Lower ability pupils can't catch up

[learnandsay]

Doesn't it depend on what you mean by catch up? I'm not familiar with Levels and SATs scores. But isn't the point that some schools don't seem to have a strategy for getting all pupils to reach the top level (Level 5) in 3Rs?

Surely some schools start with children who can't even speak English. Presumably those children are harder to teach than the ones who can already read, write to-some-extent and multiply by the time they start Reception.

I also notice that some initially well performing children leave primary school performing poorly. (I'm pretty sure this is a parental-inclusion problem) ie it's the parents and the school's fault not the child's.

Schools performances

'The long tail of educational underattainment' has affected all English-speaking countries for decades and remains their hardest to crack educational problem.

I happen to think that the many inconsistencies of English spelling are the main reason for it. They keep making learning to read and write very time-consuming and difficult.

Among those who learn to play the piano, violin or tennis, or strive to become a good runner, footballer or artist, the proportions of those with good, average and poor levels of attainment are much the same as with English literacy. Skills that require a special aptitude are learned well by only a few. With perseverance, many others can become quite good at them too, but a substantial number never get beyond the basics, no matter how hard they try.

It seems to me like a lot of people in our society believe that all children can reach the top level of academic achievement given the right teaching. That simply isn't true. Some people are naturally better at certain subjects than others and will always find those subjects easier and achieve more highly in them than others. That will be true even with hours upon hours of study with the best teachers in the world.

I agree that poor teaching can hold children back, especially those with special needs but equally excellent teaching can't work miracles.

True Cailindana.

But I think the idea is that almost ALL children should be able to get to L4. It is a minimum requirement.

example: DS was doing well with maths at state school, above target. Moving him to private school (for SEN reasons, school specialises in dyslexia) it was a shock to find he was bottom of the bottom set for maths there!

This confirmed my idea that L4 is a minimum standard that should be possible for (almost) all children. With extra help a lot of kids should get above that level.

Or am I wrong?

Our local non selective prep gets practically every child to level 5 in KS2 & most pass for the local Grammar.

In our school we are told we should be delighted if our child reaches the 'expected level' & the 'middle' are not stretched. If a child can do more they should do more, I am amazed anyone can think otherwise.

The ethos is ability is seen as being fairly fixed and visible early with limits set by inherited IQ. To really strive for more academically for your child is to be pushy & entitled. IMO we don't value education highly enough here in the UK and I think that's about to change.

But even the most non-selective prep selects by ability to pay, which is surely at least a teensy bit related to parental earning ability and education...

I agree that it is important to recognise that "non-selective" fee-paying schools are never going to be full of a cross-section of the population.

Agree re: Prep schools but that doesn't mean to say there's not an awful amount of potential being wasted in Primary schools.

Improve everyone's education all you like - it still won't get everyone a job. We could have masses of highly literate unemployed people and workers on the minimum wage, though, and more people noticing that a good education isn't all that's required to get on in life.

You've hit the nail on the head there Lancelottie. Paying schools tend to have higher ability children because their parents tend to be of a higher ability. That's always going to be the case in a world where higher ability generally equals higher pay.

WRT to the level 4 thing Chandon - I would agree that most children should reach L4 by year 6, although I would say that's more attainable in maths than in English. The level system in this country is a bit odd IMO. I'm a primary teacher and I'm from Ireland originally where we have no such level system so it took me a while to get my head around it. Basically a child with a good level of English who has plenty of imagination and can tell an interesting lively story might get a lower level than a child who can parrot back a lot of adjectives and adverbs in a crashingly dull shopping list of "level requirements," which I think is very weird and not helpful to the child in the long run.

As a teacher I think the level system is counterproductive at primary level. Because I wasn't that familiar with the system I would teach the children what I thought they were ready for next, only to be told by my head of year that that was "the next level and not suitable for this group" (I had a small group that I was helping through SATs). Basically I was told that I should get them to the next level on each topic but I didn't need to go any higher than that. Bollocks is what I thought and I just ignored it. In Ireland you just teach as much as you can teach and you keep checking that the children understand. There's no ticking of boxes and as whole I think the primary education system benefits from being less constrained by lists of requirements. The requirements tend to take over and become the be all and end all IME. They tie teachers' hands and make them less creative and less willing to challenge children. This was neatly illustrated when I was planning to teach an interesting lesson on triangles and I was told by another teacher - "Don't bother, you can't tick that off on APP (the list of level requirements)." Bloody APP is such a massive burden to teachers that they end up being a slave to it, restricting what they teach so they can ensure they can tick things off on it.

Sorry that was a rant

Maybe part of the explanation is here

?Why teach them about the Battle of Hastings when they have got Google?"

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/primaryeducation/8958808/Primary-school-league-tables-top-head-attacks-pub-quiz-style-schooling.html

CailinDana you just set my teeth on edge with your comment:

Only to be told by my head of year that that was "the next level and not suitable for this group"

I see this time and time again. I've seen able children held up by lower current attainers in a group many times too - no room in group above apparently.

So glad you taught so creatively and intelligently despite restrictions placed upon you in such a restrictive and reductive system.

Take it though you believe in the nature over nurture IQ argument? :)

No, I think there's a really complex mix of nature and nuture in intelligence. I think good teaching can work wonders but I think that a child's natural ability and more importantly their motivation will come into play eventually and set a limit on how far they can go. For example I did really well at school but I absolutely hated maths. I forced myself to study it but I never did as well as that as I did in other subjects and it was my lowest result in my exams. I just didn't care enough about it to put in the work it required. My DH on the other hand is mildly dyslexic and so never did very well in English but got a very high grade in applied maths just from reading the book a few weeks before the exam . I could probably get the same grade if I had a great teacher and put in months of solid study but I have no interest in it so I never would.

I thought Ireland didn't differentiate well (from some other threads on here)?

I thought Ireland was very much of everybody in the class doing the same page in the workbook school of thought.

And if you child couldn't cope they could stay down a year......

Those people who think UK doesn't differentiate well should appreciate for a second how lucky we are here. In Spain and France the NC is 100% prescribed. Every child in the country learns the same thing on the same day.

And in most countries, but notably the US, if a child can't keep up they are just kept back a year. Often with disastrous results.

We really have a great school system here. Not perfect, no way. But better than most other countries.

These stats show that 25% of kids who weren't doing well at 7 have caught up by 11 - that's an incredibly positive statistic.

Poor teachers will not differentiate in Ireland due to the flexibility of the system. However I think in Ireland if you're a committed creative teacher you have much more opportunity to shine and be excellent as you have great scope in what you can do. Yes some teachers just get out the workbooks and go to the next page but you have shit teachers in every system. The good teachers can adapt their lessons any way they want, teach a topic that the children have suddenly shown an interest in (but isn't necessarily on the curriculum), stop and go back on a topic if needs be etc etc etc. There are no tick boxes to be filled in and no levels to reach, and that is a far more realistic way to approach teaching IMO as every day is different and tick box system just won't cover it. I think teaching in Ireland is just more fluid and adaptable which with a good teacher can mean excellent differentiation as you can truly tailor everything to suit your children.

Thanks for clarifying CallinDana. I was very similar to you. Recently I read Mindset, Carol Dweck - you probably know of it. She talks about a 'growth mindset' a belief that if you can do well in one area you can make progress in another. I hated maths, found it boring etc, but I had a fixed mindset. Why bother? My brain wasn't wired for maths etc. I gave up, no point expending effort if my ability was fixed. Maybe if I thought I could actually be reasonably good at it I'd be motivated to learn? Maybe if I'd found a way of making it work for me, in the way english did, to make it interesting and stimulating I'd have done better?

I've come to realise, if I could do other things well, why not maths? If I wasn't getting it just maybe the way I was taught didn't work for me. If I'd approached it with the growth mindset - that I could get incrementally smarter I think I'd have made astonishing progress. If I hadn't been ashamed of my 'genetic weakness' and asked for help VERY early on, so I go the basics entrenched etc. OK, I might not be doing Maths at Cambridge but a good grade at GCSE, yes I think that would be possible.

My parents were not 'maths people' and I think one of the reasons I was so weak at maths was because there was no incidental maths learning & enthusiasm early on in the same way there was for english and history etc.

Someone once said to me the key to really doing well in maths is being taught it early by someone who absolutely loves it with every fibre of their being and can impart that to their students in a meaningful way. Most female primary teachers I've spoken with have privately admitted they hate maths. Perhaps just my experience. Maybe something to ponder.

You're right to point out the positives Indigo. There's no perfect system. I think the key is to be an involved parent & a fearless advocate for your child (and you are a remarkable one), if you think your child can do more and would benefit from being stretched etc then that's what you do.

Hmm Cortina - I do agree to a certain extent that having a committed teacher will help to spark your interest and I totally agree that attitude is a HUGE factor. I had to teach Irish when I was in Ireland and there tends to a negative attitude towards it among parents and by extension among children. So often I would start the year with children who would complain that they "couldn't do Irish, couldn't speak it blah blah." I love teaching Irish and so I would just drum away at it with them and by the end of the year those naysayers would be babbling away in Irish like nobody's business and loving it too. However, even then the children who started out being good at it would be the best at it by the end of the year while the weaker students, though they enjoyed it, would still be behind the more able ones. I do think absolutely everyone can be stretched beyond their current level, but there's a point at which motivation and ability drop off and further progress won't be worth the effort it takes IYSWIM. I could have achieved 100% in my maths exam but it would have taken untold hours of study and that just wasn't worth it to me.

As Cortina said "I think the key is to be an involved parent & a fearless advocate for your child". So, so true.

I'm a governor of a school where attainment is 'below the floor', that is, below the average attainment for children of that age. It's in danger of being forced to become an academy because of the low percentages of children attaining level 4 at the end of KS2.

The children make amazing progress, with nearly all making 2 or more levels progress in KS2, but they don't come out at the average (let's just leave aside the absurdity that if everyone is average or above, the average goes up, that's called moving the goalposts).

But then when you look at what the children can do when they come to school, it's extraordinary what the school does. They come in waaay below the average for what children can do at 4/5. But there is so little support at home. Teachers estimate that only 30% of children have any support for their learning at home. If the school has to do it all, provide any kind of reading material, or educationally stimulating experience, or face to face talking, then it is no wonder that the 'lower ability' children will not catch up.

It makes me so angry that schools are punished for not doing what is an impossible job.

But are schools being punished? Why do the view it that way?

Why do they view being forced to become an academy a punishment? What it is trying to do is see if there is anything that can be done to improve the kids academic attainment?

As most of you know my DD is not doing at all well. And there is nothing I won't try to help her. I don't view any of it as a punishment.

So, why do schools view statistics as stick to beat them with etc. The truth (which the statistics highlight) is these kids needs lots and lots of help. No one wants them to end up unemployed or criminals. So the only question we should be asking is what more can we do for them?

Not hiding behind 'we're doing our best'. That doesn't cut it in the workforce, and it shouldn't cut it in education.

I can do my best and still the company goes bankrupt and I lose my job.

A teacher can do their best and still fail to teach my DD.

Rabbitstew
We could have masses of highly literate unemployed people and workers on the minimum wage, though, and more people noticing that a good education isn't all that's required to get on in life.
Sure. But isn't life without at least a basic education a fairly brutish one?

That's why the inconsistencies of English spelling which make learning to read and write so exceptionally slow and difficult bother me so much.
Kids of average intelligence and supportive parents take them in their stride.

But what is their effect on children who are not very bright and have feckless parents and dismal homes. The amount of school-time they have to spend on just learning to read and write, if schools try to teach them as well, is horrendous and makes their school experience very different.

With better spelling systems all children learn to read and write much faster and the slower ones can move on to other learning too. In other languages slower children learn to read more slowly than the average or ablest too. But the difference is a matter of months instead of years. In Italy and Finland every child can read well after 1 yr at school. In England 1 in 6 still can't read properly after 11 years.

Having spent years on a careful analysis of English spelling irregularities, reading problems and spelling errors, I am pretty certain that the 300 year failure to modernise English spelling is now incurring huge costs.

good point rabbit. lots of literate well qualified people who've been sold the lie that doing well at school means success in life.

then being told to go stack shelves at tescos unless they want to be indebted for the rest of their lives for a degree that doesn't guarantee much above minimum wage anyway.

bit of an aside but maybe it's time to stop selling lies and letting individuals develop in the directions that they thrive in.

In Italy and Finland every child can read well after 1 yr at school. In England 1 in 6 still can't read properly after 11 years.

I don't believe your statistics for a second.

Firstly not every child learns to read in any country. All countries have children with SN, not to mention who don't attend school or who are abused or all the other factors which make learning at school hard.

Secondly, 1 in 6 in the UK can't read - is not true either. For example, the SATS coming out now talks about how many kids don't get a level 4. You can actually read properly once you make a level 3. Very few kids leave primary below a level 3. And of them most of them have significant reasons (like the kids in Italy and Finland) which stopped them from learning to read.

From my (very limited ) understanding, mainly via one of my friend's sister, there is no going back once a school is an academy. They can't give it a go, then decide against it, they're stuck.

From what she says, it's actually the government that is using statistics to beat them with.

She's really pissed off with the academy thing being forced. They were given an 'outstanding' capacity to improve as they are in the spring, and have improved a lot and now aren't being allowed a say in their future.

Maybe they would like to consider being an academy, maybe not. But it would make sense for the current 'outstanding' management to be involved in this, I would have thought.

You can't go back from an academy to being LEA controlled.

If she's outstanding, she'll still be outstanding once she's in charge of an academy - but she'll have more money and more freedom to use her outstanding ability to improve the school.

This is about politics and propaganda, not about reality. She doesn't know if being an academy will be good or not. She can't possibly know.

It's now up to her to make it a great thing and to keep going with the outstanding stuff she's started.

Nothing stays the same in life.

trouble is you hit secondary with level 3's and below and you're screwed.

not to mention that many described as level 3 by the primaries passing them onto us were nothing of the sort.

and then what? slide further and further behind instead of being removed for half a term from some non essential subjects to have an intense literacy programme to bring them up to speed. and the gap widens and widens and widens.

the difference between primary and secondary is vast. you're a little fish trying to swim in a big ocean. as much as many teachers would like to care when you're teaching hundreds of pupils a week it's hard to give any significant support in catching up on what has been missed already