No because then the kids that fail the 11 plus are deemed to have failed before they even get to secondary level, they've already had their life chances cut down massively. You only have to look at ks2 scores and see that many children far exceed their predicted targets based on 3 levels of progress from their ks2 tt scores (or ta scores where they're not formally tested) you can't draw a straight line thru their years from y6 to y11 and extrapolate. Many children don't fully flourish until they hit secondary and by then they've already been scrapped under the grammar school system. The better system is better differentiated learning across the year group and a good teacher should be able to handle that. The trouble is IMHO: 1. Government / exam boards removed any form of scoring based on quality of content (ie spelling & grammar. 2 better system of managing teachers, IMHO they have too much power. If a teacher has responsibility stripped from them and lose wages their pay is protected for 3 years for example. There are many many great teachers out there but there are also some very ****ty ones too. If there was a weighting in exams or coursework for English content (ie spelling & grammar) then teachers would push it more but the trouble with all this league table bollocks is they teach for exam results. On face of it sounds OK doesn't it but it's wrong. Many schools until this year will bung their kids thru gcse exams in y9 yo see how they get on, if they do OK they stop teaching that subject and concentrate more lessons on the ones they are failing. I think that's a pretty sick and cynical way of educating kids and I'm really glad the government is making moves to stop it but this is what happens when you generate pointless league tables pitting schools off against each other in some kind of ****ed up gladiatorial arena. The only thing like that I think that schools should be held accountable for is the extra premium they get for their lac, pupil premium, forces children, eal and adopted from care they should have to show what they did with the extra money and what interventions it paid for and how it benefits the student and they're now asking for that in the past it just got lobbed in the school budget, not so much now which is another good thing. I think in some areas there's this kinda us and them attitude between educators and parents where it works best is when parents work with their kids and schools helping to drive education in. My kids love anything they can learn we watched a programme on quantum theory the other day, it was dumbed down brilliantly and my eldest (7) sat there engrossed in it then at bedtime had to sit and explain the theory of the multiverse that he'd picked up from the show. There are too many parents who I think seem to think that educating their children starts with and ends with the school when that's far from true. Sorry for the long post, bit of a point of mine education.
Great post Rich very enlightening, I totally agree about parents taking part responsibility for their kids' education. Fact is many parents don't seem to give a toss and this is really sad. We have always made the effort with ours girls and (fingers crossed), it seems to be paying off. My eldest has always been a 'straight A' student (well A* in many subjects), of this we are very proud. She'll be off to university next year and her vocation in life has always been to teach herself.
My experience of this was a very odd one.We were informed that there would be no 11+ exam but that those suitable for Grammar School would be chosen by the head.My mother was somewhat cock-a-hoop at this as myself and a friend invariably came first and second in end of year exams in all the subjects that mattered.Well he got chosen but I didn't,possibly because Martin's dad owned a factory and mine was a motor mechanic.Martin's mum kicked off at the head about it (She was a feisty woman later to be a well known local Labour councillor) and was told that Secondary Modern was more suitable for "Children of his background".
Yeah best results come from when parents are fully on board and communication with the school is absolutely key to that. My eldest is 7 and his KS2 reading score is a 5 which at 3 levels of progress is a B at GCSE so we're wondering where he'll be at the end of KS2!! Interestingly the school is very small (only 50 kids) so the whole school is taught across 2 classes R, 1 and 2 in one class and 3-6 in the other. We were very dubious at first but the differentiation works extremely well the brighter kids are taught with the older ones and not so much in their own group. My boy works with 2 Y6 girls, his handwriting is already better than mine (lucky lad isn't hamstrung by being left handed like me). Now if anyone were to ask me how to run a primary school i'd enthusiastically support vertical teaching groups like our school. At the secondary we're moving to vertical tutor groups next year, every child has been promised a buddy in same year in their tutor group but they well all be mixed together at tutor time as it breaks up We have a rather nasty eportal system where parents can access their kids info for dententions, achievements, reports etc but not many use it, we're now moving to Sims (no not that Sims) and we'll have the Sims Learning Gateway and im pushing for an app and tablets for staff to be able to quickly and easily take registers and there's also a wonderful parent app so that as soon as anything happens it gets pushed to their phone. So the idea is little Johnny gets a detention for say defiance and mum & dad know before he gets home from school. I love it and if anyone fancies seeing how cool the app is there's a demo of it on the various app stores its called groupcall emerge theres a version available with dummy data in it etc so you can see if you're really that interested how clever it all is. I'm hoping to buy it in for September and Sims allows us to send text messages direct to students and parents from the application it's all very clever stuff.
I must admit Rich, when I was teaching full time, I much preferred being a form tutor in a vertical group than a year group. Far more debates when it came to form time, than just the idle chatter or rows, and also I found that class behaviour was generally better as well.
lol nice mate thanks, it's still down so i'm happy As a child I found being left handed very very hard to be fair primary schooling in the late 70's/early 80's is very different to now. We were forced to use those awful berol pens and being left handed you end up leaning over your work and because they put down so much ink I used to end up getting it on my hand and then smearing my work as I went. I came up with the plan of putting a ruler under my hand to avoid the problem and was screamed at by the teacher. You get left handed pens now and teachers don't behave that way anymore but my early school life destroyed my interest in school. When I started school I had a reading age of 13 and because of that my reception and year one teacher thought I should be able to write to the same level and constantly chastised me in a very nasty way more than one occassion my mum was down the school because she'd screamed at me so much I would hide. She certainly had no business in teaching. In fact later on in my school career at that school my mum pulled me out and I was home educated for a year before we moved away completely (mostly for better schools). I wouldn't wish what happened to me on anyone. It didn't help that I was the oldest in the year at the time and most of my friends got separated from me as they were summer babies. Funny thing is I am left handed for writing but right handed for everything else, use a mouse in right hand, cutlery etc it's just writing for some reason. What is nice is I had a childhood sweetheart we knew each other from babies at preschool and when I moved away she came off the rails and had to be moved schools as we were kind of each others support and then she had an awful time at a girls school. We found each other a few years back on Friends Reunited and it's like we've never been out of touch, we're both in relationships so it's not like that but we are just there for each other, we message most days and we met up awhile back again not for anything other than to say hi and we just hit it off completely no awkward moments nothing. I think that's the one thing I take from my awful time at nursery and primary school at least I have a great friend even if I have so many terrible memories LOL
that sounds pretty bad. My Mum's a lefty and she said it was bad at school, but not quite like that! All very sinister...
Personally I think that the concepts of grammar schools is a good idea however as Cruyff points out it is a system open for abuse, the concept should really be that of a meritocracy. One of the real issue that affect social mobility in our country is parents involvement in their children's education as, unfortunately it is the people who struggled in education who tend not to value it so highly, which leaves bright children behind average ones which attentive parents who will read with them and press them to do homework. The next best thing to grammar schools is the use of sets within years however this too can be demoralising. Realistically we need to protect people who struggle at school more than we do, there is very little need for them to have complicated mathematics pushed on them due to a curriculum when they struggle with basic numeracy. I don't go in for this we need to create well rounded people at school and teach the child holistically, personally I see the tax payer investing in children and the aim should be to produce people who are capable of getting work and fending from them selves in society. with a view to this i think there should be more of a move towards vocations and apprenticeships earlier on. Another thing that annoys me is the desire for 50% of people to go to university, despite the rise in the numbers of people attending university there hasn't been a mirrored rise in the number of graduate level jobs, really there needed to be a greater effort in getting the right 20% to university not everyone as it just devalues the system. It brings me back to the point of meritocracy, there should be no place for the kind of nepotism that plagued university entry in the 70s and before but equally the way to counter than is not by just sending everyone and hoping that means the right people go.
Some interesting points being raised re education in today's 'political climate'. I have 2 grandchildren, one who is 7 and one who will be starting n reception in September and luckily, the schools where they live all have a good reputation, so much so that a family which was moving to Norfolk was wiling to pay over the odds for a house that was in the catchment area for the local High School. Having said that, I don't agree with the SATs tests, as too much teaching effort is expended in getting children to the required standard, as opposed to teaching the basics of maths and English!!! Parents have a massive role to play in reading to their children from a very early age and helping them wherever they can. I know there will always be people like Alan Sugar etc who have been successful with little or no educational qualifications, but both my children had a good education and have ended up with good jobs and higher salaries than some of their friends who went to Uni. I worked at a University for several years and I'm sure that a small percentage just see it as a way of not having to look for a job immediately after leaving school. I know several teachers who completely support the sentence highlighted in red!!!!
I'm not really talking about the people who think its a good way to take 3 years off, i think the raised fees will put them off which is a good thing, if you get a good degree from a decent university them you earning potential is higher, my point is that despite an increase in the number of people in higher education the number of higher salary jobs have't risen to meet it, as a society were not any cleverer just better educated and jobs that wouldn't have required a degree before now do in one sense it actually makes the jobs market far less accessible to people with out a degree. It has also lead to the 10-20% who would have ton to university anyway doing masters and PhDs just to set themselves apart again.
When I was first starting out in IT all I got all the time was must have 2 years experience. A few years later went back in and got must have a degree Bonkers
I'm left-handed and can honestly say it has never hindered me in any way. I would also suggest that my handwriting is far neater than many cack-handed righties
