Children being labelled "mediocre failures" - totally unreasonable!

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

disidealist.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/mediocre-failures/

This blog is brilliant. It's not mine. But I feel very strongly for the woman who wrote it.

I've worked on education for many years and would go postal if I heard anyone refer to any child (or teen or adult) as a mediocre failure.

It's awful, isn't it? Just depressing.

If the blogger hadn't been so focused on being anti-tory she might have seen the point. It is undoubtedly true that without at least competent skills in reading/writing/arithmetic secondary schooling will be of little benefit. By setting the target secondary schools will have to expend the effort to help these children, otherwise its the school which will be deemed to have failed. Without this target many schools would dump the kids in the bottom set with the aim of getting rid of them asap.

While it would be nice to have tailored school experiences for each child it just isn't practical. School unfortunately is designed for the mediocre, it generally fails the least and most able.

So you think it's ok for children who are less able to be labelled as mediocre failures, do you? Or is it you who have missed the point, perhaps?

The thing is that many schools do what the blog suggests that schools do.

Just on a point of fact, the author is a man - and a very experienced secondary teacher himself. The school he works at, and many other secondary schools, as Boneyback says, mine included, already do everything they can to support and teach their lower-attaining pupils. Putting them under the stress of resitting KS2 SATs is not going to improve their outcome in any way. As teachers, we are already judged on the progress ALL our pupils make, which is as it should be. Putting the onus on the pupils themselves, by labelling them as 'mediocre failures' should never be an option.

Which is excellent, Boney

Didn't realise that, MissM - thanks for pointing that out for me. :)

And yes, the point is that children should never be labelled as mediocre failures.

Thanks for posting this blog article OP. Brilliant. Brought tears to my eyes. I hate the whole 'mediocre failures' attitude which sadly is pervasive in our society...

Who besides the author himself used the phrase mediocre failure? I'm in a Does Not Compute mode. Failing a single test many times does not make you a failure and there's no shame in being mediocre at most things, most of us are mediocre at most things. So what?

It's all in eye of the beholder. He hears that phrase because he's got a hang up about "mediocre" not being good enough.

Did you read the Telegraph link, ragged? It's the government who are saying "zero tolerance for failure and mediocrity", not the blogger.

As HOD for English at a very successful secondary lauded for our intervention with L3 or below entries by OFSTED and the govt this suggestion is exactly the opposite to how we intervene. The first thing pupils need is to be enthused with their learning, however good the primary these children will have an awareness that they have 'failed'. This policy will damage pupils confidence and self-esteem and make it less likely that they 'catch-up'. So why do we have endless visits from authorities looking at our techniques to only be ignored when they decide policy? This is a cheap policy that labels children for no reason. Levels do not count any more so why?

Great bog, I think.