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.

It matters because our education systems operate pretty severe filters at 16/18/21 etc and your DC is in competition with others to get through the filter to be allowed to continue on the other side. When there is a multiple filter system there is a certain amount of leeway for correction but it is more than possible to miss the boat if your verbal/numerical etc abilities haven't been honed when those of others have.

While I am aware this is going to sound hypocritical given the choices I have made for my DC, I actually do agree with Betrand and Var that not being challenged at school does not necessarily equate to one's future being "ruined". My own experience sounds a lot like Bertrand's DS, I am probably closer to 2sd than 3sd from the mean, so certainly not at the extreme end of the curve, but was in a relatively low ability year group at school so stood out. But the (state) school I attended was nevertheless good enough (together with my own drive and a very supportive family) to get me the marks I needed at the end and I doubt my career since would have been any different had I had a better school experience. The choice I have made for my DC is because I want them to have the best school experience possible. With the support of DH and myself, I am not convinced though that the ultimate outcome academically will be that different for my DC if they instead went to the good, but not outstanding, state school close by.

It is also worth stating the obvious - not all very able children are alike, and personality, interests etc will mean that a school experience that would be a very unhappy one for one child might have a very different outcome for another similarly able child with a different temperament.

Bobo, yes, a child with a spiky profile can be a challenge to place. I'm currently wrestling with the decision of senior schools for DD2 for precisely this reason.

bert I do see where you're coming from about your son still being perfectly happy in a school where he is a minority. In Dds primary the cohort was such that by comparison she was more in the position of a 1/10,000 child in a normal comprehensive. Even though in reality she isn't in that category of able. And if I could go back in time and have sent her to the most academic and lovely prep going, I still wouldn't change it. Because what she lost academically/ challenge wise, she gained socially.

However I know it doesn't always work that way. Lots of otherwise good schools don't deal with outliers well, and not all children have the confidence to be happy as outliers.

April, that was just the point I was going to make, it's personality as much as ability that makes the difference. All of which means that it is almost impossible to generalise about children who are outliers.

Some might love the experience of school socially which will make up for the lack of challenge, some will find the experience of trying to fit in with children who are very different to them so hard that they become anxious and refuse to speak. Some with spiky profiles do get intellectual challenge in their day, others who are generalists are bored all the way through.

And children respond differently to boredom too: some sit it out, some learn to daydream so much that they stop paying attention to any lessons at all and drop out, and some are so bored that they misbehave and are disruptive.

What's been said before about the differences between gifted children is also key. The received wisdom in the US is that up to two standard deviations can be catered for in the classroom; three and you are looking at skipping and significant differentiation; while children beyond that need either a specialised school or tend to be home schooled. So we can all speak from our own experiences and those of our children, and these are all true but just might not apply to other people at all, we have no way of knowing.

"In Kent, where an awful lot of DC who fail the Kent test by a small margin (or who were borderline and parents didn't put them in for the 11+) are sent to private secondaries, there is a real issue of there not being a peer group for borderline DC at the comprehensives. I don't know where your DS goes to school but at eg Mascall's this is a serious concern."

Sorry to be tedious. But there are no comprehensive schools in Kent.

And I suspect the people who fret about their children not having a peer group because the borderliners go private are more worried about social class than academic ability!

bobo it did work well from y7-11 and indeed we were lucky to have the school accessible to us both financially and geographically.

But I'll admit it was not my first choice for DD. She also had places at a grammar school and a selective independent school. Do in fact it was my last choice .

But I agreed to give it a go and was proved wrong.

School were able to support her where she needed it and challenge her in the high ability areas ( though Y11 was a bit meh due to GCSEs, but I can't really blame a school did that).

She moved for sixth form and is now somewhere super selective. Which works because mostly she is concentrating on her strong suits ( though one subject is a bit of a wild card).

"All of which means that it is almost impossible to generalise about children who are outliers"

...but a piece of cake to generalise about the blobby mass of the others? The ones who would be "fine" with the 'spoon teaching' described earlier by lurked? When in fact, saying they are 'fine', means they really don't deserve anything better?

They call themselves comprehensives. What you choose to call them is an issue of semantics. We both know what we are talking about: state secondaries that don't select based on the Kent test.

Social class and academic ability are highly correlated...

I'll also say catering well to an outlier in mixed ability, is testimony to excellent staff and leadership. Not evidence that mixed ability often works.

Mascalls does, I believe.

I don't think any of the others do.

And it's not a matter of semantics- it's the misuse of a word which has a meaning. It's only used to distract from the fact that the presence of grammar schools means the presence of secondary moderns. The supporters of selection would like as many people as possible to forget that little fact.

Anyway, this isn't a thread about selection.

"I'll also say catering well to an outlier in mixed ability, is testimony to excellent staff and leadership. Not evidence that mixed ability often works."

When you say "mixed ability" do you mean mixed ability classes or mixed ability schools?

Multivac, please don't put words into my mouth or conflate my opinions with those of other posters. I haven't said anything about anything apart from outliers and you are projecting all sorts of hostility onto me that simply isn't there.

multi I didn't say the spoons teaching was fine for some kids to imply they didn't deserve better. I meant for some kids it would actually suit them. If I did art for example, I'd be suited to the spoons method, because I have zero aptitude

lurked indeed I have nothing but praise for DD's old teachers, particularly those in her high ability subjects.

They recognised her strengths and wanted to help her nurture them. When the situation required her to dumb it down ( controlled assessments etc) it was all carefully explained to her and me.

I can't fault them really.

That said, receiving special outlier treatment in two or three subjects is okay but if that were the case across the board I would have been less content!

Whether mixed ability works or not is not just dependent on SLT and staff. Selection of pupils a entry makes a massive difference to the success of mixed ability schools. This is why faith schools and private schools have generally better outcomes than do non-selective state schools in delivering mixed ability education.

Really, lurked? As you described it? Exactly? It would suit you? It would inspire you about art, do you think? It would allow you to achieve things you didn't think were possible, given your starting point? Or, maybe, is it that it might enable you to scrape a pass in a narrow test, whilst resenting every moment of the 'teaching' that got you that far?

(Or, as you phrased it earlier, it might look as though the teacher concerned, was "doing well" with such a kid. Despite being a poor teacher.)

multi don't see why not. My memory/ intelligence means I can regurgitate artistic facts and ideas. But ability wise I'm like the child that has memorised 7x7=49, without really understanding that it means 7 lots of 7. So as soon as you get on to square roots the child struggles because they don't understand the basic concept. That's the equivalent of my art skills, it doesn't register as logical/ self explanatory. Other people just have an instinct for it. Which is how some people are when it comes to numbers.

If you want a more realistic example than the spoons, take many methods of teaching primary maths. Excellent tools for lots of children. Eg learning number bonds to 20, the equivalent to spoons teaching for dd or I. Because it's just something you do without thinking, and it's only purpose is a simple way to introduce balancing an equation. But that spoons teaching method of y1 number bonds is brilliant for many children. Same for many other common introductory methods throughout education, great for many, but so basic to some it just equates as spoons.

bert wasn't thinking particularly one or the other, just whichever equates to mixed ability teaching in lessons. I appreciate your area has no true comprehensives due to the 11+. But don't be under the illusion areas like mine without a single grammar are any different. We have the same effect, it's just religion and house price that places you in the equivalent of a grammar with a few lower sets, or a secondary modern. We skip the exam and decide which track suits a child based on parental wealth. Which is even more unfair. Ditching the 11+ doesn't result in the fair access to education we'd all like.

Is there a lot of mixed ability teaching past possibly year 7 in state schools? I was under the impression that practically all of them set. Some old fashioned ones might stream, but I don't think many have mixed ability classes do they?

I think you've changed your idea of what the 'spoons' method is.

Because what you described earlier would be dull, limiting and apparently pointless for any child subjected to it under the guise of 'learning how to make a cake'. No one needs to be shown "endless pictures of spoons" in order to get closer to being able to bake.

And, whilst rote learning is a very useful underpinning to most subjects - and much easier for some kids than others - if a child isn't encouraged to explore beyond it from an early age (and particularly if he/she isn't allowed to explore beyond it until the rote learning is under the belt), then I would question the value of his/her time in school, regardless of perceived ability level.

"Ditching the 11+ doesn't result in the fair access to education we'd all like."

YY.

BR it's rare enough for an explanation of what happens at the school my kids will attend to provoke panic in certain circles, for sure...

bertrand, our local comprehensive (which is probably best described as 'a grammar with a few lower sets' due to house price selection, even though it is in an opt-in grammar area) sets in Maths from week 3 in year 7, in a few more subjects (English, science, languages) in Year 8, almost all subjects from Y9. For GCSE, some subjects are set, others with lower take-up - e.g. music - are non-set.

We have a three tier system here, so some children will not be set for any subject until year 9. (One middle school does not set at all. For anything.)

Of the three schools near me, one sets ( from y 8 ), one streams, one teaches in mixed ability classes.

But even in those that set, the top set still has a fair spread of ability ( as already explained).

You can statistically only get a peer ability group of outliers with selection surely?

"You can statistically only get a peer ability group of outliers with selection surely?"

Depends what you mean by a peer group and outliers, I suppose.