White British pupils underperforming because of parents

[noblegiraffe]

White British pupils are underperforming at GCSE and it's because of the parents claims a report out today:
www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/04/white-children-falling-behind-other-groups-at-gcse

So what do families from other cultures do differently?

Children in receipt of PP funding have been the 'focus' since 2010.

..and those from ethnic minorities are more likely to be low income and hence receipt PPF

My dd recently sat GCSE English, early and obtained an A in lit and A* in language. She had about 45% attendance and is on PP and has extra time for exams etc. She had been predicted a D. She got no help from school they wrote her off. DD is determined and we'll into junior school was from a A type social group. DD was cultured and had private tutors, homeschooled etc. We are probably now E type social group. Her teachers didn't know her history and wrote her off. DD wasn't written off at home and had an advantage during the start of life. I think school is part of the problem.

Did you see the graph I posted up thread, cate? Children from ethnic minorities who receive PP perform significantly better than non-EAL pupils who receive PP.

If children are doing better up to the age of 5, then surely it is schools that are lettingt the kids down

I teach reception. There is a girl in my class who speaks three languages. Her English is good, not that of a native speaker, but good.
There are a couple of children who are white-British who couldn't string a sentence together of more than three words. One wasn't entirely sure of his name. No SN that have yet been diagnosed, and I can't foresee there being any. Simply that no one has bothered to have a conversation with them.

The pupil premium may in some cases be spent on tuition but in many it is used for additional settling time/experiences in for year 7 pupils, incentives to motivate, additional laptops etc. This is spent on those pp pupils which is the rule I believe. My point is that this has meant that there is more focus upon those groups and I do no think this raises standards. In addition the narrowing of the gaps between special need/ethnic groups and other pupils has means that the focus is on those groups. There has been a focus on making the lower group average not improving the average. It seems that a vast amount of support is in place to support certain groups but not the majority.

Here is the table I couldn't find earlier. Ignore the fact that the article is headlined about "poor white boys" and look at the two tables in the middle. It's not just about the poor white boys, they just happen to be at the very bottom of the league.

I'm not sure about 'feminisation'. As far as I know girls have ALWAYS done better than boys, but in he past were held back (eg by 11+ pass scores being higher for girls, or parents not paying privately for girls, or being barred from university).

Daphne interesting tables, thanks for posting. I'd heard that poor white boys were doing the worst in terms of results, I didn't realise that poor white girls were next worst.

Clearly we need to be looking at what Chinese girls are doing, because poor or not they seem to be miles ahead.

Twelly My children's schools publish the PP spending on the website. The biggest expenditure is on extra teaching assistants.
I can't comment on the quality at the secondary school as my kids are in top sets but my son in primary has had intervention lessons from TAs. He currently has spelling and handwriting help while his class are at assembly. The other days they do maths, reading and literacy. He is in y5 and there are 10 ish in each class and 60 in the year.
In y4 he went to spelling, literacy and phonics help. In y3 he went to extra phonics and literacy.
As a sceptic I believe that SATs are a major reason for these interventions but my son is now a free reader with pretty good handwriting so I'm very grateful.

ZedWoman it's very much my experience that PP is used for tuition; my DD and DS have both been part of intervention groups for more able children which was paid for using PP money; the school publish detailed reports of how PP is spent and it's available to parents of children in receipt of PP.

Having been educated both in England and in a European School, I was able to witness first hand the different expectations of teacher input vs. parent input in several countries. My DD is at a school where parents hail from many different countries and it is also palpable that parents have wildly different expectations, according to their own cultures, of their input versus that of the teachers.

I think that in England we tend to expect teachers to work harder than parents and perhaps even than pupils at education. This is not at all true in many countries, where pupils and their parents are expected to work much harder than teachers. I'm not sure why we have got to a point where so much is expected of teachers.

Clearly we need to be looking at what Chinese girls are doing, because poor or not they seem to be miles ahead.

The schooling they get will be exactly the same. The variable will be the parents. And I must say that as a rule Chinese parents tend to be very driven and will push their children very hard.

All schools have to publish details of PP spending on the school website.

To be honest I'm not surprised. White working class kids are massively anti-intelligence and anti education as a rule. It comes from out 'us and them' English management style, compounded with class , and crappy twat culture where being the thickest and worst behaved is positive. Sadly this is compounded by girls in school who often reward 'bad boys' with notoriety and attention (of course this could also be a political tactic to increase relative grades). It better to be a drop out working for cash and fags, than to be a conformist.

The question is about how useful education is certainly when I was at school working class white kids saw no value in education relative to work, apart from minimum grades. Even then some bright kids rebelled and had to resit with their employer or at college.

What form does this pushing hard that Chinese parents do take? I don't think it's just sitting around the table for dinner in the evening.

We aren't Chinese but we certainly make sure our DC work and that entails one of us being at home when our DCs are at home (most of the time) and asking them what work they have to do, checking that they are doing it, answering any questions, making sure they study well in advance of tests, plugging gaps etc.

I dunno.
The PISA figures are cooked, lots of kids in China & other countries don't get entered. Any report that relies on international comparisons makes me twitchy.

A lot, maybe most the people at CentreForum, have jobs with academy trusts. Apparently Centreforum isn't enough of a day job for them. Like Natalie Perera (author of NGiraffe's report) is a director of a MAT. Or a background in economics which makes me think of industry biases. Except the physicist who works as their data analyst.

So it doesn't feel to me like an independently produced report.
I don't have time to read it, and I'm sure social background is hugely important in pupil success. But maybe the conclusions aren't quite as clearcut as report makes out. Like it talks about London-restEngland divide... well Doh. Spending on London schools is A LOT higher than non-London schools.

This really is no surprise. I work with a large number of 1st and 2nd generation immigrants mainly Asian, my children's primary school is largely white British and about 50% working class. I think my attitude to my childrens' education has been massively influenced by my colleagues and I have pushed them much harder than I might have done otherwise. The reaction of the other white parents at the school has been very interesting.

I suffered from others at school by working hard at my white 'middle class' school.
Focus is on crap sleb culture, and if one shows an interest in things other than this they are considered snotty.
The English have had it too good for too long and simply haven't had to fight for anything.
Plus the respect for teachers is at an all time low: see the number of threads on here -who do I complain to because a teacher spoke out of turn?
Who cares, get little Jonny to do his homework and no one will be telling him he is talking rubbish.

lljk this report isn't about international comparisons though, this is GCSE data from England only.

What form does this pushing hard that Chinese parents do take? I don't think it's just sitting around the table for dinner in the evening.

I can only speak about the parents of the few Chinese children I have taught but I know it was generally a couple of hours homework or study set by the parents on top of any school home work. Screen time has been very limited. Children were read with every day. The same was true of the parents of a Zimbabwian child I taught. The 'funny' thing was that Ofsted asked me what I was doing to give her extra support as she was the only non white child in the class.

What form does this pushing hard that Chinese parents do take? I don't think it's just sitting around the table for dinner in the evening I tutored a delightful Chinese girl at home in SPaG and creative writing. She wasn't particularly behind but the parents wanted her to reach the old Level 4 in Y4. English was her second language. That's what Chinese parents are doing!

Chinese (2nd gen immigrant) mum of 2 girls here. I don't know and can't comment on what other families do or don't do.

But what I do is that I expect a lot from my kids: whether they are academically able or not, I expect that they would always try their best and achieve (academically) the best they can.

DH (white British) and I both value education and have always tried to instil a love of learning. Books, museums, learning musical instruments and sports. We're very fortunate in being able to afford day trips and cultural experiences, I think this is an undeniable advantage.

We're both university educated and have so far always been interested in and able to help with school work. We don't do it for them, but ask after the kids about it. In this issue, so far, I think having girls has helped since they are both quite self motivated and competitive, so they will get the work done by themselves.

Whilst my kids are academically able by UK standards, we will continue to encourage them to do their best because as parents we're also teaching them a work ethic and that they can't rest on their laurels and expect a good life (interesting job, good standard of living etc.) by doing the bare minimum.

I'm a reception teacher, 20+ years experience, in a variety of schools. I'd say the cultural differences between white working class children and white middle class children are huge. More than between white middle class children and other cultures, and the gap is growing all the time. It's about conversation/ quality verbal interactions at home, (totally agree with pipbin), ambition and suspicion of anything that seems 'posh' (i.e academic, or difficult or elite).

So MC children come to school having been to toddler music groups, museums, ballet or gym tots type stuff, watched good TV with an adult to talk to about it, probably been to a theatre or puppet show, been swimming, had a bike or trike to ride, and had a go at at an adult's hobby (woodwork, craft, tennis, sailing, riding, sewing etc with a parent or grandparent).

I'm generalising I know, and some white WC children will have done these too, but only really in aspirational families. But lots won't have any of this cultural knowledge at all, and school life is totally based on this MC culture.