Failure label for up to 2000 more schools.

[sailaboattvgal]

I cried when I heard this news. :(

NOT only that but the government are going to force schools to prioritize traditional subjects. This country needs young people with superb IT, design and practical skills.

Yes we need more scientists, engineers and nurses, but why make children study subjects that put them off education and are totally mind numbing? We also need more plumbers, electricians, and creative artists who will champion a future for Britain. Labelled schools and people as a failure is IMO extraordinarily backward thinking ?.. and at the same time we will be asked how happy we are!

[longfingernails]

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan There doesn't seem to be any shortage of PGCE courses - they are all bursting at the seams at the moment.

I would raise the prestige of the profession by regularly sacking the worst performers. Make it more of a meritocracy.

[longfingernails]

Schools and hospitals aren't businesses (except in the private sector) but they could be vastly improved in certain aspects - especially productivity and staff management - by injecting a dose of businesslike thinking.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

here's the stats from the time i trained lfn:

50% of students who start the pgce quit before completing the course.

of those who qualify 30% either never teach or quit before the end of their NQT year (first year of teaching with further assessments of performance etc)

of the remaining teachers (now 35% of those who started pgce) a further 50% leave the profession within three years.

the conditions are horrendous. the capacity to stand up and deal with, especially the more difficult, groups of 30 teenagers and manage their behaviour let alone actually teach them is rare in the human population. even those who have those skills find the conditions so wearying, depressing and stressful that they walk away from their true 'calling' if you like.

[longfingernails]

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan Then I am sure you will welcome the Gove proposals on greater pre-screening.

Get rid of unsuitable applicants by having various aptitude assessments (not just academic) before they start - and you will have a lower dropout rate.

[longfingernails]

Anyway, lunchtime is over - must get back to work.

[KangarooCaught]

Dh, laid back sod, is an outstanding teacher of a core subject in one of those schools you'd sell your granny to avoid. He is charged with making some of the weaker teachers better by intensive support and training, because part of the problem is getting the calibre of people to work there for 21-34k? The classes he's got would challenge me for sure & I'm a good teacher in my own sphere. The intake reflects the immediate area, a largely white underclass, mixed w/c and immigrant. Battling poverty of expectation and poor parenting is a big factor but he believes education can make a big difference to children's lives.

Dh's issue is that whilst the top 30-40% in his school are capable of taking and passing exams, the rest aren't, but they still have to jump through the hoops and ultimately fail. Designing an education - a largely vocational one - that meets their needs, he believes, is the answer. This tinkering at the edges is just a means of massaging figures, probably to the detriment of all.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

you miss the point though lfn.

where are the teachers coming from to replace all the teachers you assume are shite and need to be sacked?

and should schools be such horrendous places to be that they can only retain 17.5% of people who wanted to be teachers and were deemed fit for training?

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

you can keep throwing in teachers but so long as the environment remains so hideous they'll keep pouring out again.

[KangarooCaught]

Lfn, do you/ would you teach?

[BadgersPaws]

"I do actually think they may have hit on an idea recruiting ex military"

That's pretty much what happened after WW2, suddenly you had a lot of ex-military men as teachers and heads.

It had both good and bad effects.

However it did inspire a number of Pink Floyd songs so maybe we should give this a thumbs up and hope that the next generation can produce something a bit better than countless insipid X-Factor clones :)

"When you're one of the few to land on your feet
What do you do to make ends meet?
Teach.
Make them mad, make them sad, make them add two and two.
Make them me, make them you, make them do what you want them to.
Make them laugh, make them cry, make them lie down and die."

"Jesus, Jesus, what's it all about?
Trying to clout these little ingrates into shape.
When I was their age all the lights went out.
There was no time to whine or mope about."

[yellowvan]

I think it's got a fair bit to do with needing tobe seen to do something to help redeploy all the military pesonnel who are going to be made redundant as they start coming home fom Afganistan- who often end up on the streets or whatever and fail to find suitable other employment.

I don't think that they, purely by didnt of a military background, are automatically good teacher material. The relationships, expectations, and especially sanctions and methods are not the same in school and army. Secondary age kids do not much go in for blind obedience to orders.

I forsee a breakdown or two for sure,(of these new teachers) I don't think it will be pretty.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

breakdowns are never pretty.

saw plenty in my brief teaching career.

dropping like flies!

[sailaboattvgal]

ummh, interesting points from some. I just can't see how it helps anyone to label a school or child as FAILING. It is bad enough for a school to be labeled as "in special measures" but it does imply improvements will be made. One local school had 4 head teachers, two different organisations (one with charitable status) and huge financial investment. It has taken 9 years for local people to choose this school which was seen as a sink school. Hopefully this school has breached the divide and will continue to be successful but others won't.

Schools and teachers in deprived areas or schools already classed as the sink school will quake with fear next time Ofsted come their way. Nervous teachers rarely perform well and a negative cycle begins. No MP, banker or rich business person will be forced by lack of money or circumstance to leave their child to suffer the daily life of going to school in a failing school. It is already an unwritten truth that some schools find ways to exclude children from poorer backgrounds or children with SEN (withiout a statement). How does this fit in with pupil premiums for the disadvantaged?

[nooka]

The trouble is with choice and attempting to 'instill market discipline' is that there has to be excess supply, and are always failures. It's a very expensive way to run things, and for most people unacceptable, because it means paying much more (for all those unused school places/hospital beds) and accepting failure (illiterate and unhappy children, dead or maimed patients). Now that's not to say that the current system doesn't have some of those problems, but in a market/choice environment they are a part of system design.

To solve the problem of bad teachers (or any profession/specialist) you need to have far more supply than demand, so that schools have genuine choice when recruiting, and the confidence to know that if they get rid of a poorly performing teacher they will easily and quickly recruit someone better. Same for parents, you need to have a range of accessible schools with empty places and/or a lot of mobility before you can have anything approaching real choice. I don't think it exists that much in the private sector either. When we were considering schools for ds before we left London we had no acceptable choice on the state side, and only one possibility on the private side, so we either had to compromise or move. That was in London where there are lots of schools, for many people there is no practical choice, nor would it be sensible to offer it (it would be stupidly expensive and there would probably be quality issues too).

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

thank you nooka. i think earlier i said all of that in my own rambling way but you've managed to put it very succinctly in one post in the terms of a market.

that's exactly the point, there is more demand than supply in all of those areas - teachers, schools to choose from, pupil places etc. the concept of 'choice' is meaningless in that context unless it is choice for a few which leaves others with less/no choice.

[onimolap]

I think OP hit the nail on the head it bewailed subjects which were numbing and turned children off education.

No subject has such qualities inherently; so the effect described is a result of bad teaching.

We - parents, children, heads and colleagues - all recognise it when we see it. Isn't the question really what needs to be done to deal with it effectively - bearing in mind that the children only get one shot at going through school and so lengthy solutions are less appropriate than they might be elsewhere.

[Alouiseg]

Dire and inadequate parenting is at the root of the problems of failing schools.

If you have an intake of poorly cared for children with low expectations its going to take more than a good teacher to inspire them.

[TheJollyPirate]

My concern with regard to the proposed changes is about where they will leave my son and others like him. My son has an ASD and ADHD. Thankfully he is NOT a "climbing the walls" ADHD child (except at home sometimes ). On the other hand his capacity to attend, concentrate and understand instructions is poor. The SALT has said he requires extensive support to help him. In a more trditional set up with the subjects Gove suggests he would flounder. I wonder how they will address the issue of special needs.

[Goblinchild]

JP, my son has Asperger's, and we have the opposite problem.
If they got rid of all the touchy-feely interactive group work and discussions and went back to learning in a formal, quiet rule-based individual learning environment, he would be delighted.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

and without taking abuse and being used as crowd control.

[Alouiseg]

The reception class at my sons private primary school had to have a special lesson in the dining room for reception children who had no idea how to eat with a knife and fork! These children were also expected to wear ties. Ds 2 was the only one who could tie his tie on the first day of school.

There appears to be a very strong "leave it to nursery/school" to teach children the very basics. Where successive governments have tried to parent children through the education system all they have succeeded in doing is allowing parental responsibility to fall on to the shoulders of staff who should be teaching. It is my opinion that children in this country shouldn't start school till 6 years old anyway. If they had more time in a nurturing environment then they are more likely to be able to develop as children before they become statistics in a school system.

[longfingernails]

Yes - parents have to take more responsibility.

Teachers should be free to teach. They are not social workers, confidantes, police informants, but teachers.

Hopefully as Britain is slowly weaned off the excesses of the welfare state, people will start to take responsibility for themselves and their family once more.

[SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan]

more buzzwords and lack of content lfn.

what does any of that mean in reality?