What do I really truly think about schools?

[emmaagain]

In response to a discussion with AbbeyA in another thread, but I can't cope with these Byzantine conversations-go-everywhere thread.

I'll try to be very succinct.

1. Schools are inherently places where people get bullied [it's a feature of closed societies which people have not chosen to enter, like prison. Where outside such societies those who don't fit in with the particular culture can choose to leave it, finding alternative people to mix with, in schools you have to stay in a room with people you dislike day in day out]. If your child is not one of the ones being bullied, you might not notice it, but look around. There is often someone being belittled, whether it is by staff or pupils. Except of course in the perfectly happy skippy schools where it never ever happens (only I'm not sure I believe in them)

1. Schools are inherently and institutionally coercive. The teacher is the authority figure, and right and proper in a room of 30 pupils not all of whom want to do what everyone else wants to do, or even be there. The alternative would be chaos. But I am ideologically opposed to my children spending their days in a dictatorship, however benevolent. (NB I am aware that most will not agree with me about it being wrong to submit children to the dictatorship of adults, at home or at school. I am a libertarian and that's an unusual stance. But I am trying to express my objections to the institution of school and this is a large part of my moral objection)

1. Schools have really weird cultures which don't reflect the world outside at all (asking permission to speak or urinate? Eating on someone else's timetable? Stopping an activity when someone else says it's time to move on rather than because you've finished?)

1. Schools, by definition, cannot enable a child to learn in the most efficient manner, as responsive to their ability and interests. Because there is a national curriculum. Because there are so many children for each adult - there's no way there could be a truly personalised curriculum. Educational professionals do their bets, I know, to respond to the needs of each child, but there's no way they're going to come close to what a parent can do, just by definition.

sorry, that reads as very big headed. I supposed I'm trying to say I know my limitations.

'No, what I see as an insult are the offhand, stereotypical comments about the low standard of teaching in schools. I am also insulted by the often repeated comment that HE' facilitate' and that schools 'just' teach, the assumption being that for some reason we don't do the former because we are trapped in an authoritarian, bullying environment from the late 60s, yearly 70s.'

This is what upset me! A lot of this seems based on John Holt's book on 'How Children Fail' and 'How Children Learn'. I fished out my copy and discovered I had a second edition published 1969-he did his study for a few years starting 1958 and in American schools. This was 50 years ago! This book used to be required reading for educationlists -they did learn something from it!!I really haven't the time to read it again but the start was all about the questioning of children. Good teacher's no longer ask the sorts of closed questions he disliked. Children are not held up to ridicule-if they are in a good nurturing classroom situation they are not afraid of failing. You only learn if you are prepared to make mistakes and have a go! I don't recognise the classroom situations that the anti school people generalise about and I guess I am quite a bit older than a lot of people here. My father had black board rubbers hurled at him and lots of verbal abuse but that was in the 1930's!

Speaking a teacher who has witnessed home educated kids thrust into mainstream system for GCSE or A Level, they are often a bit wierd ........

Gillaz that is offensive and that proves my point that some teachers can be very biased and ignorant-what i find weird is a so called professional who tries to explain her view on education by refering to children having received an alternative education as weird.

can i ask..........where i live we are visited and inspected a couple of times a year a education person comes to the house looks through everything weve done asks me lots of bizarre questions,speaks to the children i write a written report of things weve done and show pictures etc and craft stuff she goes away sends me a report and alls fine until the next time ......do you get visited?

No dippydeedoo, in seven years we have never been visited.
When we first started and the LA contacted us about arranging a visit, I thanked them politely for their offer and declined it.
She said "Well of course you are within your rights to say no" and I said I knew I was. I said I would send in our educational philosophy and a written report instead.
Then she said it would be lovely to see some samples of the children's work along with the report but I told her not to hold her breath for that, that i would ask the children if they wished to share their work with her or not, but I didn't expect they would.
She commented on how nice it was that i should be asking them.

We have never sent any work, they have never met the children.
I send the same ed phil every year-that hasn't changed and send an updated report with info about what we have been up to in the form of a list.
That's it.
The LA declare themselves satisfied each time.

At first so keen were we to do everything "right" we said they could visit us at home (this was 3 years ago for this paticular HE period)each time its been someone new and with a different approach...the last one was very extreme 2 of them came and properly went through everything had son read to them and one said to son" are u excited to b going to school again?"-hardly the positive HE support lol then she continued to ask me a variety of interview like questions...."how do you effectively monitor progress" "how do you judge their academic abilities in relation to their peers" "how do you continue a theme if they have no interest" " where do they sit and learn" "what is an average days routine" and so on that was 2 of them and they thought just me LUCKILY dh always makes arrangements to be home if im happy to be alone he makes himself scarce(after all we could be a bit intimidating for thm we thought 2 on 1)well this time really put me off and im seriously considering now i only have 1 HE to do the written report thing ....and say im opting out of home visits now..........ds2 went back to school in sept not once has she enquired how he is.

I would have thought that if your son is back in school he is no longer on her case load?

at being able to 'get away' with sending an educational philosophy and a list of topics studied.

I must try that with ofsted the next time they 'do' the school

but the LA (via Ofsted) have a responsibility to monitor the quality of your teaching/facilitating MB - they have no responsibility in law to monitor teh quality of the education HE children are receiving - that's why we can "get away" with providing a written report.

Some of us don't even have to bother with a written report because they never even contact us

Who is "getting away" with anything?
Would you expect Ofsted (or other agencies) to apply inspections to families caring for their own under-8 children in the same way that childminders are inspected.
Would you expect Health and safety, food hygiene inspections for your kitchen in the same way that restaurants have them?
Are you "getting away" with any of the above?

somone on one of the HE email lists likened LA "inspection" of Home Edders to the govt deciding to introduce "5-a-day" inspectors, who would come round to your house at a time they had decided, pick over the contents of your fridge and fruit bowl, tell you "everyone" else's children ate broccoli and they woudl give you the particular recipe they recommended. Then they would hane you a food diary to be filled in for each child, and tell you they owuld be back to check it through. Regardless of the fact that as a parent it's your responsibility to make sure your children do (or don't) eat 5 pportions of fruit and veg a day.

at being able to 'get away' with sending an educational philosophy and a list of topics studied.

I am not getting away with anything martianbishop, schools are inspected to ensure the quality of the teaching, so that parents know what the quality of the teaching is like in that school, as they are the ones ultimately responsible for the child's education and so that the tax payers can be seen to be getting value for money.

I don't have to have anyone tell me what sort of education my children are getting and no tax payers money is being spent on educating them so no-one has the right to insist on monitoring the education we provide.
The recent Governement Guidelines on home education for LAs reinforce this.
The LA can ask for information and it is up to the parent to choose how to give it.

martianbishop - Before you roll your eyes about what parents can & can't "get away with" maybe you should check your facts. The 1996 Education Act or the OFSTED website might be good places to start!

Schools have to submit to inspections & the like because they have funding that needs to be accounted for & because they are accountable to those legally responsible for providing children's education - their parents.

If a parent is HEing they don't have or justify any funds they spend because they don't receive any. They don't have to provide any particular curriculum, only cause their children to receive an ?efficient full-time education suitable (a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and (b) to any special educational needs he may have? (Education Act 1996 (Section 7)). They can do so in any way that suits their way of life, cultural or religious beliefs. (Human Rights Act 1998 (Ch. 42) Schedule 1, Part II, Article 2)

According to law, an LA's duty is only concerned with children to appear not to be receiving a suitable education, but they can make informal enquiries to satisfy that parents are doing so. The parent can choose to respond to these enquiries as they wish. Providing written information, usually by way of an educational philosophy and statement, maybe with a list of resources is usually the least time consuming, disruptive and stressful way of doing this, both for the parents and the children. OFSTED is, of course nothing to do with this process because they are tasked to inspect and regulate "services" not parents.

did any of you spot the inverted commas round the 'getting away with it' line?

I know the legal situation. I'm just interested in the double standard that the quality of a child's leraning within a school has to be monitored, but not within a home.

It's not a double standard! The child's learning isn't monitored - the standard of teaching is!

I still don't see there is a double standard.

If you were employed to teach my child, I would want to know about the quality of education you were providing as I would be legally responsible for the education my child is receiving. If my child were not receiving a suitable education I would be falling in my responsibility.

I don't need a report from someone else to tell me about the education they receive at home.

It is also why the majority of home educators do not want funding from the LA or anyone else, with funding they would rightly be able to ask to monitor to ensure value for money.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

No-one is paying me.

actually you are wrong. In ofsted inspections the learning of the children is monitored in he clas, not that standard of the teaching. This is a fairly recent change over the last 3 years or so,

martianbishop....I've been reading the OFSTED website this morning & can't find anything that confirms that...everything I can find still talks about inspecting & regulating services.

E.g "A school inspection is carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. It is a process of evidence gathering in order to provide an assessment of how well a school is performing."

Can you provide links? I am genuinely curious about this..

We had a briefing from the lea prior to our last osted and were informed of the changes.

Specifically we are expected to show that the children learn in the lesson. So key parts of the lesson plan have to be geared to show that the kids have accessed the aims of the lesson (if you are interested in this the key terms are Formative assessment, googgle for Beyond the black box, williams and black)

I'm being quite honest with you about this.

If a single child does not make progress in a lesson, for whatever reason, the lesson is 'unsatisfactory. So if a kid has just found out that his gran is ill, or her parenbts are splitting up, or just had a falling out with a mate, comes into your classroom, and understandibly does not learn, your lesson is unsatisfactory.

Which I thnk is rather unreasonable

I don't doubt that you are being honest...I was just curious as a person who has done some teacher training & teaching in schools (including going through an OFSTED inspection) in the past...and from the pov of a parent, who whilst HEing atm, is still interested in what happens in schools.

I agree that it is unfair if the assessment doesn't allow for things like family situations impacting on learning, but I would still argue that it's the provision (ie the lesson plan) that is being monitored here...unless I'm misunderstanding...

But the lesson plan is really only evaluated by the measure of pupil learning.

So if you do a stunning lesson plan, perectly leveled for the class, with differentiation, and VAKi taken into account, a lesson that is interesting and has pace, with formative assessment built in and one student does not make progress, the lesson is graded as unsatisfactory.

I have no probelm with learning being one of the criteria, but it has to be realistic, and other things also have to be taken into account if it is going to accuratly reflect what went on in the classroom.

We have chosen to home ed our child (soon to be children) largely because of the set of educational circumstances open to them. I guess that is all you can do when making these choices, look at your individual situation and weigh up the options. I do feel that in our particular circumstances then school is not the best option.

I don't like the way in which we generalise the school or home ed experience. Some schools/ teachers or home ed situations are great, some are not. All we can do as parents is the best by our child at any particular time with the options open to them and I guess that is true of any parenting situation.

Private schools aren't inspected unless the school asks for it.

I said that I hadn't come across anyone in my area who didn't know that HE was a legal choice (I was told that this couldn't be true, based on the fact that whoever it was gets asked this question all the time!)
I live among very well informed parents!
However I thought that everyone had to be visited by the education department. My friend has a visit each year and has always had glowing reports(she doesn't do any formal work). Why would you want to exclude them? They have also been helpful in terms of resources etc.They are not the enemy-they want good education for all.
I am horrified that a child with terrible, controlling parents has no safety net.
There could be years of abuse and unless it was physical no one would know.Don't all get cross-I AM NOT saying you are like this but if general checks were made and it saved only one child it would be worth it.

Unfortunately not all LAs or LA employees are as good/useful as your friends'. Most demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge about HE, even to the extent of their own legal responsibilities. A quick glance at any HE discussion group/list will show many many queries & appeals for help dealing with LAs, often in cases where the LA has completely overstepped the mark, lied about what the parent should/shouldn't be doing & made life extremely difficult for the family concerned.

WRT abuse & safety nets: We don't get inspectors checking what we feed our children, what their accommodation is like etc. Why should education be different? Education is legally the responsibility of the parent not the authorities. It is up to the parents how they choose to educate their children. Just as it is for every other aspect of their lives.

..and of course there is a 'safety net' for HE children. It is utterly ridiculous to suggest otherwise. HE does not automatically mean a child is shut away from the rest of society - if someone is worried about a child then they can report the matter to social services. No different to any schooled child. I hate this assumption that because a child doesn't attend school this automatically means they are at risk. Parents of schooled children don't all have homes/lives inspected to make sure they aren't abusive/neglectful. Why does HE automatically mean the child is more likely to be abused? I find that quite insulting tbh. If there is real cause for concern then the authorities have the same rights & means to investigate as with schooled children.