FURIOUS with Gove's maths comments

[BusterGut]

The man is a total twat.
He is so out of touch, he must be living on Mars.

Bloody 'pre-algebra' - that's missing no. sums in Y2.
Bloody 'maths every day' - who doesn't?
Bloody teaching maths till 18 ????????? (Pity the sec sch maths teachers)

GGrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
(I've written to the slimy little toad. Anyone else going to join me?

You did. "Why not ask the teacher if you don't understand the methods?"

Absolutely no reason why she should understand them, ask the teacher or transfer the skills to her daughter.

The teacher should be able to teach basic skills with no input from the parents. It's nice if parents can help out. They shouldn't have to:many can't: you shouldn't rely on it: and if you do it's a cop out.

Just wanted to register some support for you here Buster! And I agree with you.

I think if you are relying on parents then you are building an inequality into the system from the word go. Best thing my DC's Headteacher said to me was that they learn to read at school (and they certainly did, and well). They learn to read in the formal literacy hour and at every other available opportunity (and she showed me some examples). Done well (and they do it really well) literacy built into the curriculum, can be fabulous. But you need the whole package I think. I am a secondary teacher myself, and I think an involved and enthusiastic parent with respect to education. We read to our children, made sure they were well supplied with books and bought them a reading light as a reward for becoming a reader. That was our contribution. My DS's teacher also made it clear to him that being able to work out times table in his head was not sufficient. He had to learn them too. And he did. Again, at school. Because he had to.

As a secondary school teacher, I get lots and LOTS of year 7s coming in who can't read to the level demanded by the secondary curriculum. And the numbers are actually increasing. Which suggests to me that not all schools are as effective as my DC's. I can teach data handling actually. It's not overly tricky, and is pretty much part and parcel of what I teach (Science). I can't teach reading.

"I think if you are relying on parents then you are building an inequality into the system from the word go."

Oh THANK GOD.

I totally agree.

It might seem like I and moondog are on the "right-wing" side of the argument. But I find those on the "left" side of the argument much more willing to see children to hell in a handcart because their parents are badly educated or too busy or not very bright or just generally crap.

Because the teacher was a fucking prat if we're being completely honest Buster, they wouldn't come out into the playground at home time, they would literally hide from the parents and woe betide anyone who tried to get in the classroom of a morning.
Parents evening or notes they claimed never to see were our only contact.
If I am only paying £20,000 a year for the fact that if I want to talk to somebody they damn well have to listen to me then it's worth every penny.
We were so lucky we had another option.

I've been to one state school so am hardly an expert but it struck me the school is far more interested in the parenting, telling the children what to eat, demonstrating to middle class children without a filing in their head how to brush their teeth, fund raising (usually for the school) dress up, walks etc etc.
What I love about their current school is that all of this is a given, that you can actually bring your kid up yourself and so they just get on with the three RRR's and the odd trip out.

Oh, I am pretty left wing actually. Is this a left/right thing? Why?

I guess for me the left/right wing bit here is the comments about 'stop teaching them about rainforests' and all that. And the assumption that teachers aren't up to much. And the sending children to private schools.

Yes Ishani.
I have my kids' school (nice people) wasting time giving out anti smoking backpacks asnd stickers and policing my kids' lunchboxes and confiscating 12g pieces of Green & Black chocolate, telling them it isn't healthy.

Fuck. Off.

I find this discussion fascinating and a bit scary, dd starts primary next year, and i have no idea what happens - i went to school in another country, andc threre isn't the expectation of parental involvement as there is here

i am a teacher (secondary) and i have my syllabus change significantly 3 x during my time here, which in 10 or so years seems like a lot, not to mention constant new initiatives thar get tried out then dropped in the space of a year or two.

Is it the curriculum thats shite? Years ago the old O lveles were far harder than what they learn today.
And no, i domt get involved in the kids school work. Thats why i send them to school. I used to home ed so have do e all that. They went to school so i didnt have too.

in my subject, gcse is v different in terms of what is taught and how compared to what i remember from home

A level is much the same with respect to level of difficulty and content. There are some minor differences, we did more physical chemistry back home, students do more organic here. I teach what is thought of as an academic subject fwiw.

It's the initiativeitis that boggles my mind rather than minor changes to content here and there.

I'd say a combination of the curriculum and too many "arts" primary school teachers who don't actually have that good a gasp of maths themselves, access courses being accepted in lieu of GCSE Maths is a joke, a level 2 equivalent, do me a favor.
I appreciate not all are weak or poorly qualified but I can think of 4 off the top of my head who are and they have 30 + children to teach tomorrow.

Last year I found an O level Biology paper from 1984. Apart from the O level paper having a question asking the candidate to draw and label the ventral surface of an earthworm (which I have never taught), my higher tier GCSE candidates (so O level equivalents) would have been able to have a pretty decent stab at the paper I think. Who knew How Science Works was alive and well in the 1980s?

Mind you, I posted on here at the timne about it, only to have a whole bunch of posters tell me I was wrong, so I'm not sure we are terribly objective about the O level/GCSE thing really.

gooseberry 'The teacher should be able to teach basic skills with no input from the parents. It's nice if parents can help out. They shouldn't have to:many can't: you shouldn't rely on it: and if you do it's a cop out. am truly that so many of you say that you are unwilling to support your children at home.'

It's not difficult to read a book with a child, or to chant times tables on the way to granny's house.
I didn't say I relied on parental help - I just want the children to become more confident in class, so occasionally I may have a word with a parent, explain the methods, and ask them to support their child at home.

And the children whose parents can't read, or who are extremely unconfident readers, who can't remember their own times tables, or never learnt them, who have chaotic and disordered home lives, have no books in their house, or who don't read English (and that is quite a lot fo the children I teach)? For some people it's really difficult to do what you are asking. People are very nervous of schools if they have had a bad experience themselves.

Who is saying they're unwilling? I'm very willing. Lots on the thread are willing. No reason why they should be but they've had to be involved in the basics as well as the extra stuff.

Wake up call Buster - THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO ARE EITHER UNWILLING or UNABLE or BOTH. DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS? As a teacher, you really, really, really, really should know this.

Why should their children be condemned to failure? Don't you believe in social equality?

Basingstoke yy I suppose I should have said "conservative and traditional" rather than - what - "progressive"? don't know. But certainly the view that there should be a focus on reading, writing and arithmetic at the expense of rainforest education would be seen as "conservative", as would rejection of the idea that teaching by rote involves a cruel oppression.

Basingstoke, you are much more polite. The "ffs" and "twat"-ing got on my nerves and so I'm slightly abraded.

No, but equally teaching by rote isn't necessarily the most effective method either.

When they are writing, they have to write about something. I don't see a problem with that something sometimes being rainforests.

It is so easy to chant, to sing, to be inventive. More to the point, you can chant, and sing, and do all that stuff at an early age when they inhale it all, instead of leaving it to 7, 8, 9 when they find it boring and would rather play a computer game. If you leave learning by heart to after they've understood it, I think quite often it means leaving it too late.

So, basingstoke and moondog we identify those particular children, because their progress is continuously tracked. We know about their home circumstances, and we try to support them in school. That's another reason we do maths and literacy/phonics every day (back to my original post).

Of course I believe in social equality, but I also believe that parents (if so inclined) should be willing to help their children.
Teachers are able to teach basic skills, but some children just don't get it, and that is where parental support is appreciated.

Anyway - teaching by rote isn't necessarily all - they're simply not given enough time - obviously.

This is nonsense this, oh wel lthey might as well write about rainforests. Nonsense. For reasons I can explain later when I have picked up my child .

Well, I would just say that a) I don't think they do over-much rainforest stuff anyway, and b) I don't see why it would be nonsense to say that sometimes a comprehension piece or a piece of persuasive writing could be about rainforests.

Rainforests do exist (for the moment!), so it's probably not that bad an idea if kids know something about them.

Oh and I just asked dd2 who is actually, coincidentally, doing rainforests as this week's project (year 5) how much time they spend on them - she said this week they've done a bit every day, why? And I said some people think there should be less stuff about rainforests in school and more numeracy and she looked at me as if I was being very stupid and said 'we do numeracy more than we do about the rainforests!'.