state comprehensive secondary schools stretching able pupils - opinions?

[PastSellByDate]

Hi all

DD1 is happily selted into her secondary comprehensive which is rated 'GOOD' by OFSTED.

In Year 7 all classes are mixed ability. Gradually from Year 8 they start to stream - most classes in Year 9 are by ability.

So far I've had some niggles (little or no maths homework coming home - everyone giving the same worksheet and the homework is for pupils to finish the worksheet, but DD1 finishes in class 95% of the time. DD1 scored Nc L6 at KS2 SATs). We have raised this with the teacher and our solution has been to do more at home.

Last week there were a slew of reports in the press about secondary schools failing to stretch their most able: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22873257 - based on the second OFSTED repoert into progress of pupils achieving NC L5+ at KS2 SATs in English or Maths in secondary (www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-not-doing-enough-to-support-most-able-students).

It's quite clear that if you are in a miniority of bright pupils at a state comprehensive your chances of going on to achieve an A/A* at GCSE are much lower (ca. 28% in Math if

"The results they showed are consistent with a quite different hypothesis: private schools, on average, get the same young children higher grades than those children would achieve at comprehensive schools."

Well, of course they do - because students at these schools get much more teaching (smaller classes, longer school day) and are protected by the deliberate and comprehensive exclusion children who may slow down pace of learning.

It's also the case that having a lot of clever children in a class accelerates the pace of lessons; bright children will often have a very wide frame of reference - something the whole class benefits from.

Parents of clever children who reject the state sector are part of what makes it second rate. They are creating and perpetuating a sort of social and intellectual apartheid in education and have no intention of doing anything about it because inequality is actually a great thing if your child is benefiting from it.

As a previous poster said, you can't generalise about state and private. My DD is only year 3 so obv not secondary yet but she is bright and loving her state school. She's 4c in numeracy and literacy and since y1 her teachers have been talking to me about how best we ensure she is stretched, challenged, deals with getting things wrong etc etc. And she's not alone, there are a whole group of children like her. So this idea that children get to GCSEs or beyond without having achieved less than 100% is just too limited a view. Many state primaries are perfectly capable of instilling a work ethic and sense of achievement into their higher achieving pupils. Now, I obviously haven't had my DD go through secondary yet but I feel confident that she has developed a sufficient work ethic and excitement at being confronted with challenging problems. I wholeheartedly agree that it is essential that children in Secondary school ate given good advice about GCSEs and A levels .aligned with their aspirations but I am optimistic that this can be done in the state sector.

cauchy, you perhaps don't disagree with me, because I didn't say and don't believe that "private schools are necessarily better at challenging pupils".

minifingers, nonsense. So far from perpetuating inequality of opportunity, I am dedicating my life to educating young people from all backgrounds to the best of my ability. I have no duty to also sacrifice my child to that end, even if I did believe that putting him in a comprehensive school would improve other students' education to a degree that would more than compensate for the extra taxpayers' money that having him there would consume, which I don't. What are you doing to improve young people's education, then?

Nowfeeltheneedtopost, excellent, I'm glad your DD is getting a good education. Note that nothing I said implied that this can't be done in the state sector - it often can be and is. I said "do whatever it takes", and I said that my child isn't in a state school. Perhaps that has been read as suggesting that "what it takes" will always be a private school, but that's not what I said and not what I meant. In my particular circumstances, given the particular schools available to me and my particular child, one particular private school is currently the best choice I can make for him. State schools may be the best choice for your DD, and might have been for my child if we'd happened to live somewhere else. I was railing against education that doesn't challenge children. It can be found in both sectors.

She's 4c in numeracy and literacy.

This typically does not say anything about whether she has been made to think more deeply about harder issues. A really good primary maths teacher would be able to challenge and stretch a bright pupil without teaching ahead in numeracy, i.e. the pupil's NC score reflects being taught ahead rather than being challenged.

Posters seem to quote high NC levels and GCSE/AS/A2 grades as signs that students are being stretched. Yet how much the brightest pupils are being challenged cannot be measured by national curriculum levels or by A*s. The whole system rewards perfectionist high marks on (what is for bright students) rather easy work.

And there was me thinking perfectionists were born, not made.

A lot of people think that, rabbitstew, but it simply isn't true. Carol Dweck's work is very interesting on this. Perfectionism is best read as an understandable, but maladaptive, reaction to lack of challenge. Of course it can end up running in families for many reasons, some of them genetic or otherwise hard to alter, but there are definitely things parents can do to make their children less likely to develop perfectionism.

scottishprof I agree, education that doesn't challenge children can be found in both sectors and should be railed against whenever and wherever we find it.

cauchy I'm sorry. Perhaps my DD's levels are irrelevant. It would have been more relevant if you have emphasised in bold what I said next, ie. that since y1 teachers have been discussing with me how to challenge her. Which To me is exactly what you are suggesting when you say "think more deeply about harder issues". The discussion with teachers has been about helping her challenge herself and get used to having to deal with problems she does t immediately know the answer to. The last thing I meant to suggest was that challenge was simply about getting to next level!

rabbit this is the type of perfectionism that is all about not making mistakes and being afraid of not immediately knowing the answer -driven by a syllabus and exams where you can get 100% even in English.

More bright DCs are being channeled that way because they are n't having the chance of facing problems where there is n't a drilled approach to solving it and so are measuring their ability in mistake avoidance and knowledge regurgitation.

Hmm. That's interesting. I guess I'd never viewed perfectionism in that way. I've always viewed myself as a perfectionist, but have never directed this towards getting 100% at something I found easy, which would be intensely boring, but instead always focusing on confronting anything I find difficult and refusing to give up until I've proved to myself I can achieve it if I want to, and if I do decide I really want to, then always thinking I could have done more, so seldom being satisfied that I've done my best. Is that just masochism, then?

That's a really interesting observation Scottishprof. I've always thought bright children do well wherever they are, and are actually more used to independent study and generally being creative at a state school rather than most privates. But perfectionism is another aspect. So without spending money or moving to a grammar school area, how do we mitigate that as parents?

"I have no duty to also sacrifice my child to that end"

What a ridiculous statement!

Ridicuous in what way, notinaminute?

I am a strong opponent of the view that "a bright child will do anywhere", because I see underachievement first-hand on a regular basis (and I am living proof that the statement is trite bullshit). I do agree with a poster above (maybe several) that said it's perfectly possible to get high grades/levels without having true understanding, or indeed being able to do any deep thinking. Thinking is hard, achieving a level 7 is not, if one is taught what is required for level 7.

I reserve judgement on the perfectionism thing, as I believe my DD has essentially been a perfectionist from birth, and we have spent most of nine years trying to re-programme that part of her. My DS was born with a preternatural thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand how all things work, yet he dashes off schoolwork as quickly and poorly as he can get away with in order to focus on what his interest is piqued by this week.

Twenty years ago selection was partly by grades at further maths.

um, well ... when I was applying for Oxbridge maths 26 years ago, entrance to Oxford was entirely based on the entrance exams and interviews, and they were still giving EE offers. And Cambridge were asking for STEP results for Maths.

The situation where someone gets excellent results without understanding the material fully definitely exists. Think about the notorious Edexcel 2013 C3 paper - loads of people not realising that sin x = cos(90-x) because they've been so trained up in trig manipulations that they'd forgotten about what a triangle actually looked like; people getting stuck on the last question because "it looked like a mechanics question" and so they assumed it wasn't on their syllabus and they couldn't do it, instead of reading the question.

I'm not sure this is entirely relevant to the OP's question, but it's an interesting wander off the path!

Gosh - thanks everybody for some really interesting comments. A lot of food for thought.

Can I just say on the OFSTED 28% achieving A/A from a school with 10% L5+ - that's 28% of that group go on to achieve A/A - 72% achieve B or lower.

Ofsted say in general non-selective secondaries get about 75% year after year to B or better if you come in with NC L5. To be fair that may be doing quite a good job with them. It's so hard to tell whether a low 5c, possibly hot housed for in Year 6 - really is an amazing, let alone good result.

I think if anything - this conversation we're having has taught me to be vigilent and to keep encouraging a bit more work here are there with my maths/ nrich/ khan academy/ Stanford Universities' new 'youcubed' tasks youcubed.stanford.edu/tasks/, Corbett Maths 5 a day etc...

thanks everybody

rabbit yours is the 'real' perfectionism but nowadays you might have found it harder to find that difficulty to tackle within school.

ikkenu the exam driven perfectionism that I am talking up IMO is just as prevalent in some grammars and selectivd private schools, just more are expected to achieve it.

Atia- DH didbthe Oxford paper for maths twenty years ago. He said it was stinkingly hard that year, many did very badly. He also did.S level, which I seem tonrecall used to be available in other subjects too? He said that one was a walkovers. He ended up elsewhere nut got a fir

Got a first and a PhD.

Iseenodust

Just thought I'd correct you on the grammar school statistic - it's about 75% of grammar school pupils having previously achieved NC L5 in KS2 Maths go on to achieve A/A at GCSE. This is as compared to state sector non-selective comprehensive where at best 54% of those previously achieving NC L5 at KS2 SATs Maths achieve A/A at GCSE.

So grammar: 7/8 out of 10 go on to get A/A* at GCSE
non-selective comp: ~5 out of 10 go on to get A/A* at GCSE

-------

BrendaBlackhead:

Swings and roundabouts my darling. You absolutely shreeked at me here on MN about doing more at home - and here you are bragging about teaching 'ir' verbs to your daughter at home for MFL.

I actually agree with you - were viewing the same problem (although I'm not clear whether it is a problem yet or not - just have niggles) from different perspectives. I have no problem with mixed ability classes, partly because that's how I was taught in the US - if you wanted to do more it was down to you (or supportive/ ?pushy parents insisting) to do so.

Where I'm at is this: DD1 is wild about maths/ science and wants to go on to be an engineer/ scientist. I know that that will require triple science and Higher maths at GCSE. (and I agree with whoever posted that the issue is I don't have a crystal ball and can't predict the future outcome for DD1).

Part of me knows that our non-selective state secondary school gets a significant minority to A* in maths each year (about 10% achieve this) and we are in a highly selective area in Birmingham so DD1 is definitely at a school where high achievers are quite a miniority. So in theory - all being well - it's possible.

but being a Mom who wants to support this DD1 with this current game plan (and I totally accept 5 minutes from now - after watching some show on tv she'll want to be something else) I do worry.

And I think Brenda - I never criticized you for worrying - but suggested that your daughter could be doing more/ you could be finding resources for her to do more (which it actually sounds like you are doing - even though you gave me a lot of anger about suggesting that at the time).

--------

I don't think this discussion has resolved much - but it has me thinking I should ask about differentiated homework in maths when we have a parent teacher meeting later this year. I'm not so worried about this year - I agree with the school that Year 7 should be about settling in and finding your feet/ having the space to try new things - but going forward from Year 8 - I do think that doing more remains our solution (if the desire remains for DD1 to do STEM at a University). (And by the way all secondary comprehensives schools in 5 mile radius do not set for maths here - so we didn't have any option). Hopefully the school will meet us part way - but those of you who know me from primary know that I've done my own thing in the past in regard to maths and am perfectly prepared to do so again. The issue now of course is my maths goes to about calculus level and then falls to pieces.

"Thinking is hard, achieving a level 7 is not, if one is taught what is required for level 7."

Getting a 7 in a humanities subject does actually require quite a lot of thinking!

My DS's high school (state) make sure that they stretch the most able, they are an academy and so have more freedom to do what they choose. What they choose is to have far more Maths and English sets than they need so the top two sets are very small, about 15 pupils in each according to DS. They get a lot of attention and so the school has high levels of attainment for them. For the school as a whole, 1 in 5 gets an A/A* at Maths and the same in English which I think is pretty good for a non-selective state school.

That's 1/5 across the board not 1/5 who got a level 5 in the SATs by the way, I have no idea what that statistic is.

This is all very interesting. My ds's school has a very high % of low attainers and children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and is busting a gut to improve aspiration and attainment. But many of the children start secondary school at such a low point that it's a real uphill struggle. We are starting to get a few to university- but they are not universities that would even register on most mumsnetter's radar and I suspect there would be mutterings of "low aspirations" if people saw the fuss we made of those kids. But it is a huge achievement for them- for some kids, a business studies degree course at the University of Greenwich is at least as hard to access as maths at Cambridge is for others.....

Thanks to ScottishProf & cauchy (& others responding) for a very interesting discussion.

For a newbie like me (both the UK secondary & UK FE) - can you explain what STEP is cauchy.

Thanks.