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.

I know how they will be taught; I know, intimately, how teaching and learning is designed. And I don't have any daughters, dear or otherwise.

Lurked, I don't judge your choices at all. My last comment was tongue in cheek. The schools I think we need are few and far between at the moment.

How do you know, intimately, how teaching and learning is designed?

I don't understand how that is possible.

I'll also add the comprehensive we viewed that was my first choice for dd on my application sounds very much like vars. It was only knowing she had more hope of independent than an oversubscribed out of catchment (but walking distance) state that led me to pursue the former. And only hindsight that makes me realise she's better served where she is.

It doesn't have to be a whole school. One thing that happens in the States is gifted clustering, where the most able children all go to one school. In a densely populated area, there might be enough for a whole class which can go at its own pace; in more rural places that may not work, but the children a) have peers and b) there are enough of them to make it worth the school's while to do decent differentiation.

And as for academic peers - well, yes, that is always going to be an issue for someone who is by definition in a tiny, tiny minority, isn't it? Most in that situation, including the 'merely very able' (like me smile) meet them for the first time at university. Which was fine.

Wasn't fine for me; hasn't so far been that fine for DD. I'd far rather she got to be with at least a few children like her for secondary, rather than being miserable, dumbing down to fit in and potentially bullied.

"I don't understand how that is possible."

Because I have been following its progress for the past four years. Because I have interviewed the head teacher in depth on several occasions, and spoken to many of the teachers. Because I have visited to watch teaching and learning in action. Because I know many children who are already taught there. And also, because it has been part of a research study.

There's no mystery.

No doubt there is much more to discover from September, and of course, whilst I can fully understand the theory, I can't know how it will work for my children until they are there.

Wow! That's (one of the (many?) places wheer you and I differ.
I asked other parents, I read the school policy, I visited the school on open day. However, I did not tell them a year before DS1 was due to start that his IQ is x, and so what will you do in detail when he turns out to be outside of your current provision.

TBH I didn't, but I can't imagine that I would have got a useful response if I had. Even when the exam results were in front of them and it wasn't hypothetical any more, I still got a bluff about extension work and wait-and-see as the first response.

I should point out, as I realise I may be coming across as something of a nutter, that all the above research was professional, not personal. It is a very happy coincidence that this school is a stone's throw from my house - I would still know about it if my kids weren't going there.

That said, the school has an extremely open and proactive approach when it comes to reaching out to prospective parents, and do transition work with the local feeder primaries throughout Yrs 5 and 6. They already know my children, and their capabilities, really well.

Thanks for the explanation. it makes more sense now!

So, where are we? Are we agreed that it is possible to differentiate sufficiently for all levels of ability, but rare in practice for the outliers who tend to lose out when things aren't perfect?

Then we debate a little further when its agreed that there will be losers, how many losers there should be and which segment they should belong to - the more able end, the less able end or both equally deprived?

Yes, I think it is possible to differentiate sufficiently, in a model that is based on individualised teaching. I also agree it's rare in practice - but not that this has anything to do with a lack of funds.

And because I don't think it's an issue of a lack of funds, I'm not engaging with the whole 'who should sacrifice what for whom' debate, which I think is rather pointless. As things stand, children of all backgrounds, and all learning potential ranges, risk having an experience of statutory education that leaves them demoralised, stressed and/or bored, and deeply, deeply unhappy. I am not ok with that, for any child.

My DD's old primary was quite good at differentiation. They had mixed year groups so sometimes had ages ranging from 5-7 in DD's old class. Some very able pupils and some with extra needs (Down Syndrome, CP, autism and ADD).

Even with skilled and thoughtful teaching it was an extreme challenge to get it right for every pupil. We moved DD in the end to a private school. Lots for reasons for the move but she was extremely bored in the classroom.

Our DS is the extreme opposite of the learning ability from DD. We never even considered sending him to the local primary as it was clear they couldn't teach to his needs or properly accommodate his disabilities.

Children in the 'middle' of the learning ability scale seem to do better there. So yes, our experience correlates to your comment OP that for outliers, the current system doesn't really work.

multivac - just to be sure, are you saying that with current funding levels, schools should be able to differentiate sufficiently for all pupils including the outliers if they apply the individualised teaching model?

So, 2 questions:

1. Before I go back looking for it over thread (which is 14 pages now), can you tell me if you described anywhere what an individualised teaching model is?

1. In your view, why is the current situation as it is i.e. the solution is rarely applied?

Yes, that is my opinion. I have (admittedly very limited, and certainly not statistically significant) evidence.

1. No, I didn't - apart from referencing the lack of setting or streaming, and access to one-to-one tuition on demand, not simply by way of an imposed intervention.

1. It's complex, of course. But essentially, I think most people would agree that, were we trying to design a state-funding programme of statutory education from scratch, right now, we would not come up with a system anything like the one we have. However, starting over, from scratch, is unthinkable. So instead, it's a case of constant tinkering with what exists, according to political ideology; social conventions; economic policy etc. and this has been going on for centuries, with cumulative effect. One of the worst things to happen to education, imo, was the introduction by Major's government of the league tables, which are now driving change so forcefully, and with so little consideration for the young people at the heart of the process (not to mention the professionals charged with teaching them), that kids are falling through the cracks all over the place. Including the exceptionally able, yes - Potential Plus released some saddening research yesterday about the mental health of "gifted" youngsters in schools - but at all levels.

I see where you're coming from multi. Dd's primary did it very well. But it takes amazing staff, not just good, let alone indifferent or bad. And unless you have an above average cohort to start, it takes a school that doesn't care about skating close to the wind with ofsted. Hers refused to leave her bored, wouldn't hothouse dc who were genuine l3 into a false l4, wouldn't demoralise a very low achiever by attempting to teach them at a level that gained them nothing. Every child was taught as individuals, with the long term aim being their best interests, not league tables. And ofsted frequently bollocked them for it.

Yes, Ofsted gets pissed off; But some SLTs think it's worth it - and because the methods work, the results are impressive enough to keep an RI at bay. Sod the 'outstanding'; all too often it's achieved at the expense of students' best interests.

And actually, whilst you do need great teachers, I think an amazing head is more important. The school I'm talking about has superb internal CPD, and tends to recruit talented newbies and mould them according to its ethos; rarely needing to 'unteach' crap learnt elsewhere.

I've often wondered why the league tables were introduced. I didn't have any interest at all in the English education system until my children started going through it. I am Scottish btw.

Looking in from outside and not following everything move by move, I had a general impression in the 80s and 90s that politicians seemed to really like to involve themselves with what was happening in schools, that the teachers seemed highly politicised, that the results were poor in that English children were not receiving a good education.

When the league tables were introduced, it struck me (from my disinterested glance at the 9 o'clock news) that the teachers had lost the public's trust to do a good job and that the targets and league tables were a sort of industry-wide disciplinary procedure you might find at work i.e. the one when the underperforming employee has had a couple of warnings and now they are going to be closely supervised and given step by step direction and if they don't improve with all that, then the next move is the P45!

Looking back, and with a lot more interest than I had at the time, I can't think of a better explanation.

The fact is that broad brush targets have been put in place to improve educational outcomes, but have any of them worked? What we do know is that schools have played the system e.g. reluctantly giving children l3 in KS1 so that the school got the kudos for getting L5s in KS2 and no criticism for L4s.

I don't know if the public perceives that there has been an improvement in standards over the last 25 years, or whether they think that the exams have simply got easier so that each year it looks like things are improving?

There are superselectives (ds is at one) no catchment. He travels 30 miles to school. It takes over an hour each way, but we all (including him) think it's worth it.

They could put a superselective in every county town, as close to the railway station, as possible. Make the work so challenging that you wouldn't want your child there unless he/ she would actually enjoy it. Exclude the superselectives results from league tables.

It would not suit everyone. For some it would be too far, and for others, it would go against their political convictions (not new Labour politicans, obviously!) so the comprehensives would find themselves still with a few of the very bright ones that they like to overlook. However, it would mean that some children would not be let down by the system who otherwise would be.

Still

I think ss are a brilliant idea (I would) but there aren't enough and they certainly aren't well spread.
I haven't heard of any in our area it seems as though they are all in the south.
I'd like to see specialist schools for individual academic subjects, as already exist for Music, Performing Arts and Sport.

"They could put a superselective in every county town"
That's what it's like in my country. Able children can go to where they can get challenged, wherever in country you live. I wish it was like this in England.

The um.. not uninfluential Policy Exchange have promised us a report in G&T this year and were waving super-selectives around as one potential answer:

schoolsweek.co.uk/open-super-selective-schools-to-extend-elite-education-into-state-sector-says-former-gove-adviser/

I'd like to see it happen. As long as the entrance criteria are reasonably fool proof, so hot housed kids that would be perfectly well served by a normal top set aren't awarded places over gifted children with less privilege.

Or even the whole thing is fluid such that kids who turn out to have been hothoused migrate back to the comprehensives and vice versa. (like they do in the Netherlands)

I do think it should be selective for a certain subject.though

I know it would be a harder choice for a child with multi subjects they were gifted in.
However, it would be better for those with one particular gift.

If my dd had had to have passed a maths test to attend her school she'd have failed. As it is it doesn't matter she isn't too bright with maths as she is getting a fantastic opportunity to study her own subject, and is thriving with other children, some who are better than her

Vice versa seems problematic.

How does a suitable child who has languished in a low-priority, mixed-ability Y7 (like DD's except for maths) catch up with children who were allowed to fly from where they were and have been progressing at much faster pace?

Lurked

They should look at my dd school for that.
The ethos of ability and potential are carried throughout the school.
The only thing that matters is that you can show you have a future in the subject should you choose to use it.
They can spot the one's a mile away who have just passed grade 8 and have no further interest when away from mummy and Daddy.

As for talent being important over ability to pay, well this is just the same.
No expensive uniform, in fact friends in state schools pay double all our costs just for P.E uniform. certainly no expensive holidays/ trips.
I'm not saying there aren't negatives about the school but we have been most impressed by this.