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

Well, academy status means that the school is taken over, quite likely by a private company. It goes out of local democratic control. Probably the head would leave, and be followed by many of the best teachers. There is absolutely no evidence that being forced to convert to academy status raises attainment at primary level (and the evidence is weak for secondaries).

It isn't helping the school or the kids, it's punishing them. The most difficult, intractable factor in the school's lack of success in raising the children's attainment is that the majority of parents of the pupils at the school do not give a toss about education. They do not read to their kids. They do not talk to their kids. They don't take them to museums, or shows, or sometimes even the parts. Some reception children, for example, have never seen the river that flows through our town half a mile from the school. I am not kidding.

The school could be chock full of teaching geniuses, given all the support that there could ever be, and the home environment would not change. And
that is the primary determinant (as oodles of research has shown over and over again) of educational achievement.

It's not about parents like you Indigo -- I wish we had a school full of you. Our school is being punished because it's not a level playing field and we're at the low end and in danger of falling off the edge.

Yes, it might be easier for her if over 50% of the staff weren't planning to leave before September and staff morale having been really high has now plummeted.

You're right. Nothing stays the same but it would seem entirely reasonable that she has a say in the changes.

Rosebud05 that is exactly why the forced academy thing is so pernicious. I think the adjective 'forced' says it all really.

We all know, don't we, Indigo, how punishments don't work as well as rewards? Why not get schools to do better by helping them rather than telling them that they are rubbish and can't run themselves, some private company will do it better.

Indigo
the only question we should be asking is what more can we do for them?

As a society, all of us together, we could easily modernise English spelling and make learning to read and write much easier and so change the educational prospects of many children.

I know there is no chance of this happening any time soon, but if we really became interested in leaving fewer children educationally out in the cold, we could easily reduce some of the worst inconsistencies which absorb the biggest amounts of teaching and learning time, i.e.

The following 10 are the biggest time-wasters:
Irregular consonant doubling (very merry, arrive arise) - which makes the spellings of 925 common words unpredictable;

Unpredictable spellings for /ee/ in 459 words;

long /oo/ - 197, /au/ - 110 and /-o/ endings - 107.

Exceptions to the patterns of

(99), (87) , (79),

short (71) and (63).

Surplus -e endings (gone, imagine, delicate) in around 100 words slow reading progress quite a bit too by diluting or undermining the magic function of -e (bone gone, define imagine, delicate debate).

Masha - a question for you. When schools were more 3 R focussed back many years ago, many children appeared to have a very strong grasp of grammar & spelling etc. I helped on large countrywide WW1 project a while back and this involved looking at lots of WW1 correspondence from young adults who'd left school around the age of 14. Interestingly children assumed these people were highly intelligent, from middle class backgrounds and certainly more highly educated than they actually were from the quality and accuracy of their written words. What's your take on that? Perhaps we are less literate now as we don't need to read for entertainment etc? It certainly seemed to be very possible IME for young people to grasp the 3 Rs & master reading and spelling in ages past although I do realise this won't have been universal.

Marsha, please.

How about trying to get more children out of grinding poverty rather than changing English spelling?

Cortina,
Pupils and adults are no less literate now than they used to be.
There was already the Newbold commission in 1921 to look into the problem.

In today's world literacy has become a more important skill, and so illiteracy is given more attention, with governments in all Anglophone countries spending billions (over the last two decades especially) on strategies to reduce it.

But nobody is interesting in doing something about the root cause of the problem or even finding out what it is.

"But nobody is interesting in doing something about the root cause of the problem or even finding out what it is."

I disagree very strongly. Everyone knows the root cause of the problem and early schooling combined with synthetic phonics is the solution.

Clearly the solution is for us all to speak and write Italian, Mashabell...

I wonder why many English people also have problems with punctuation and the rules of grammar? Is this because of the language or because of the teaching? Or because once we realise we'll never learn to spell properly, we give up learning the other bits?

Sure, we can talk about spelling reform if you like, but it's a complete diversion.

The real problems are poverty (both material and of aspiration), lack of cultural literacy, lack of interest in reading, generations of bad experiences of education.

Once we can get those sorted we can go back to discussing the frills.

And, for what it's worth,re spelling, my five year old son knows what a split diagraph is and can give me numerous examples.

I couldn't agree more niminy.

My chin actually hit the keyboard when I read that the root cause of under performance in our schools is not enough use of synthetic phonics.

"My chin actually hit the keyboard when I read that the root cause of under performance in our schools is not enough use of synthetic phonics."

Where did you read that?

Agree, Niminy Piminy.

"My chin actually hit the keyboard when I read that the root cause of under performance in our schools is not enough use of synthetic phonics."

Where did you read that?

You can be sure that mashsa didn't say that, bonsoir

I work in 'failing' (satisfactory, but apparently this means failing!) school.
Most of our children come to school with no English, many of them come and go for long periods, new children are constantly arriving. Some are hungry, don't have proper supervision at home, regular bedtimes etc. Lots of families really struggle, crowded conditions, parents who don't know how to help or get help for themselves and their children. We also have high levels of SEN as the school has been adapted to meet SEN needs, so SEN children are encouraged to apply to us
Many children enter school well below average- as in 2 years behind developmentally at the age of 3.
Lots of them make progress, but some don't. Despite 1:1 support, nurture groups, counselling, parent support groups and training courses arranged by school etc and I would do pretty much anything to help our children, I've bought them shoes, I've driven parents to appointments, I've spend several hours on the phone trying to sort out housing problems. Pretty much all the teachers at our school are them same (not every single one I'll admit!).
Schools like our have to sort out Domestic Violence issues, housing, benefits, asylum applications, mental and physical health problems, translate letters for parents etc etc
Oh and teach them!
I think it would be better to look at the rate of progress of children in school from when they enter to when they leave rather than just the 'raw' results- because if you enter well below average and exit only slightly below average then you're making better progress than someone who enters average and leaves average.

Ok, slight rant over!
Sorry :)

Snowy, do you work at my school? Because that's exactly what we face as well. And those who don't know what our schools are like have no idea of the obstacles many of the children who go to our kind of schools face.

I couldn't agree with you more, snowy and nimby.

I hate all the teacher bashing that goes on under the rubric of 'under performing schools'. Maybe, just maybe, there are influences and situations in the 18 hours a day that children aren't at school, and the 13 whole weeks a year that they're not, that play a role in their 'progression'.

The % FSMs at my dc's school has gone below 50% for the first time. Mainly because there are families from Romania and Bulgaria who aren't entitled to benefits so are below even the FSM poverty line.

But, of course, if they don't make 2 levels of progress in KS2 and reach a L4 it will be all the schools's fault .

Very much agree with last three posters.

I wish our school was rated on developing my children. The teachers have been lovely. One teacher is moaned about in the playground because their children haven't progressed enough but I have to say this teacher has qualities she passes on that really can't be measured. She can have the most difficult day with the same child and yet she still has the same firm fair attitude and care day after day. No one ever speaks about this side :(

Just to support dolfrog:

1. When kids start at 4-5 and are asked to write, they develop a habit of holding a pen wrongly, of not putting full stops (they can barely write a word yet) which is harder to overturn later on than if you start later and learn this in two months instead of two years.

1. Some parts of the English school curriculum make me laugh. Maths program is notoriously nonsensical. Half of the children in my son's class would calculate 9-6 usng their fingers (y2) while in class they learn multiplication and division. What is the point of learning multiplication when you are six and cannot deduct 6 from 9 in your head? It means by the age of 9 you will know half of times tables and will still take too long to deduct 6 from 9 = fail on all fronts. Why not learn addition and subtraction within 10 for long enough for everyone to remember and move to multiplication later, when everyone can learn it quicker? (This is not a question of brightness of some kids vs others, but of systemic organisation of learning)

1. Teachers too often shy away from theoretical concepts. Even formal rules are preferred not to be explained. It needs to be learnt through play, repetition, whatever. Means: kids with poorer visual memory fail (if you only explain the thing conceptually, they are fine), kids from families where English is a second language fail (because no one tells them that 'q' is always followed by 'u', they are expected to soak this in somehow)

1. Quality of teaching varies enourmously from teacher to teacher. As every teacher is free to create her own plan, she is free to choose when and what to repeat, and how to structure acquisition of knowledge in general. This results very often in poor organisation of teaching.

1. While I work and can't homeschool, I had to acquire enough teaching materials and verse myself well in y2 curriculum to be able to substitute for what my son's (good!) school fail to provide. In parts, it is great, in other parts - randomly - awful. I would discover that my y2 boy never heard that 'I' is always capitalised. While they taught him to read very well. So it is absolutely uneven, and I have to personally monitor my child's progress which I would very much prefer not to do as I work full time.

And yes, Finland has a very good educational system and a fantastic track record of educating children from troubled families. Why can't England learn?

(sorry for a long rant and crawling into a bomb shelter)

maizieD - as you have followed our discussions on various forums over the years, you know full well that I have a communication disability Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) which causes me to have word recall problems, and dyslexia, which is why I use references to research papers and research paper collections etc.
There is neurological development plateau from around the age of 4 - 7 years of age, when children develop various skills, and abilities at different ages, and at different rates, and it is only after the age of 7 that children move on from this plateau and are able to learn effectively. Also at this time all children naturally develop alternative compensating skills and abilities to work around their own particular weaknesses, deficits, and or disabilities. After this age any remaining development disabilities become a medically or clinically diagnosable lifelong disability.
The technology exists to test children even pre-school in the UK to check if children are cognitively able to use phonics before any formal education begins. And this would help the 10% of children or more who are not able to use phonics to be taught to read using a more suitable teaching system.

Teachers are able to adapt their teaching methods to meet each childs learning requirements, instructors only know how to use a single teaching method, which may not be appropriate for all children. (Children are not clones, thye are all different, different skill and abilities sets, and different weakness and disability sets) Currently we have too many instructors and not enough teachers.

Mashabell - as you say the orthography of English is the most complex, and could quite easily by simplified, as has happened in other countries that use our language, such as the USA. Language is only useful if others can easily use it to communicate effectively. Both Finnish and Italian are the purest languages in our writing system, and have less orthographic issues. However these countries still have their share of those who have Auditory Processing Disorders, Visual Processing Disorders, and Attention Disorders, which are the underlying causes of dyslexia. (and these same disabilities exist in societies that do not use a visual notation of speech communication system, and therefore have no dyslexia)

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan- if children were allowed to fully develop before the onset of Formal education, then they would be better prepared for Secondary Education, rather than have spent years being told that they are stupid, thick, if they have different natural development path to some oftheie peers, and if teachers were better trained to understand and meet their learning needs.

If you do want to read some research papers on the vast array of related topics, then you could browse through some of my PubMed Research Paper Collections

Ologuis, pretty much the whole of your post is untrue - I was going to go through and say which bits specifically, but it genuinely seems to be most of what you said. Maybe they are specific problems within your ds's school?

Okguis
^And yes, Finland has a very good educational system and a fantastic track record of educating children from troubled families. Why can't England learn?
^

The Rose review of 2006 answered your question.

It is generally accepted that it is harder to learn to read and write in English because the relationship between sound and letters is more complex than in many other alphabetic languages.

... an appropriate introduction to phonic work by the age of five enables our children to cover ground that many of their counterparts in other countries whose language is much less complex phonetically do not have to cover.

Olguis - I spent 3 weeks teaching year 5 how to use a protractor and by the end of it they were great at it. About 4 months later in year 6 I held up a protractor in front of the same class and they swore blind they had no idea what it was. I was absolutely gobsmacked. Some of them remembered once we started using them, but most of them would have sworn black and blue they'd never seen a protractor in their lives. I'm sure a parent who saw their homework (which had been prepared based on the fact that they had had extensive training in using protractors before) would have thought "what is this teacher thinking? My child has no idea how to use a protractor." Judging teaching based on what your child appears to know is ridiculous. You're making the assumption that your child remembers everything perfectly which in my experience rarely happens.

You also clearly don't know how planning works in British schools. While Irish teachers do in fact generally go to their own plan (while co ordinating somewhat with other teachers, depending on schools) British schools tend to have systems where the teachers from each year group plan together during a designated afternoon in the week (known as PPA). They don't follow their own plan, and teaching isn't disorganised unless it's a very poor school. Also, no teacher is free to choose what to repeat. Generally repetition is avoided as there just isn't time but this is the fault of an overfull curriculum and unrealistic targets, not the teachers.