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.

teacherwith2kids - I would contend that the concept of mastery is mis-applied in the UK. As a primary teacher, if you had a weekly test (on times table up to 16x16 (say). and a child's record looks like this:-

w/e 6.11.15 95%
w/e 13.11.15 98%
w/e 20.11.15 99%
w/e 27.11.15 100%
w/e 4.12.15 100%
w/e 11.12.15 100%
w/e 18.12.15 97%
w/e 8.1.16 100%
w/e 15.1.16 100%

would you say that this child has not yet achieved mastery? If you were any of my DC's primary teacher, and the child in question was you most able in the class then you would tell the parent that mastery has not been achieved.
However, by strange coincidence, when several pupils start getting in the high 90s, then suddenly mastery has been deemed to have been achieved.

And are we absolutely sure that putting all these super bright children together in a super selective school is not going to have mental health ramifications? To me it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Particular as people seem to be saying (forgive me if I'm misunderstanding) that a lot of these children are not interested in the non academic subjects that most ordinarily bright children do as a bit of variety. (One poster actually said something along the lines of why would you want to do subjects that aren't useful or don't give you kudos)

and then I clarified by "don't enjoy, can't use and doesn't offer any kudos". As an example, if you don't like gardening, don't need to do any gardening, no one will care either way whether you know how to care for a garden or not, then why bother?

I should have shut the hell up re the French system.

I'm never going to be able to put my point accross well enough to heard.

I would say that the concept of mastery is being mis-applied in your child;'s school - but that is very common, because no-one has actually said what it means.

It certainly can't be tested in a times table test.

If you look at www.ncetm.org.uk/public/files/23305632/Mastery_Assessment_Y5_Low_Res.pdf, and scroll to the pages on Multiplication and Division, then the way schools I know are starting to define mastery if multiplication / division is where children can apply what they know to problems of this type and others of the more open-ended investigation type offered by nrich (we have a bank of examples, put together by a local Maths hub but I can't link to those as they are behind a password-protected wall)

I would say a child who gets a high score in a times table test has a secure knowledge of times tables, which is a building block in gaining mastery of multiplication.

bobo I think the A level system is now so ingrained in the UK education system that it will take a nuclear bomb to move it .

And whilst an IB-ish curriculum is often mooted and indeed introduced in some schools, it never gains traction.

I think that is partly because HE in the UK is so well regarded internationally ( particularly at the most selective end) ergo there's an element of if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Conversely the HE in some countries with a broader 16-18 educational system is not internationally well regarded.

So we stick with what we've got. Which while not perfect seems to work well enough in that it sets kids up for HE.

I should have shut the hell up re the French system.

I'm never going to be able to put my point accross well enough to heard."

No- I think you've been admirably clear. The issue as I see it with the French system is that it is incredibly high pressure, and, as you say, is targeted at "the elite". The problem there is what happens to the majority........

The examples we use for assessment / extension / discussion of mastery are divided into types such as fluency (can a child do a process or recall something well - that's here times tables come in); application (can they apply it to a new situation e.g. a word problem); reasoning (can they reason in order to e.g. generalise a solution or describe a pattern, and explain their reasoning clearly; misconception (presented with a common misconception, or a type of question where that misconception is easy to fall into, can they explain what has gone wrong); problem-solving (these can be of many kinds e.g. missing numbers, find all solutions etc).

If a child can do all of these things with their age-group curriculum, then we would see these as mastery indicators.

Interestingly, the most recent indications from the government of levels in key stage tests looks as if they will not be using the word mastery, possibly because it is now so ambiguous in its meaning.

I'd say that the school was using educational terminology as an attempt to create a smokescreen for the parents behind which they can hide the fact that they are letting the more able children down. The teachers probably do know what mastery is, but find that mis-using it makes an easy soundbite at parent's evening.

However, whether they really think it is mastery or not, they are taking a deliberate risk with mental health by choosing to bore a child rigid and make false promises that once the child has proven that they can regularly get 100%, they will be allowed to do something else. The results I was describing went on from late Y3 through to the end of Y5. that's a long time for anyone, but it represents a huge portion of a child's life when they are only 9.

"and then I clarified by "don't enjoy, can't use and doesn't offer any kudos". As an example, if you don't like gardening, don't need to do any gardening, no one will care either way whether you know how to care for a garden or not, then why bother?"

Because you like learning new things, because you like a challenge, because you don't know what you like or don't like until you've tried. Perhaps because you find academic work easy, and it would be good for you to try things outside your comfort zone? Because music and art and drama and sport are significant parts of being a rounded individual, which sometimes the "spikier" most able kids find difficult. Because it's good to spend time with people who have different talents to you.

Because, contrary to what some people seem to think, there is more to education than Maths.

no, just do other things that you like doing.

Dothe stuff that you have to do, and the stuff you should do, but enjoy yourself the rest of the time.

Funny how it only applies to the academically able. I don't see anyone demanding that a future Wimbledon player puts his racquet away for a few years and start learning the cello instead (for the sheer joy of doing something new).

var, while I don't think the problem is unique to your school, the fact that it is happening in your school doesn't mean it is endemic in the English education system IYSWIM?

Equally I realise that what I have encountered in my local area, in terms of how mastery is deigned and taught for, isn't replicated across the country.

Both are a function of the current 'every school for itself' post-change situation - but it also means that you do not necessarily need to change the whole system by lobbying the government as you suggested earlier, you only need to change your own school's practice by lobbying them...

My priority has always been to produce well rounded DC.

Whilst I value academic endeavour (as opposed to achievement) I value every bit as much, all the other stuff that fills my DC's lives.

Arguably it is all the later things which will ultimately secure their lives.

var, but I have suggested to a potential future Wimbledon player and to a potential Arsenal player that learning to read, write and do Maths, though absolutely peripheral to their current ambitions, and definitely not something they like to do, are something that they need to spend not only their school hours, but some of their hours outside school, doing.

Very few people can or should focus solely on their 'gift'.

Also, how does a child know what they like doing, unless they get a chance to try lots of different things?

My belief is that every child, as far as possible, should try a variety of things from the physical, to the academic, to the artistic and musical, for long enough to get over the initial 'it's new, I don't like it and I can't do it'. On that broad base, they can then choose, at any particular stage in their life, what they want or need to spend time doing.

if we only ever expose children to what they like doing, or what is superficially attractive t them from the outset, we do not give them good foundations for the rest of their lives.

So my girly dancer also plays a musical instrument, has camped and hiked with Cubs and beyond, and weilds a hockey stick with some menace. My geeky mathematician can cook, garden, hike, play an instrument, visited art galleries and has experienced a variety of sport. Some things they have done a lot of, others only a very little, some has fallen by the wayside. But if I had let DD only dance, and DS only do Maths and play music, I and their schools would have failed them.

Thank you, teacherwith2kids. The link was great. We will check if he has mastered all of those skills in each year group.
I just wish ds's school give him more of open ended problem like nrich to solve, he needs that. Instead, he is being used as a regular TA.

Dd has a range of interests outside maths. That doesn't mean she wishes to do hair and beauty quals instead of further maths. Or hospitality over latin. Or Pe over separate science. Doing the non academic topics she enjoys alongside is a great idea. But not instead of, with hours of mind numbing boredom in the academic subject lessons.

( not knocking the other subjects done in addition for enjoyment or future purpose, but not done for no personal reason. And certainly not because shoving anyone who might pass on to as many as possible so a shit school can fiddle how many passes they get by y11)

Dd loves the company of her friend who is the other end of the bell curve academically. She loves sport with a range of ability. She loves dance with her talented but academically average friend/s. She loves learning the basic skills of a new to her school sport while her new friend at county level works at a different level entirely. She loved starting a new mfl in September while one of her classmates speaks it as fluently as English, and was busy writing essays in it while dd got her first vocab to learn. What dd doesn't want to do is be taught maths at the same level as any of them.

Now this is were I have to stop myself getting exasperated. "My dc is bored at school because they are academically ahead"

"Well, how about taking the opportunity to do some less academic things, like art and music and drama and PE?"

"Why should they? They only like academic things. Why should they do anything they don't want to?"

And no, I wouldn't suggest that someone who was training for Wimbledon stop training to learn the cello, but I would sure as hell try to make sure that they also got good academic qualifications if they could, and also had as broad a range of non academic interests as possible.

Lurked

I get where you are coming from, it was the same with my dd at primary.
She isn't an all rounder at all, in fact she's slightly over average with most things except Music and Maths.
In maths she struggles to keep up with the class and music was a joke at primary and she should have been concentrating on more maths when the class did music.
Her best friend from home is amazing at Maths, I have posted about her before. Unfortunately, her parents won't encourage more than what she does at school and I think she will be allowed to coast at school, it's so sad.
I think where possible though gifted children should be with average level children unless there is a reason why they shouldn't. For dd English, Mfl, Humanities, P.E etc are all about the same in terms of ability.
She enjoys most subjects at school and knows she needs to learn them and take GCSE's the same as everyone else. I know she won't put in extra effort outside the classroom out of further interest because she doesn't have the time, but as long as prep is done and she tries her best, that's all we ask.

Bert, I'd agree with you. It is interesting that we put different value on different things:

• We insist that the talented tennis player must do academic subjects (in fact, we demand, in almost all cases, that they do a full school day of academic subjects then do their training outside school hours, and pretty much expect that school PE lessons can offer them nothing) but

• We don't insist that children who are talented academically do a full school day ONLY of things other than their talent, nor expect them to fit coaching of their specific talent outside the school day, nor put up with the fact that school lessons in their area of talent may not offer them anything in particular....

I am not saying, btw, that the dichotomy I describe is, or is not, 'right' in terms of education. But it is a difference.

I've taught an exceptional mathematician out of their year group, so A-level in Y8 sort of thing, although they could have done it earlier.

I can't honestly say that it's the best solution for the extraordinary mathematician. This student sat in their uniform with a bunch of sixth formers is socially isolated in the classroom. They find the work pretty easy so I can't say they're being particularly challenged. Well before Y12 they will run out of secondary maths and that will be an issue because they will want to study maths at uni. Oxbridge official advice is to not teach them uni level maths. The most help for providing challenge has been the UKMT and their external mentoring scheme.
The student is socially immature, so early entry to university would not be a good idea.

It's all very well to say 'I want them to be given the curriculum from the year up, and then the year after and so on' but what do you do when the curriculum runs out and they are still only 14?

you will not be considered for release from the tedium until you have demonstrated mastery and moreover you have not demonstrated mastery yet because once in a while you only get 97%, then it does tend to make you rather anxious about being perfect!

This is the frustration ds was experiencing - and the time pressure of timed tests, in yr1. He is perfectionist and gets anxious. That's why we decided that a school which places less of an emphasis on formal timed assessment, has a broad curriculum, will accelerate him in some areas, but will let him stay down for others would be better for him. He is subject to the randomness of the school year cut off too making him an able pupil in a class where everyone is younger than him. I know he can do well, what I want at the moment is his love of learning to be nurtured rather than squashed by repeating exercises every faster and under more pressure.