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!

doesnt suprise me,no one does that well out of state schools really.

That's just nonsense. I know loads of people who've done incredibly well in state school.

Ambersocks
What UTTER BILGE.
Half of all the students at Oxbridge went to State schools.
DCs comp got four kids to Oxbridge last year and around 40 to Russell Group
Tens of thousands of kids go on from state schools to top jobs and universities
they just tend to have the sense (or lack of arrogance) to stay out of politics

To be fair though talkin the majority of state schooled students at Obbridge attended selective state schools.

The numbers from comps is not that high. Particularly given how many kids attend them!

evidence?

Go on the university websites. The stats are there. I can't link from here, sorry.

If my memory serves (and don't hold me to it) 25 ish percent of recent Oxbridge undergraduates came from state comprehensives. That's not representative of the numbers of DC in comprehensive sixth form.

The state selectives, particularly the super selectives punch above their weight statistically.

As do a handful of notable non selective state schools.

That's why there is a widening access programme!

1. accuracy of the KS2 results is under dispute.

1. There may be other reasons that kids stop performing at 11/12/13 than the 'low expectations' their teachers place on them (this seems pretty likely to me - teachers are far from being the only influence on children, especially at that particular age)

1. There are huge variables between schools, so it is unfair and unreflective to say that this is some sort of widespread cultural issue among teachers. Citing one teacher you know who is a bit lazy, or wanted a cushy job, is not evidence of a profession in crisis.

1. Most of the time the government/media are concerned that pupils are over-performing (and ignore the impact of something a previous poster just noted: much greater encouragement of self-reflection among students, their knowledge of what levels they are on and of how to progress to the next level, which previous generations of schooling did not provide). Now all of a sudden they're under-performing? What gives?

1. The government actually publishes statistics on top-performing non-selective secondary schools in terms of their Oxbridge/Russell Group attendance figures. Why isn't there any constructive debate around what these schools are doing so well, instead of denigrating schools in general?

1. During his term, Michael Gove has overseen curriculum changes which actually actively tell lies to the public about the current curriculum (see my post above) and which fly in the face of all research on the subject, almost all professional opinion from teaching bodies, and around fifty years of academic research in such subjects; he has accused teachers of laziness and irresponsibility if they strike; he has said that teachers need to work longer hours and take less holiday (which is a fair enough debate - but it should be about what children need, not about what teachers should or shouldn't be forced to do); he has instigated a race-to-the-bottom in effectively bribing schools to go for academy status; he makes policies without consultation or debate and then is forced to backtrack when glaringly-obvious problems with them arise. The list goes on. Genuine engagement with teachers to improve things, and a recognition that there are thousands of brilliant teachers out there who do want to improve things and keep improving, instead of headline-grabbing and ill-informed rudeness, would give our children the best chance of success. But that doesn't seem to happen.

Brilliantly expressed siluria

I went to a state comp and turned down an offer from cambridge to go elsewhere instead.

Selectives punch above their weight... I wonder whether that could be anything to do with..... The selecting?

this is not new it happened to me when I sent to secondary from really good state primary; secondary was also considered good not outstanding but one of the better ones in area

I did absolutely nothing new in maths in first 2 years at secondary despite being in top set, in primary pi had been 3.14 when i got to secondary I found out this was too hard and pi was actually just 3 I got an A at o level but just think i would have been better prepared for a level if I had not spent 2 years relearning maths and science that i could do already

I know a teacher that has been categorically told that getting D grades to C grades is more important than A's some of course will get A's anyway but some could go from c to b or b to a but that is not pushed

I only have my experience of secondary school to go by (left 10 years ago now) so I don't have a lot to offer the conversation but what I would say is my school certainly didn't celebrate academic achievement.

We got some certificates at our GCSE presentation evening, three months after we'd left school but other than that there was nothing, yet sporting achievements were always noted. I get why sports are encouraged but it left a bitter taste in the mouth!

I asked earlier down the thread, but either it was missed or I missed the answer-surely a C wouldn't be "expected progress" for a child getting 5snin year 6? Surely not...

So all these anecdotal teachers who are focussing all their attention on getting kids to get Cs - they will fail an OFsTED if they don't, get the level 5s higher grades than that. Or am I missing something?

Curlew
its a league table anomaly : see my other "sack Gove thread"
the only thing that counts is A-C : so schools are (financially) pressured to up that ratio
at the expense of good learning for those way below that level
and extended learning for those above

if that "cliff" was removed, teaching would immediately free up and therefore improve (I can go into great detail why, but think business)

but Gove would lose his "stick" that he hits schools with

Really? Even though the league tables specify low, middle and high attainers and whether they make expected progress?

curlew
the league tables do not : the detailed ofsted pages do but they are not easily searchable

hence my idea on my "sack gove" thread to make league tables be weighted average of top middle and bottom

it'll never happen though as the grammar / private brigade would have kittens rather than realise they might have wasted their time and money.

We live in inner city deprived area when I went to visit secondary schools with ds1 every single one of them were very keen to let us know that they had a dedicated teacher for D/C borderline pupils and introduced us to some of them. There was no dedicated teacher for borderline B/A/A* pupils I really felt for the very able dcs who went to those schools as their parents would probably be in the position to help hem achieve their potential and the schools didn't care as long they achieved as least a C so yes we saw low expectations in secondaries in our area.

rather than just be unhappy with what there is ...
make suggestions
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1779587-If-I-could-sack-Gove-and-Wilshaw-I-would
but they have to be nil cost .....

Granita - If Wayne from Wakefield wanted advice about his Oxbridge application then he can always Google it. You probably find that the collective wisdom of the Internet trumps that phone call to a rowing buddy.

But if you put DFES league tables 2012 into google, then enter a school name, a page comes up and half way down it says whether low, middle and high attainers made expected progress. That's pretty "easily searchable" in my book. And a school would not get a good OFSTED if each of those groups weren't making at least expected progress.

curlew
can you compare though - with neighbouring schools, especially where they are within 2 miles of the LEA boundary : or are academies

Ofsted has bugger all to do with exam results by the way : their current criteria are far more esoteric and unattainable and unmeasurable

My DCs left Year 6 on KS L5. They are at selectives now. They got a few years to go before GCSEs but their recent end of year exams consisted of GCSE level questions and they each got a 50/50 spread of As and A*s.

Two DCs aren't exactly a scientific sample but IMO if a child is L5 at the start of his secondary school life then if she/he lands in the right school they have the potential to get at As.

Well, obviously if I know the names of the schools I can compare. I don't think HT's actually a "compare" function, but it's not that difficult to do!

And I do question you saying that OFSTED isn't about exam results- isn't one of the criticisms that it's too much about exam results. And thy look very closely at "expected progress" I suspect that a lot of this concentrating on getting Cs stuff is urban myth. A school which was satisfied with getting year 7 level 5s to a C at GCSE would struggle to get "good"