Has this board always been dominated by questions about private schools?

[minifingerz]

... and the Education board?

I'm sure I remember this board being relevant to most parents even as recently as last year.

Wouldn't it make sense to have a separate board for private education, rather than having these ones silted up with queries about fee paying schools, given that it's of no relevance to 93% of UK parents?

Id love to know how it would improve schooling to allocate a % of 'bad' children to each school. ?

How does it improve education to send 'difficult' children to say a school that does not have any...

Why do we want all schools to be equally 'bad' rather than good !

That is what you saying a kind of 'reverse' discrimination .

'A school has to many bright pupils lets bring them down to earth'

Great post jones. Although I doubt it will be popular, because many people refuse to acknowledge the comprehensive system contains too many poor relatives of sms where the selective criteria is house price. And I suspect some people even think they're perfectly good enough for kids from low income backgrounds cos of course they're all lacking in aspiration, ability and good behavior anyway. Not like the naice kids who deserve good state schools.

Why do we want all schools to be equally 'bad' rather than good!

Exactly.

Bertrand, " What do you mean mean by "better?"

Very good question.

DS is now out of school and into university. Some of the things I thought were important when he went to school, no longer seem so. Some of the things I did not consider, seem more important now. Restrospectacles , eh ?

Hocus I can't resist asking - like what?

Re the right of the state sector to exclude - here are some facts from a recent article in the Guardian - this demonstrates that a broader remit in the state sector to exclude "problem" children is not a viable solution and further entrenches elitism and social divisions:

We exclude thousands of children, especially those with special needs. In 2013-14, the number of children permanently excluded from primary schools included some 6,510 with special educational needs statements and a further 30,230 with SEN but no statement. These figures do not even include those whose parents have been persuaded to withdraw their child to make it look as if they have not been excluded.

For English secondary schools, most students who are permanently excluded have special needs or disabilities. In 2013-14 in England alone, 13,340 secondary-aged children with statements, and 96,750 with SEN but no statement were excluded. The numbers are enormous. We simply do not know what happens to all the excluded children. Most will end up in another school or a pupil referral unit; some may be home educated. We are extreme, cruel and unusual compared with what is normal on the continent. Being ostracised is one of the most severe punishments humans inflict on each other. The fear of being sent away is profound.

Our government encourages it and apparently has no idea that in this England is highly unusual in Europe. In the rest of Europe, children are also not divided between such hugely different types of school, and few parents see the need for private education. Other European children do not go to school as early as in the UK. Nor are they tested for supposed ability at the age of four or five, when they arrive, as in England. Those tests have been shown to be extremely unreliable, and potentially harmful for children and schools. And yet ministers insist on them.

Overall spending on education in the UK per child is lower than in many other European countries, even when our extremely high rates of spending on private schools are included (not surprising when most of the elite who control national budgets do not use state education for their own children). And since 2010 huge cuts in state spending on 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds in sixth forms and further education colleges have exacerbated educational inequalities.

If dividing up children as we do, and endlessly testing them as we do were beneficial, the UK would not be languishing, as it is, at the bottom of league tables ranking the richest 25 large countries of the world. The UK is near or at the bottom for numeracy, literacy and problem-solving at age 15. We then do even worse when young adults are examined at ages up to 24.

My point was that if state schools have in the past managed to achieve better outcomes then what has changed?

Charley this is a reasonable question but I think it has a complex answer and not a simple one such a "leadership" (which implies discipline or authoritarian approach) and I think that if you ask 5 people, you will get 5 different answers.

I don't think that you can analyse the microcosm of the schools outside of the broader social and cultural landscape and I'm not very good at making the point but I will try.

In the past 30 years social mobility in the UK has declined, incomes have stagnated and vastly increasing social and economic inequality has emerged - work is no longer a clear route out of poverty and this has a very broad social impact, especially in schools. Huge government cuts have been regressive. 30 years ago a child had more of a chance of having a higher standard of living than their parents - many of today's children will have lower standard of living than their parents. In other words, social mobility is at risk of reversing in the UK.

In the US where the socio-economic divide is greater than it is here (and race plays a big part in the US), the "inner city" schools are violent, drug ridden and rates of incarceration, and recidivism are high. This is not a problem of education or lack of respect or leadership but is rather symptomatic of the social and economic climate at large. Children in the inner city schools have nearly zero chance of bettering their lives, they live to survive.

Also, 30 years ago in the UK there wasn't the rampant social/cultural shaming for being in social housing, for being on benefits, etc. The cult of the super-rich didn't exist, wealth and signifiers of wealth (cars, etc) weren't worshipped like they are now.

Here's an excerpt from an article about the vicious cycle of inner city schools in the USA and a snapshot of where the vast socio-economic divide can lead and how it can affect the classroom:

Students enter buildings through metal detectors. If the device goes off they are bodily searched. Armed police stand guard. Uniformed security crews that report to the police sweep the halls. Students are forced to sit in overcrowded uncomfortable classrooms doing rote assignments geared to high-stakes Common Core assessments. Stressed out teachers, fearful that they will be judged by poor student performance on these tests, use boredom and humiliation to maintain control of the classroom.

When young people react to these conditions they are disciplined. The ultimate goal of school policy is to sort them out with a few destined for success, some to menial jobs, and others for imprisonment. When these pipeline schools do their jobs well, the young people who fail are convinced they failed because it was their own fault and that they deserve their punishment.

Great post, Snafu. As someone much cleverer than me said "Constantly measuring your child does not make them taller". Relentless testing and data analysis does not make children more able or achieve more. It takes up learning time and lesson preparation time, makes children stressed and unengaged, is unnecessarily divisive at an early age, and the data gleaned from it is really only useful in predicting results of whole cohorts (which is apparently what it was originally meant to be used for) , not individual children. Because children are individuals and progress at different rates. You cannot test a child at 6 and extrapolate what level they 'should' then achieve at all stages of their school career and then blame their teacher if the child achieves below that, but praise the child if he/she achieves above that.

"My point was that if state schools have in the past managed to achieve better outcomes then what has changed?"

But did they?

"Constantly measuring your child does not make them taller"

I agree. However, not measuring your child at all means you don't know whether they are growing.

*"My point was that if state schools have in the past managed to achieve better outcomes then what has changed?"

But did they?*

Oh well, if they didn't then ignore my laborious post!!

"Oh well, if they didn't then ignore my laborious post!! blush"

Seriously - did they? We have all sorts of anecdotal stuff about all our grandmas having beautiful handwriting and knowing their tables and reciting oceans of poetry- but is there any hard data about it? I suspect not. We never hear about the kids who left school at 14 unable to read and write and add up- because nobody tell their stories. We hear about the exceptions. The John Clares, the Laurie Lees- all the romantic stuff about geniuses emerging from little village school. But what happened to the majority?

Send - so one example might be (and I will take all accusations of "bubbles" on the chin) I probably thought more about the range of e.g. GCSEs on offer and less about the ability of the school to attract and retain good teachers in all subjects. We were fortunate in that DS's school was good on both counts. However, reading some threads over time has made me much more aware of the problems sometimes caused by the shortages of teachers in some subjects e.g. Maths or MFL. Naive, me, much . As it was, there were a range of factors which made us throw our lot in with the school (and very pleased we did ) but I think there were some things I was a little naive about at the outset and took for granted.

I think I was actually replying to charley's comments about behaviour in the classroom rather than performance but I've confused myself now.

I think that trying to accurately measure performance from 30 years ago against today's measures would be nigh impossible and yes, the past is frequently romanticised.

Ah but Bertrand - that's precisely the point. Teachers know the pupils are progressing, because they are teaching them all the time. Informal assessment of what they understand and how they are doing happens in every lesson all the time. As it always has. That's not the same as standardised official tests or constant demands for 'data' from teachers about pupils.

Informal continuous assessment is great when teachers are good at their jobs.

It's awful when teachers are not good at their jobs.

I guess so. But you could say that most things about school are bad if teachers are bad at their jobs. I tend to think that the vast majority of teachers are good at their jobs, but their ability to do their jobs really well is hindered by being treated as though all of them were bad teachers.

"Teachers know the pupils are progressing, because they are teaching them all the time"

But how do parents know? And what if the teacher isn't doing their job properly? How would parents know then?

BertrandRussell Thu 25-Feb-16 12:31:00 But how do parents know? And what if the teacher isn't doing their job properly? How would parents know then?

One thing is for sure, they certainly won't know from the assessments that are currently carried out in schools.

At all the schools I've worked I've worked in recently the parents get regular updates on progress. This doesn't need to be based on standardised tests though. And I'd be interested to see how often parents think they should be updated on progress.

My dd starts secondary school in September. I'd be perfectly happy with a couple of reports and a parents' evening per year. I'll be able to look at her exercise books and ask her how she's getting on. I definitely don't need a half-termly breakdown of levels and sub-levels (not that they exist any more). If I'm concerned I will speak to the school. I also don't need to be told 'In her SATS she achieved level blah, so by the end of year 9 she should be at level blah'. It doesn't work like that, however much the government and senior management would like to think it does.

God I can't believe I'm going back into this rigmarole next week! I wonder what my new school's policies are like... The craziness of the level of accountability and paperwork is making lots of teachers opt for supply teaching - no ties, walk out when you've had enough. No wonder schools are finding it so hard to employ decent permanent staff. Loads of schools don't even advertise jobs in the TES any more - they just go straight through agencies and the teachers are technically employed by the agency (usually at a lower rate of pay). That's what I'm about to do. Lower pay, but at least if it's hellish I can walk out without a backward glance. Poor kids .

And that's another thing (going back to the private vs state subject). There is no reason in theory why teachers in private schools should be better, and many people used to say they were worse. Not any more. Because the good, experienced state school teachers are quitting or going the supply route. Whereas if I were lucky enough to get a job in a decent private school (against massive competition, I expect) , I would be staying there until I retire, and would make damn sure they would want to keep me until I did. Sadly I have moved to a county that has almost no private schools .

"There is no reason in theory why teachers in private schools should be better,"

I don't think anyone who knows anything about the subject would say they necessarily are now. Some of them are- some of them aren't. It's just often an easier gig.

Yes, I agree it's an easier gig, but I think the gap is growing wider. And people like my dh, who is state school through and through and has always said he'd never sell out on his principles and go over to the dark side, are thinking that maybe they were a little hasty.