Camp Hill Boys or Five Ways

[Sahara1]

I totally agree with you that the success of many children is not entirely down to the school, and I have also heard about private tuition even for the childfen who are already in prep schools! But I guess that having the right environment does help: motivated teachers teaching smaller groups and most importantly covering 11+ material (which is not covered in State schools) . But that does not mean that everything is perfect in a prep school nor that all teachers are great and that parents should not keep an eye and offer the support needed to their children.

Maybe Quasimodo could share with us his experience?

As I said, I have no experience of the good prep schools in Birmingham as my DS went to a very good primary in a leafy suburb of Birmingham. We didn't have the money to send him to a private school. However, I have focused most of my time on him while he was at primary school. I certainly enjoyed all the things we did together, but I often felt frustrated with the lack of HW from school (besides the reading, just one sheet of maths and one sheet of English per week and except when there is a project for 4 or 5 weeks).

The following view is not held by many of this forum, but personally I strongly believe that regular HW is important to reinforce what has been learnt during the day. This is what I have known in my childhood during which I still had the time to have many extra curricular activities (swimming twice a week, scouting, piano lessons with my daily 30 mn practise during all my primary years… and at secondary school I switched swimming to other sports , namely classical dance, horse riding and tennis, I added music theory to my piano lessons and kept scouting as it was marvellous and very formative). It is obvious that though I had plenty of school lessons to work on, I had also plenty of time to become an all-rounder. Having HW does not equate with spending all end of afternoons and evenings at a desk!!!
A child/ teenager can fit a lot in a day … though all children are different.

Furthermore, imho, a bit of memorisation is not a killer! In France, we are used to learn by heart poems in primary schools… Once my DS left his primary school well ranked by OFSTED, I have felt it to be so hard to teach him to sit down and learn something by heart. Now, DS is flying on his own but my DD, who has been in a different system during her primary school years, arrived in GB in year 7 knowing how to learn her lessons. Therefore, I just needed to send her learn her stuff and she would come back to me and recite it to me. It has been so much easier!

Recently, I have heard an examiner and joint author of maths books mentioning that unfortunately, at an international level, English children do badly at memorising the quadratic formula (one of the formulae which will be no longer given on the front page of a GCSE paper). Unfortunately, I do not have access to the articles he has access to so I cannot put the proof of what he said on here. For me, this fact is linked to the lack of habit of rote learning that should be taken during the primary years: not too much, but just a bit more than what is currently done.

What happens nowadays in state schools is this: parents who wishes their children to go into GS teaches their children at home by buying books to complete the work done at school. Moreover, they have to teach them (or hire a tutor) to cover the 11+ syllabus. All this is sad as it creates in the same classroom a system with children at different learning speed. I am convinced that many children whose parents do not help and teach them at home could achieve far more in their lives if they had to do a bit of consolidation of the new lessons each day. Homework at primary school is a cultural habit. Ask Italian primary school children about their HW. They have plenty as in many other countries.

In France, in the recent past, a certain president has banned homework ; the New-Yorker reported this fact in 2012 in those terms:
Here is something you probably didn’t know about France: its President has the power to abolish homework. In a recent speech at the Sorbonne, François Hollande announced his intention to do this for all primary- and middle-school students. He wants to reform French education in other ways, too: by shortening the school day and diverting more resources to schools in disadvantaged areas. France ranked twenty-fifth in a new evaluation of educational systems by the Economist Intelligence Unit (part of the company that publishes The Economist). To give you an idea how bad that is, the United States, whose citizens are accustomed to being told how poorly educated they are, ranked seventeenth.

The French President’s emancipation proclamation regarding homework may give heart not only to les enfants de la patrie but to the many opponents of homework in this country as well—the parents and the progressive educators who have long insisted that compelling children to draw parallelograms, conjugate irregular verbs, and outline chapters from their textbooks after school hours is (the reasons vary) mindless, unrelated to academic achievement, negatively related to academic achievement, and a major contributor to the great modern evil, stress. M. Hollande, however, is not a progressive educator. He is a socialist. His reason for exercising his powers in this area is to address an inequity. He thinks that homework gives children whose parents are able to help them with it—more educated and affluent parents, presumably—an advantage over children whose parents are not. The President wants to give everyone an equal chance.

The last part of the text is essential to understand the reasons of the reforms in France. Of course, many parents oppose the numerous new reforms that the ministry of Education imposes as it pulls the level down. By contrast, I have to say that the merits of Mr Gove is to pull the level up!!!! I might not agree with some decisions he has made and with the high speed with which he (and his successor Ms Morgan) wants to impose his reforms, but at least, imho, the future of British pupils is brighter than for the French ones!!!

As a French philosopher (Alain FINKIELKRAUT) wrote this summer : in France, «L'école des savoirs cède sa place à l'école de la thérapie par le mensonge»





PS2: By the way, I translated word by word the French phrase (‘ramer contre le courant’ = 'rowing against the current') but the right English idioms is 'to swim against the tide'! Sometimes, I write my posts in a hurry with no time to verify… and in fact, often, afterwards, I am really shocked when spotting some of my grammatical mistakes or misplacement of adverbs ( I am a specialist at misplacing adverbs in English )… but I hope the persons who read my posts understand that I am just trying to put some ideas through!

The advantages of the Pre schools in the UK are that children do get a lot of homework so by the time they go to secondary school they are already prepared for the amount of home work hence they tend to settle in easier compared to state school children who are not use to the home work load.

Also the Pre schools do prep them doe secondary school from year 3 as they will be taking different lessons in different classes so they are use to travelling around the school to get to different lessons also have planners from reception to fill in which helps.

Also the pre-schools tend to work a year ahead. With regards to 11 plus yes they do lessons once a week but not entirely focused on 11 plus ..thou they do encourage each child to read everyday for 20 mins hence most parents do pay additional for private tutors for the 11 plus ...as if you can not rely entirely on the school as 1/2 hours each week is not enough unless you have a extremely bright child.

The advantage are the support is there if you need it as teachers are willing to help where as state schools you don't get that advantage unless you have some good teachers are willing to put in extra time for your child with the 11 plus but they can't due to rules.

[JaneEyre]

Awwwwww! Waaaw! Thanks for this analysis! Your DS has attended at prep school then!

If he has obtained a place at CHB, my advice would be for you to take up the place and move to Kings Heath!
I used to live in Sutton Coldfield a few years ago... but I belong to this strange 'species of parents' ( ) who try to find the best academic opportunities for their DC while helping them to become nice , polite and helpful all-rounders... so moving is not too much of a hurdle in the grand scheme of things!

Abroad, my DD changed her primary school several times, especially as we were hesitating between a French schooling and an international/English one. Due to these changes, she has become an extremely adaptable person!

[MSD]

On a slightly different topic, however related to CHB. My understanding is that the only two modern foreign languages currently studied at CHB are French and German, with one of them taken in Year 7 and other in Year 8. My question is whether the children are allowed to pick the one they want to study in Year 7 or does the school randomly allocates one of them.

And are there any parents on the forum with children traveling from Wolverhampton to CHB?

[JaneEyre]

On a slightly different topic, however related to CHB. My understanding is that the only two modern foreign languages currently studied at CHB are French and German, with one of them taken in Year 7 and other in Year 8. My question is whether the children are allowed to pick the one they want to study in Year 7 or does the school randomly allocates one of them.

All childen study French from year 7, then from year 8, German is added to the time table, so all pupils study French and German in year 8 and 9.
At GCSE, like in all the GS I know of, all children take one MFL, the one they feel more confident at, or they can choose both of them.

[Sahara1]

Children are very adaptable more so than adults.

I do believe it is all about the effort you and your DS put in .. as school are parents do need to work as a partnership.

and you have to be on top of it before they slip the net as they say as teachers don't have the time to spend with each and every child as they have 35 children in a class..and the state school system in the UK is that a child can leave school with no grades as in the USA they do make a child repeat the year and they can leave when they have graduated...

[Sahara1]

The more I am reading about CHB I feel it is very academic compared to the other GS in Birmingham..they are all very good but I suppose it depends on which school suits your child best but no body will know that until they attend as at the moment we can only go by on how we felt for the school on the opening days.

Is it the top UK school for boys ??? as stated in the headmaster speech..????

[JaneEyre]

You are full of doubts though you have submitted your CAF. It is so confusing!
Maybe reading the newsletters of the different GS will help you to undertsand more about each of them?

For CHB, here is the webpage to find them:
http://www.camphillboys.bham.sch.uk/news/newsletters/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You will notice that pupils at the school have the opportunity to enjoy many different extra-curricular activities.

Medical and dental student often say that their motto is 'work hard and play harder!'. I would say it is the same for CHB pupils!

[ToadMum]

Children are very adaptable more so than adults.

I do believe it is all about the effort you and your DS put in .. as school are parents do need to work as a partnership.

and you have to be on top of it before they slip the net as they say as teachers don't have the time to spend with each and every child as they have 35 children in a class..and the state school system in the UK is that a child can leave school with no grades as in the USA they do make a child repeat the year and they can leave when they have graduated...

Which schools in your area have 35 pupils in each class?

[80's girl]

On a slightly different topic, however related to CHB. My understanding is that the only two modern foreign languages currently studied at CHB are French and German, with one of them taken in Year 7 and other in Year 8. My question is whether the children are allowed to pick the one they want to study in Year 7 or does the school randomly allocates one of them.

My DS at CHB did German in year 7, this was allocated purely down to which form they were in. Currently in year 8 he is studying both French and German.

[quasimodo]

Well majority of the children who do go to pre schools also have tutors ..sometimes even 2...so it is not all done to the schools...the parents also work hard with them too.

Hi Aquacarey

I totally agree with you that the success of many children is not entirely down to the school, and I have also heard about private tuition even for the childfen who are already in prep schools! But I guess that having the right environment does help: motivated teachers teaching smaller groups and most importantly covering 11+ material (which is not covered in State schools) . But that does not mean that everything is perfect in a prep school nor that all teachers are great and that parents should not keep an eye and offer the support needed to their children.

Maybe Quasimodo could share with us his experience?

Private tuition is the norm outside the prep school for the children members of my extended family attended and are due to attend.Some have more than one tutor.We have only had the one tutor who was a former deputy head at the school who we have used for years.The school and the odd parent have moaned and complained about tutoring in general.From the schools perspective it was the different methodologies being taught in some aspects of Maths.However such was the demand and in order to deal with the problem the school itself now offer "key Skills" as an addition outside of school hours on payment of extra fees.This in effect is teaching for the 11 plus.This has been happening for the last two years.The school offered this so parents wouldn't tutor outside the school.This hasn't stopped a lot of the tutoring and where its not outside tutors its parents doing it themselves.

It was our complaint certainly when our eldest was at the prep school that the school never did much for the exams at 11 (state or independent) and it was the efforts of parents and the tutors which helped to get the children over the line.This is completely different now and a lot of the work in school time is directed towards exams at 11 in the two years prior to sitting them.

From a parents perspective the children get taught by subject specialists in Maths,English and Verbal and Non Verbal reasoning in those crucial years.It also explains their success in the school league tables in the Sunday Times Independent primary schools tables over the years.Their percentage success in the creative writing part of english has not been high as they would only focus on these aspects for the children who were going to take the independent exams where this was required.Parents are asked where they want their children to go at parents evenings and the school gives its realistic opinions so that parents have realistic expectations.

In terms of teachers where we have been unhappy in terms of form teachers they partly come from our own high expectations and how they interact with our children.The children are progressing maybe not as much as we'd like.There haven't been such concerns at the business end of their schooling.Schooling has taken place in classes of 24 which are divided into two groups split in ability for the specialist 11 plus subjects.So no more than 12 which gives more individual attention.