Jamie's Dream School

[londonone]

20 in a class
No curriculum
TV Cameras

And they still piss around! Maybe people will start to get a real idea about how perhaps some of the students are in fact not vitims but the architects of their own downfall!

Get real though...half of these kids are crying out for attention in some way or another something is missing in their lives. You can guarantee most of their parents cant even spell respect, i feel sorry for them. There is an underclass of uneducated yobs in this country who all speak with some bizarre accent aka henry's, its part of our culture now deep rooted. God help us all.

Eyeofhorus - Having looked at his biography it seems that he knows what he is up to. Unfortunately he did not come across well on the first program and your assertion that he is a "cool guy" who is "really up on rights, letting kids get their point across, the need for real discussion" suggests he is the type of professional who has contibuted to the current state of affairs. Who knows we will see how the series pans out.

Apologies for my crap punctuation. I appear to have let my brain fall out of my ear this evening!

yes, londonone, sure it'll be a good watch. personally i thought he came across as fair. not sure he has contributed, more like mopped up after some rather difficult times/ parenting/ kids/ policies. If only it was as easy as jamie makes it sound!

remember of coruse it is a TV programme, with editing and such. the kids are probably told to act up intially, will be followign some sort of format,
not that i am cynic. but it wouldnt be so interesting if they were interested. these arent teachers, they can't be seen to be responding intially to the professionals, as they obviously didnt respond in school to teachers.

I don't see this as being about creating a better type of "school" but rather as just trying to find something or someone that can inspire these kids to do something with their lives.

I'll bet most of them have never had the opportunity to really explore what they could be if they tried and have never found anything worth trying for so meeting people who are really passionate about what they do could be the key for these kids to finding their "dream".

I am a bit torn about the sentement of kids who have "wasted" their school opportinity being given this opportunity.

I would say i was largely among the top of the average ability kids. I was bright but not extreemely so. I was often lost in the crowd and rarely were my efforts recognised except by exceptional (and there were some) teachers.

There were many times when little shits were given preferential terms and treatment as a direct result of poor behaviour. It was crap and demotivating to see.

However, I am lucky enough to have a wonderful family. Which i know many of these kids dont.

It is a difficult situation and one that i dont pretend to have a solution for.

Agree that hearing stroppy teenagers demanding 'respect' while showing absolutely none towards anyone else is immensely irritating. But then, the kids in this programme probably didn't't have well developed reasoning skills at the start. Maybe they'll pick something up along the way.

Apparently, some schools in (IIRC) Hampshire had quite good results from teaching children about the concept of Human Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child. Because they began to understand that everyone has these rights, so everyone has a right to an education and if you disrupt the class, you are denying the other pupils their rights. A virtuous circle. Problem was it worked quite well in primaries with smaller numbers of teachers and pupils, then kids got disillusioned when they went up to secondary where most other people hadn't been involved in the project and didn't act accordingly.

Well, lots of people I know have worked very very hard, but never had the right opportunities and luck. I'm sure there are many, many people in kitchens around the country working as hard as Jamie that are never recognised or recieve a tiny percentage of the rewards he gets. Maybe Jamie should be hosting a show about working hard in the food industry and not a show about education?

I have read this thread and a lot of people are saying these kids demand respect but offer none. Perhaps I'm watching the wrong program or something but what have these kids done that was so bad? They're talking, they're texting, they're trying to understand. I saw that girl Angelique asking Robert Winstone a good question actually (about if rats get a period) and being scared to say it in case she's knocked back for asking. I'm seeing kids saying thier personal values are about being an exceptional success and anything else to them is a crushing failure. I'm seeing that actually several of them are wanting to be interested, and cautiously trying to be interested, while also still trying to look nonchelant (just in case they get another kick in the teeth). I saw that even when Starkey was a total twat in class the two girl outside were quite slow to slate him and had to be encouraged to say why the lesson wasn't very good, that was disrespectful of them was it? It was quite the opposite, they were protecting him, complimentary even. I'm not seeing unteachable kids, I'm seeing kids who can't take another knock back. Fragile kids. Kids who want respect and defend themselves from the expected lak of it by appearing not to care.

Lesson one on how to handle teenagers: They care. They swear they don't but they do.

And I'm getting a bit bored of the comments about how these children are all likely from low-status backgrounds (eg council estates)! Right at the beginning of the program it was clearly explained the kids come from all walks of life. Failing is not something the precious middle class children of the persons posting such discriminatory shite are immune from. And Henry is far from the most interesting child in that class- unless of course you previously thought the middle classes didn't do failure.

underachieving I've read this entire thread and nowhere can I see anyone comment about these children being from 'low-status backgrounds eg council estates'. Where did you see this please?

When I was at uni, mobile phones were just coming in and students were texting and actually taking calls frequently. I had a fab lecturer who came in with a bucket of water and told us that the next one to make a sound would go in it... and then there was silence!

I thought the programme was very interesting. I would give my right arm to be taught by these people, including Starkey and especially Dr Winston. These children are not the brightest sparks, they are completely ungrateful and I hope they learn something.

Oh, and the boy is fat! It was wrong of Starkey to say it in the way he did but he was reacting to their collective rudeness.

No, Starkey shouldn't have said that to the boy. Completely unacceptable for a teacher to insult a student in that way.

Course, if the students say it to the teacher you've just got to accept it and get on with it.
Think that could be where we're going wrong?

Unprovoked personal insults are NEVER ok. Not to adults, and certainly not to children! Not even as a reaction to collective rudeness.

If Starkey thinks it is maybe those kids are not the only one with things to learn.

"There is an underclass of uneducated yobs in this country who all speak with some bizarre accent aka henry's"

What is that peculiar accent about? Don't they realise they sound like idiots?

I watched this last night by accident really but i have to say i really enjoyed it. These kids are being given a really good oppertunity to meet some wonderful people and hopefully find a path in life. My only disatisfaction is with the parents of these kids. None of my children have or ever would sit to have a conversation with me and swear like Henry did to his parents and they really couldn't of cared how many times he was arrested. Get a grip parents as you are a big reason for these kids not applying themselves at school or finding a good place in society.

These kids are all 16 and 17. They are effectively adults. Their parents are probably of the same attitude, hence the reason they have been unable to raise them into responsible and valuable members of society themselves.

Going back to the resilience/failure question, I think some schools (certainly that I encounter- supply teacher) are beginning to address this- some through the 'building learning power' re3search of Guy Claxton.
The other side of it is the results-driven curriculum which has 'failure' in built. Students are seen far too much in terms of their 'levels', not their learning needs.

I think David Starkey was reacting to the constant low level disruption, which was/is disrespectful: The constant chattering, fidgeting, playing with phones etc.
We seem to be raising a generation with little/no attention span. Expecting them to sit still and be quiet while someone else is talking is not too much to ask. For goodness sake if they went out to work and behaved like that during in a meeting they'd be sacked!

'We seem to be raising a generation with little/no attention span. Expecting them to sit still and be quiet while someone else is talking is not too much to ask. For goodness sake if they went out to work and behaved like that during in a meeting they'd be sacked!'

Spot on, CaveMum. Being able to focus your attention for a period of time to complete a task is an essential life skill in order to earn a living.

Went down and told off my children for texting this morning in reaction to Starkey's comments about attention spans.. I'm in France and mobile phone's are confiscated immediately if seen at school. Agree with Bunny - these children and nearly adults an have no awareness about real life -the immaturity was astounding. Henry is a complete waster - he cannot even point to his background as an excuse for his behaviour.

Jamie is great - he is a character who can connect with these children and recognises as a successful adult the necessity of a good education even though he himself was not a success at school. If anybody can bridge the gap, he can.

Agree with comments about the fact that these children have already failed in the traditional system with trained teachers so why not try something different!

I think the ability to behave for a teacher/boss when that teacher/boss has behaved like an arsehole is part of that too. I don't buy that it represents some terribly advanced kind of emotional literacy that is too much to ask from teenagers and I don't believe young people today are incapable of it, just that some seem to genuinely think they don't have to.

It's all connected. The Guy Claxton stuff begins to address this question of perseverance and attention span.

The attention span is erroded partly because of the focus on exam results and the 'spoonfeeding' of info which was then given to recent students in order for them (and the schools) to make the grade wrt league tables.
We need to move away from league tables and spoon feeding towards a more rounded and interconnected way of thinking and problem solving. Unfortunately Goveybollocks is taking us in quite the opposite direction.

Just to add - I would love absolutely love to go to this school and listen to these guys - what about an adult education option!

That was to expact and cavemum btw