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.

The teachers in the examples I gave either didn't read with the children or read so infrequently with any child that you couldn't really say that they read at all. Me and the other parents helpers did the reading with DC. Sometimes the TA did too.

The teacher did things like lead a phonics group.

The point though wasn't how much teaching time the more able learners got, it was the relative infrequency of the their assessments.

Just to say it differently:
Infrequent assessments = slowed "official" progression rate = delayed access to more challenging work

But surely nobody expects school to provide your child with all the books they need?

Alfie- I've reported your post, sorry. Nobody should ever be outed,even....

Yes.
I'm a reading helper too and it's something ive noticed.
It's why I make sure ds2 has lots of interesting books to read at home and encourage lots of reading and writing - because at school he gets a guided reading session once a week with the teacher and the rest either with the TA or someone like me (who, with the best will in the world, are not trained educators)
He has also, at 7, been helping other children with their work.
I have mixed feelings about this. My elder son has made a "learning leader" in his humanities class to help the less able children.
Again...mixed feelings.
It's good to help others but....my kids should be learning at their pace, even it's that's not the same as the other kids.
Tricky.

Badders - not at primary school. Maybe you haven't got to the end yet, but look at this link

www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/

Its the league tables.

Pick any area, any primary school. Do you see the headings?
Reading Writing Maths

These are the test results for 11 year olds at the end of Y6. By that stage no one is testing whether they can blend the sounds to make a word, or use inflection in their voice. They are talking about being able to read and understand a passage.

Similarly "writing", isn't a test to see if they can make the "d" shape whilst holding a pencil or join up the letters m-a-t. Its a test to see how well they can express their thoughts and ideas on paper.

deo has an interesting question actually.
What is your role as a parent? Is it always the right thing to push your dcs so they acheive extremely well academically or is there other sides to a person that you want to take priority?
What is the consequence of parenting a child when a lot of your focus is about excelling at school?

I have asked myself that question. What I want for my child is to be happy and live a fulfilling life. What is going to make that happen? Will going to Oxford (which I'm sure dc1 can do) lead to a happy life? Is it something else that will makwe the difference?
Here lies a very ethical and moral question actually. Or at lleast to me it is. But it is out of the scxope of the conversation we have atm which is very much about supporting our dcs so they can make the best out of this education system.

As for why not going for a paying school? My issue is cost. Not cost as in 'I'm not paying that amount of money' but cost as in 'If I'm paying £100k in fees for a private school at secondary, is that the best use of £100k to help and support my dc acheive that happy and fulfilled life'. Im just not sure it is.

^However, should what you describe happen, I would try to ensure they were getting extra curricular enhancement, encouragement from us and activities at home/online and time to explore their other interests.
I'm sure that's what most parents would do?

Badders123 - well its certainly what I did throughout primary school and what I continue to try to do now. However, it is getting progressively more difficult. I found it very easy to find new books for the DC to read when they were young and the world was stuffed full of every day common knowledge that they'd never heard of.
However, after many years of explaining things, I am running out of knowledge. I honestly can't remember half of what i was taught at university and now its a stretch to think of something else I can show them. My DC (now 12 and 13) watch documentaries with me, with their dad, or on their own. They do things for fun that I just can't keep up with.
Last night they were watching university challenge and answering questions that i couldn't have.
They watched Deutscheland 83 on catch up last night because they saw the first bit of it and the Cold war has caught their interest.
Of course, they can do their own research now and they know their way around the internet (although I still feel that I should keep a weather eye on what they are doing, rather than just allowing them to look at whatever they choose).

The point is, it gets harder the older they get. Looking back it used to be very easy even though when DS1 was age 9, he was asking me to talk him through the evolution of planes and trying to discuss with me how the development of canals changed Britain.

That's a fair point.
Ds1 is fairly obsessed with the siege of Stalingrad ATM...and my WW2 history is not as good as it could be!

Thank god for google is all I can say :)

I agree about the learning leader stuff, My DC have done a fair bit of this too.

DS2 spent the entire year 2 helping others in maths. When he went to a new school for year 3, the Y3 teacher came up to me in the playground to comment that DS2 seemed to think maths was about writing down the answers and then helping everyone else. She thought it made him "a nice, well-brought up boy". I think she was shocked when I told her that this is pretty much all he'd done at the tender age of 6!

Some people say that coaching others is about gaining mastery. There's some saying along the lines of "you don't really know something until you can explain it to others".

(Clearly its the verb "can" that is the key here. Can explain it and have explained it are two different things.)

Anyway i see it as more busy work.

wood I can answer your question on what my role as a parent is in terms of dds education. I didn't want her to end up like I did by 18. Grades good enough for anywhere but so disillusioned with formal education that I had no intention of going to university. Not because I'm such a genius I would have actually been bored doing a medical degree, or maths etc. But all my life I'd heard the next stage would be interesting, and challenging, and it never was. Just more mind numbing tedium and frustration. So I had no reason to think uni would be different. And I couldn't face the idea of signing up to more years of the same. When I did do a degree years later, it was the first time I'd ever had to really make an effort, or meet work that I didn't instantly know. School killed my love of learning, and I didn't want my child to repeat that. Final grades are somewhat inconsequential, she'll get them same as I did, however crap the school is/was. It's the experience.

I agree Lurked that is certainly one of my biggest worry. dc1 has been so desillusioned by his Y7. Even his form tutor noticed that and then dismissed it

var I agree it's much harder to keep interest and carry on explaining thiings now that they are at secondary school. And YY about forgetting what you had learnt at Uni lol.
It has reminded me that we really need to start watching some of the documentaries on the BBC again. At the very least, it sparks conversation and interest.

My role as a parent? To teach my child that sometimes bits of life are boring and we just have to get through them. That every single person he meets in life knows something he doesn't and can teach him something. That nobody loves a smartarse (this is specific to him- sometimes confidence can be a lot like arrogance). That the world is his oyster, but it's up to him to open the bloody thing. Nature and nurture have given him the special oyster opening knife, but nobody's actually going to open it for him!

Is there nothing in year 7 he's interested in, Wood? Not art? PE? A new language? Has he covered everything in every subject before?

It's not that there is nothing of interest to him. MOre that he is completely desillusioned and has disengaged.

No new language for him (That's a whole other issue)

For my DS, my main priority was to ensure he went to a school with lots of like ability peers.

He probably still sits at the top end of things, but is definitely not an outlier.

He has been consistently challenged and sometimes stumped! A very good thing indeed.

Boredom has come at times as it does to everyone; vocab lists, texts he didn't like ( Shakespeare ), revision ... But not as a day to day part of his education.

Var123 My ds LOVES Reddit and spends a lot (too much) time on there following all sorts of interesting topics. A few weeks ago he turned down dessert because he wanted to follow an AMA with some guy who had invented something cool and technology minded.

Badders I bought my ds a Kindle Paperwhite a few months ago and now he can just download all sorts of books from the library. I too am an avid reader and we used to do family trips to the local libraries (we have 3 near us), but now we do family "trips" to my laptop to order up stuff for our Kindles (and audiobooks for our smartphones).
I too have had to watch my dd be the "calming influence/teacher" in a class and have that used as a substitute for challenging her academically. My dd does not need to hone her teaching/leadership skills.
Bertrand My role as a parent? To teach my child that sometimes bits of life are boring and we just have to get through them. oooh that is sooo depressing. I like to teach my children that everything can be interesting and that they have the creativity and intelligence to figure out how to make it so.

What is your role as a parent?

To make opportunities that uncover worthwhile propensities, then encourage them.

We have nudged her gently now and again, but DD was born with lots of self-motivation and determination. The last thing I wanted to do is push any school-side stuff because she takes care of that and it would only make the coasting worse. That said, now that it's Y8 in a messy KS3 I'm increasingly interested in compensating (filling in holes, not racing ahead in the curriculum).

'There's some saying along the lines of "you don't really know something until you can explain it to others".'

DD's maths teacher said something like that recently to justify a proposal to get her teaching a couple of things and helping the weakest in the class. It turns out that DD can happily teach bits of maths to children who are much the same ability, but not if they're the weakest in the class. Fancy that.

"Bertrand My role as a parent? To teach my child that sometimes bits of life are boring and we just have to get through them. oooh that is sooo depressing. I like to teach my children that everything can be interesting and that they have the creativity and intelligence to figure out how to make it so." Really? Well, of course it would be fantastic if everything was riveting, but life's going to be a bit of a shock if you expect everything to be! Sometimes things are just a slog- and it's a measure of a personality how you deal with those things. For example there are teachers who can make the most exciting subject like wading through treacle and vice versa. I want my children to be able to learn what they need equally from both. I can't be doing with "oh, I'm not doing well because I don't like the teacher".......

"it's a measure of a personality how you deal with those things. "

You might be measuring some random luck. Personality is heritable i.e. there is a significant genetic influence. Genes for behavioral/personaility traits apparently accounts for around half of the quite strong overall genetic influence on academic achievement.

Delete "personality". Insert "character"

So many things in life that are worth achieving are not all endlessly enjoyable.

There will be bits that are dull/ grinding, stuff you just get through.

It's a mark of the most successful that you can get through it.

This is an essential life lesson. But one far more easily taught if the boring bits are relatively rare or are at least the minority.

Bertrand I am 52 and LOVE life because I do expect everything to be interesting. And I do find everything interesting in some way. Both my dc's have my love for life. I think that teaching them how to make something boring into something interesting is important. And I put my efforts into helping them fight for the right to do that. The problem lies when people insist that they have to find boring stuff boring or else they have not properly experienced life. If my child has a bad teacher, then it's up to them to figure out how to learn the material, but it also doesn't mean I expect them (or me) to sit there and shut up about how they are not getting taught properly because some of life is just boring. I expect them to aspire to more.

Boring sometimes is fine, or not liking a teachers style and learning to deal with it is a good life skill. Always boring is very different. Imagine as an adult spending 6hrs a day with someone repeating the obvious ad finitum. 'No, just cos you have a full license and years of practice you can't start the car yet, let's just master which is your left and right again for when you are ready to use indicators'. For years on end. You don't learn any social skills from it, you just get bored, pissed off, and never want to hear about it again.

I do see your point re adulthood and mixing bertrand. But as an adult it's not as rigid and frustrating. My job isn't maths based, and only arithmetic and simple calculations/ equations are required. I have colleagues who use long winded time consuming methods involving calculators and excel to figure out things I do in my head making a drink. It doesn't bother me because day in day out I'm not forced to sit and listen to someone talk at me about my colleagues methods and make me practice them. And unlike in a formal education setting, where the topic is limited, most people in the adult/ outside world have something you can learn from or be interested in.

This is the huge disadvantage of having schools that select by ability to learn/ability to pay (i.e. private & grammar) - it leaves those children in the comprehensive system with fewer peers who can challenge them and for teachers to teach at a higher level.

I disagree trees. Many areas of the country have no feasible access to state grammar, and lose an entirely insignificant amount to private, and even then the private pupils won't all be able.

My area is entirely comprehensive. The uneven spread of ability between them is based on mainly house price and how well you fake religion. Generally council estates/ blue collar privates lose few to private. The 2 possible comprehensives are still abysmal for anyone in the top 25%, let alone the highly able. And if we're talking highly able, they won't have the safety in numbers in any comprehensive area. Which leads back to the question, why is there absolutely no policy in the state system for gifted pupils?

Nobody thinks gcse music is ample for a talented musicians needs, or gcse dance ample for ballet dancers etc. So why is it supposed to be enough for academic gifts?