So how does English education really compare with other systems?

[chocconut]

Thought it would be interesting to start a thread about the wise Mners' experience of English secondary education compared with others around the world. I was brought up abroad and so am very connected with children being educated abroad and since living here was always convinced I'd send my kids to private school as all I read in the news was how awful state schools were, standards dumbed down, UK kids not being prepared for employment etc etc. However, my kids are now in the state system (private not really an option financially) and they have been happy to go everyday, come home happy and -dare I say it- acutally seem to be learning well!!! Am I deluding myself? Are standards really very low but I can't see it because they are happy, and I want to justify my decisions? am I going to regret it when they are older if I realise they are able to compete in a globalised world? or.... is the system better than the news items would dare us to believe?? Over to you.. wise ladies!!

cory - "The reason university students come to Britain is that British universities are well funded (Cambridge is a huge property owner, living off many centuries of endowments), so can afford the best teachers and fantastic libraries."

I agree very much with this. The same argument applies, multiplied, to US universities. Only yesterday a friend was round at our home to ask my DP whether he would be a speaker on some of her courses at France's most prestigious école de commerce. Now, I think my DP is very fabulous and all that, but if I am totally honest, nobody is going to ask him to be a speaker at a top-ranking UK university. My friend has to scrape around among her friends and acquaintances to put her courses together on the cheap, that's all.

The wealthy Chinese you mention are only selecting the very best the UK education system has to offer, the outstanding schools and universities.

Cortina - wealthy families from every country around the world pick and choose the very best in schooling and universities wherever they go. This is not restricted to the Chinese.

I wouldn't class my family as "wealthy" but we are comfortably middle-class and very willing to prioritise education in our budget. We look at the very best global educational establishments, whatever the country.

The wealthy Chinese you mention are only selecting the very best the UK education system has to offer, the outstanding schools and universities.

That?s the point every country has a low and a high end, people from all over the world are still choosing to come to the UK for education, why ?

Of course, Bonsoir. I was responding to Shootingstarz's post about wealthy Chinese choosing UK colleges etc. I took it that he/she was suggesting the Chinese think our system superior. My point is not necessarily they are cherry picking the best places, the USA is also a popular destination & Australia.

Shootingstarz we have great schools and colleges in the UK. We have a reputation/tradition for excellent public schools. There are school franchises in China named after our traditional & famous schools. Sometimes this alone is enough to attract pupils - there is an associated gloss & status it seems. Does this mean we can say our education system is strong across the board?

Interestingly - changing the subject a little -I heard now Uni is a serious cost more UK students are seriously considering American Universities too. They don't seem so out of reach/ludicrously expensive any longer.

Does anyone have any insights into the Australian schooling system compared to the UK?

We are currently considering emigration and I'm interested in the comments about the UK schools as I have been getting the impression recently that (not unlike my own school reports) they could do better.

Obviously if the Aussie way is better this would be very high up my "pro's" list.

There are some very good schools in Australia - both state and private. However, like the UK, you need to shop around and do your homework about schools before moving into a neighbourhood.

Where in USA? State or private school?

Unless parents are willing to support their children through their education any education system will be useless, this is half the problem in the UK lazy parents with the mentality of ?I left school without any GCSEs and it didn?t do me any harm?

I haven't read the whole thread, but most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something.

most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something.

One of the main things overseas parents require is education through the medium of English so that their children are properly fluent in the global language of business and academia. This narrows the choice of countries considerably. Britain is well known for its boarding school tradition but many of these children will come from ex colonies of the UK so it might be seen as a natural choice. Many parents will have a second home in London for example. There will be proportionately fewer well known schools in other English speaking nations.

Ah hello! I have an MEd in International Education.

The basic answer is that the British education system is bloody brilliant and that the Media are a load of old wingers.

It is obviously more complicated than that, however and there are a number of different factors/ measures that need to be considered:

1. What are you comparing? On one Literacy/ Numeracy measure we're about 9th in the world which I reckon is pretty good. (But there are obviously cultural flaws with measuring an area like this as some countries have different ideas of what it means to be literate or numerate)
2. On a 'learning to learn' measure, we're also doing extremely well. This is the idea that we're producing students who have the skills to adapt and learn new skills (does that make sense?). It is predicted that the students currently in school will have to learn skills for several new careers, possibly ones we haven't actually thought of yet, thus this is considered to be vital.
3. Creativity is also considered to be a vital learning tool for the future. Many countries do not value this skill, but China is carrying out extensive and speedy research to look at introducing Drama/ Art etc. into schools. It has (unsurprisingly) been shown that these subjects provide transferable skills and encourage free-thinkers and entrepreneurs. We are doing very well in this area.
4. Sixth form. We're also still doing very well in this area at the top end- but are not great at the roughly 70% of students who are weaker.

Where are we doing badly?

1. Sixth form. We get to a post-16 stage where we haven't really figured out what to do with students. Yes, we are better than most of the world, but only because most of the world is third world.
2. MFL obviously.

" 'most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something.'

One of the main things overseas parents require is education through the medium of English so that their children are properly fluent in the global language of business and academia. This narrows the choice of countries considerably."

Very true. The fact that Finland is top of the leagues doesn't mean people scrape and save to have their children educated in Finland; they'd come out speaking Finnish, which is hardly a major asset if you want to make your way in the global society. Finland is top of the leagues for meeting the needs of its own children. They are particularly good at providing a good uniform education that reaches across the social strata. This is Britain's great weakness, that the education experience is very uneven- but of course that won't affect the foreign parent who manages to get their child into a high quality British school.

Cory, Tortu, great points.

Tortu you are spot on about the Chinese new creativity initiatives. Elsewhere in Asia there is a drive to recruit future leaders and special, creative and exciting entrepreneurship programmes are running for quite young children.

We can't afford to be complacent though and to my mind if you take all that's best in Chinese education (zero tolerance for poor grammar, spelling, etc. Academic rigour. High expectations) and try to keep things interesting and creative you have a near perfect system. Of course, as you so eloquently say, Cory, our system is also 'uneven' - not sure I see how this can ever be adequately resolved?

"most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something"

There are a lot of second rate and third rate educational establishments in the UK. However, they feed off the reverence that many foreigners have for Oxbridge, LSE, Eton, Harrow & Co.

That is why the UK attract so many foreign students as opposed to a great respect for the whole education system.

Dd has a friend whose mother is a "Tiger Mother" - Chinese, living in UK as husband is something computery (?!).

Her dd does the requisite 50 hours a week violin, extra maths, blah de blah, but what she is particularly keen to beef up is her dd's "cultural" skills. She asked me to spend a little time explaining the royal family set-up to her dd, with family trees, description of social class etc etc. The dd is also on a reading programme of such classics as The Railway Children, Secret Garden and so on and has previously worked her way through all the Famous Fives and Secret Sevens.

I find this quite interesting - although it is a sample of only one (although there are a few other very ambitious Chinese families at the dd's school) it seems that the Chinese are satisfied with their performance in most of the straight academic stuff but still have an admiration for our inherent "Britishness" whatever that is and feel it is of value to get a handle on it.

Think you are right, Gramercy, I've seen this too. I read somewhere that it was strange classical piano was so popular with Asian children (forgive the generalisation) when it's notoriously difficult to make a living out of it, followed closely by the violin which is apparently notoriously difficult to master? They said, where are the Asian trumpeters, classical oboists and session saxophonists? They suggested the piano and violin is perhaps a badge of being middle class and educated? Why the sanctity of the piano and violin?

It's a bygone world that perhaps some aspire to, the world of young ladies playing the piano in the drawing room etc. Back to the days when England had an Empire where the sun never set. Our Public schools and education system was undoubtedly the best in the world and we had all the money and the power.

I think all this is going to abruptly change in the next 50 years or so. I believe Asia will become the centre of everything, where the money and the power is. Throughout the history of the world the centre of the world has shifted to where the money and assets are. How this will change things I can't predict but change is coming, unless something unexpected happens, of that I feel certain.

"where are the Asian trumpeters, classical oboists and session saxophonists?"

Interesting question. Both DCs are members of their respective school orchestras plus an out of school one. Not one Asian woodwind player in sight.

However I don't think it is because it is because of 'an admiration for our inherent "Britishness"'. I mean the Aussies love their rugby. Are you saying that it is because they soooo love the British Rugby playing Public schools? :o

IMHO string instruments produce a more refined sound than brass. Plus in an orcherstra the violin players are the main act with the other instruments playing a support role. As for soloist intruments, that tends to be the piano or violin.

My theory is that an Asian parent (Generalisation Alert) will choose the child's instrument so he/she will choose one that sounds refined (to him/her) and/or an instrument where the DC is going to shine, either as part of an orchestra or as soloist.

A Western parent on the other hand is probably more prepared to let their DCs choose their instrument.

I think the education system here in the UK is a very mixed bag. Some excellent, some dire.
Accessing the excellent can be a trick.

However, my view would be that very few schools indeed would prepare a pupil properly for a competitive globalised future. That is the job of the parent.

Sadly this is reliant upon a. the parent recognising that this is important and b. knowing what to do about it.

*most of my students are born overseas, and have been brought to the UK for the education system. That must say something.

One of the main things overseas parents require is education through the medium of English so that their children are properly fluent in the global language of business and academia. This narrows the choice of countries considerably. Britain is well known for its boarding school tradition but many of these children will come from ex colonies of the UK so it might be seen as a natural choice. Many parents will have a second home in London for example. There will be proportionately fewer well known schools in other English speaking nations.*

Pushedtotheedge/cory/rosinante

I'm not talking about private schools, or parents with second homes, (or even first homes) I'm talking about immigrants, many of whom live on benefits, many of whom leave their children here unsupervised and return to their own countries. At least 75% of the children I have taught in my inner cuty comprehensive career have been brought or sent here for the education.

Who do these children stay with, if their parents 'go back' & they are unsupervised?

I love tortu's post above! thank you for that, I find it very reassuring.

What I dont really understand is how driven some people seem to be to drive their children so hard. I know it's always clothed in 'allowing them to develop their talents' but in this little microcosm of the internet surely it's odd that so many people have so many talented children? Mine are pretty average in terms of talents that most other people would recognise as such - academic, music, sport etc - (which is not to say they are not A* amazing in themselves, which clearly they are!)

When I was a child and came 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th or even lower in some school test or other, my father - who I adored and who adored me - would chant this little mantra which his father used to say to him: "Good, better, best, Never let it rest". I never did come 1st much; but I think it is one of the things that has made me really pretty relaxed about education/pushing my kids to achieve. Quite the opposite effect than he intended, obv!!

"Who do these children stay with?"

with an "auntie", who might or might not be related, and might or might not have half a dozen other "neices", who might or might not be paid, and might or might not honour her side of the bargain.

alone in the council housing allocated to their parents ( I've known 11 year olds do this)

On the floor/ setteee of a relay of friends/ aquaintances

With a "guardian", as a servant

In the woods

In the stairwell

In a hostel for the homeless

Mostly with the "sister" or "cousin" in the family who this happened to last, who might be say 4-8 years older, and absent most days and nights, and so effectively entirely alone.

In a year or two, many of them will be "auntie to someone elses abandoned children

I had a parents evening last week. I had a "hit list" of the 10 most troublesome students, whose parents I really wanted to get hold of. Not one had a parent in this country. I get "My Mum is travelling" "When is she back?" I ask The answer is a shrug, possible the vague mention of a month in the nearish future, June? July?, most likely not true. One boy told me very indignantly that he saw his mother regularly, VERY Regularly -every 5 years without fail! ( he was 16, off the rails, and no one cared)

This children are abandoned here in the expectation that we will educate them well enough for them to earn fmoney or their families.