Can I run up to last years teacher and say 'Nah Nah I told you so' ?

[Lizcat]

Long story, but basically last years teacher didn't get DD and didn't like me and DH. Many many issues, but when I expressed that DD was making mistakes in reading was because she was rushing to finish because she found the books easy and boring I was told to crawl back into my shell.
Cut to this year in the first 10 days she rises 5 reading levels out the top to free reader. Now the my Mummy heart is bursting with pride as she has been chosen as the best reader in the class to perform the reading at the Christmas carol service.
Last years teacher is so certain she is always right that a nasty part of me just wants to rub it in her face, of course I will only ever do it in my dreams.
Thank you for reading my undercover boast, but after last year's awfulness I can't help feeling so happy and proud.

We were just talking about this and a number of experienced staff (30 -40 years in teaching) all said they are teaching to a much higher level than they were expected to when they began their careers.

Hi Fraidylady

This is now a small world. Our DC will be competing against peers from overseas - who are academically ahead. Whilst we have spent a fortune on Education there has been no corresponding improvement in attainment in the 3Rs.

I am making sure that my DC have better literacy and numeracy than I possess. My eight year old certainly does. I benchmark using the best materials in the world. Unfortunately, this does not include teh Collins 6A Activity Sheets issued to my DC.

The children in my bog standard primary are learning things in English and Maths I didn't encounter until Grammar school in the 70s

a teacher providing undifferentiated work these days is shocking.

However, I don't remember it being a feature in the seventies...we were all just expected to get on with the copying from the board.

My 'favourite' was music. In which we had to listen to tapes on the biographies of famous composers and make notes on what we heard. But because the teachers didn't trust us to do this correctly, the 'notes' were projected onto the screen for us to copy down...for the whole lesson. DIRE.

mrz

I wager, if you are constrained by NC syllabi and pedagogy, that it does not compare to the leading edge education nations, as below. Unfortunatley, they do matter in the globalised workplace:

www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

and mrz, I agree with you. What passed as a good lesson 20 years ago would be classed unsatisfactory now.

I was thinking that just last week too!

tectime perhaps if the UK played the ranking game in the way it is played by our neighbours you would see a different picture www.comenius-individual-support.eu/Material-Dateien/Brussels2-20110203/PISA_Presentation_digest%202.pdf

Rules allowed countries to exclude up to 5% of the target population. Exclusions for intellectual disability depended on the professional opinion of the school principal or by other qualified staff - a completely uncontrollable source of uncertainty.

It appears that some countries defined additional criteria: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Poland, and Spain excluded students with dyslexia;

UNICEF rankings put the UK literacy levels equal to those same countries

Yes yes yes make sure you do. I would hahha

mrz that is shocking!

It does however explain why I am seeing my DDs do things that I was nowhere near doing at their age, and it affirms my perception that the state system is serving them very well.

I do worry about schools who don't differentiate, and I'd change schools if any of mine failed in this way, but my DDs like tectime's are working 2 to 3 years ahead of age and their schools are accommodating this without difficulty. It isn't that unusual after all, both my DDs have several other children who are like them.

mrz

I will print this out tomorrow and read it. I skimmed it and it seemed a piece (EU-sponsored) mostly making a comparison using Finland, and also at the same time serving to discredit the PISA findings.

There was an interesting thread a while ago that linked to a number of websites criticising the collection of data!

Migrating obviously my school differentiated...sometimes we copied off the board, and sometimes (obviously only in the higher ability groups) we wrote down every word that the teacher spoke.

I don't believe that academic achievement is the only important part of educating for the workplace. Nearly all jobs require employees to have oral literacy skills; to work in teams; to be able to think creatively and to make decisions. I believe that is something we are addressing in English primary schools.

Hi Fraidylady

I will respod to your points in bold font

I don't believe that academic achievement is the only important part of educating for the workplace. Yes it is! See it from the employers point of view, especially if they have to invest in remedial Literacy/Numeracy training.

Nearly all jobs require employees to have oral literacy skills; to work in teams; to be able to think creatively and to make decisions. Quite agree!

I believe that is something we are addressing in English primary schools. Are we!

Yes, we are! Much of our planning incorporates collaborative work in groups or with a partner. Discussion is important as it makes ideas evolve.
(And we are doing this in addition to teaching reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. )

I'm not sure where you get you statistics about the remedial literacy and numeracy training.
We have to remember that we live in a very different world. The nature of the job market has changed and requires people to be more literate and numerate. Making a comparison with the past is meaningless, as there were so many more manual jobs, many of which wouldn't have needed you to fill out an application form. There are a couple of teachers in school, who where employed in the 1990s without interview! Imagine that happening now!

My statistics come from companies (a few) I have worked in, when taking on school leavers. There is no doubt great effort and expenditure (massive) has been invested in education - but the generated ouputs fall short!

Yes, but education policy has changed time and time again over the past 20 years.
My ds, who is 20, is a product of the first (or second) year of the numeracy and literacy 'hours'. So, the children who were party to this prescribed 'rigorous' literacy and numeracy teaching introduced in the mid-90s are just entering the job market.
(BTW, he is both literate and numerate!)

Goal posts change, and the employees in the work force are products of a long forgotten education policy.......and then current teaching gets criticised . Doesn't make sense to me.

Well FraidyLady, mrz et al

A lively debate, that has barely scratched the surface.

I will take my "sharp elbows", and turn in, for the night.

Till to-morrow

mrz
I have to agree with you. I attended school in the 70's and early 80's.DD attends the same primary school as I did. My DD is in P2 (I think that is equivalent with English Y1?). I am suprised and pleased at the level of work she is being given. She comes home chatting away about things that I did not get until P5 or sometimes later.

It's all about balance though isn't it, I am not a teacher but some teacher friends do believe that the NC is a little crowded and it doesn't allow time to reinforce the basics (hence lots of parents complaining they have to do this at home!).

Maybe it's down to individual schools and children, but I certainly think that whilst the lessons and NC seem so broad and inspirational in parts, they do lose sight of the inevitable need for rote learning and repetition that most children, especially at a young age, still need in order to remember the fundamentals.

OP I know your feeling. When my son was in year 4, he was put into the bottom MAths set. I asked his form teachers (job share) what I could do to get him moved up, they taught set 3 (the one above); I was talking tutors, whatever. One was absolutely determined not to move him, the other seemed to be willing to consider it. They had a problem as the set above was very big. At that school my son never moved above set 3.
Now he's set to get A* at GCSE and to study two Maths to A'level. I feel very tempted to take his results and thrust them in her face.
Sorry but teachers do sometimes get it wrong, and not listening doesn't help.

I have had a debate with my DS's form tutor today. I had originally formally requested that he be excused from Literacy Homework, as I felt it was not stretching.

A few weeks ago, persuaded by the form tutor, I agreed top resume the homework. Where the home books work through grammar, vocabulary and interpretive powers the school homeowrk is mostly draw a picture with a few descriptions. It is essentially "light" and aimed at raising the lower ability students and consolidating the poistion of the mid-ability students.

Form tutor was aghast at the homework being labelled as "Art Homework", and the bottom line is that I will formally request that he only be allowed Maths homework - even then if the standard of it improves.

Lizcat:

I've been there and I just quietly bided my time until the end of the year, when parent feedback was requested on the end of year report. I then wrote a letter singing the current teacher's praises and pointing out how much better my child did in a supportive, constructive and invigorating learning environment. I added that 'I'm so amazed at her progress in comparison with her work in the previous year. Clearly a skilled teacher can make all the difference in the world!'.

Message received loud and clear.

When I was in the Lower Sixth at my very academic girls school the Head of English informed my teacher I was illiterate! A year later, I was one of three girls out of 70 girls to get an A in English! And thirty years on, just thinking about that woman's expression when she saw me at a reunion that September still brings a smile to my face!