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.

multivac - then what are you describing? Your idea of utopia?

When you say GCSEs are pointless, do you mean they are actually pointless or that they would be pointless in your vision of how education should be provided?

Well, I looked at DS1's school email last year and was struck by the fact that he had three cover lessons that day, and half a dozen more that week. Then, I looked back further and found that frequently teachers may not be available for a day or two, but one of them had been gone for weeks (to the Y11s). I'd estimate that about 1/6th of his lessons were cover lessons at that time.

They might be covering absence. I am doing that now. A supply teacher has my class, I am teaching the year 11s. It's prioritising resources on a proximity to exam basis rather than a sacrifice the bright ones basis.

In 2013, the percentage of hours lost to sickness in the private sector was lower than in the public sector at 1.8% and 2.9% respectively.

TheFallenMadonna - yes, sorry, I should've made my point clear. Many of Ds's classes are mixed ability. The (good) teacher going off to supplement things for the Y11s is not always taking from the most able in KS3. Sometimes it is, but often its just taking the KS3 teacher away from her mixed-ability class.

It is a sacrifice though. Children should be allowed to keep their assigned teacher. Do schools plan to pull these teachers away or is it an emergency response? If an emergency response, then it shouldn't happen quite so often. If planned, there should be plans in place to provide a replacement teacher, rather than a series of cover lessons.

It's robbing Peter to pay Paul again, in a vicious circle. Paul couldn't access the proper teacher fully in ks3, so in y11 he has to rob Peter, and when peter reaches y11 the cycle is repeated.

It's awful really, that used to happen in my admittedly dire school years ago.

Still puzzled at all the talk of mixed ability classes. Are there lots still? I definitely get the impression that there aren't. Am I wrong?

Bolognese - how do you interpret that statistic? Does it show that the public sector workers tend to be less fit and well than the private sector, or that they are better protected by their trade unions and feel less compelled to ignore minor illnesses?

I don't know. I've never thought about it before.

Sorry- can't deal with the thought of someone discussing with their child how all his "poor friends" had huge Christmas presents.

Off to watch Sense and Sensibility and cry.

var123- I interrupt that stat based on a lot of experience, public sector workers have better conditions and protections, its very easy for them to pull a duvet day ie have the occasional day off for personal reasons.

Those in the private sector would never dare to take a day off for spurious reasons.

Students lose out a lot when they have supply/cover teachers
Its never all about the children.

interrupt = interpret (Freudian slip?)

@var123 "That's pushing it a bit. "

Progressive social-engineers definitely push that line and I've seen it a lot. I think the essence of this is that the O-level stream were mostly the posh kids and the CSE stream were mostly the plebs. A large part of mixed-ability was, still is, aimed at putting them together to break down class barriers.

Then because that academic end did correlate with 'white middle-class' education had to be made fairer and more ‘working class’ friendly, hence the retreat from the nasty elite academic standards and cultural literacy. All justified by 'relevance', (ability to) 'access' stuff, 'life-skills, 'self-esteem' and 'self-expression' etc. How people of my generation got along without all the latter is an enigma.

Quite a few on the political left are as pissed-off as many on the right because of the anti-intellectualism, but the left tend to be more focused on @Lurkedforever1’s point about the betrayal of the bright ‘working class’. Note how Labour were very quiet about the majority of Gove’s reforms.

I would really take issue with the premise that an A (or in ds's case last year a 6) is good enough. I accept that this is my personal soap box. But entry to medicine is highly competitive already. The difference between As and A*s in the sciences at GCSE might make the difference (assume the same is true of law). That is life changing and my god we need doctors who went to ordinary schools.

"My DS has noticed that his friends from 'poor' families get very expensive presents at Xmas (we certainly cant afford what unemployed families can). "

Does your DS also know that come February these expensive gifts are taken to cash converters?
I teach masses of kids who don't get fed breakfast and who stink and don't have clean clothes or suitable shoes. Lots got expensive phones for Christmas. Not that many have them anymore.

Bolognese - It would be interesting to see that statistic broken down for teachers versus civil servants with a desk job. I suspect that there would be a very different pattern of absence.

Maybe you are right that civil servants have a lower threshold for taking more days off than their private sector counterparts (I don't know but personal experience tells me that its likely). However, from what I've seen, teachers aren't like that. They feel a responsibility to the class and the other teachers to turn up for work with a cold. However, they do seem to take prolonged periods off work due to stress which would have you being edged towards the door in the private sector.

On the other hand, taking time away from their job to further their own education does seem to happen and the class is left with yet another cover lesson.

(What an utter waste of time cover lessons are!)

I would love to find a decent long term supply science teacher. Hens's teeth...

If you need someone long term, then wouldn't it just be better to employ an extra teacher? Given turnover you'd probably find that by the time this current need has gone, someone will be moving on anyway, so it would just save money overall to employ someone now.

So if someone is signed off for a month we should employ another teacher (and that is hard enough!) on a permanent contract?? That would not be cheaper...

Besides, teachers can only leave at the end of a term, and must give at least half a term notice, so it wouldn't work at all to cover absence...

sorry - it was a misunderstanding of terminology. To me "long term" means several months, "medium term" is anything up to about 10 weeks and "short term" is up two two or three of weeks.

( I run a business and its how we describe absences of business needs, but I shouldn't have assumed that others had the same definitions).

absences or other acute business needs

var-have you ever considered being a school governor? They really need passionate, involved,questioning people like you, and I also think you would find it very interesting and revealing to find out how schools work behind the scenes.

I did consider it with the first primary school that my DC attended, but then I had a very big argument with the head teacher and after that it would've been a non-starter. The HT's governors roles were to tell her how wonderful she was (Ofsted spotted that when they next visited and downgraded the school).

So, we moved to a new primary and I was feeling quite bruised and battered after the encounters with the previous HT. So, I decided to restrict myself to being a parent volunteer after that and I really enjoyed it. I like children anyway and I enjoy teaching them to read or do maths etc. Not so keen on the crafts bit but the teacher used to just get me to do filing instead usually. However, business needs made me give it up after a couple of years.

By then, my DC were getting close to leaving primary so there was no point. I don't think the secondary school would need or want me as they seem to have a team of excellent governors already who are doing a better job than I think i could.

But yes, I am passionate about education because I was one of those children who used education to improve my lot and I want other children to have the same opportunity. So, it really upsets me when teachers play at social engineering rather than get on with teaching.

You don't have to have children at a school to be a governor there. And indeed, I am looking forward to being a 'governor', rather than a 'parent governor' from next year. There is very much a "point".