Let's get back to a time when students, not teachers, could be blamed for exam performance

[noblegiraffe]

Has the responsibility for exam results gone too far in the direction of teachers? Should feckless students be allowed to fail?

As a teacher I certainly feel under pressure to get students good results, even when they are not co-operating. Even at sixth form now at my school we are expected to chase kids around to make sure they've done a revision plan, done the work they are expected to do, liaise extensively with parents.

I'm also annoyed when kids that I am supposed to be getting through their GCSE are excluded in the run-up to the exams, or are taken out of my lessons (maths!) to do catch-up for other subjects. I need that time to get them the results!

But I also see that teachers need some responsibility for results otherwise they could just phone it in.

How should things be?

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/lets-get-back-a-time-when-students-not-teachers-could-be-blamed-exam

Yes this. An approach that was theoretically aimed at accommodating different learning styles has ended up excluding anybody who actually learns in a traditional way.....I've always learnt by writing, preferably alone. I was lucky to go to school at a time when a lesson could literally just be a teacher dictating things and the students writing them down (and this was the early 2000s!). Obviously that's an extreme example, and I'm all for interaction and mixing it up, but it shouldn't be at the expense of children who like traditional learning.

Thank goodness someone else has said that. I was exactly the same - I loved the "stand up and preach" style of teaching. I hated the trendy ideologies of joint learning experiences where we all had to huddle around and do things in groups. I learnt best simply by copying out of the text books or copying off the board. I went through reams of paper. It's how I turned around being a failure at 16 (only 1 GCE) through to getting A levels and then qualifying as a chartered accountant (passing all 16 accountancy exams with high scores based on self-study!). My 1 GCE was in English where we had a really old school teacher who had his own classroom and had single exam style desks, made us sit in a specified order and ruled with a rod of iron, I loved it! It was my oasis of calm where I wasn't bullied because I had space around me, not being forced to sit and work with my abusers.

My son tells me exactly the same, and luckily for him, he's in a school environment where they still have the old-fashioned learning styles in some subjects and they're the ones in which he excels. (Many classrooms with desks in rows etc). Looking at his yearly reports, his best scores are where he's been taught by more traditional teachers in more traditional classroom settings. (The teachers seem to be given free reign to arrange their classrooms and teaching style!). As a result in some subjects, such as history, his year end scores have been up and down from year to year, the ups being traditional styles, the downs being the trendy styles. And yes, i know some others will show the opposite, but at least with allowing different styles, there's a mix.

I think the ability to convey your subject in an interesting way has more to do with my interest in the subject. My English teacher was the dullest teacher I encountered at school. Like others she delivered her lessons with a traditional style but dull uninterested manner, we thankfully had a break from her for a few months and her temporary replacement amazed us all by seemingly enjoying her subject. At my Grammar school I had many teachers who were pretty shit but we had text books and a copy of the syllabus so we managed, it was our education and we took responsibility for it - I encourage my dcs to do the same.

his best scores are where he's been taught by more traditional teachers in more traditional classroom settings.

That's because telling the kids what you want them to know is the most effective method of knowledge transmission. The tide is thankfully turning against less effective methods.

I loved the "stand up and preach" style of teaching

It's a simple, romantic take but I want more emphasis on teacher as a story teller.

DD in a hands-down girl and sometimes gets flak for it, so because it has more significance in her school-life she tells tales about it and and one quite typical one popped up yesterday. Teacher picked her to answer a question on something they hadn't been taught yet and she gave what she thought was a good answer. Since I know a thing or two about the topic it was definitely a good answer. But it wasn't the answer the teacher wanted in order to take the lesson where they wanted it to go, so teacher dismissed what she had said and then asked several other children with increasingly heavy hints until they got half of the specific answer they wanted to hear.

I get the impression that this, a fairly self-delusional exercise around children 'thinking' and discovering their way to knowledge etc., is quite common.

Then there is group work...

My English teacher was the dullest teacher I encountered at school. Like others she delivered her lessons with a traditional style but dull uninterested manner

A poor teacher will be a poor teacher whatever their teaching style. You can still be enthusiastic and inspiring using traditional methods.

My traditional English teacher was inspiring. He brought the subject to life, even with his chalk/talk delivery method. He had an infectious enthusiasm. He even got the least interested and most disruptive kids in other lessons to write and recite poetry in class.

But yes, I agree with your comments about making your kids take responsibility for their education. Whenever my son whinges about one of his teachers, I say the same and tell him that it's up to him to take up the slack if he's not learning in the classroom. At the moment, he has a hopeless Physics teacher, I've been on at him to stop wasting his time whingeing about it, and spend the time constructively teaching it to himself. After the first end of topic test when he scored relatively low marks, I think he gave himself a kick up the bum and realised it was down to him, so he started to work through the text book himself after each lesson, do a few practice questions himself, etc., and is now back to getting 90%+ in his end of topic tests.

Teacher picked her to answer a question on something they hadn't been taught yet and she gave what she thought was a good answer. Since I know a thing or two about the topic it was definitely a good answer. But it wasn't the answer the teacher wanted in order to take the lesson where they wanted it to go, so teacher dismissed what she had said

I read about someone who got told off/poor score for mentioning Bob Dylan's work in English, when the teacher was obviously expecting answers about more traditional poets! A few decades later Bob Dylan won the nobel prize for literature!!! That demonstrates the damage that a bad teacher can do. My inspiring English teacher must have been decades ahead of his game despite being old-school traditional. It's exactly how he inspired the less able kids in his class to discover poetry - he'd talk about contemporary song lyrics, explain how most were basically poetry put to music, and once that link was established, he'd then go back and talk about the traditional poetry they needed to study for their exams - as they had something they could relate to, most took to it like a duck to water.

I did my o levels in the early eighties and quite frankly none of my teachers gave a shit. I worked my arse off and got three GCSEs at the first attempt and then resat and got two more. I always felt that I had been let down by the education system. However I persevered and got two a levels then did a BA (hons) and ma with the open university. My motivation was the love of learning that came from within. I do understand that a lot of dc don't have this motivation (sadly including my own dd). I do think like many op that education is a three way street. As parents we need to encourage our dc to engage in learning, teachers need to inspire and dc need to accept that Having a good education is priceless as it is the key to successful adulthood (I don't just mean financially) All to often dc in the UK seem to think it's ok to piss away their education when dc in other less developed countries see the value of education.

One of my friends is a physics professor - he said that having quite a poor physics A level teacher - i.e. being taught by someone who hadn't studied physics to degree level and didn't understand it, was what made him an exceptional physicist. He taught himself - he no choice.
I don't know whether I influenced the dcs or not - I know that ds became more conscientious when he was around 9 years old. Ds's attitude change coincided with me discovering the concept of internal and external motivation and I tried to encourage and protect internal motivation as much as I could. It's hard to know whether I made a difference though but I've tried.

It is so difficult to know how much is parental influence. Behavioural traits are significantly influenced by luck of genes, but you still have plenty of wriggle room.

Y9 DD came equipped with a conscientious character though. One of her earliest spoken phrases was "Me do it!" and she has never stopped wanting to sort things out by herself. I cherish and make an effort to protect that, for the most part by regularly expressing some genuine pleasure around all the self-motivated activity, and supporting her arguments against some of the less motivated kid's attitudes. We still have some normal teenage strops etc., but have no significant problems around responsibility for her education.

For example because of Y9 options DD has been thinking more about future GCSEs so independently decided to use a few days of the Easter holiday compensating for KS3 science. Science has had serious staffing problems and more supply/cover teaching than the normal kind since she started secondary. So she asked us for some GCSE science books and just got on with it, although I should add that it was in a suitably relaxed holiday manner as opposed to anything resembling intense cramming.

I have complete faith that if necessary this child would do the same as the physics Prof. I think that's quite a luxurious position to be in.

This is the message ds's tutor sent out at the end of last term-

"Please use the following resources to revise. Obviously find time to relax and chill over the hols but also revise revise revise. If you do not, then as Gandalf said, 'You shall not pass'.
There is only one place where you'll find success before work, that is in the dictionary!"

A bit cheesy, I know- but I like the way it really emphasizes the kid's part in the process.

Yes, it is a balance.

When I did exams in early 80s teachers were allowed to get away with, if not murder, then certainly doing not a lot. And I went to what is today an extremely sought-after high-performing girls' grammar school. I went from being top of the top sets to a bit of a mediocre drifter. And no one said a word. For one A Level we didn't have a teacher. We had to teach ourselves! And did the school/our parents say anything? Of course not. Parents never got involved. Ever.

Thinking back to primary school it was the same. You could get a very inspirational dedicated teacher (thanks, Mrs J!) or you could land up with Mrs G who arrived after the children every morning and left before them in the afternoons! She lived in our road and would be out walking her scottie dog before many of the children had left the classroom at the end of the day. Also I remember we had to do "quiet" jigsaws/plasticine in the afternoons and she used to doze off in a big wooden chair at the front.

Badbadbunny, ds quoted Morrissey in his A Level English and got an A* (that might have been in spite of mentioning Morrissey, though!).