying to influence would have the same views?

I am not saying they wouldn't. But I personally would not like my child to be at risk of implementation of the attitudes that you describe. It would only do them harm. But then you know that.

I think you are saying that the needs of the less able trump those of the more able every time. How you feel about kids who are more able than your least able child, I do not know.

"I think you are saying that the needs of the less able trump those of the more able every time. How you feel about kids who are more able than your least able child, I do not know."

I don't understand the second sentence.

You said "hate". That is an emotion / a feeling. I don't know how you "feel".

Haven't got time to rtft but I would love the governors at my kids school to have values like bertrand

I say this as the mother of two very academically able children.

and I'd hate it, although i expect some of the teachers would agree with her. The HoD for maths, for example (as per my OP).

"You said "hate". That is an emotion / a feeling. I don't know how you "feel"."

I said "hate" because what I picked up from you was that you think I have a problem with academically able children.

There are loads of children who are more able than mine. Many of their friends are more able than they are. Of the ones I know, some I like, some I don't. Because some of them are nice, and good friends and some of them aren't. Just like the children who are less able than them.

Var- I have several times explained what I think about this subject and why. Please could you explain why you think my approach would "do children harm"

I think you've found a straw man there that you are trying to knock down. You raised the subject of how you feel about more able children. not me. I have not commented on how you feel about those children except to say I couldn't know.

I raised an objection about how you would seek to disadvantage them in favour of the less able.

Because you would choose to deny them access to teaching in favour of providing additional resources to the less able.

How is that not obvious?

Sorry, I took your comment "you would always seek to deprive anyone who you perceive as being clever?" as meaning you thought I had some sort of personal issue with clever children. It certainly read that way to me. If that's not what you meant, I apologise and withdraw.

I don't think anyone has said they would deny the more able access to teaching. You said that a teacher was taken off your child's KS3 class to provide extra support for year 11s. I asked if they were in fact providing cover in case of teacher absence, as I am myself at the moment. Even if it was as you describe, that is not depriving the more able to benefit the less able, it is prioritising year 11 classes at the expense of other classes. Pragmatism is required when allocating resources, because schools have limited resources. Then it became a bit "skiving teachers" and I switched off a bit..l

"Because you would choose to deny them access to teaching in favour of providing additional resources to the less able."

OK- I'll try one last time. In a world of limited resources, the goal is to use what resources are available to open as many doors to as many kids as possible. Presumably everyone agrees so far?

If a school has to choose-which they do- then I would much rather my child got an A in say, English, rather than an A and another child got a C rather than a D. Because a) my child has the mental and physical resources to push that A a up to an A if he wants to. b) there are very few doors that can be opened by an A* that can't be opened by an A c) there are a million doors that are slammed shut in the face of kids who don't get a C in English. Which is bad for everyone.

TheFallenMadonna - my example wasn't supposed top be describing prioritising the least able for the more able, not least because it would have been a false argument anyway since its a mixed ability class that lost their teacher.

That's the thing with these sort of threads, they meander a bit. The thread has evolved again but what was being discussed at that point was robbing Peter to pay Paul (or "sacrificing" the needs of one group to supplement assistance to another). Someone said it existed. Someone said it didn't. I offered a real-life example to prove that it does happen, and quite frequently too.

I understand your point very well, BertrandRussell. I can see the problem, but I don't agree with the solution.

If I had 10 children - all my flesh and blood - and it goes without saying that I would love them equally. Suppose 1 was in the lowest 15% by IQ, 1 was in the top 15% and the rest were ranged at regular intervals in the "average" space in between. I would share whatever resources (time, money) I had equally between all 10 children. If I had anything left over, I'd look to see whose need was the greatest. I wouldn't deprive the most able one or two in favour of the least able one or two.

So, you see, I just fundamentally disagree with your approach.

If you divided everything you had between your 10 children you wouldn't have anything left as extra for the one with greatest need

I don't love the children I teach. So my allocation of resources comes from a different motivation.

It was a long time ago, but I remember when my mother (brain the size of a planet, awesomely culturally literate, then an old-school remedial teacher) was thrilled-to-bits because that very poor boy with uneducated, illiterate parents got to Cambridge.

I remember that decades later, even the boy’s first name, because she talked about them many times and how that had a positive impact on the lowest-of-the-lowest achieving children she exclusively taught i.e. it created some universal hope which rippled right through a school packed with the underclass.

This anecdote is probably too subtle for a 21st century intent on paving the road to hell.

Would you really divide everything equally? If your resources were limited and finite, would you not give more to the ones whose need was greatest? My children are very different people and have very different needs. When I had two at school, one of them was very confident about school work and could just get on with it- the other needed lots of encouragement and support. It would have been bonkers of me to say "I will give you equal amounts of my available homework helping time because that's what's right" when that meant that one got help they didn't need and the other missed out.

Fallen Madonna - and your motivation is what? What do you mean to achieve for each person that you teach?

In your situation (which isn't dis-similar to mine in terms of having to nag one more than the other), I'd give them both the same amount of attention until one of them had all his homework done, and he'd taken care to do the best he can. All that time the other one gets the same amount of attention. When there's nothing more to do for the first one, the second one continues to get the same attention he got before, plus the bit that the first one doesn't need since he's watching tv now.

B&R please read what I wrote yesterday morning about medicine. The difference between an A or an A* DOES matter, please don't pretend it doesn't. Otherwise we will be in a position of all the people with power and Influence having been exclusively privately educated. Which is no good for Society.

bert thats great that from the many advantages your dc have, you're happy to give away a grade. But you seem to be ignoring the fact that not every able child has all those other advantages. And that not every lower achiever is disadvantaged in other ways.

You also fail to understand it isn't really about the end grade. Its about able children not becoming disaffected with education, never learning to try in school, never taking their education further than school because a love of learning has turned into boredom.