There's a "culture of low expectation" in secondary schools. Do you agree?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello. You may have seen/heard on the news today that Ofsted is warning that thousands of bright secondary-school-age children are being "systematically failed" at school.

And we'd like to know what you think about this.

Ofsted says there is a culture of low expectations in England's non-selective secondaries - meaning that, according to a new Ofsted report, more than a quarter (27%) of pupils who achieved the highest results in primary school fail to achieve at least a B grade in both their English and their Maths GCSE.

The most academically able, says Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw, arrive "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" from primary school, but things start "to go wrong very early. They tread water. They mark time. They do stuff they've already done in primary school. They find work too easy and they are not being sufficiently challenged."

Do you think this is a fair reflection of life at secondary school? Do you think your child's secondary school has a low expectation of its pupils/your child? Does/did your child "tread water" in Year 7? Do you wish secondary schools did more to challenge their more academically able pupils?

Please do tell!

It reminds me of something I say to the DC from time to time:

DC: "I'm thirsty"
Me: "I'm Friday, pleased to meet you"

I absolutely categorically mean 'nothing' by it, it's just funny . Same probably goes for the teacher making the BARRISTA comment.

ds is at a very strong primary where they really do stretch the children and make excellent use of data to spot where children aren't achieving as they should be/are able to. While making sure the kids have lots of fun and interesting stuff to do as well - it's not a Gadgrindian 'thou shall not enjoy education' drilling approach of the kind Gove appears to favour.

I gather from friends whose children have gone up to the nearest secondary - which is very well regarded and gets good grades - that there is a LOT of repetition in the first year. I don't know whether that is because ds's primary teaches beyond what other schools do, or because the secondary isn't as switched on, or what it's like beyond the first year of secondary. But it's a tad worrying as that's where ds will probably go as well.

Or, in the version favoured by my father-two people on a train-

"Is this Wembley?"
"No, it's Thursday"
"So am I, let's go for a drink"

I have no idea what this thread is about any more- does this happen often?

'ds is at a very strong primary where they really do stretch the children and make excellent use of data to spot where children aren't achieving as they should be/are able to. While making sure the kids have lots of fun and interesting stuff to do as well'

My DS is too edam and I'm a Gov at the school. He's not achieving his potential despite being level4/5 in year 4 - mainly because there is very little dialogue between him and his teacher imho. Also she is not as 'knowledgable' (although she will obviously have much more 'life' experience) as he is about certain aspects of science and instead of helping him to broaden his ideas she attempts to reign him in. That said, she is the least effective teacher at this school.

posts like those form dashoflime should come with a date stamp.
How long ago did this happen?
In what context was thsi said?

teaching today is a different from what it was 2 yrs ago, its a lot different from five years ago and a world away from what it was 30 years ago.

Statements that start with "when I was at school" are in the fanatsy land as those of gove.

Haven't had time to read all of thread, but i completely agree with the Ofsted report..

DS2 and his Primary school worked really hard to get him from being well below average in all subjects (he's Dyspraxic which was spotted in the Reception year) to above average upon entering Secondary school..

In years 7 and 8 he stayed in the top set for English and Maths but received no help to maintain that standard from the head SENCO when he started to struggle, we lost count of how many teachers came and went, in most cases we didn't even know their names.. He was then zoomed down from top to the bottom sets in everything in year 9, following no discussion with me. He was bored beyond belief and said it was a joke, saying he was just doing lessons he did years ago.
Following many irate phone calls i got him moved up a set in English and Maths, his latest English teacher has told me she's shocked and confused by the high standard of his work and comprehension given the schools previous decision.
However, now in Year 10, he is in sets where the best he can hope to achieve with his given exam papers is a C grade.
School failure is putting it lightly IMO.. He's treading water at 15, we are just waiting to get him into Further Ed next year so that he can repeat everything, and get the grades he's capable of..

What a complete waste of time! Luckily he's not the only boy the school has buggered up and failed, otherwise his confidence would've been in shreds by now.

Yep, OFSTED are spot on.

To be honest my experience of primary isn't that much better. My DD1 is L4 (Y3) across the board and the teacher has said categorically that they will not stretch her or teach her L5 stuff until at least Y5. So she has at least another full academic year where she will be able to stretch herself or at home but will not be taught anything else new. This is because they are mainly focussed on getting everyone to L4 and L5 by end of Y6.

They don't even bother with L6 in Y6, so there is no incentive to stretch my DD or any other child like her. I am curious how they get away with it from an Ofsted point of view, but they do. I suppose they can always say that my DD "plateaued" for a year or two. I am sure this is not the only school in the country where this is happening.

I am sorry to hear that jellycat. Did you think of moving him in year 9? Did you put your reservations in writing to the head copied to the governors noting your concerns about lack of senco support and asking for details of the evidence on which the decision was made and an action plan detailing the steps that would be taken to get back on track re his potential. Schools get away with it because parents don't kick up enough fuss in my opinion.

The problem with the KS2 exams is that children are coached for months in order to pass the exam. The children are then given artificially inflated grades which do not reflect their true ability. The teachers in secondary school are then expected to ensure that a child who achieves level 5 at the end of KS2 gets a grade A at GCSE.
The problem is with the examination system and the pressure on primary school teachers to get as many level 5's as possible.
Children who attend grammar schools, faith schools and independent schools tend to do better, because their parents are interested in their education and therefore will do their utmost to ensure that their children do well. The teaching in these schools is not superior , but there is definitely an expectation that the children can achieve grade A's.
IMHO, parental input/interest is key to whether a child achieves academically.

Too many parents are relying on the schools to ensure that their children are stretched.

My taught my son (Summer born) how to read when he was in year 1, as
i realized that if i relied on the school , there was a possibility that he would leave Primary school unable to read or write. I also ensure that my children learned their tables, read regularly etc.
Parents have to start taking responsibility for the education of their children.

There's this thing about 'low expectations'. I went back to teach in the comp I was educated in. The teachers said at the time I was a pupil, the biggest demand on a teacher was to control the class i.e. keep them from throwing chairs around the room. Expectations were nothing to do with achievement. 10 years later the expectation was 'we know have to get stuff into their brains'. Panic stations!!

Same kids, different expectations. With all this target-based culture, I want to ask: Do the kids benefit? Are they happier? Are they more successful?

Not sure where I'm going with this. I suppose I just think it a bit naive to throw the buck at the teachers and demand to know why Didums is not achieving, when there's a whole lot going on in Didum's life outside the classroom.

there is also a strong feeling amongst some parents of "my child is cleverer than X- it 's not fair that X gets extra help- my child should get it"

Forgetting that the reason X is getting extra help may well be precisely because he is less clever, so therefore needs more help....

LeBFG - the problem is that teachers are expected to teach and children are expected to learn when 10-20% of many classes are disengaged and disruptive. The other 80-90% would achieve much more if the government funded and supported the establishment of more prus and more specialist units so that teachers could focus on teaching. That is the biggest problem and that is why we removed dd from the state sector. The perpetual slide to the lowest common denominator that helps nobody - least of all the most vulnerable.

married Oh yes, i spent virtually all of yr 9 writing to everyone, including the LEA who wanted updates, watched closely and gave me support but did nothing, and going to meetings (it took 7 weeks to meet with the head as she kept cancelling appts. and on one occasion didn't even turn up) i even initiated the help of the biggest independent body (SNAP) here in Wales that mediates between schools and parents of SEN pupils who backed me all the way (and attended meetings with me) even the previous Head SENCO was appalled by it all.. plans were eventually put in place, agreements made and written down, but never ever carried out..

It takes up to 5 days for calls to be returned and thats 'if' the secretary remembers to pass messages on!
After all the months of hard work nothing changed, i had to make a decision to give up as it was all taking over my life (i'm a single parent)..
Thats after an agreement was made with the Head, that the Head SENCO (a prison warden in her past job, and also head of discipline at the school, with no experience of SN) was never to contact me again (this followed an incident where i had evidence of her blatantly lying to me and was told i by a solicitor friend that i could've taken her to court, and her simply taking DS2 out of French because he needed help which she couldn't provide as there were no TAs allocated for that subject) and a member of staff was appointed as a go between.

I'm deadly serious about my DCs education, DS1 was at the same school under a different head with very good experienced teachers (who have now resigned or been laid off in favour of newly qualified cheaper teachers) and went on to gain a First class honours degree, so i didn't mess about with DS2.

I looked into our local college who would've taken him on at 14, but the range of subjects on offer are tiny (rural Wales).. So i decided to keep him at school to complete his Music and Engineering GCSEs which he loves, and go back to redo the core subjects later.

P.S married He was on School Action Plus, i never received any written copy despite asking, and then he was taken off it without informing me in Yr 8 when the new SENCO took over and he was still in the top sets, it was never put in place again..

My mentor used to say high expectations would eliminate distruptive behaviour marriedinwhiteagain .

I think also with so many pupils to teach at secondary level (and certainly as is true at my DSs school, there's a fast turnover of teachers).. its understandable that teachers 'forget' which pupil has what 'need'.
I've had to remind the Physics teacher 3 times now that DS2 is Dyspraxic and thats why his mind wonders, i've advised him to simply re-engage him back in by calling his name. The staff simply dont remember, we've even had to write it on the staff white board!
At Primary level its much easier to really work with individuals and keep them engaged.

What happens to kids with 5 E"s at G.C.S.E,the reason i say this is because they are being forced to stay in education to 18 which schools are going to allow these kids in to there 6th form. Are these the kids in the bottom 20% who pull down the other kids and because they are so challenging though Behaviour and Academic Ability take 70% of time dealing with them, and should not these kids be in seperate schools away from the mainstream 50%, you can work out what type of school the top 30% should go to.

They can do work place training, they don't have to stay in school, they have to stay in education.

Vocational courses, NVQs, other training courses, revision 5-GCSEs in a year courses at 6th form colleges, apprenticeships, even.

I dislike the idea that they are "pulling down" others though. It's not that simple.

Personally don't see how raising exam standards will lead to higher achievement. . it just looks like a better excuse for the academically weakest to give up early. Does anyone talk about what would best engage the lowest achievers in education to keep trying and still do their best? I don't think solution is raising the bar even further above what they are already struggling to obtain.

As an English teacher the reason we revisit primary work is that many pupils can identify a word or technique, they can even understand what they are for but in many cases they cannot use the technique. This is down to solid teaching to the test, when given more freedom if expression at secondary school a lot of pupils struggle, so we revisit and research the skills.

You would be amazed how many different level Level 4 and 5 s come through ours doors, depending on which primary. This also needs to be factored in as a pupil may have a 5C at primary due to a lot of help but is in no way ever going to get an A or B.

My DSs are at a non selective Comp. I'm astounded at the level of commitment the teachers offer, to one who is very 'middle of the road' & the other a bit above.
Whilst the students & staff are busting a gut to get through GCSEs it must be very disheartening to hear Gove banging on about exams not being hard enough.

I remember lots of spiral teaching when I went thru school & even in university (spiral = revisiting old material but moving on from it too). There are lots of reasons why I could see this being good practice.

There should be as many kids in apprenticeships as there are at university.

Employers have got away for too long with paying crap wages that are topped up with tax credits
and not being willing to train employees - wanting that done by the taxpayer at colleges.

"So, just to be clear, it's not true that all a school has to do to jump successfully through the OfSTED hoops is to get as many GCSEs Cs as possible?"

Picking up this point from upthread...

It depends on the school. There are two things here:

• League tables, conventionally, still have a default 'sort' mode that ranks schools by their '5 good GCSEs including English and Maths' percentage. The 'floor target' set for all schools by the Government is also based on this percentage. Even though more detail is available for those who choose to search for it, the most publicly-available 'ranking' system (and the most publicly reported 'name and shame' measure) is based on this percentage. Wider public perception is often driven by league table position, rather than by Ofsted grade [so in my town, for several years, the 2 best-regarded comps had Ofsted Outstanding, and Oftsed Satisfactory grades. The one every MC parent sought to avoid at all costs due to its league table position had a solid Ofsted Good]

• For those schools that have a higher-ability intake, the '5 good GCSEs including English and Maths' %, based on A to C is not enough to get a high Ofsted grade if many of the intake could do better than getting Cs. These are the 'MN-friendly' schools where there is enough teacher time and effort to also concentrate on A/A boundaries. However, for schools that have a lower-ability intake (and there are some for whom the % of low achievers on intake is so high that the Government's 'absolute floor standard' of 40% reaching 5 A* to C incl Eng and Maths represents supurb progress) then, as the flexibility is only 1 way (intake does not excuse schools from that 40% figure), huge effort is put into the D/C borderline and less is left over for the very few higher achievers.

So the GCSE grade Cs are necessary - and more critically necessary the lower-achieving the cohort is on entry - but not sufficient for a good Ofstd grade BUT they are still absolutely necessary for a good league table position drive public perception.