Spare a word or two

ToadMum · Post by **ToadMum** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 10:10 am

silverysea wrote:I wondered about that too Toadmum. If they knew both parents have a PhD what do they do? Send them to the fields? Or on an extra (expensive) trip?

I don't remember divulging this info to school, do they ask the DCs? Hmmm...

Come to think of it, DD and DS1's school asks about occupation but as it is in the same section as 'contact numbers' it didn't strike me as odd when I was filling it in.

Definitely no question about level of education that I can remember!

Similar problem with what to put, though - de facto I am currently a voluntary worker with the local BookStart scheme, but by profession and training am something completely different.

2Girlsmum · Post by **2Girlsmum** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:06 am

ToadMum wrote:I can see that collecting information on residence / parental educational attainment might be desirable to collect in the same way as information about ethnic origin, but do they really include this when deciding which sets your child should be placed in??? Which way does it work - children of double-MBA households up a set, or down?

A school friend of DH had a father who was a bricklayer from Ireland and his mum a housewife. He went to Imperial, secured a 1st and went to Cambridge in 1984, where he worked with Stephen Hawking. ....opportunities, support and expectations aren't always there ....isn't that the whole point of Grammar School?!

HenryVIII · Post by **HenryVIII** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:09 pm

Regarding the level of education/occupation of DCs parents mentioned... I was chatting about this to a friend and she thought that this data was collated by secondary schools and used to help to predict educational outcomes for pupils in tandem with SATs/CATs. I tried to corroborate this - looking at the Fishcer Family Trust website http://www.fft.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; but couldn't find any information about it. I can see that Herts is a member of FFT and all the schools seem to have a log in though... My DS's secondary school do not ask for this info.

But I think that it is feasible that this info is collated (it would have to comply with Data Protection rules). I can imagine that the GSs may find it gives more nuanced data to interpet their value-added scores beyond the fact that most bright children start and leave school bright. Maybe it provides information about social mobility, however that is defined, tenuous, but who knows? Or maybe it's a legacy of when you had to apply to the GSs with a reference from the headteacher of primary and a letter from the parent with details of their occupation - not that long ago!

WP · Post by WP » Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:26 pm

Mgnmum wrote:my dd is at wgsg.
maybe we had the advantage that my dd was at a 3 class entry junior school so was setted for maths from year 3 and reading and writing in year 6 so those more able were pushed. Those who were deemed gifted and talented ( not my dd) were also given some additional work. My dd levels at secondary school will be set by her first 1/2 term of school work, CATS tests they have done at secondary school and a complicated formula to do with where we live, what mine and my husbands level of education/ jobs are and her sats results. so they play a small role.

It would be unusual to use address and parental education and employment in that way. Where did you get that?

K1w1mum · Post by **K1w1mum** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:46 pm

WP wrote: It would be unusual to use address and parental education and employment in that way. Where did you get that?

WGSG parents had the school's grade prediction method explained during parent information evenings. Among other data sources, the school uses Fischer Family Trust Data to help predict the future levels of the girls.

KS10 · Post by **KS10** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:59 pm

DS did the Yellis test (?) a few weeks ago and said that the question of occupations came up at the same time. Not sure if it was a separate questionnaire or part of the test. I will check with him.

Mgnmum · Post by **Mgnmum** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 5:45 pm

they use something called the Fisher Family Trust tables. along with any other data they have

sylm_2000 · Post by **sylm_2000** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 8:53 pm

If academic success was the only measure of success then we wouldn't have one of the most ground breaking CEO"s of our time (Microsoft, Apple, FaceBook, Paypal) drop out from the elitist league collages in the world.

In my personal experience people who have achieved success are normally not the ones who scored the highest mark in academic assessments.

I wish you all the best!

Mgnmum · Post by **Mgnmum** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:09 pm

This is a very interesting article about the role that families play in a child's achievement
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/ ... d_home.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

LeprechaunQueen · Post by **LeprechaunQueen** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:55 pm

KS10 wrote:DS did the Yellis test (?) a few weeks ago and said that the question of occupations came up at the same time. Not sure if it was a separate questionnaire or part of the test. I will check with him.

CEM state on their site that a section of Yellis is aimed at evaluating "Home background characteristics" including:
Frequency of borrowing books from the school library/from another library
Frequency of looking things up in a dictionary or encyclopaedia
Frequency of looking things up on the internet
Frequency of being asked at home what you've learnt at school

Number of books at home
Time spent reading for pleasure
Frequency of visits to museums and art galleries
Parents' occupations

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