Is David Cameron talking out of his own back passage?

[tiredemma]

On BBC 1 now- talking about how the Conservative Party will sort this country out once and for all.

Well, will they?? or is it all hot air?

Im undecided about my vote- Im a Labour voter normally but have become disenchanted by that party- but remain sceptical about the Tories.

Im unsure about DC and his crew.

well, my mental arithmetic certainly isn't as sharp as the kids in Y4 at my kids' 'Ofsted rated-Satisfactory school'.

Not sure that that proves that 'things are terrible and need shaking up' though - rather the opposite - that they actually ARE focussing on the basics! And fwiw, the kids in my ds1's school are VERY mixed in terms of background - it certainly isn't a 'nice middle-class' school.

LilyBolero, I'm only joking. Your DS sounds very bright. Imagine how much better he will do when the Tories make their changes.

He is bright, but thrives in a more creative environment, I think he would be crushed in a 'traditional' style classroom.

I started to do a primary PGCE when I first graduated and was shocked that we spent a morning a week doing art, but only 2 hours doing literacy and 2 hours maths.

It struck me then, and I haven't changed my view in 20+ years, that a child can have a meaningful experience with a paintbrush at home; but they won't necessarily have literate or numerate parents to help them with school work. Therefore, whilst there is a place for creativity in the classroom; the basics of literacy and numeracy need to be taught.

As a year 7 tutor a couple of years ago, I was appalled that one of my tutees had achieved a level 5 in science in his KS2 SATs, as he could not read or write. He may have been verbally fluent in science, but talking to his teacher in science I don't think he was. That for me was the indictment of this government, that a child could go through the entirety of primary school and not read.

"It struck me then, and I haven't changed my view in 20+ years, that a child can have a meaningful experience with a paintbrush at home; but they won't necessarily have literate or numerate parents to help them with school work. Therefore, whilst there is a place for creativity in the classroom; the basics of literacy and numeracy need to be taught."

I so agree, I so agree. Very well put scary.

Wubbly, I think I see your point, but you aren't putting it very well. I'm guessing you might think that for example while universities complain that undergraduate standards are getting lower, it's only because more people are going to university who wouldn't previously, that kind of thing? That standards were never that high in the first place, in other words? So while A levels are being downgraded, and the exams and coursework are said to be easier than previously, that more people who wouldn't have achieved them are doing so now? And so on and so forth. Is this your point?

It's a case of the bleeding obvious to me. Schools which have a more traditional focus do better. Now you may disagree that functioning well at maths and English is more important than being able to integrate global warming and world religion in a colourful blog but I do start from that premise.

The schools I'm thinking of are faith schools and private schools. So unless you think that wealthier children are more intelligent than poorer children, or children with religious parents are more intelligent than children without religious parents, you would need to look at either the approach or the parental input.

With faith schools, parental input is one of the main drivers, and with private schools, the traditional focus is one of the main drivers.

If you have children with no parental input then you have to fall back on a more sensible focus ie let's teach them to read well, write well and function well at basic maths as an absolute priority.

I'm very much of the belief that the different intelligences we all have should be encouraged. Great academic results don't mean everything -- or why would there be so many people with IQs of 150 working for people with IQs of 100.

But when, at the age of 11, no one has shown you that these basic skills are of enormous importance and can open up to you a world of opportunity, when no one has bothered to ensure that you have acquired them, then something very profound has been lost.

I feel utterly depressed about this whole election, I don't want any of them. DH and I watched a bit of David Cameron talking to business people in Cardiff where he made it very clear that the public sector is very inefficient and it needed reorganising and trimming down. Both of us understood that to mean job cuts. Now on the BBC headlines the Tories are saying that all this will be done by a curb on recruitment. Well that's not what Cameron was saying the other day.

Also he was saying that he wants to speed up people getting access to new drugs. His method is to pay drug companies by results. Let people use the drugs, then if they work well, the drug companies get paid more. I winced when I heard that, there was no mention of contraindications and I had a flashback to the Thalidomide episode. I don't trust him one iota.

But I don't trust no more boom or bust Gordon either. It is all a complete mess and I can't see anyone that I think can get us through what is ahead.

I agree Riven. Cameron reminds me of Blair, in that he'd do anything to get elected. However much I dislike Blair though, he did have some qualities that Cameron lacks, the most obvious one being conviction. He was a lot like Thatcher in that respect. He believed in something.

Cameron changes his mind like the wind and I'm at a loss to know what he actually thinks, or if he thinks at all.

Barefoot, sorry that you think I wasn't making my point clearly. My intention was merely to question what we are comparing today's standards to.

I take your point regarding parental involvement and agree wholeheartedly. Of course children with supportive parents will always do better than those children without that support. I think that has always been the case, or am I wrong?

With regards to faith and private schools and their better results, I think, with regards to the former, parental input is an enormous factor. Parents who value education and who can afford it can (and do) move to a catchment area so that they can get their children into the best schools. It follows that those schools will peform better as a result of being predominately populated by children from supportive backgrounds.

Are faith schools excluded from following the national curriculam? Do they sit the children in rows? I just don't see how they are so very different from an ordinary primary?

As for private schools, well once again, it is parental interest in the child's education that is a major factor. School fees are a big financial sacrifice that parents make to ensure their children get a great education. Smaller class sizes must also be a contributing factor.

From what I've read, Gove is advocating learing poetry and kings and queens by rote. Is it really so wrong to encourage our children to think?

scaryteacher - of course children need to learn the basics, no-one is disputing that. I would dispute that there is ANY evidence that sitting kids in rows and using 'traditional' methods will be any more effective for the children who struggle than more imaginative teaching. Where is the evidence for this? Children have always come out of school unable to read. And the key element is parental input at home imo - if that is missing, then there is only so much a school can do. Our school has a 'reading recovery' programme, but it really does help if parents can input.

I think you missed my point about being 'creative' in the classroom - yes a child can paint at home, but I'm talking more about cross-curriculum stuff - so perhaps using music or art as a 'way in' to a subject. Eg ds1's class were starting to learn about the human skeleton. They started off singing 'Dem Bones', and then sang it looking at a picture of a skeleton, then moved onto looking at the latin names of the bones. So the lesson very quickly became technical, but the children had been 'switched' on by a bit of imaginative teaching.

The greatest gift a primary school can give a child imo is the love of learning. Looking at my own children, when they LOVE a subject they learn SO much more because they come home and WANT to learn more - they go on the internet and research it, they write stories about their topics etc. Dd spends hours writing poetry.

I think Barefoot is spot on about the importance of being realistic about 'parental input'.
One of the things that bothers me most about recent changes to education (at least from the introduction of GCSE in 1988, and yes I know that was the Tories!) is that more reliance has been placed on parental input and that militates strongly against the children without parents who are willing and able to help them.
There used to be a sense of education allowing one to transcend a poor home background, but this is just harder and harder now the parents are expected to help with homework so much. And the fact that a blind eye has been turned to parents helping with GCSE coursework is nothing short of scandalous IMO.

scareyteacher - children that 'can't read or write'can still learn science. That's what access arrangements are for. Did this child have a Spld causing his reading/writing difficulties?

If Tories get in they will cut a load of TA support I reckon. There were no TA's in the good old days after all.

He was on the school action register, but most of the kids who were on there had a basic knowledge of literacy. This one couldn't read or write his name; didn't want to try, and his Mum wouldn't do anything with him at home.

I KNOW that he could still learn science, but without basic literacy skills, what chance has he now. He will be taking his GCSEs this summer (or not), and I can't see what future he will have. That's what upsets me.

'I would dispute that there is ANY evidence that sitting kids in rows and using 'traditional' methods will be any more effective for the children who struggle than more imaginative teaching.' Imaginative teaching isn't dependent upon how the kids are seated, and a mix of methods is best. Imaginative teaching won't help every child who struggles because some of them, no matter how hard you try, don't have the capacity to learn to the higher levels. Rote learning does work with certain things - times tables for example, French verbs etc and need to be learned that way for them to embed properly.

At secondary, it is far more difficult to achieve cross curricular teaching because the lessons are taught discretely. What you describe as imaginative teaching goes on every day in most classrooms - a starter activity to grab their attention and then on the main objective of the lesson, learning about the skeleton. We have all been doing this for years. Starter activity, main body of lesson, plenary.

scaryteacher - I agree that primary and secondary are different beasts altogether. And also that learning 'by rote' has its place. I also know that this sort of teaching already goes on.

What worries me is that in the articles published by Michael Gove he has 'latched on' to this 'return to traditional methods' as a total solution, in which he includes the business about 'desks in rows' - as some sort of magic sticking plaster. When in fact most classrooms are already using a mixture of methods - and I'm sure a mixture of methods (as decided by the teacher, not Whitehall) is the best solution.

I am pretty sure the 'sitting in rows' stuff is also meant to be symbolic: it is about moving back towards a model of teaching as being about imparting knowledge, rather than about discovery and the constructivist model which emphasises the child as learner rather than the content of what they are taught.
What I am really wondering about is how the Conservatives will influence the content of teacher training courses.

btw I am sure you are right Cornsilk, about cutting TAs - it would be an easy way to save money quickly without the public outcry that would ensue if you cut teachers.

Yes I think it's symbolic too Seth: I think your point about imparting knowledge rather than discovery is very well articulated.

I am mainly talking about primary schools, Lily and Wubble -- I guess you know that private primaries don't have to follow the NC? Some are so academically productive in the mornings they are able to stop at lunchtime and spend every single afternoon every week on the sports field or doing drama, arts and music.

"And the key element is parental input at home imo - if that is missing, then there is only so much a school can do." No, this is so, so wrong.

Parental input is enormously helpful but it shouldn't be essential. It's no good saying I'm alright Jack, I'm willing to help my children, and if those other Mums can't be bothered, well it's their fault if their child fails.

Firstly those are children being failed. It's not some kind of payback for their parents. It's failure on a grand scale from an early age.

Secondly, if only for selfish reasons, think of how much of a drain those children will turn out to be on your brilliant, helped, achieving child when they all grow up. Will they make a useful contribution? Will they be able to find work? Will they be able to be happy? Will they have to be provided for because they can't provide for themselves? Will they have to turn to crime? Will they turn to anti-social ways of finding a sense of achievement and belonging.

If schools let them down they are being excluded from the life we all enjoy. Teaching them to paint and draw and discuss global warming is NOT going to help.

Yes, probably, they will.

Anyone notice that the Personal Allowance has been frozen for this tax year - taxation by the back door ......

It is not the only one either. Small businesses will have noticed that you have to get your company a/cs filed a month earlier or risk an even higher fine, going up in even higher increments.

We need to employ someone else but will delay for as long as possible due to the costs of employing people eg employers NI.

Any as far as the public sector is concerned, our (only)employee's wife works for a local council, they transferred her but didn't have a job for her so she took a book in to read - you couldn't make it up and we are paying her salary !

So who do we vote for - well actually there is no point in voting where I live as the Tories have been here forever (and always a hugh majority despite boundary changes).

"Yes probably" ? I don't know how that got there

yes the personal allowances thing bugs me too

ps excuse me getting strident, I know I'm doing it, it must be irritating

Barefoot - not irritating at all, it's something worthwhile to feel passionate about.