I'm just getting my head round Gove's changes to the exam system- and I am even mor horrified than I thought I would be!

[curlew]

The three things that leap out at me are 1)all year 11s have to do 8 GCSEs of which 5 have to be EBacc subjects, which will be a real struggle for many, 2) no more tiered papers, so one exam for all, so kids for whom a C is a real achievement have to sit a paper which has also to cater for the effortless A*, and 3)only the first attempt at an exam counts for the league tables. This means for a school like ours, where the vast majority of students are middle/low ability, and where we have always let many have a "practice go" early, won't be able to- because the risk to the school is too great.

curlew - that may be your personal experience, but it is not what the examination system in the UK tells us about the complex relationship of stakeholders in the school system.

Curlew there are people on this thread telling you it happened to them personally!!!

You just ignore any comments that don't chime with your world view!!!

At my nephews school, it's almost impossible to change sets and what have you because of timetabling!

I totally agree with Bonsoir, the culture of holding back and labeling children as low ability is rampant and horrifying in the UK. There is a multitude of factors that join together so that happens:

• cultural factors (distrust or disrespect of intellect and of those who stick out).
• class-based capitalist philosophy (that the left-wing teachers are unaware of espousing) that you see reiterated in this thread, that we need manual labourers so why have (aspire, educate) more people than there are (perceived) high level jobs. It is a sort of eugenics, in fact, disguised as care and tolerance.
• it is much more work to differentiate and teach properly, all depending on individual teacher every year. Once you get a disrupted couple of years and children are not taught properly, they fall into 'low achievers' and then they're not exposed to higher level stuff which perpetuates the cycle.
• middle classes get out of this because they don't accept (as I didn't and many people on mumsent I've seen stories of) when they've been told by teachers that their children are a bit dim. They start working with their kids - and -miracle/miracle - kids are suddenly in the top. But it is quite hopeless for those who don't understand this, have no resources / can't support.

I understand that there are children who have difficulties but there are also many children who would have achieved higher but are actually held back.

Curlew, I sincerely hope that's not how it works, at least not in my kids' school.
But, from what you are saying, 85% of the pupils at your school should not be entered for the A-C paper as there is no point. Is that a comprehensive school you're talking about?

innercity* that's correct.

Many parents who are not educated, articulate etc simply accept the status quo.

Middle class bolshy types, don't.

When my own DC went to school they were very young. And had been prem anyway. I absolutely did not allow any teacher to underestimate them because they were summer born.

Would not allow it. Didn't care how much of a PITA I was. The rest is history.

Yet we know how disadvantaged summer borns are. This is well researched.

And of course if you're critical, you're immediately labelled (as curlew does in her post suspecting that people who post this have kids in independent school) as obnoxious anti-egalitarian tories. This is happening in my child's school; it is a state south london primary. And I think that school despite being generally quite left wing, is more conservative than anything. Because it presupposes that anything intellectually stimulating will be boring for kids, and doesn't let them even experience more complex things. Kids are treated as imbecils and they - of different ability - all find school boring, despite the effort the school puts into turning everything into "fun."

Wordfactory- Yes, there are adults on this thread to whom it happened. But presumably that was before the days when teachers were judged on the progress made by their pupils? I am no fan of SATs- but a child's year 6 SATs results are a benchmark that secondary teachers can't ignore.

I am no fan of SATs- but a child's year 6 SATs results are a benchmark that secondary teachers can't ignore.

SATS are not a reliable indicator of potential in any shape or form. They are not designed to be! They are designed to be a measure of a school's overall performance.

"Because it presupposes that anything intellectually stimulating will be boring for kids, and doesn't let them even experience more complex things. Kids are treated as imbecils and they - of different ability - all find school boring, despite the effort the school puts into turning everything into "fun.""

I agree wholeheartedly that this is a very widespread problem.

Yes, wordfactory, though I found this the hard way. As a foreigner, found it so hard to decipher. In my country, there isn't a concept of ability at all until kids are 13-14, then we can speak of talent in something. But unless there are serious health issues, it is expected that everyone can reach a standard level. It may require more practice from one than from the other or different kind of practice, but this is NOT a measurement of ability. This is an indication of thinking and learning style. So the role of the teacher - and the textbooks - to provide enough exercises of different kinds and types so that all children can find a way to learn to a standard. And it is also expected that every child will have a unique learning style, being better and worse in things, and this is again not perceived as a measurement of ability. In fact, I have never heard that concept applied to primary aged school children in my entire life before moving to the UK. And I've been educated and lived in three different countries before that.

Theleftvermonster- no it's a high school. What used to be called a secondary modern. And no, it's only the 36% low ability children for whom the A*-C paper would be inappropriate. For many of the middle ability children it would be entirely appropriate. The problem with the new exams is that it will be impossible to do that sort of differentiation.

"SATS are not a reliable indicator of potential in any shape or form. They are not designed to be! They are designed to be a measure of a school's overall performance."

No, they aren't!

And when I say how the ability is used in the UK- to different nationals, they are actually scandalised.

Does that mean that under the new system you'll have to teach everyone the higher paper material?

If SATs are a good indicator of ability or potential, I'll eat my hat!

curlew - how could SATS be anything else? They are closely linked to the NC and they measure a very specific skill set that has been taught at school.

There are, on the market, other sorts of tests that measure intelligence or that benchmark DC versus the population in isolated general skills eg reading comprehension or receptive/expressive language.

They may not be the best indicator of potential. BUT they remain a benchmark that teachers cannot dodge.

The trouble is that SATS are used in ways they shouldn't be. Say a child gets Level 4a across the board in Y6. That 4a becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of middling expectations.

SATS are a measure of individual progress too. Schools, LAs (though their role is diminishing because of cuts) and Ofsted measure progress across the Key Stages and are perfectly able to identify underachieving pupils as individuals or groups. These judgements are supported by lesson observations, scrutiny of work and pupil interviews. Underachievement is reported and monitored in subsequent inspections.
I have to say that I simply don't recognise this picture of pupils being deliberately held back in UK schools. Of course there are some unsatisfactory teachers and some underachieving children, but I would say that accountability is very high in UK schools and the vast majority of teachers do a good job. Ofsted supports this view and though it is never widely reported in the press (I wonder why), the Chief Inspector's report tells us that schools are continuing to improve.
I wonder where this evidence of underachievement is coming from?Obviously I have only inspected a few hundred schools and observed a few thousand lessons, but it is not the picture that I have of UK schools. I would really like to see the evidence base for such a negative view.
It isn't PISA data BTW.

Monitoring progress (in the sense of "has a child jumped successfully through the particular hoops of our system") is not at all the same as identifying a child's potential and helping him/her to realise it.

Just because a child's progress through the system is monitored regularly and shows a nice regular upwards curve does not mean he/she is achieving his/her potential. Hence underachievement.

The reality is that SAT results tend to be good in schools with a wealthy intake and bad in schools with a poorer intake.

Are we really saying that poor children are less able than rich ones?

Targets are aspirational though Bonsoir. Schools don't just identify expected progress; there is an expectation in comparison with schools with the best rates of progress too.
It is harder to "measure" potential, I agree. I never thought IQ tests were very good at it. I would say that good teachers can and do identify potential in their pupils and good schools have high aspirations.

Actually, in my personal experience, things are fine if you choose your school well
DS's comprehensive does seem to encourage high aspirations. I just think that everybody being entered for the higher paper is a good thing.

Unfortunately that is what is presumed by so many, hence why higher/ lower papers are such a bad option, as I said before. My DS has just been offered a place at eton! Cough cough I here some of you say, but if I hadn't believed that he was a bright boy, as his parent, I believe he would have been lost in a system where he could have been labelled as naughty and maybe even labelled by teachers as an under achiever and who knows given the lower papers!

Problem is there are also bad schools and bad teachers as well as amazing ones.