Worthless qualifications at state schools

[Judy1234]

Wise words.
Pick solid GCSEs in proper subjects - take a language, take English lit and lang, take maths, geography, history and 2 or 3 proper sciences and get just 8 or 9 in traditional subjects with good grades.

"The headmaster of Harrow has accused many state schools of deceiving children by entering them for ?worthless? qualifications. Barnaby Lenon said that grade inflation and a shift to vocational qualifications was masking a failure to teach enough pupils to a good standard.

?Let us not deceive our children, and especially children from poorer homes, with worthless qualifications so that they become like the citizens of Weimar Germany or Robert Mugabe?s Zimbabwe, carrying their certificates around in a wheelbarrow,? he told a conference.

?[Let?s not] produce people like those girls in the first round of The X Factor who tell us they want to be the next Britney Spears but can?t sing a note.?

He cited media studies as an example of a soft subject, for which many schools were keen to enter students because it was easier for them to get a good grade. The real route to a good job in one of the professions, he said, was good grades in traditional academic subjects such as maths, sciences and languages."

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/school_league_tables/article6998943.ece

[Judy1234]

I think my children's schools *(private) just about exclusively send children to RG or very similar universities too. That's what the schools for academic chilren in both sectors private and state do. And that then feeds through - it's easier to make your career in medicine, to become an equity partner in Ernst & Young or whatever your aim is or even acting or politics - you get to Oxford make your contacts, do the hobbies, make the right friends etc

It's so much more than just the exams. If I look at my 3 chilren who are university or almost post that stage and how they and their friends get or got from point A to point B it's fascinating. Some of those who are chidlren of housewives are after a rich husband because by 28 they want ot be married at home being subservient despite the AAA at a level etc. Others were born lazy and will never do much. Others again are following a parent into a non lucrative or very lucrative career. Obviously the school is just one influence but a big one. My daughter did show jumping, lots of it because I worked hard and picked a good career so I could buy her a horse etc. She got her first job for various reasons, one was very good exam results, right university but there are masses of people with that and part of the assessment day was chatting and she was with someone who kept horses so was my investment on the horses as worthwhile therefore as what I spent on school fees? Or was it simply that she's the oldest child and never been shy? Fascinating mixture of factors in how people get to where they do but none of the older ones would have a chance in many suitable careers if they didn't have good GCSEs in traditional subjects.

Nothing to stop them of course setting up their own businesses having left school at 16.

I don't know the list of RG universities by heart. In fact I'm not even sure my 3 were at them but perhaps I ought to check.

[moondog]

It contiunes way past school age.
Interview with over indulged middle class women in Telegraph yesterday on what to do 'now the children are off thier hands'.One was doing a PhD in interior design magazines.
I shit you not.

[loungelizard]

moondog

[Judy1234]

Yes, but I hope most people realise which qualifications are pointless.

Okay I just checked my local school - the comprehensive

"GCSE results at.... a pleasing improvement with 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths improving by 12% to 34%. "

So that means was 22% A - C. I wonder how much were A and A? How bad can you be in a comprehensive school in an area without state grammars? Then my daugher's old school 96$% A and A never mind A - C but of course that's selective but surely the comp with no local grammars should have lots of clever as well as not clever children.

[oldenglishspangles]

Xenia Here we go again - all housewives are subservient - protitutes that what you called us last time wasnt it? You are symbolic of the 'broken britain' cliche. 'Oxford contacts, right friends' Any society that values a person by the weight of his/her address book is doomed to fail. What you and yours do is equally as bad the dumbing down of the gcse. Lets raise a glass to the old boys network and all the work it does for holding back the unworthy.

[NotAnOtter]

others who are the children of housewives are after a rich husbands

wth xenia

5 gay boys for me then

[Judy1234]

I was just speculating on what matters. It might even be simpler - one daughter is quite pretty and blonde. I use my image on marketing which doesn't hinder me. You can hire no the basis of looks all things being equal as long as it's not sexism or racism etc. of course it's an overall package and I think you enhance your child's package if you breed with a good looking clever man but also get the child a good education and rounded hobbies and some jobs, not mine but certainly journalism is one, connections and getting in when you graduate can be the most important factor.

[oldenglishspangles]

notanotter. see your 5 rent boys and raise you a rent boy and two prostitutes

[oldenglishspangles]

Why not your job?

[loungelizard]

The trouble is, Xenia, most of those opportunities are not open to most children. You move in a priveliged circle (as I am sure you well know...). Most people aren't privately educated and thus have all the connections.

However, that doesn't equate to most people are stupid or less intelligent than those privately educated.

What they could do without, however, is being forced to take pointless exams in pointless subjects, whilst those in the know are getting into top universities, not throught their better intelligence, but through their ability to work the system.

Obviously that isn't the be all and end all of everything. That would be a totally simplistic view but at the moment those most disadvantaged are being completely misled as to the reality and consequences of their educational 'choice' (ha ha).

[NotAnOtter]

oldenglish got one little wench here myself

poor offspring of the bedder!

[tatt]

I have put up with the trojans on this site today to reply to "survival of the fittest". Actually we're talking about an education system designed to allow the survival of the greediest, most selfish and most unpleasant. It also rewards the most physically advanced.

None of this is about intelligence and certainly not emotional intelligence. So fittest for what?

[Judy1234]

Sadly that is what is mankind is - greedy, selfish etc and those ones tend to come out trumps, in all cultures and societies but also I would add intelligence and looks into that too. Also the emotionally intelligent who can work their way into the psyche of the person they are being interviewed by or persuading to take them on for work experience do well too.

The issue seems to be that once the grammar school route was abolished in most areas fewer poor clever children get through. There is an argument that once you've given equal opportunities then after a time those at the bottom are those rightly there and that social mobility will therefore ease off correctly but I doubt we are at that point.

If I age 14 could do research on what to take and where to go anyone these days can if they're clever. The point is that parents who send children to good schools (state or private) can assume most of the right decisions will be taken for them and that's not the case if the child is in a school which isn't sensible like that or where the teachers won't send children to places which are too posh for them because the teachers are left wing or have low expectations of children like the lady barrister mentions from her state school in my second link above.

[noddyholder]

I was privately educated got all the exams went to uni etc but it is not a guarantee of success in life.It really depends what you consider success.I was artistioc but steered to academic success.Then I got seriously ill and my whole life changed.This view is too simplistic.I know many in great careers lots of £ but totally unhappy.In the end I made a career of my passion and my studies are irrelevant to what I do now.My oldest friend left school with no exams and a certificate in childcare.She produced madonnas last tour.No guarantees as life sometimes intervenes.

[noddyholder]

Greedy and selfish do not come out trumps those are not the traits of a decent individual.Maybe they are wealthy and have all the trappings but that is only success if you measure it that way.

[violetqueen]

The issue seems to be that once the grammar school route was abolished in most areas fewer poor clever children get through

Do you mean get through to University ?
Any actual figures to quote ?

[Judy1234]

www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive.asp#a016 Sutton trust figure but there are probably others on their site too.

If fewer poor children get to better universities than the 60s but more poor children in general do better than it may not matter but if you recruit from too narrow a group you lose some good candidates and as a company do ultimately suffer. If your customers are a very mixed group and none of your staff are from that group in terms of culture, sex, religion, class, race etc then ultimately the business might suffer.

[qumquat]

Where are all these schools that are abandoning GCSes in favour of BTECs? I've never come across any. I work at an 11-16 inner city comp in London and we don't offer a single BTEC, the argument being that the BTEC courses require much more independent motivation than GCSE, which we wouldn't get from our students. I went to Cambridge (from a comp, SHOCK!) and believe me I am passionate about making sure my kids know the best way to get wherever they want to be in life.

[Bonsoir]

I don't know why, now that there is a NC, that there cannot be a NC that dictates which subjects must be taken at GCSE so that schools cannot do this dreadful disservice to their pupils.

Why, for example, could there not be an obligatory core of GCSEs to include eg English, Mathematics, a Science, a Language, History and Geography that all children had to take?

[CarmenSanDiego]

[Peachy]

dammit,kind and ugly,double stuffed then.

And I wish I was sunservient as a housewie,I might be happier then.

[noddyholder]

Bonsoir that is what happens at my ds school.He goes to a local state school and his education has been far more comprhensive than mine ever was!He is a lot happier more confident and so are most of his friends.Xenia@s use of the word poor is .I would love to hear what her children really think and would bet money that she screams new money.It is mostly those who have crawled their way up who live in fear of going back!

[Madsometimes]

I broadly agree with Xenia. Bright children from comprehensives should be pointed in the direction of traditional academic subjects. However, as children tend to do more GCSE's today than were done previously, I do not think that having one weak subject is a problem, if the other 9 GCSE's are in academic subjects. This could be media studies, or art or technology.

I think that there is a greater problem in doing media studies, psychololgy, law etc at A' Level. This is because most students are only taking 3 or 4 A' Levels, and therefore the subjects do matter. I did raise an eyebrow that dh's very bright niece did psychology A' Level, after getting a string of A's at GCSE. Luckily for her, she did get a place at UCL so it did not hinder her, but it was a risk IMO.

[Madsometimes]

At the comprehensive school my dd's will go to they have to take English lit and lang, Maths, French, RE, double science (can take triple if they want), and citizenship (?). So there is at least one weak subject in the compulsory list, but the others are secure academic subjects. They require the children to take French even though the NC does not require a language, so not all comprehensives are pushing their children into the easy options.

In fact, the children only get to choose two subjects for themselves. Of course the dc could pick media studies and PE, and for some children this may be good choices. As other posters have said, not all children at comprehensive schools are academically minded. I suspect that the brighter children are encouraged to select traditional subjects.

[oldenglishspangles]

noddyholder - you are just jealous of Xenia
madsometimes
'only taking 3 or 4 A levels'
'psycology' being a 'problem' subject

If the children (especially those who parents take no interest) and their parents are better advised then the will be a lower take up of those subjects. It should not be done on the basis of the BTEC being a dumb quailfication - it will suit some people (not always the less intelligent either) better than doing A Levels.