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.

There is a question though about 'specialisation'.
The system as it is, when we are saying that if a child enjoys and is good at x subject, they should more and more of it (more and more complex maths, swimming, music etc), then we are assuming that they will be better in life by learning more about that particular subject.

Now, I was good at maths and science. I loved chemistry and this was what I wanted to do since I was in Y8. I did all my HE in chemistry (think Oxford type of level). I've never worked in that area ever. After. Few years working as an engineer (but not in chemistry as such), I realise that this was NOT where I wanted to be. I am now working and loving a job which is much more person based, lots of talking and building relationships with people (ie lots of soft skills/science rather than hard science that I was doing before).

So what is telling me that my DC will actually still love science when he is an adult and that acute ally his 'calling' isn't in a area he hasn't discovered yet or do not have the maturity to access?

I think there is a difficult balance to find. And the reason why it's essential for them to have an education that is as rounded as possible. So they have the choice after.

disqui your comment about the level of undergraduates in the UK is interesting. I have read before that the top uni (Oxford etc...) are recruiting more 'foreigners' in some maths subjects because they are finding that the students in the UK just don't have the right levels for these courses (not all of them I'm sure).
I don't know whether this is the truth but I'm finding that what is asked in maths is very 'simplistic'. No showing of your workings. No two or three step process that requires some logical explaination etc... It's a far cry from what I was taught at school. The description of what 'mastering' means given above (by teacher??) seems to be closer to what I would spect children to do. But then, if at GCSE etc what they are asking is more of a tick box exercise, then ...

Eg: another parent was telling me how it was very easy to get a level 7 in history or geopgraphy. You just had to buy xx book, learn the key words that have to be in your text. If these words were there, then you would get the level. Nothing about reasoning, the ability to put two ideas together or just basic knowledge. The worst thing is that, by doing that, her DC always got very very good marks.

Btw I wanted to say thank you to all of you on this thread.
I have learnt a lot from it and you have all helped me clarify what I want to achieve and do with my dcs. I can see a plan building up :)

Woodheaven, as someone with a very similar background to you, with a PhD in Biochemistry but now a primary teacher, I think that you make a very valid point that breadth rather than narrow depth of education, even if it feels 'suboptimal' at the time, may actually be desirable.

The subject I did at school that I use most often at the moment? Latin. The new English grammar requirements are MUCH easier having done Latin....

I have read before that the top uni (Oxford etc...) are recruiting more 'foreigners' in some maths subjects because they are finding that the students in the UK just don't have the right levels for these courses (not all of them I'm sure).

This isn't correct. Mathematics is quite international even at undergraduate level so Oxbridge and other top universities do indeed receive many applications from (top) international students, but it is not true that the international students they take are working at higher levels on average. I could make similar criticisms of maths students at top Ivy Leagues (where I have also taught) or at top European universities. The UK has pretty much emulated other parts of the world in changes to secondary school mathematics and science over the last couple of decades, so other countries have the same issues as we do.

Universities such as Imperial do take a relatively high percentage of (EU and non-EU) international students for maths but this is primarily for financial reasons - it is not because the international students are better.

Interesting disqui.
I have to say, I'm now really at loss as what is actually true re curriculum and levels. Not that it changes anything re what to do with our dcs.

And breadth is a route to those soft skills. DD's school (prep not state primary) is not the most academic out there by a long way, but they skip through the required maths and literacy quite quickly and then use the time to do shedloads of other stuff, such as forest school, speaking competitions, science projects, music and theatre trips, etc etc. She's a lot more confident now than a few years ago, but she also isn't bored because the academics aren't such a huge part of the curriculum and they are forever having whole days off them to do something random.

I don't know how we get anywhere near this at secondary though: she's good at art and I am concerned that she will be forced to let this go in the stampede for academics (this is what happened to me).

I'd echo what WoodHeaven has posted about thanking everyone. Its really been enlightening. Probably the most interesting MN thread I have read in a long time because it has brought together a number of viewpoints and different expertises.

I don't agree with absolutely everyone, all of the time, but I've really learned, and maybe changed my viewpoint a little as a result. (I still think that enough is not done for the most able though!)

var123

I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence.
I do hope that those on here hoping to find the answers for their children are successful.

(I still think that enough is not done for the most able though!)

I think it was someone on MN who once said that the best we can hope for, as teachers and educationalists in the current climate, is for all groups - SEN, high achievers, middle achievers - to believe equally that schools are not doing enough for their particular group.

If one group is happy, and another not, then we are DEFINITELY doing it badly. And the utopia in which everyone thinks "Actually, we would love the cake to be bigger but we are happy with the overall width of our slice," is a 'pigs might fly' one - and tbh would stop us all striving for better, for our own DCs as parents and other people's DCs as teachers.

Yes, var. The thread has been great. Gave me a lot to think about. And most inspiring indeed.

I'm thinking about maths, because most other subjects are more easily challenged at primary level - if they're writing a story there's nothing to stop them writing it at level 8, and they will be reading books that show them examples of good writing.

Two thoughts.

1. I think the first problem is for teachers to be able to acknowledge that a child is beyond the range of where their usual lesson plan will challenge them. Once they do that it's actually quite easy to find materials to give them. Even at a very elementary level there's loads of problem solving type stuff they can access. It took me all of 2 minutes this afternoon to download a few nrich type problems that DS found challenging without any need for teaching extra material. Yet school have yet to challenge him in 2.5 years? That sort of thing is really not a case of diverting resources from more needy cases, it's just a case of being brave enough to say to some children, OK, you've got this lesson, here's something different.

Good teachers will, but many don't. There's a degree of "got to make sure" - got to make sure they're fluent enough, got to make sure there are no gaps, got to make sure they ace the SATs. The easiest way to make sure is to just let them chug along being bored in the top set/group.

2. When I was at primary school, we were tested in, given an appropriate textbook and allowed to get on with it at our own pace. Teacher would go around helping anyone who needed help, occasionally marking books. If they could see you were getting it you'd be told to only do one example in 3 or something. People got taught what and when they needed teaching. I was never bored in maths until secondary school when the teachers tried to teach us all together in sets.

I expect all groups think schools could do more to look after their group, and I would think that they are all correct. There always is more that could be done with infinite resources and lots of motivation.

However, do the other groups all evidence that their children are routinely pushed to the side for the benefit of another cohort?

Take SEN - there is definitely more that could be done. However, they actually have someone or even a whole dept who actually spends a significant amount of time devoted to their interests.

Or the less able, well they have benefited from the construction of league tables - I notice the Telegraph is publishing league tables today on its homepage. They offer 3 levels for comparison:

5+ A*-C (inc. Eng & Maths)
% achieving EBACC
Avg point score per pupil

Looking at the three in turn:-
5+ A*-C - everyone can understand this.
Ebacc - it turns out that its the same thing as the EBacc, but with less choice on the subjects.
Point score - huh??!

So, any school that cares about the league tables needs to care about how many 5+ A*-Cs it gets. Is that a real challenge for the top 10% - I doubt it. Next 10% - no. 3rd decile - no. 70% attain this level, so it only starts to be a significant challenge for students who fall below the median - the bottom half of the bell curve.

It may be slightly more challenging to pass the Ebacc, with only 30% getting that, but its probably as much to do with GCSE option choices as anything else.

Its the same thing with the 3 into a 4 , and the 4B+ thresholds in the KS2 sats. So, again there's a good reason for schools to give those in the 3rd quartile some proper care.

I don't see that the 2nd quartile, or anyone in the bottom half of the 1st quartile get much special consideration, except of course the work gets set at a reasonable pace for them.

What do the most able get? A meaningless G&T label that many choose to hide for fear of being labelled a nerd and one or two outings a year - often after school - to take part in some inter-school competition or a couple of hours at a museum. It may tick a G&T box but as a replacement for an actual education, its pathetic.

I wonder what the highly selective private schools are doing at the same time with their charges with similar HLP? I doubt they are requiring them to sit in a holding pattern whilst the others catch up.

disquisitiones, "Catering for the needs of the top 1% on the grounds that the other 29% are OK ignores the fact that currently all high achievers are relatively neglected"

There has been a strong focus on the latter for years now and it's the HMCI's personal 'landmark' mission etc. Even DD's school finally woke-up to it this academic year and added improving that end of the GCSE outcomes to their plan. Better than nowt for the trickier end of the range, but it's a missed opportunity to sort out a little bit of consensus on what to do with them.

var123, "could they not at least encourage them to develop the skill or laying out their answers in a coherent way"

You need someone like DD to exert peer influence. At one point in Y7 they had ability table grouping within the top set so she got to sit with two similarly whizzy boys and their like-minds clicked. She routinely reported having to nag one of them to do a better job of writing things down properly i.e. level the playing field in the friendly competition on that table. This Y8 term nagged-boy is getting that treatment again courtesy of a seating plan which has put the strongest in the back row and the weakest at the front. Ms. Dweck would not be amused.

"So, any school that cares about the league tables needs to care about how many 5+ A*-Cs it gets."

Not any more. This year that will be replaced by 'progress 8' which will be used for the floor standard. We also get 'attainment 8'. Given that P8 is a value-added measure where any child's progress (in a relevant subject) counts it should improve things a little and make some schools less inclined to over-focus on pushing to grade C. There is still that 'life chance' argument though.

Although outwardly simple, P8 is a little more complex in the background and I understand some weightings attached to grades will change in 2017 to accomodate those nuGCSEs coming online.

What's interesting about progress 8 is that it will not be mathematically sound to use it to compare different schools, but it will absolutely be used that way.

var y7 got set at half term at dds. According to dd before xmas they didn't cover anything new to her, it was just l6 that isn't on the sats. But it was still fun as they got problems on loads of different things, not necessarily related to either start of ks3 nc or the topic in hand. Given dds idea of what constitutes fun, its not been problems of a boring treading water type.

Seems to be a lot of differentiation even within a set where ability is likely to be over a very small % range.

Mmm... and IIRC one of the various problems is the progress improving effect of high-ability intakes i.e. clever child makes more progress in a school swimming with their ilk, than in the bog-standard comp.

Thank $deity for the clever data-droids. I mean who would have imagined that?

Lurkedforever - but that's all I want! DS2 is in year 7 too. They were set in October, I think. The top set are doing L6 topics, but I don't think there's any movement away from the NC. If there was then all would be fine.

It seems to me that there are only 3 options for any child:

• stay stationary
• reinforce learning (the mastery thing)
• move up the NC
• do things outwith the the NC

My first choice is to do things outwith the NC. The schools first choice for DS1 is to stay stationary. They know, and acknowledge, that he doesn't need the mastery stuff.

I don't want him taught outwith his year group (not that its on offer), because if he only moved up one year, I don't think it would make much difference after a few months - he'd just be stationary in Y8 instead. I definitely wouldn't want him put with the teenagers in Y9 because that's DS1's year and would be very socially unsuitable.

Moving up the NC seems pointless too, mainly because Ds2 learns new maths concepts so quickly that the natural conclusion would be to have him sit his GCSE early which is not right.

TBH It just strikes me as laziness on behalf of the maths dept that they aren't trying to offer differentiated work. What do they do with outliers at the other end of the scale? I very much doubt its the same thing.

var DC attended an independent primary school which wasn't selective ie there was no entry test but HOY confirmed it contained an unusual number of high ability pupils.

Things that helped.
Setting ( cohort of 60 so doable).
Early introduction of Latin and MFL.
Subject specific teaching from y3.
Lots and lots and lots of enrichment/culture/EC (some parents moaned ).
y7 is actually a very busy year in prep schools with entrance tests etc.

DS then went on to a very selective secondary in Y9.
He had to hit the ground running.

Within weeks I was called in and asked if I agreed with him taking a couple of GCSEs early to make room for other stuff/accelerate.

Also, he took mostly IGCSEs.
Which, in some subjects have a slightly more full curriculum ( and are tigger at the A * boundary ).

But more importantly for this cohort had no controlled assessments which are very time consuming of the timetable. This left a lot of time in lessons to ski off piste.

That said, the GCSE season in y11 was still tough and dull. 10 GCSEs are as much a mark if grit and organisation as academic ability.

High ability DC who think they can Coast, beware! Some did not do as well as they'd assumed they would!

Sixth form is interesting.

Progress 8 - what is that exactly?

Is it some ham-fisted scheme that's full of holes that was devised by Whitehall maths graduates? let me guess:
Divide the year group into 8 subgroups and somehow come up with a representative measure for their attainment level - median, mode, whatever. Then come back 5 years later and check the difference, which you express as a %.
Combine up the scores for all subjects.
Then combine up the scores for the other 7 groups, into one mega blended score.
turn this into a raw score to be expressed on a bell curve.
and report that to the public to describe the school.

EricNorthmanSucks - that's one of my concerns: DS2 expects to coast. When he gets something new, he doesn't mind putting in a couple of hours of determined effort followed by an extended rest session playing electronic games, but I don't think he's ever done more than that.

Does he has resilience? Not from what i have seen when I ask for a hand doing something in the house? Does he really apply himself to do a good job? No, he just does the minimum. At school he doesn't even bother preparing for tests sometimes because he feels that everyone knows he can do it, so he even if he makes mistakes - so what?

I am trying not to alienate him but I am on a mission atm to turn this attitude around before its too late.

Sixth form is wonderful. It was the best bit of school for me as you can concentrate more on just what you like doing in terms of subjects, although I support everyone doing a broad range of GCSEs whether they like it or not.

On this questino "I wonder what the highly selective private schools are doing at the same time with their charges with similar HLP? I doubt they are requiring them to sit in a holding pattern whilst the others catch up." I had to guess HLP - presumably higher learning potential? If you only have the tiop 20% say in terms of IQ or whatever we want to call it in your school there is less varience in the first place. So at a school ike my daughter's (North London C) every year there would be one or two of what you might term geniuses rather than the traditional grammar school 120 IQ person (and presumably state grammars have the same thing in the few areas of the country which have state grammars). There will be top sets. My other daughter was bottom set of 5 in maths at Haberdashers (and still got an A) so presumably the top set of 5 did A level stuff at GCSE age for fun and things beyond the curriculum.

Also some children who are very bright only work at the subjects they like so don't need to be in an advanced group for every subject in a selective school and some bright children are either as lazy as sin and never do a stroke of work and don't fulfil potential , others are naughty . Parents can do a lot at home. We talk a lot all the time, send each other articles, debate things, read. I don't think we should say all academic development is down to schools only and as people say above how people then do in life depends on all kinds of things. My older daughter (city lawyer, high (£100k+ salary) etc was saying this week not entirely in jest one reason she's done well is because she has always had mild insomnia and does not need to sleep, is never ill, has grit, runs triathlons, can work 24 hours without a break at times. I am not saying that is all you need for those kinds of high paid careers, but that internal sense of responsibility, the ability not to blame others, to be fun to be around, to be positive, as well as bright is just as important never mind careers, in life too.

var there was a sad but interesting thread not long ago about underachievement in high ability people.

Many many posters reported having no resilience or spark or grit or direction sometimes after school, more often after HE.

They were utterly unprepared for the reality of turning their ability into something useful- to them, to society, to anything.

If I look at my own life, I can see that I have only been able to turn my 'gift' such as it is, into something purposeful because I am incredibly flexible and resilient. I am also a grafter and an optimist. Without these traits/skills, my ability would be pretty worthless.

deo my DH is a very successful lawyer.

And whilst he's clever, I would say that grit is the mainstay of his success. He just has an ability to keep going ( as a secondary pupil he had a milk round before school).

Plus at a senior level, being someone clients take to is hugely important. The 'is he/she someone I would go for a beer with' test.