State education system, is it broken?

[minimathsmouse]

I believe the wheels have fallen off the state education system. You might not agree but I have read so many posts here from parents who have had and are still having huge problems with their child's school. Many people seem to have worries about standards of teaching, clashes of ideology and problems with making up the deficit with tutors and home study. Horrendous SEN provission, huge class sizes, lack of provision for able pupils, the list goes on. It is truely depressing to think so many children are not receiving the education they deserve.

How many people believe the whole system has failed? Are falling standards only due to poor teaching or wider problems that are not being addressed within the system?

Oh dear, Appletrees doesn't seem to recognise her own arsey attitude.

I found the method of discussion, (not the content) arsey tiresome and left the thread this morning.

Shall I turn off the lights then?

I like some of apples, ideas and I also am of the "lets ensure children from disadvantaged backgrounds get the education they deserve" but Rabbitstew is so right in saying parental input has the biggest influence on a childs attainment.Lets face it, you can't exclude parents from the process.

Should education, educate children in core skills just as it did in the 50's and then turn them out?
Is a basic level of maths and english still enough for over 70% of the population?
Do we need more doctors and lawyers, or more factory workers?
Should schools raise attainment and therefore aspiration for all children?
Do we need over 50% to go to university at the end of it?
Do the jobs exist at the end of it?
Would their lives be finacially easier and would we see less dependence on welfare and less need for immigrant workers?

What skills are needed by the economy? Should children be filtered through the system to ensure they have the skills for the jobs available to them?

Should children be taught in huge enclosed institutions, with few adults and even less adult interaction?
Should children learn by rote or modern methods?
learn their social cues from other children, less socialised than them?

I think it is impossible to seperate politics and economic factors from education, state education is an instrument of the state, set up to amuse (teachers try very hard to keep disruptive children engaged), accomodate, educate and care take its young participants. Its purpose in terms of conveying skills and knowledge is almost secondary, always has been, but why do we allow this?

I would challenge Gove and co on free schools and academies, more inequality according to post code, matched only with the injustice of bank balance in relation to access to often much better schooling in the private sector. Rant over, off to bed.

OK, OK, I admit it. I did phrase my comments on parental support in a way that was likely to inflame Appletrees.

But I do strongly disagree that a teacher should do absolutely all the reading practice with a child and that no parents, middle class or otherwise, should ever have to pick up a reading book with their children to help them practice their skills. I'm more than happy to go into school and carry out these parental (not teaching, as I don't do the phonics, etc, I just up the frequency of the practice) responsibilities for other children if their parents can't or won't do it for themselves, and I do, without judging the parents, because I am fully aware that whilst this is an easy and enjoyable task for me, it is daunting for other people. This enables the teacher to spend a bit more time teaching and less time reinforcing something that can result in more able or otherwise supported children getting bored in the meantime, because of the overdose of practice and too little going on to something new. I agree entirely with Appletrees that this should never be done as a replacement for the teacher ever reading with the child, which should still take place on a regular basis for the purposes of assessment of progress and success of teaching methods, but it can be done legitimately without it being a cop out. Appletrees' ideas just don't seem to allow for any form of parental altruism - she makes it sound as though it's all about the teachers, even though I'm sure she doesn't really mean it quite like that. She makes me feel like my attempts to support my local school are a waste of time and merely encourage schools to rely too much on people like me to do their work for them. Of course I will therefore react poorly to her comments on parental support, because I do not view parental support as merely supporting your own children.

Oops. More practic/se.

(oh, and I have to admit to getting the children to sound out the words when they find them hard, which I guess requires a very basic knowledge of phonics on my part).

ps I did actually receive some training on reading with schoolchildren, once!

Am I just an irritating do-gooder?

Sorry, Appletrees, I see at the beginning of this whole thread you did approve of parents reading with children in school. It all got a bit mixed in with your other comments about parents not having to do anything at home with their children. I guess I'm still a bit confused as to what you view as actual teaching and what you view as support. I know that what my school asks me to do with my child at home I view as simple support, not top-up teaching. So, however much you tell me I'm being arsey, except towards the very end of this thread I really wasn't intending to be. I just didn't understand exactly what you were getting at and was hoping for a bit more clarification, because it all so obviously clear in your head. I still feel that what you want is what I actually get in my dss' school and that this is a State school in a mixed demographic area having to teach under the NC and not failing its children. So do I guess from that that you don't actually want to change as much as I got the impression that you did?

I just wanted to say that I found this thread very good and informative.

And also to say that reading with my children is a pleasure and I would always do that, no matter what - and you're right rabbitstew, I don't see that as supplementing schoolwork, I see it as support and just something nice to do with them, as a family we value reading very highly.

What I do resent is having to teach them the curriculum, as I am not a trained teacher but I feel like I have to as it is not being covered. My DD will stall for months until I or DH cover the next step with her, and so on.

We have tried not doing it but she just doesn't progress. I don't think this should be necessary.

They do a lot at school but it's not pitched right, it's pitched at the lowest or maybe average level, which means that she does get to practise what she already knows, which is good, but then she is not progressing to the next level for a very long time and in fact she does actually regress.

I could just leave it of course, but it's a shame isn't it, to see that your children are not making any progress at all and especially so if they are massively eager to learn.

In fact we have left her maths and noticed that since Reception she has made absolutely no progress whatsoever...this is because he maths has always been a couple of years ahead curriculum wise, so it's been left well alone.

However, rabbitstew, I don't know what the solution is within a classroom. I would just prefer not to have to teach my children and would be more than happy to be asked to reinforce or support school at home. Maybe we are just unlucky with our school, but I do hear this sort of problem from other people (friends and family) who have children in other schools, so I can't be on my own...

ps it will be interesting to see if this happens with my other children, who will inevitably be at different levels and will obviously have different learning styles!

Thank you, emy72. I do agree with what you say. It should not be your job to supplement the curriculum. I also acknowledge that my children would, from a purely academic perspective, progress more quickly in a selective private school. I do not, however, think that I am harming their futures by allowing a slightly slower progress, provided they do have a good grounding in the basics by the end of primary school. Which means that despite Appletrees' anger at me, we are not actually standing that far apart. I just think that part of the play off for my children not being rigorously pushed in an academic sense (but hopefully pleasantly stretched) is that State schools do have something else to offer, even if only a sense that we are all in this together and should support the sense of community they can provide. And that they only provide a sense of community if schools encourage parental involvement at every level.

I therefore think there is a role to play in asking ourselves what we expect from our children's education - how much academic attainment is "enough" and how much of the other aspects of human life and development should be encompassed by the curriculum? When does a curriculum go from being rich to being overcrowded and failing children in the basics? How much of the failure in some schools is simply as a result of poor teaching, poor management and poor parental support?

In other words, we haven't successfully answered any of our questions and worries, although we have certainly had an interesting discussion!!!!!

ps emy72, I also acknowledge that my children are naturally very academically gifted and therefore pick up concepts quite easily, even if badly taught. They will therefore be OK even in a not-so-good school. I do think that the school they are at caters well for all children, though, and that is borne out by the opinions of most of the parents at the school, so I don't think it is just me thinking if it's OK for my kids, then it's OK for everyone.

It's interesting - one of the things most often quoted by parents as a reason to choose a private school is not the prioritising of core subjects, but the wider access to arts, sports facilities and other 'enrichment' provision.
Certainly the thing I feel is missing from DP's state education is good music tuition - ANY meaningful music tuition in KS2 - and a good grounding in high quality arts. But I can do that outside school, and one of the biggest differences between DS and his friends from different family backgrounds is that it is comon fo them NEVER to have been to a museum or cultural facility except with school.
One of the things I love about his school is that they have been studying Spanish with a specialist language teacher since Yr1. There is evidence to show that both languages and music build cognitive capacity in children, but I think they are also valuable in thier own right.

I don't think these things should be at the expense of core subjects, but I think they are important, and should be part of a coherent syllabus in which all areas of learning support each other.

I don't think the fact that child K has no social or self-motivation skills is a sign that state education is broken, I think it is a sign that in her family, parenting is broken. And NO education system could fix that, any more than the provision of a public transport system can fix the habitual drunk stinking out the night bus 7 days a week.

In DS's Lambeth state school, which has a very mixed demography including refugees, ESOL,and in an area with very high indices of disadvantage 100% achieve level 4 in English and science, and 93% in Maths. Some individual children are failing, but many are showing a real enjoyment and confidence in larning and look forward to secondary school.

I would like to see less rigid SATS factory teaching and testing, more cross curricular work, more good quality music tuition - but the high ratio of TAs in each class and excllent whole school etcos means that in DS's school discipline, motivation and sense of comunity are very high.

Rabbitstew, yes and you have a good point and one we often ask ourselves; is it that important that our children don't progress that fast (or very little, depending on the year/subject)?

I suppose I don't know the answer to that question at all! It feels like they are not fulfilling their potential sometimes, but then the main reason for keeping them at the local village school, despite all its faults is exactly the same as yours: they are part of a community, it has excellent pastoral care and they are learning a lot about life in a community etc....

It's a good school and there are a lot of good things and interesting thing there for the children - but if we are talking about improvement then I'd say that they could be stretching the brighter children a little more and also, in agreement with Blu, providing more high quality music etc...although that of course would cost money!

They are trying really hard for the kids and I see the teachers work flat out and very very long hours, so if there are any faults I am sure they are not for lack of trying but more for lots of reasons, some of which I am sure I don't fully appreciate as I am not a teacher.

Another thing I would say is that, since my son has started at the same school, I am somewhat realising that every child gets a difference experience - he is so motivated, happy and stimulated and to look at him you'd think he'd gone to a completely different school!!!! What I am trying to say is that we see the school from a child's reaction and perspective and sometimes this is not the most objective way to look at it as every child is so different!

One other thing I find quite interesting, is that we all feel we know whether or not our children are progressing sufficiently, as though we have some kind of personal timetable in our heads as to what needs to be achieved and by when, but we all claim we know nothing much about teaching and education, because that's the teacher's job. Can we really be so certain that we know exactly what we should expect with respect to the achievement of particular goals at particular times for our particular children if we admit to not understanding the process of getting there and how it differs from child to child? In other words, what informed our understanding of what to expect from our children and when and how to measure that? Is it really just SATs? Do they really give a fair picture of children's development in schools? Do they try to measure too much, or do they not give a big enough picture of what is going on? Are they to blame for everyone focusing in on literacy and maths to the exclusion of everything else? How easy is it to show that teaching foreign languages can have an impact on literacy in your own language, or should there be separate measures for learning a foreign language? Or do we just all agree that learning a foreign language is self evidently useful (or is it, if not done properly?...). What about music? How is its value assessed? Can you really assess in terms of scores, the quality of someone's understanding of the community around them, or their developing emotional and social maturity? How do we develop a fair and rounded picture of the development of our children in primary school?

Or, does social and emotional maturity and a wide range of interests come automatically from achieving a level 5 in your SATs?

("do"...).
And no, I don't actually think that, before anyone asks...

Oh dear, I'm going to do it again.

Ditto what Blu said. In fact, I think dd's school may be the SW London equivalent of her ds's school, and music is my biggest gripe there too - though we're starting a community choir and community orchestra based around the school, and a music workshop for all the kids. high hopes

It's a shame there is so much negativity about state schools on mumsnet - not because it isn't a good place to complain about bad practice, but because it gives fire to the opinions of those people who refuse to listen to anyone who has reason to be happy, because, apparently, we are an irrelevant minority. How can the bad learn from the good if the good is slapped down constantly as unrepresentative? It is hard to define what a good school is, of course, as a parent, without reference to things that devalue the experience or make it sound woolly (eg SATs results, progress of gifted and talented pupils, progress of SEN, general atmosphere in the school, lack of chaos in the classroom, new teaching practices or management practices that we can't fully explain etc). It's much easier to pick out specific instances of bad practice to comment on, or bad behaviour of particular children who ruin lessons for everyone, than to pick out specific instances of good practice.

Humph.

Rabbitstew

State education is a great thing and has improved a great deal.

emy72

I wonder whether some children are ready for school. My nephew does nothing at school, does not contribute or enjoy it. Perhaps he should have waited another year. I know some american schools do that or maybe we need a six-monthly intake like car registrations....they say the youngest in years often fare worst.

Should there be less stress put on achieving by a certain age. I know i wasnt really ready to learn until later....but did my behaviour disadvantage other children who were ready and willing to learn....

I trained as a primary teacher in the mid 1990s, before taking my very good Cambridge degree back into academia and, eventually, getting an Oxford lectureship (biog just to state I really do know what academic standards are). I now work voluntarily in a primary school.

There is no way the system is broken. There have been key improvements in literacy in particular, much better resourcing, and an real attention to how kids learn. Primary education now contends with a cohort much larger than when I was at school and when I trained, yet produces really good results.

But what really threatens this in some ways is parent power. Increasingly primary school teachers are having to deal with the sort of one issue complaint and with having their expertise downgraded and disregarded. Spelling and numeracy are key examples-parents push with unrealistic expectations, and with a desire for teaching methods which deeply confuse means and ends, as if academic achievement were getting certain key skills accurate. Primary schools set the tone for a child's whole life, fgs, and intellectual life is ultimately about the combination of drive, skills and creativity and teamwork, not just the skills. Some teachers don't recognise this, and fewer parents. Hence the constant complaint.

What you do about parental 'help' and the ways everything from postcodes to wealth skew the system I don't know, though. Two kids I work with have change dramatically over this term-one (whose reading journal is full of entries from relatives) has become a skilled sight reader, the other (whose parents rarely get her books to school) is falling back. There's almost nothing to be done, except to ensure that the second girl gets everything she needs at school to allow her to still be in the running when she's old enough to take initiative for her own learning.

Adela I see this happening from time to time at dd's school. I wish I knew a solution.

Actually, I've experienced this first hand. I was a 'top student' at primary, had A grades all the way through secondary including at GCSE, then in my first A-level year my parents went through a messy divorce: I nose-dived in many ways, including academically, and failed 2 out of 3 of my A-levels. Nothing to do with anything the schools could have done, bar better pastoral care possibly. Just chaos and emotional trauma doing their thing.

My family was broken, not my school. Not that this is always the case, but sadly it often is.

So does the idea of schools being free to set own agendas appeal or should there be set learning objectives and nationwide strategies.

I believe Tory statements about this ability of schools to set own strategies is strange....surely after all these years we have arrived at a good curriculum and means of teaching that curriculum.