state comprehensive secondary schools stretching able pupils - opinions?

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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

But hak you're describing efforts made to support low/middle ability kids.

Your school should be rightly proud of the efforts it makes.

But this thread is about the opposite. It's about lack of provision/ support for high ability kids. Which is doubly frustrating because it is so much easier than supporting low ability kids.

Schools could put in place very simple changes that would make a huge difference.

But there's a level of resistance which is incomprehensible to me.

A refusal to accept the inherent problem.
A refusal to take appropriate action.
A refusal to see how this has a societal impact that reaches much further than schools and education.

STEP = www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/step/about-step/

Hakluyt - that sort of effort is great, and the lack of it is what frustrates me about dd2's school. They're assuming that lots of kids won't want to go to uni, and not even opening their eyes to the fact that (using your example) a Business Studies degree at Greenwich might be right up their street. School/education should be about broadening horizons, not just supporting kids to do what they already think they want to do!

thoth I have NO memory of my Oxford entrance papers (maths and general) or my S level maths (except I got a 1, and had a longrunning 'argument' with a friend who tried to claim that his two 2's (maths and physics I think) outweighed my 1 ;) ). Your dh has a good memory!

Arguments against the Ofsted report:
www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/03/talented-pupils-schools-to-learn-from/

I know, Word. But I do find it so frustrating that the conversation always seems to be about high attainers, and people seem to think that their needs should trump all...................

Well to be fair, the OP was pretty specific about which group was up for discussion.

And for me, it's what I'm involved in with work so it's something I feel I can post on with a credible level of experience and expertise.

However, on a societal level, how we provide for our high ability pupils continues to be extremely important.

Currently, a relatively small group dominate the sectors and industries that affect us all at macro level.

If we want that to change we have to ensure that our high ability students in comprehensives can compete. And they need the tools to do that.

Hakluyt - I do agree with you.
My problem is that as a parent I have to find the best for my ds now. For us in our area that has meant grammar. Ironically if we lived 12 miles down the road there are 3 very good comps which I would have been happy to use.

I feel bad using the grammar system, because I think it is a system designed to benefit the top group, and not the rest. Knowing my ds though, it is the best option for him.

My dh is Dutch, their education system is interesting. It streams children from age 12. There are (apologies to Dutch folk if I get this wrong) 5 streams, which are basically 5 schools but on one site. It is similar to the grammar system, in that the top stream is the group with highest results. The difference though is the other 4 streams, which are well thought out. The lowest stream for example has an apprentice system built in, so you come out at the end with a high school diploma and also a qualification whether hairdresser/ electrician/mechanic. As you pass exams there is the possibility to move up a level to the next school.

I like the theory of this system because it is aiming to get the very best out of every group, and every layer is considered to be valuable.

Steppe the Dutch system sounds good but expensive! But mainstream UK comps do a similar thing now anyway through 'pathways' so children are selecting at 13 what direction they want to go in, spending extra time on things they might be particularly good at.

Unfortunately the qualifications aren't seen as equal so there is still stigma if you want to become a hairdresser instead of a lawyer.

Dutch secondary schools are not generally on the same sites. The children entering the VWO stream (university track) rarely come from immigrant, low educated or low earning families. Moving between tracks is indeed possible but not easy and rather few children do it, so their prospects in life are set at the age of 11. I wouldn't say that each layer is considered to be equally valuable by Dutch society. The "lower" tracks don't attract good teachers; the facilities are often very poor and the schools are ime indistinguishable from UK sink schools.

I am always surprised that there isn't more resistance to the streaming system in Dutch society. The streaming is not however done primarily by exam but takes into account teachers' recommendations. The vast majority of children of university educated parents indeed get a VWO advice (i.e. into the university track) so I guess the Dutch equivalent of MN parents are happy with the system.

interesting cauchy - I don't know it well, just what dh has said, but as he was university level, I guess he doesn't know the whole system!

Actually I met a Dutch girl last summer and she had much the same view. I think in the university stream they learn in English as well which means there's no chance of anyone joining late because they wouldn't have the language skills.

Sounds divisive.

Atia- he can remember almost every maths problem he has worked on... but can he remember to put the milk back into the fridge?

Hak- tbf, this is a thread expressly about high ability/ high achievers!

"Hak- tbf, this is a thread expressly about high ability/ high achievers!"

Yes I know it is-

But it always is, isn't it? And surely there's a whole picture that needs to be looked at? Do decisions we make about how high achievers are best provided for impact on low achievers and vice versa?

This is such an interesting thread.

I think we've got a real problem in how society views 'achievement'. Not everyone has the capacity to get excellent exam results. People have other strengths. The sad thing is (as with the Dutch system by the sounds of it), we are all judged on the same standards, and those who are not academic are perceived to have failed. There should be much more emphasis on vocational education if you ask me, but it's become really devalued.

Which is not to say I don't think what Hakluyt's school is doing is excellent, because I think it is.

Happy to be corrected on statistics when I have commented on them.

My concerns tend to echo WordF's. She finds failings in some schools. This area suffers mass systemic education failure.

I find it amusing that there is so much priority placed on the academic because many of them would never cope with a practical subject like hairdressing - the theory and knowledge you have to learn for courses like this can be very challenging and people going into these 'lesser' jobs take on a lot of responsibility at a young age. You can't just miss a module and catch up later, it's too important and you could kill someone by using the wrong chemicals on their hair etc etc. Those with degrees can spend many years as a small cog in a large wheel and are sometimes never be given any sense of accountability or responsibility.

All children are learning is a different set of skills - whether they are thinking skills or practical skills. The segregation and snobbery has to stop.

OK so a consultant has spent a couple of years more than a nurse 'studying'. But while he's been studying, the nurse has been learning a different set of skills. Both jobs involve taking responsibility for someone's life but both are paid at ridiculously different rates.

What I say to people who think their children aren't being stretched is to give them a break, you never know they might learn something else just as valuable in their spare time.

roses I'm pretty certain that people respect the non-academic skills of others on a personal level.

I bloody love my hairdresser, I can never manage to work the magic that she does!

Similarly, I am very very glad that there are young people who wish to train as electricians, plumber etc Over the last year or so, I have been renovating a house. I have had armies of tradespeople at my disposal and I could not do what any of them have done for me.

However, at a macro level, our society, all our lives, are pretty much moulded by people in certain sectors/industries; people who make our laws, people who apply them. People who run our economy. People who run the media. People who decide everything from what fruit will be in the shelves in the supermarket to how much our electricity will cost.

And this relatively small group of people are generally high ability (in academic terms). They are also dominated by the same group. IMVHO it is imperative for us all that this group has diversity. That it is not one great big echo chamber. We've seen what happens when this is not the case, and it aint pretty.

And we will never get that diversity if too many high ability children are prevented from joining that group.

"
And this relatively small group of people are generally high ability (in academic terms). They are also dominated by the same group. IMVHO it is imperative for us all that this group has diversity. That it is not one great big echo chamber. We've seen what happens when this is not the case, and it aint pretty.

And we will never get that diversity if too many high ability children are prevented from joining that group."

The most eloquent argument for comprehensive education I have heard in ages

Yes word, an excellent explanation but I don't understand this bit

And we will never get that diversity if too many high ability children are prevented from joining that group.

Probably because I went to a bog standard comp...

Unfortunately my children cannot attend a comprehensive - I live deep inside Kent. I wish they could.

My experience of a comprehensive education is therefore based upon my experiences the best part of three decades ago. But it was an extremely positive experience. High-fliers were supported, and encouraged, but not at the cost of the lower ability pupils. Indeed my headmaster had a big row with a local newspaper who refused to publish GCSE marks lower than a C. He said (absolutely correctly) that as a comprehensive the school should be proud of every result. The net result was, our school didn't appear in the local rag at results time.

jeee, I think even areas like mine which don't have a full grammar system suffer from the educational and social apartheid created by the existence of private schools and super selectives. 15% of children attend private schools in London. It absolutely DOES impact on the character of local state secondary schools.

hak we already have comprehensive education in the vast majority of the country.

The vast majority of DC, including high ability children, attend comps.

Yet the status quo remains.

Roses apologies.

What I mean is that if we want diversity in that small group we have to ensure that high ability DC from comprehensives are not prevented from joining it by dint of simple things.

Things like taking the wrong combination of GCSEs, like having no access to triple science, like being told all qualifications are equivalent, like taking too many GCSEs, like sitting them too early, like having no sets, like not inviting access scheme and outreach bods into school...

"Ridiculous" thoth in that we all seek to justify the education choices we make for our children, and part of that justification is to denigrate the alternative. However, ScottishProf suggesting, even tenuously, that you are "sacrificing" your child by educating them in state education IS ridiculous. It is risible.

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

Quite right! Nice to see a mention of the equally important humanities amongst all the current obsession with STEM.

not I think sending my children to a school which I believe does not adequately provide for them, when it is fully within my power to send them somewhere that will, would be quite immoral.

I think that it's cultural as well, in that for some reason the English MC think that all of their children should be academic or they are failures, when I know in other countries there is an acceptance that some do practical work, others go into the army / church etc etc but all are valued equally.

With all of these families competing and pushing to get their square pegs into round holes there isn't much room left for diversity, the diverse are being elbowed sharply out and I don't blame them for simply not wanting to join in the fight.

A couple of years ago vocational qualifications were included in results - I think Gove just pulled the plug on it (correct me if I'm wrong). That really hasn't helped the thousands of dispossessed, 'low' achievers or improved their status.