Fed up with the education divide ?

[johnbunyan]

As a former Head of an independent school, I am fed up with the ideological divide in education, and want to start a national discussion on constructive ways to help the state and independent systems grow naturally together. I am secretary of a national group of independent day schools ( mostly the old direct grant schools ) and we look back to a time when there was much greater co-operation and a real sense of social mobility. Can we return to such a consensus ? I would love to hear ideas and start building towards such a consensus, since, as we approach the 2015 General Election, it will seem a long way away! I sense that many parents would like government and schools to work something out -and quickly -since the educational divide is simply not helpful to anybody - least of all the present generation. How many out there agree?

My DD's private school is mixed ability. There are certainly girls there who sit in the bottom 20% of the bell curve.

And every girl is expected to and does achieve 5 GCSEs including English and Maths.

With enough resources, will and hard work it can be achieved, but obviously those things are sometimes in short supply.

I agree with Martorana. (I frequently do.) I would really, really like to feel that was the case - it is a fundamental belief in kids' ability to improve and learn which underpins my opposition to the 11+, in fact. (Which I do think consigns kids.) But I am not sure that in practice one can make those expectations; and indeed one of the reasons I like my daughter's comp is it is committed to educating the lesser-able kids to the best of their ability while acknowledging that this may mean a different spread and/or emphasis of subjects.

Wordfactory- are you saying that your school could get any NT child to the magic 5, regardless of parental involvement, poverty, background.......?

No I'm not.

But those things do not pertain to ability.

My point is that the vast vast majority of NT kids (and lots with SEN too) have the ability tyo attain them. But our state education system is not currently able to overcome social difficulties.

The two issues are separate no?

What 'social difficulties' are we talking about here?

Can you clearly define NT? Surely there are going to be kids falling off the bottom end of NT into Global Learning Difficulties for example. Is it an IQ thing?

martorana mentioned poverty and background. It seems to me that the DC who sit in the bottom ability sets will often be struggling not with low ability at all...so dismiss them as not able enough to gain 5GCSEs is immoral.

I d wonder if people are deliberately misunderstanding each other on this thread. Where did the word "dismiss" come from, for example? Is it not possible to discuss this without using such emotive language?

You can comprehend that some children won't get 5 A*-Cs without 'dismissing' them!

And so if their problem isn't low ability but poverty and background, then how is it relevant what a private school does for children who are lower ability than others there but not, obviously, struggling with 'poverty and background'?

So in fact your dd's school only has children who are capable of getting 5 GCSE's at A-C wordfactory

I would say this might be a sign that there has in fact been some selection by ability at some point, and the school does not actually admit across the whole ability spectrum, including those with SEN ?

Nope, I understand perfectly well thanks. There are several posters saying that a 40 percent failure rate is acceptable because those 40 percent don't have the ability. Apparently that group are well served by other qualifications. So everyone's happy.

1. 40% not getting A*-C is not the same as 'a 40% failure rate'
2. Am not sure where this much-cited 40% comes from anyway
3. Am not sure anyone's said that acceptable because 40% don't have the ability
4. Still not sure what the private school has to do with anything. Are they going to be taking in any of that 40%?

juggling there is no selection by ability. The wptsit report confirms that the spread is very mixed with a normal proportion of low attainers at 11.

nit so you think all the girls will be clever just because their parents are rich?

But private school does imply money, and thus a certain minimum of parental or home support on top of whatever the school is providing. Although it may take in children with a wide range of native intellect (for want of a better phrase), it doesn't suggest an intake simultaneously struggling with the effects of poverty and poor housing -- factors outside the school's control.

"There are several posters saying that a 40 percent failure rate is acceptable because those 40 percent don't have the ability. Apparently that group are well served by other qualifications. So everyone's happy."

I do think that is rather a simplistic way summing up of the discussion.

What has been said repeatedly by some is that the comprehensive model is failing because there is a group of children who do not get the magic 5. And that the private/selective model is succeeding because 100% do. Which is a bizarre argument to put it mildly.

Obviously, we need to be addressing the children who for whatever reason are not going to get the 5. But insisting they do GCSE history is not the way forward. What do people suggest is?

Lots of special schools have closed which means that the students with Global Learning Difficulties are now in mainstream. Students with IQs below a certain level may struggle to get 5 GCSEs.

"juggling there is no selection by ability. The wptsit report confirms that the spread is very mixed with a normal proportion of low attainers at 11."

What %, out of interest? And what's the measure of "low ability?

I schooled in a third world country, the chikdren from the poorest backgrounds were some of the highest attainers, their oarents were illiterate. No one expected these kids to fail just because they didn't have electricity, water, walked miles to school etc, the same standards were expected of everyone (rightly or wrongly) these children were very high achievers. The reason for low attainment in this country is not because they are "poor" it is because of low ambition, nanny state ethos, where nobody has to take responsibility for themself. With the exception of children with SN/LD, the poor children don't achieve because no one expects them to, quite evident here. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to achieve 5Cs.

The thing is that vocational courses are as hard to achieve and involve just as much work and effort as academic courses. It's just a different kind of effort that goes in, less theoretical, more functional. That is not recognised by schools or anyone else at the moment. The system however needs also to recognise that people's brains develop until the age of about 21 and change in a multitude of ways. There is a massive firing off of new brain cells at around 15 years, which could turn any 'vocational' student into an Oxford potential.

So great to have vocational validation and a little bit of streaming (within schools please) but it needs to be always considered that children's skills and abilities aren't determined at year 7 and will not always continue on that path. Things change and there needs to be flexibility.

I also agree with a lot of Gove's ideas, particularly with limiting tiering -which in my opinion is a bizarre hangover of the class system, forcing the average student into a pit they will never get out of.

However the competitive model that schools and parents subscribe to needs to be turned upside down to allow for true progress for all children.

The inclusion movement has had a massive effect in schools and really forced schools to re-think their attitudes and allow a child-led system to develop. When it began they were all thought of as slightly awkward lunatics but it really has shaken schools up and destabilise their top-down attitude.

That's my point bird. And so I think we need to question a system that allows so a high proportion ti fail, not because of their lack of ability but because of their background. That seems to me quite indefensible.

Wouldn't GCSEs be devalued if everybody passed? Wouldn't they raise the bar if that started happening?

Gunznroses in the developing world there are plenty of children that don't go to school, the ones you saw will be the ones that were encouraged to go. It's different in the developed world, everyone has to have a chance.

Word given that, as you said, for 'the bottom 20%' the problem is more likely to be poverty and background than just lack of intelligence, do you really not see what I'm saying?

I'm not saying rich children are cleverer; I'm saying that, in a school that selects by wealth, the very problems you have set out which prevent many children from achieving as they should, are not there.

So it's smashing that your school does well by its brightest and its least academic - but it's hardly a model that should be held up as practicable by anyone else!

martorana I will try to dig out that information for you.

But bear with me; I'm in Egypt with my DC . Accessing stuff is hit and miss to say the least.

nit then I think we need to be brutally honest. We need to say that the system fails DC, not because of their lack of ability, but because they are poor!