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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

A guide to national curriculum levels

116 replies

learnandsay · 02/04/2012 10:14

www.stjohn.bucks.sch.uk/Newsletters/Newsletters/A%20guide%20to%20national%20curriculum%20levels%202009.pdf

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

IndigoBell · 04/04/2012 16:16

I thought you'd already decided you were only sending her to school to learn social skills? As you were going to teach her everything important yourself?

In which case - teaching children will help with her social skills.

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:16

mumbles, which letter from the school?

OP posts:

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:18

OK, Indigo. You've got a point there. I suppose I think it's unfair, that's all, using a child to teach other children. Perhaps it would depend on how the head discussed it with me.

OP posts:

mrz · 04/04/2012 16:21

I don't learnandsay's daughter attends school yet mumbles

mrz · 04/04/2012 16:23

Are you expecting the head to discuss school policy and organisation with you learn?

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:24

^ missing the word think.

But mrz is right. My daughter is still in play group.

OP posts:

mumblesmum · 04/04/2012 16:26

The one in your op. ???

mumblesmum · 04/04/2012 16:27

Oh... sorry. I'll go and hide ....

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:27

Only where it affects my daughter. If she reached her final year and was so far advanced that no lesson had anything to teach her and if she was therefore being used as a teaching aide instead of a pupil, then yes, I would expect it. (But I'm not sure that our catchment school has such a policy.)

OP posts:

mrz · 04/04/2012 16:29

I think you are going to be very disappointed

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:33

I'm not following you. Are you saying that in that scenario where the daughter was being used as a aide and not as a pupil that the head wouldn't discuss a parent's concerns? I find that hard to believe. What would she do then? If a parent believed that her daughter wasn't receiving a proper education then her concerns wouldn't need to rest with the head, anyway.

OP posts:

mrz · 04/04/2012 16:38

I assume you haven't even applied for a school place yet learnandsay but you already have a very negative attitude to school education so I can't see how you will ever be anything but disappointed.

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:44

Oh, I thought you were referring to the scenario. Let's not get into personal stuff.

Some schools are better than others. The academic primary schools in my area are all oversubscribed by some margin.

OP posts:

mumblesmum · 04/04/2012 16:46

How do you class an 'academic' school learnandsay? I'm under the impression that all schools teach literacy and numeracy, etc, etc.

mrz · 04/04/2012 16:47

But the scenario is coloured by your negative opinion of something you have no experience of

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 16:56

I don't think that I do have a negative opinion of schools. I've just said that I think that some schools are better than others. If a school has some of the lowest 11+ passes in the county I can experience that by reading my LEA website, which I have done. If the head tells me that she has a social agenda rather than an academic one, which she has, I have experienced that. In fact I have experienced lots of things, some of which worry me.

I don't want to spend my posts explaining myself or defending myself. So please, if you don't want to reply to my questions, please don't. But please don't accuse me of personal stuff. Because obviously in a forum people can't actually know what other people are thinking. They can only know what they've posted. People can feel free to surmise what those postings mean about the original poster. But those surmises may well be incorrect because a human is much more complicated than a few Internet postings.

OP posts:

mrz · 04/04/2012 16:57

You've also said that you plan to send your child to school for socialisation not education

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 17:00

That supposes that she goes to our catchment school. If by some miracle she gets into one of the academic primaries, then great.

OP posts:

mumblesmum · 04/04/2012 17:02

But all schools actually have to have an academic agenda, learnandsay, otherwise they'd incur the wrath of Ofsted. Surely it's a good thing that a HT is interested in the social development of the children, as this will have a positive effect on their learning.

Ii believe (may be wrong) that state schools are only allowed to have 3 formal practices for the 11+, but most do little exercises to help. I suggest the number of 11+ passes is more to do with demographics and the amount of tutoring that is going on.

IndigoBell · 04/04/2012 17:04

Do you know state schools aren't allowed to prepare kids for the 11+?

Almost certainly the kids who get into grammar schools are the ones who are tutored the most (with their IQ being another factor) - nothing to do with which school they go to.

mumblesmum · 04/04/2012 17:09

They are allowed a couple of formal practices around here indigo.
But I definitely agree with your other points!
The 11+ pass rate has nothing at all to do with the how 'academic' the school is.

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 17:12

Hi mumbles,

There are lots of factors involved, tutoring, parental involvement, the list is so long.

Our catchment school is an SEN specialist school. It has 30 percent SEN pupils and that is the focus of the head's agenda. The academic primary schools advertise that they focus on reading, writing and arithmetic, which I happen to believe in. The academic primaries also have good 11+ results. Our catchment school has so poor 11+ results that the numbers aren't published, simply a

OP posts:

IndigoBell · 04/04/2012 17:17

30% SEN is roughly average.

You can be on the SEN register for just about anything.

A school with low numbers of kids on the SEN register is unlikely to have good pastoral care. The only way you get a low number of kids on the SEN register is by a) illegally forcing out the kids you don't want or b) not recognising which kids do have SEN.

All kids benefit from good pastoral care....

Original poster

learnandsay · 04/04/2012 17:20

The percentage SEN is in the ofstead reports and none of the other schools in our area is anything like 30 pc. Our catchment school's ofstead also mentions that the school takes in SEN children from outside its catchment.

OP posts:

mrz · 04/04/2012 17:25

We have a much higher level of SEN mainly because the EP recommends us to parents because of our success in supporting all children.

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