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!

wordfactory - yes, it's a classic case of wrong incentives. Schools need to be incentivised to get many As, not just 5 A-Cs.

Yes but by your own admission, LQ, that's not a genuine comprehensive.

A lot of us on this thread whose children do go to comprehensives have said that our Y7 experience has been rather good. Five of us, as opposed to three who have said it hasn't been. And we are the ones whose children attend these Academies Of Depravity.

And we also have pretty bright kids in top sets, who've been identified for the kind of additional challenges that this report asserts don't happen.

I agree with it.

I know puberty is partly to blame, but I also think there's something else - not sure what. Or is it just the primary schools give them ridiculously high levels? Certainly, my 'top performing' girl from primary will probably get a B in GCSE English Language and GCSE English Lit. That's despite attempts to get her to an A. Her target is an A*.

Everyone is just going to answer based on their own experience.

Of course there are some great schools of all kinds with excellent teachers and wonderful pupils, but there are also a lot of not good ones. And I know a lot of teachers who openly say they are told to teach to the middle, no one pretends it isn't fairly standard.

It's going to vary considerably, depending on the individual school, but I'd certainly say that's been my ds's experience.
Schools have so much pressure to get pupils to the 'magical C grade' at GCSE, that those they know will get them without effort are left to coast in many schools. Not all, but it certainly happens.

I agree with LaQueen on this: They'd be guaranteed to get the C grades, and most likely quite easily scoop some As and Bs, too. But, they'd scoop them through their own natural ability/focus...and who knows what they might have achieved if given the same amount of teacher input/direction as the lower ability pupils?

You're right: the 11+ is a terrible system.

The trouble with the top set argument, is that it's still a fairly wide spread of ability. You just don't get the critical mass at a comp except at the centre of the bell curve.

And when GCSEs come into play, not everyone in the top set takes the same subjects, so you can get even more mixed ability in some subjects.

A very bright kid can end up a srious outlier!

And I don't think you can blame a school for not throwing resources at that outlier!

What sort of resources are you thinking of, though?

Schools are no longer allowed to focus just on the old 5 A*-C statistic. Schools are measured on the amount of progress students make. "Good" progress means 4 levels of progress between the end of KS2 and the end of KS4. So a child getting Level 5s in English, Maths & Science at KS2 would be expected to get A grades at KS4. A child who gets, say, 4 for English, 5 for Maths and 4 for Science should be getting a B for English, and A for Maths and and B for Sciences. In my school, the non-core subjects work from an amalgamated KS2 score - so the 4/5/4 student would have a non-core baseline of 4a with the expectation that they would achieve top grade B at the least in their GCSEs.

IME, the "chasing C grades" scenario is a bit outdated in most schools.

Well Evil it is OFSTED who are in charge of ensuring that happens and it seems...they don't think it does!

My answer is based upon my experience and that of DH who goes to over 100 schools a year - around half of them secondaries (private, grammar, special, comp, academy - you name it).

Wilshaw is talking garbage.

I don't the the mere A pupils cause a problem though: I think they benefit more from the a pupils than the a pupils lose by sitting near them.

Well nit how long is a pice of string?

It depends on the subject and what level the pupil is at, doesn't it.

Some students might only need access to more challenging books etc, some might need a different curriculum or individual teaching.

You just can't expect a school to provide it! You need enough kids at the same level to make it worthwhile.

If they're going to need individual teaching, then I imagine they'll be 'outliers' anywhere!

Not if there are enough of you nit and there will be in a selective school...you then become a class.

But if there's just you in a comp, then there's just you!

Add message | Report | Message poster LaQueen Thu 13-Jun-13 17:23:41
I have worked in over half a dozen local schools, where IME the brighter pupils are left to pretty much coast along...while all the main effort is focused on the lower ability pupils (of which there are far more), to drag them up to that Holy Grail C grade. However, these schools are, in reality just secondary moderns, because we live in a grammar school area, so the very brightest top 20% are creamed off

I teach in a school in a grammar school area, I don't think we would call ourselves a secondary modern because we are not in the centre of the grammar catchment so we do not loose as many students to the grammar. But the description above does not match my experiences of a comprehensive / secondary modern. We send students to Oxbridge every year and are highly ambitious for our students who often win national academic competitions. I have classes which are mostly made up of students with A* targets. Teachers are judged against every student's individual target , there is no special focus on the C/D borderline at the cost of other students.

I am not pretending everything is rosy, I do think there is an issue generally in society with dumbing down which will be reflected in schools. However I don't think this is as wide spread as some would have us believe. I also think that much of the data that comes from primary schools is useless and provides an unfair benchmark against which to judge their academic progress for the next five years.

I think the subject content is on the whole boring, the teaching is boring and the pace is too slow. My dc are at a grammar in top sets etc etc and they are still bored in most lessons, not because they are super de duper de duper kids, but for the above reasons and because there is a finite syllabus beyond which the teaching does not venture. And yes, I know it probably should, but hey ho it doesn't.

I think we must be thinking at cross purposes then, Word: I thought you just mean bright children who should get A* at GCSE, which is what I think the report was discussing.

MeanT sorry!