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End culture of 11-plus test coaching, grammars urged

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:00 pm
by sonasona
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24850139" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We all know something needs to be done about this..........'The Department for Education did not wish to comment on the report'.......Not surprised!

Re: End culture of 11-plus test coaching, grammars urged

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:14 pm
by mystery
Isn't the more obvious conclusion not a search for the holy grail of tutor-proof tests, but that the educational outcomes of less well off children in our state primaries needs to be enhanced so they stand as good a chance as passing as a wealthier state primary child or a private school child?

It looks like Sir Peter has fallen for the tutor-proof test spin. It sounds like an easier solution if one could find it.

In all the analysis that the Sutton Trust researchers have done in that report, have they looked to see if any of the tests the different grammars they have studied used were more "tutor-proof" than any other?

Re: End culture of 11-plus test coaching, grammars urged

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:20 pm
by Amber
mystery wrote:Isn't the more obvious conclusion not a search for the holy grail of tutor-proof tests, but that the educational outcomes of less well off children in our state primaries needs to be enhanced so they stand as good a chance as passing as a wealthier state primary child or a private school child?
Or better still, abolish selection.

And yes I would say that, wouldn't I? :)

Re: End culture of 11-plus test coaching, grammars urged

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:30 pm
by mystery
Well yes, and yes! If it is a problem that not many FSM school children get into grammars, then that's implying that there is something wrong with the rest of the secondary schools too .... so again another solution is possible.

But talking about ending a coaching culture and changing the 11plus exam is so much easier --- even though it's mostly hot air.

Re: End culture of 11-plus test coaching, grammars urged

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:48 pm
by Amber
It strikes me that an awful lot of money and effort is going into something (tutor-proof tests) which is doomed to fail in its objective. For me looking at how worthwhile the objective itself is would be a better starting point. It seems opinion is polarised now over it to the extent that no one actually looks at what segregation by ability, which would be considered abhorrent on human rights grounds in many places, is supposed to achieve; whether it achieves it and whether it is right in a modern country that we support it achieving it, if so it does. Even differentiating by ability within primary classes, which is now a given, is never challenged, although there is plenty of sound evidence with which to challenge it.

Debates around education in this country always centre on curriculum content, never on the principles underlying learning, child development, appropriateness of different teaching methods, pedagogy, didactics... it is always 'what shall we teach them?'; never how, or, why? If these questions were addressed more often, or even at all, it might come to pass that intelligent decisions about segregation would follow naturally. At one point segregating people of different races was considered a good idea in some cultures; and in our own culture locking away disabled people in asylums was also felt to benefit everyone. Perhaps one day we will look back and ask ourselves what made us think that children who had passed a blunt test of intelligence should be creamed off to be educated separately from everyone else.

Sorry, one topic woman that I am - but the whole tutor-proof thing hacks me off, as so many people are already trying their darndest to make sure it is tutor-proof for everyone except their own child. This leads me to the assumption that the profile of children entering grammar schools will not be fundamentally changed by any kind of tinkering which is done to the tests. Think we agree that far mystery.

Re: End culture of 11-plus test coaching, grammars urged

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 6:45 pm
by mystery
Yay! :D