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!

Arisbottle - that would be an insightful observation but for the fact that most MNetters don't live in SM areas.

How I'd improve comps:Everyone attends the same school, have proper streaming for academic subjects. Smaller classes (20 pupils) for lower ability. Technical subjects to be taught ,such as catering, plumbing, car mechanics, construction, hairdressing ( there will always be demand for good hairdressers), as well as academic ones.

Change SM for bottom sets or council estates. The thinking is the same.

Arisbottle

LOL. :)

It is interesting that an unfeasably high percentage of mumsnetters have their children in grammar schools but I struggle to think of any mumsnetters beyond myself and one other who have their children in a secondary modern.

Agree with BM smaller schools maximum 1000 pupils including the sixth form

Mumzy
"have proper streaming for academic subjects"

Why do you believe that this will stop this happening?
I have seen many top sets disrupted by high ability pupils.

Why is there such a belief that high ability children are angels?

I teach across the year groups classes between sets 1 and 5.

My best behaved class is set 5 year 10. The classes with require me to use my behaviour management skills the most are set 3 year 10 and set 2 year 9.

Arisbottle - that's like saying that there is unfeasibly number of well off people in a forum talking about buying overseas property.

Children with pushy supportive mums are more likely to be at GS. Those mums are more likely to be in a forum discussing education.

Children with laid back parents are more likely to be at SMs. Those mums are hardly going to be spending their free time discussing education.

Simples.

"Children with laid back parents are more likely to be at SMs. Those mums are hardly going to be spending their free time discussing education."

!

Not exactly. Wayne with 3 A*s from Wakefield can contact the special Oxbridge provided liaison person allocated to his school and get more focused help than Hugo gets from the random person he rings at the boat club. He might choose to attend one of the special visit days when people from Wakefield in general go to visit certain colleges and courses, and he might get buddied up with a couple of students who can talk to him over a sandwich and a coke while he's there. Or his contact person might visit his school to give a targeted talk.

Hugo will however have the edge over Sally, whose non graduate parents worked their butts off in order that she might attend a very minor independent school in the sticks. She will leave with practically no useful contacts at all, and won't benefit from outreach aimed at state schools either.

My children are at a comp/ secondary modern . I teach and am always on education threads here.

I've got two in a comp at the moment, btw. Eldest went private (boarding).

But you are a teacher.

... with a strange catchment. I mean you have comps and SM/GSs in your catchment?

So I am quite likely to be supportive of education and unlikely to be overly laid back, and yet most of my children are not at the grammar.

Although to be honest by MN standards I am positively horizontal so maybe I do prove your point.

We are on the edge of a grammar school area, so some children go the grammar but not all who could. So we are a comprehensive by name but we do lose some children to the grammar - interestingly rarely the brightest. But I guess if there was no grammar we would be even more comprehensive,

Hugo might also have a god parent who's vice chancellor at his first choice; another on the board of trustees at his second and a father who's remembered and takes pupils from his third . But that would be the case whatever type of school Hugo went to. It also helps if Hugo is terrifically bright. My very own xanthe isn't and will have none of those choices because entry is on merit.

DH went from the local comp and from the local comp moved onto those connections. Admittedly upward social mobility is harder than it was 35 years ago and that is wrong.

They aren't called hugo and xanthe btw but you get the message.

My stepson is a Wayne, he has had an Oxbridge offer despite the fact that his parents come from council estates, we are probably the most common people on the road and he did not go the grammar .

My second son, lets called him Kyle, is on his way to getting top A level results at the grammar and would I imagine have his pick of universities. I will admit that he goes sailing, as does DSS and fencing so he does mix with a few posh types , but they have not given him a golden ticket .

Daughter two, lets call her Waynetta about to sit GCSEs , again not at the grammar. Again she knows posh types from horsey events but no golden ticket

Ok, 'rarely the brightest' go into the grammar. In other words, GSs aren't siphoning off the brightest thus leaving a bunch of low achievers to populatr the SMs . So what's your problem with selectives then?

And your point is ?

"Internationally, teacher assessment of pupils works for most countries. Our externally moderated exam system is anomalous globally, expensive, and pretty ineffective."

Hmm. I live in a country (France) where teacher assessment is extremely important (more so than it appears to most outsiders) and I disagree that it works. On the contrary, it creates all sorts of codes, networks and secret dealings - and hence unfairness.

marriedinwhite - "Hugo might also have a god parent who's vice chancellor at his first choice; another on the board of trustees at his second and a father who's remembered and takes pupils from his third."

Yes. In fact, my nephew is called Hugo and the close friends that his parents and aunts and uncles have currently working at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, HEC and Essec alone are in the dozens. Not sure that they know anyone at a a boat club, however

We live on the edge of the grammar system, it is very different in the centre of the grammar catchment. Failing secondary moderns left right and centre, it is also a very socially divided place.

The grammars are also packed with children who went to prep schools, my son has never bought a friend home who comes from a good working class background like us. The free school dinner rate shows that grammars around here are about saving the middle classes from paying school fees rather than providing bright poor kids with a leg up. I might have more time for them if that was the case.

Even on the edge of the grammar school catchment my youngest daughter was bullied because she was not tutored and did not apply for the grammar.

I also see first hand that children of all abilities can be educated in the same building and it works, so why the need for segregation? If a bog standard teacher like me in a bog standard school like mine can manage it, I see no need for grammars .

This is a point that may only be the case in our area, but our local grammar schools are also know for providing a very dull, chalk and talk overly spoonfed form if education. I don't want that for my children.

I have also seen my own son being left to struggle in those subjects he is not as strong in, because he is not going to earn the grammar yet another A*, so they literally do not seem to care. He has attended revision sessions at my school because his own grammar were not interested in him.

As some wise poster said upthread, threads like this inevitably turn into the battle of anecdotes. Everyone has a friend, sibling, DP who was brought up in a sink estate and non selective and went onto academic and professional greatness. Makes you wonder why others keep going on about the top uni places and jobs going to kids from selectives eh?

And why do these people always have several postgrad degrees. The only people I know that have two are uni academics. If you have three post grad degrees then aren't you a bit over qualified for a secondary school teacher?