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?

Vanilla
Would you PLEASE read the data set I linked last night.
how do you teach basic skills to good standard to the bottom 20%.
For crying out loud.

Which bit of

95.8% of state school pupils achieve 5 or more graded GCSEs or equivalent
95.3% of state school pupils achieve the level one qualification in English and Maths
can you not get into your skull?

There is no 40% or 20% that are left to fail YOU ARE WRONG

'Why would it be OK for a secondary modern to have no pupils passing 5 GCSEs'
Nobody said that. That's why they were abolished. This is the legacy in your mind.

However you need t face the fact that this means those taking vocational courses will have to take either a set of GCSEs like Science, English and Maths, or a new set of benchmark qualification at 14 in order to be recognized on the par with 5 GCSEs.

Not having the bottom 20% gaining benchmark level of skill in English, Maths and something else will be tantamount to leaving them behind unemployable.

What were abolished?
Secondary moderns still exist. So do Technical schools.
You really need to get out more.

You are incredibly blinkered.
As per the link, only 4.7% of pupils fail to get benchmark level of skill in English, Maths : and as the data set includes special schools for those who have significant learning difficulties, that is not really a surprise.

Your 40% and 20% failure rates are figments of your imagination.
Open your eyes and look around you.

I have now officially lost track. I think I might go to the pub.

Talkin,
I commented on those data earlier.
The 'graded' GCSEs are cynical euphemism for failure and a sidestepping of the problem. I's a technology to skip part of the population on the scrap heap and to avoid responsibility.

The benchmark for pass in any educational system is 50% - mastering 50% of course material, gaining 50% of available marks, gaining 50% of ums marks or whatever.

Any grade below C is meaningless, because it's a fail.

G grade corresponds to what? 20% of material/marks? Giving a certificate with a G grade is the same as giving a certificate that you failed to pass the exam, but you are rating within bottom 20% of those who tried. A label of failure.

I am really taken aback by your attitude to the issue of bottom 20% which you take consistently throughout the thread. You consistently advocate to leave them to their own misery and explaining away this by their bad luck and the cynical fig leave with G grade.

Blu:

I think it would be great for schools to have differnt partnerhsips where kids can go off and do car mechanics at a differnt school or 'teaching garage' - or off to s specialist IT suite, or film studios or whatever. Specialist settings for specialist modules - but that wouldn't define other aspects of theier education.

Brilliant idea. Schools should be a springboard for education and work pathways, they should not define a child's future. Abolish private schools and enable true differentiation in every school so children that love literature can also learn mechanics and children that love mechanics won't be denied the opportunity of reading Chaucer if that's what they want to do.

Gove's ebacc turnaround has shown that he's starting to 'get' that the problem lies in the fact that schools limit chances, not that half the population is thick and ineducable and that exams have been made easy.

When reading Talkin and Martorana's posts, and their denial and insistence of status quo, I start understanding where Gove is coming from with his 'blob'.

40% comes from the DofE 'national average' of 60% of students in a school who get 5 good GCSEs including English and Maths.- This number is per school,
On the DofE website the % of all students gaining good GCSEs regardless of number of students is even lower, 53.6%.

20% comes from your own posts, Talkin, everyone of them. I just used this assumption for the sake of argument because it is in the same order of magnitude with the % of low attainers in the DofE tables.

You just keep going in circles denying the evident, dismissing the needs of the pupils and hiding behind cynical technicalities you designed to avoid accountability.

Talkin, you said you are not a teacher, but if there are teachers and members of educational establishment with those views, they are loosing credibility with the public.

We really need reforms to improve standards for all pupils. And take no more nonsense from the apologists of failure.

Why don't we ask OP how he sees the private schools could contribute to improve standards, especially for low attainers?

johnbunyan, what could private schools do?

% of all students gaining good GCSEs regardless of schools is even lower, 53.6%.

talking

thanks for the figures, I had to look up the meaning of level 1

95.8% of state school pupils achieve 5 or more graded GCSEs or equivalent
95.3% of state school pupils achieve the level one qualification in English and Maths

the problem with these stats is they are actually hiding the facts

so 95.8% get at least 5 GCSEs at A*,A,B,C,D,E,F or G, where U is unclassified (assume this means ungraded)
and 95.3% get at least level one or better qualification in English & Maths where level 1 refers to grades D,E,F or G

So what percentage of pupils get 5 GCSEs at level 2 (A*,A,B,C) including Maths & English?

so what percentage of pupils fail to get Maths & English at level 2 (A*,A,B,C) and how does that affect their chances of gaining employment/further education?

I assume that you need to get approx 45-50% to get a 'c'

boubly
There is a huge misconception among those whose children get into selective schools that GCSEs are the only way.
I have no idea what "GCSE grade" level one Maths is : and frankly its not relevant.

GCSEs are to some extent like the old GCEs : not appropriate for a chunk of the population.

Luckily pedagogy has developed along the lines of "every child matters" and "no child left behind" so strategies are developed to keep non academic kids in school, gaining skills for as long as possible.

The whole point of a comprehensive school is that it covers all options, rather than just the academic ones.

I have a client who can neither read nor write.
He digs holes for a living.
He can look a piece of frozen ground and just "knows" how big a tarpaulin will be needed to take all the decompacted soil from when he digs down to the leaking pipe.
He laughs at me when I call that applied Maths as he does not know his times tables.
He earns more than the median UK income despite having no qualifications at all.

Exams are not everything.

It's interesting though that the chunk for whom these qualifications are inappropriate always seem to come from the poorest section of society...

Hugely convenient for the middle classes.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26015532

Yeeeeeesssss...

Social mobility is excellent in the UK. The poor do very well indeed in school...

And a grade G at GCSE is just dandy....

Honestly, talkinpeace you need to change your name to talkin...er...summat else entirely.

There will never, in any society, ever, be equality of outcomes.
There can be equality of opportunity.

Selective schools prevent equality of opportunity.
Comprehensive schools give it a fighting chance.

Those who are in favour of any sort of selection in state funded schools are against opportunity.

But frankly, the choice of schools in some areas is now down to flooded / not flooded

What a load of Victorian patronising c**p from Talkin ,

PISA study shows that "high results of deprived pupils in some Asian countries shows what poor pupils in the UK could achieve.

The most disadvantaged pupils in Shanghai match the maths test results of wealthy pupils in the UK."

Poverty is not a reason, nor is a low achieving ability of the population. It is all down to education from early age. OECD 'debunks myth' that poor will fail at school.

I would also like to draw attention to the post from Stressed on page 15, which I will quote:

Stressedbutblessed Tue 18-Feb-14 05:04:53
Slight off topic but ...The latest edu news is comparing the math results of children of farmers/labourers in China with the lower income families and the fact they outperform their UK equivalent . The Uk Gov. is looking at teaching methods with a view that income plays no part in results.
I'm English & have lived on and off in China for over 20 years. The Math education is rote learning. Completely agree they are capable of answering GCSE math questions but in many cases the children cannot apply the Math in context.
The biggest single factor is that education is valued by the poorest as there is no state benefit, no safety net, social housing and a strongly held value of success through hard work.

The following articles points out that the damage for poor education and skills is done at early age, in primary school. UK students start lagging behind Asian students at primary school level and this gap never recovers.

Interestingly it also note that the gap grows wider between 10 and 16 years among highest achievers. For me this shows that teaching methods are inadequate.(here see below for more).

"The research also found England's most able youngsters make less progress generally than those of similar abilities across the 12 other countries studied. The other countries studied were Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Slovenia, Norway, Scotland, the US, Italy, Lithuania and Russia."
"The researchers concluded that England should focus on helping all youngsters with their maths skills at an early age.

Overall the findings showed that the nation's pupils are already some distance behind those in east Asia in their maths achievement by age 10"

Word, I honestly don't know where you think you get off sometimes.

John Bunyan didn't go to Bedford boys school did he?
He didn't know mobility either
He ended up spending time at her majesty pleasure in Bedford itself [state educated]
Didn't he write pilgrims progress once leaving prison?

There's no real point in this thread, is there? Vanilla just persists in posts a)full of factual inaccuracies and b) telling people that they are saying/have said things they haven't. And wordfactory is just sniping from the sidelines.

I would love a real, sensible, impassioned, possibly, debate on education and where we go now. But this isn't it.

Of course, Martorana, you are trapped in dream world of make belief, but you did manage to get your DC in top set of a good school when you were awake...

Bring back grammars, End private education on the basis of who can afford to pay.

I would really like to hear what OP thinks the private schools could / should contribute.

IHateWinter
But the majority of pupils now at Grammars have either been at private school or have been tutored by parents who can afford to pay.

THe data shows that Grammars only created social mobility (partially) during the highly unusual society window after WW2

Private schools have always and will always exist

THe main thing is to ensure that taxpayer funded schools give the best opportunities to the largest number of pupils
Secondary Moderns (the flip side of grammars) do not do that.

In much of teh country Comprehensive schools are doing better than politicians like to admit.

The op is back opposite the indiya, green and covered in bird poo
Damn that one way system

"Of course, Martorana, you are trapped in dream world of make belief, but you did manage to get your DC in top set of a good school when you were awake...

Vanilla- my ds is in the top set of a secondary modern school that most mumsnetters would run screaming from.