Another thread about tutoring

[PooshTun]

Elsewhere there is a rehash of the usual tutoring versus no tutoring arguments.

There are those who argue that schools should not select kids based on a 11+ since it favours kids that are tutored as opposed to kids who have natural ability. As the saying goes, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions ie how would you fix the selection process?

Please, if you want to simply ban selective schools then start your own thread. I am interested in ideas from parents who are in favour of grammar schools but think that there should be a better way of allocating places.

I agree that the existing process is unfair but in the absence of a machine that measures true intellence or a test that you can't possibly be tutored for I don't see what can be done to make the whole selection process fairer.

teacher - I'm not that desperate to win an argument that I want to spend my evening searching for links :)

However, rest assured that the next time I come across a study that concludes that many kids leave school barely literate I will make a note of the link for you.

Poosh, but it has to show that MORE children leave school barely literate than did under the old segregated system - a system in which a vast number of children left at 14 or 15 still functionally illiterate.

There has to be a robust, statistical comparison with a whole cohort at a past date (rather than e.g. comparing at 16, at which point many children who were unable to read and write had already left school or, for example, disregarding the numbers who were in special schools who are now in mainstream). The current number leaving functionally illiterate cannot, by itself, prove a decline, because it needs to show a decline FROM something.

A very brief Google reveals an academic article from Leeds university, which states:

"Surveys of literacy attainment have been going on in the UK since 1948.
The main finding is that literacy standards have changed very little in that time."

(That was 1948-1996, this covering the period of change from segregated to comprehensive education)

Comprehensives were supposed to improve matters. If children are still leaving school illiterate in large numbers then isn't that considered a failure in the system?

Can you imagine a headmaster going - yes a lot of your children can't read or write but they are no worst off than when I first got the job several years ago so what are you parents complaining about?

IMI not making low standards worse is not a sucess story

poosh "teacher - I'm not that desperate to win an argument that I want to spend my evening searching for links"

Don't let some evidence get in the way of pre-conceived ideas.....

ohdear - I read newspapers and I watch documentaries. I formed an opinion based on this. If you think my opinion is crap then fine but I'm not one of those people that feels a need to win an argument with a stranger on a forum.

Poosh, I was a scientist, and am a teacher. In both roles, I read and weigh evidence, and decide how valid and reliable it might be.

It makes me very, very boring and pedantic as 'a stranger on a forum' (and probably in real life too).

Had the claim been 'educational standards for all are not yet high enough because not every single child leaves school with the levels of literacy and numeracy needed to access everything they need to in the modern world', I would be quite happy to agree that the evidence from newspapers and documentaries are sufficient to support that thesis (though I would ask you to unpick the 'levels of literacy' statement, as newspapers and documentaries have a habit of stating that children working at e.g. NC level 3 are illiterate, whereas in fact it represents quite a workable level of functional literacy. They also tend to lump EAL children who have recently arrived in the country into the statistics - again, it's all about the quality of the study and the care in the methodology).

To state that 'educational standards are falling' is a wholly different matter, and needs a wholly different level of evidence, because data about individuals or smnall groups at a single point in time is not sufficient to make the case one way or another. You need whole cohort studies, over a significant period of time, at a variety of ages and ensuring that complicating factors (such as the move to inclusion, different school leaving ages, the fact that young people leave education at a variety of ages, migration etc) are carefully controlled.

In that vein, I apologise, I used a poor study (for this purpose) in the example I quoted before, as it was about literacy at a fixed (young) age - primary schol age. Apologies, it was late. However it was, of course, not a valid study to quote in a debate about educational standards at school leaving age. In 1948 many of the children involved in the study will have left school at 14-15, whereas in 1996 many more will have gone on to study beyond 16, thus raising the average level of educational attainment at the end of their education very significantly.

As I say, boring and hard being rigorous and examining the evidence base forensically - but an essential basis for good policy rather than kneejerk reactions.

Why do I get the impression that if I had struck up a conversation with you while waiting for a bus and said that April was the wettest April in decades, you'll be asking me to justify my statement.

.... and why do some MNetters feel a need to post their CV in order to prove the superiority of their opinion?

I hardly think you can compare a 21 page discussion on this forum with a brief conversation at a bus stop. I believe teacher mentioned her previous life as scientist in order to justify asking form a little more rigour than, 'I read newspapers and I watch documentaries. I formed an opinion based on this.'

You seen to have confused MN with the Oxford Debating Society :o

It's not open to debate whether the standard of Maths A level has fallen or not. It has fallen. This is why universities have to run remedial Maths courses for students with an A or A* in Maths and further Maths now to equip them to do science and Maths degrees (and even some economics degrees) that need Maths. The standard of GCSE Maths is now way below the O level of the mid 80s. Big chunks of the O level syllabus are now A level instead. This is why slightly mathsy professions like accountancy now demand A level Maths rather than O level as was the case with the Big firms (and even the smaller ones ) in days gone by. It's nothing to do with competition or ability, even - it's to do with the material covered in the lessons they have done.

Maths attainment on the other hand has shot up. Many many more young people are doing Maths A level now and getting decent marks. Which is great except for those things where Maths is actually needed.

I'm not going to post my CV or my relatives but I have first hand experience of these precise issues.

I'm happy to reiterate my view that some subjects have higher standards than in my day (music, for certain) and some of them are now so wildly different (history) that you just can't compare.

From my professional experience we are also turning out generations of high achieving Oxbridge/RG graduates with scores of A* GCSE and A level results who cannot string 4 words together in readable sentences. Which is also becoming a real issue.

Metabilis,

Thank you.

As you say, the absolute attainment level represented by a particular qualification can fall (and as you say, some have fallen, some have risen) while attainment on average over a cohort can go up - and it depends entirely on how you define your terms as to whether this supports 'standards of educational attainment have risen' [ie the average attainment across a total cohort has risen] or 'standards of education have fallen' [the absolute attainment level represented in a single qualification has dropped].

"we are also turning out generations of high achieving Oxbridge/RG graduates with scores of A* GCSE and A level results who cannot string 4 words together in readable sentences" .... 'twas ever thus ..... the same was true of many of the Oxbridge mathematicians I knew in my day!

Poosh,

Although I am a pedant, I don't take it THAT far. I am more pedantic when a statement matters and an action could result. For example, the opinion 'we need to return to segregated education because educational standards have dropped since the advent of comprehensive education' falls apart if educational standards - in terms of average educational attainment for a whole cohort - have not, in fact, dropped, and this could have an effect on policy. If it is not the wettest April in a decade, nobody's going to do anything different as a result!

@teacher Reported attainment has risen across the board in almost every subject every year since they abandoned norm referencing. I am convinced that the standard represented by the top grades in some subjects has also risen, but I know for a fact that in others it has fallen. Therefore real (as opposed to reported) attainment has also fallen - perhaps not across the board but at the useful end of the spectrum. This is an inevitable consequence of the exam system we have now and actually nothing to do with selective or non selective state schools. The way to increase quality is to do different exams - but one result of this might be lower reported attainment on those exams which is politically unpalatable for several vested interests (including the kids themselves as who wants to have to explain to a recruiter that a B in an IGCSE Maths is as good as an A or A* in the current GCSE (if it is - I don't know that, I'm just offering an example)).

Thanks for backhanded insult, incidentally - I can only assume you didn't know the right Oxbridge mathematicians (perhaps you knew ones from Oxford). I'm not the only Cambridge mathmo I know who is published, and our sentences are generally accepted as readable (possibly not the ones I post on the Internet but that's a different story).

@teacher Ultimately, it benefits nobody (in this country) if loads more young people have been awarded a Grade C at GCSE Maths if the young people doing A level further Maths are no longer actually equipped to go out into the world and do Maths professions. That is the dilemma we face. It may be the same in the other sciences too - I don't know. But it's a real issue for Maths. I'd hate to see the world of British Maths go the same way as eg the British manufacturing base - but it might be too late. However, as I said, that really isn't the fault of comprehensive education, it's the fault of the national curriculum and in particular the all must win prizes approach of GCSEs.

"Ultimately, it benefits nobody (in this country) if loads more young people have been awarded a Grade C at GCSE Maths"

Well, except it does. If lots of children who were previously innumerate are now functionally numerate, it DOES benefit those children in their personal and professional lives and enables them to contribute to the modern economy in a way they would not otherwise be able to. (I teach the children and grandchildren of functionally innumerate and illiterate adults - I know what a difference the functional literacy and numeracy of the children is having in those families).

I'm not quite comfortable, for that reason, with your 'at the useful end of the spectrum' comment. I believe that one of the problems with the segregated education system in the past was that while the few at the 'top' (grammar) end obtained high level academic qualifications, the rest of the cohort were not well catered for. Or rather, that they received an education suitable for an economy with a large need for manual labour - which is not suitable for the world of today. What is needed is an education system that educates EVERYONE for the work that they can do today - and this has a much higher demand for functional numeracy and literacy than the economy did in the past. So I believe in the 'usefulness' of qualifications which stretch and recognise the attainment of children much further down through the 'middle to lower' levels of academic ability than you do - because I come from a different viewpoint.

Tbh, I think that you and I could very easily reach agreement on the merits of different qualifications being available, and being suitable for different groups within the cohort. I genuinely don't have any problem at all with children taking a mix of qualifications to show their attainment in different subjects, with the highest attainers attempting different qualifications from others.

My issue would be about dividing the cohort between different educational institutions, which might make it impossible for a child to access e.g. the highest level qualifications in maths because they attained at a lower level in English.

Apologies for the cheap jibe wrt mathmos - I obviously knew some of the wrong ones...

teacherwith2kids - you seem to have no concept at all of the seriousness of a situation where the brightest children in a generation are not stretched to their full potential in subjects that are crucial for the economy of tomorrow.

Bonsoir,

I do - but I also have a concept of how serious it is if we choose a way forward which fails to enable a large proportion of the population to be economically active at all.

I agree with you that there should be qualifications which stretch the brightest. I believe that every child has the right to be able to access those qualifications at the end of their school years if they are capable of, regradless of their apparent ability in possibly completely unrealated subjects at the age of 11 - hence my support of truly comprehensive education which allows EVERYONE to make all the progress that they are capable of in EVERY subject. I also believe that there should be valid, robust qualifications (which may be different from the above) that provide a curriculum, a set of skills and a measure of the child's attainment of these for those at other points in the ability spectrum which stretch them too - and an expectation that virtually all children will have a mix of these two types of qualification.

I, for example, might have several of the first type of qualification - sciences - and some of the latter - sport, art. They would recognise the highest point I reached in my compulsory education in those subjects - high to very high in some subjects, somewhat below the national average in others.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I agree we need to educate the elite to an elite standard BUT I do not believe that this should be at the expense of the rest of the cohort - and in a segregated education system, it is the rest of the cohort (specifically the middle - that bulk of the population who we really need to have solid skills in all the areas they need in order to be economically active) who suffer.

I live in a country with an educational system that is fully comprehensive to 15. It systematically fails a large percentage of the brightest children, while dropping down the international league tables every time there is a measurement. Do you understand that I am very dubious about the ability of comprehensive systems to serve the brightest? There are many reasons for this, but one of them (not the least important) is that a comprehensive system discourages the brightest adults from entering teaching. Very bright children need very bright teachers with a firm grasp of their subject from many angles.

@teacher Sorry, but if we don't educate the brightest to the right standard it doesn't matter how well we educate the rest because the country will be mumped. I'm coming at this from the viewpoint of someone who recruits, and who has a lot of experience of the current university system. We are in serious trouble and it's not getting any better. However I also have the personal, not professional, viewpoint of someone whose kids are all hoping for careers in the arts. So it's not like I think science and Maths are the only important thing, in fact my main concern from a personal perspective is arts policy, from education to funding and beyond.

I'm currently in Cyprus, for work, and talking to my colleagues today I found it very depressing that their kids are all hoping to go to the US to do their further education, rather than the UK (like their high achieving professional class parents all did). This isn't because of cost. It's because of standards. Very depressing.

A relative works for BAE systems and can only recruit British nationals because the work he does concerns the UK military defence systems. He has said on the whole the quality of British graduates in science, maths and engineering who come up for interview now is not up to the standard of a lot of the overseas graduates.

I must agree with met.

Whilst it's obviously not right that any pupils are disadvantaged, purely from a point of self interest we must ensure our brightest do well.

It will be from this pool that we are likely to find scientists, surgeons, poets and economists...we cannot squander it.

Ah, right.

I shall go into school tomorrow and teach only the brightest kids in the class - I'll tell all the others that it really doesn't matter if they don't learn to read and write, because their education isn't important.

Please don't complain if, as a result, those children, instead of being gainfully employed as adults (admittedly not in 'high profile' jobs, but I'm sure you would complain if the hospital wasn't clean, the old people's home wasn't staffed, there weren't any police employees, the shelves in the supermarket weren't stocked, there wasn't any petrol because there weren't any tanker drivers, and there was no British food because farmers hadn't got the skills they need to run their businesses), instead turn to crime or face a life on benefits because they are unemployable. That will all be fine because the few elite will be receiving the education they need....

All I am saying is that it shouldn't be an either / or. It MUST be both.

teacher - No one, except you, is advocating for only educating the bright kids. If I am reading their posts correctly, they are making the point that the focus should be improving the education of those whose skills will benefit society and the economy

I know it is a mean thing to say but it makes no difference if the person serving me my pizza has a Grade C in Latin or an 'E'. And I find it :o that you are suggesting that my Pizza Hut worker would turn to crime simply because of his Latin grade.

"Whilst it's obviously not right that any pupils are disadvantaged, purely from a point of self interest we must ensure our brightest do well."

Well, if we're contemplating a doomsday scenario where we only educate one group, then it seems to me that it's a no brainer that we focus on the less bright- I certainly don't want to live in a society where we have a huge, disaffected, uneducated underclass milling about unemployed and unemployable and filled with simmering resentment against the elite!