Low Aspirations

[IndigoBell]

Bloody hell I'm cross.

Why do teachers have such low aspirations?

How dare DDs teacher be happy with her attainment. Happy - as in rushed out of school to tell me how well she'd done in her latest test.

On track to almost get a C at GCSEs - and he's happy :(

I hate school. Every bit of it.

There is no expectation that children will do well - only that they'll make a set amount of progress each year.

Children are always told they're brilliant and wonderful - they're never told they're not doing well and they're actually going to have to work hard if they want to achieve something.

No expectations that a child will do well :(

The culture here sucks.

School thinks it's better to have a failing happy child - then a child who works hard :(

But because they make school so fun and engaging she refuses to let me take her out and teach her at home :(

Jaenae- schools assume certain progress patterns throughout primary and secondary.
My children have not progressed as expected so there are children who buck the trend but most GCSE A grades are from children who scored level 4 or 5 at KS2.

Can't the teacher be allowed to tell a parent she is 'happy' with 'expected progress'?

MM - DD made 1 sublevel progress. School targets all children to make 2 sublevels. But me and her teacher have been talking all year about her making 3 sublevels, in order to close the gap. (ie her teacher all year has believed she would be able to make 3 sublevels, given her starting level.)

So she didn't make expected progress.

This isn't the teacher telling me at parents night - this is the teacher seeking me out in the playground to pass on the good news.

Not a description of normal classroom practice that I recognise, sorry Indigo!

Am very sorry some of you have experience of schools with these low expectations for your dc. My ds was level 2b for everything end of ks1 and is about to get a mix of 5c and 5a for ks2 as are a couple others of his 10 pupil year group. One of his friends came to the school in yr3 barely at level 1 and is now a 5a at everything. They teach to the child's potential as far as I can tell and there is no barrier to the amount of progress the dc can make (although there has been no suggestion of level 6 papers!) This is in a very small, mixed year group school, which are usually not at all popular on mn. Must be doing something right, though.

"Otherwise, how would you keep occupied differentiate for teach all those kids who can't write?"

Indigo, are you suggesting that children who cannot write should not be taught anything but writing until they can write, excluded from mainstream classes?
Or are you suggesting that children who cannot write should be made to feel perpetually inferior in a mainstream setting because they cannot access a written task?

SS - No, I'm suggesting all children in the class should be expected to write.

Sorry, I didn't clarify. It's not that she can't write - it's that no-one can read what she's written because she can't spell.

She has no physical difficulty with writing, and actually enjoys writing.

And never understands why no one can read it :)

SS - No, I'm suggesting all children in the class should be expected to write.

Why?

Why not?

Why not?

Because expecting a child to do something that they can't do yet is... stupid?

Are they going to learn to do it by being excluded from trying? ... now that is stupid!

Are they going to learn to do it by being excluded from trying? ... now that is stupid!

I'm not meaning to suggest that children shouldn't ever write.

But always setting a written task in a subject where the output doesn't have to be written is unfair on those who cannot write. I'm disputing the idea from the top of this page; that having one child scribe for a group discussion isn't a valid and useful teaching technique.

I use floor books or talk around mats and everyone scribes their ideas and it doesn't really matter how well a child writes because everyone contributes. I find if one able child is scribing other children become bystanders with little actual involvement in the task.

I find it works quite well once the children are taught and practised in the kind of behaviour the work requires.

SS - but then your struggling writers get less practice at writing then your more able writers - doesn't that increases the gap between them?

SS - but then your struggling writers get less practice at writing then your more able writers - doesn't that increases the gap between them?

Not at the "can't write" level that we're talking about, no. The mechanics of being able to write, and the ability to develop style and substance within writing are two separate things.

Asking a child who cannot write to make notes on a discussion serves no purpose.

I'm talking about a child who can write but can't spell. (Is that the kind of child you're talking about?)

She's working at a level 2 not that I'm sure I believe any of the levels I've been given

I would have thought all writing would help her, and the more she writes, the more she will improve.

Why would writing a lot help improve spelling?

Checking her work with an adult would help her spelling. Being encouraged to use the techniques she's learnt to help her spelling would help her spelling. Reading more would help her spelling.

But a little bit of extra writing won't make a grand lot of difference at all.

Hm, talking of low expectations! I found my DS (Y2) doing stuff like 3+4 in October last year, after I had supported him for 2 months and he cought up well.

The school just told me that he was fine, he would be differentiated appropriately and that I wouldn't want him to struggle in a higher set!

It took me until January until the teacher retested DS's maths, she said: 'he had done as well as the best children in my Y2 class' and moved him up!

Where would he be if I hadn't intervened? Bottom set working with Y1s for the rest of the year ... years?

(And no, that wasn't the kind of child I was talking about, since I was talking about a child who can't write, and this child, uh... can.)

SS - extra writing may or may not help her spelling - but it would help her writing!

Help her get learn to order her thoughts. Use punctuation. Her handwriting. Content...... And give her more practice at spelling

Of the 8(?) AF targets in writing only one is to do with spelling. All of the strands need to be taught, and practised and practised and practised and practised and improved.

Help her get learn to order her thoughts. Use punctuation. Her handwriting. Content...... And give her more practice at spelling

I think children get plenty of practise at writing in their writing sessions. There's no need for them to write in every single lesson, when the aim of that lesson has nothing to do with writing.

Funny you should mention assessment focuses, since there is no mention of writing in the level descriptors for art, design and technology, speaking and listening, reading, geography, maths (until level 6), music, PE and RE.
Only Writing, History, ICT, MFL and Science make explicit reference to recording information in writing, and much of that is vague at best.

Children do not need to write everything down.

omg - just read this. Is this is what UK education is about.

How come our kids don't do that well whereas kids from certain regions of the world do fine - seem very able and very content with their lives.

How can you predict a gcse grade from primary school? How? TO me this sounds like our system labelling kids.

I think the only thing that works with Spelling in English is rote learning, and that is certainly something you can work on at home.

Can't the teacher tell the parent they are happy with expected progress?

Yes if it is true, but in this case it very obviously isn't. I would much rather know the truth, rather than the teacher gloss over it. OK some parents don't give a damn, as long as their kid is attending school and doing enough to get by, but if a parent is obviously 'interested', as Indigo is, then surely the teacher should be 'upfront' about it, so everyone can work together?

I agree with you OP, such low expectations, my own dd Yr2 now, was muddling along, doing just OK, but there was no motivation or push for a bit more effort from the teacher, we moved schools, and have a different child. Motivated, energised, keen to learn (most of the time ) and has caught up with the other kids, who are working at a slightly higher level. The whole attitude of the school is 'go for it', positive, work hard... If she can catch up with a bit of a push, what would she have been like if she had had that from reception? What's great is that she is actually enjoying it, I think she likes the buzz!

I was chatting to some of her old classmates mums yesterday and they have been told that both their kids, are below expected levels for Yr2 and one of them definately appeared better than dd when she was there.

I am aware that some teachers are brilliant at getting the best effort from kids, but it is wrong that one teacher can have such an impact on results. How do you counteract that?

GiveItAGo - it's not about current grades predicting her GCSEs. Its about understanding how badly she is doing.

I'm a project manager. If my project was 2 weeks behind after a month, I'd be stupid to expect it to be delivered on time without doing something to get it back on track.

Currently my DD is in approx the bottom 10% of the population. It would be stupid to expect her to reach the top third without doing something to get her up to there.

Now both the project, and my daughters progress might change without extra interventions - but it's a very high risk strategy to assume it will.

And I never chose high risk strategies for important things :)

2 years ago she was 2 years behind. Now she's still 2 years behind. So there is no reason to believe she'll catch up without something very different happening.

Nobody is actually predicting her GCSEs. I'm just saying remaing in the bottom 10% is unacceptable and not something to be pleased about.

I guess lots of people don't view school progress like IT projects :) but really there's lots of similarities.