Wanted to ask this for a long time

[mystery]

she probably gives them all the name of a good tutor.

[Looking for help]

I think we should spend more time worrying about our own children's progress, and pay less attention to what's happeneing around us. I spend my whole life saying, 'it's not what you achieve , it's how much effort you put in'. , I have children who are very gifted in say Maths, and others who are most definitely not. To me, the B grade in the weaker child is as valuable as the A in the stronger one, because the effort was the same.

I think that children on the whole leave primary school with level 4 in core subjects, and that is what is reuqired. They will probably go on to achieve B grades at GCSE, and so that's good too. For those who don't quite make it at either stage, there needs to be a support network, to help them to make what is expected. I'm not sure about the current initiative announced today about making those who fail to get C grade in Maths/English - by making them resit. Potentially then you could have 25 year olds sitting GCSEs for the tenth time waste of time, if you ask me. For those who have been unable to get a 'good' pass at GCSE, it's unlikely that resitting at the earliest opportunity will make a difference at this late stage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15200916" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[sgcmum]

Looking for help,
Read the article. Interesting. Not going to be popular I think. Maybe limit the number of resits allowed?
And what type of support network do you have in mind?

[push-pull-mum]

I think we should spend more time worrying about our own children's progress, and pay less attention to what's happeneing around us.

I agree. The government (and the Labour one before it) has been too concerned with comparing one child to another af is an 11 year old were something that could be reported to the weights and measures department.

Looking for help,
Read the article. Interesting. Not going to be popular I think. Maybe limit the number of resits allowed?
And what type of support network do you have in mind?

I think that schools should encourage very near misses to resit (and employers and training courses that take 16+ teens on should have to release them to get more help and sit the tests). However, a fair proportion of what is taught in Maths GCSE is of little or no use in later life. What is wrong with the current 'Skills for Life' qualifications in Maths, English and I.T.? I don't know much about them but they seem to be geared towards what people actually need to know in order to balance their budgets, carpet a room, work out whether your furniture will fit through your front door before you buy it ...etc.

[xyzzy]

I think that children on the whole leave primary school with level 4 in core subjects, and that is what is reuqired. They will probably go on to achieve B grades at GCSE,

Level 4 at KS2 SATS is intended as the objective for "most" children. There are non-selective (albeit stretching the definition of non-selective to breaking point) primaries that achieve 100% KS2 4+ in English and Maths, and a school that achieves less than about 70% will need to have a pretty good story to tell the inspector when Ofsted come a'calling. 50% KS2 4+ is the stuff of special measures.

Meanwhile, a comprehensive school that was achieving 75% 5 x C+ including English and Maths would be doing extremely well: looking at Birmingham and excluding the super-selectives, there's one comprehensive (again, stretching comprehensive to breaking point) achieving 80% on that measure, and a wide range of Ofsted outstanding places in the leafy suburbs achieving 70%. That's C+, note, not B+. If children "on the whole" "probably" go on to achieve B grades at GCSE, that implies that no-one is taking, or should take, foundation tier papers (as they are capped at C). As (in round numbers) the number of people getting a C is about equal to the sum of A*, A and B, if you reduced the measure to 5 x B+ including including English and Maths, a very good school indeed would probably manage about 40% on that measure.

Children who achieve a 5 at KS2 should be expected to get a B or better at GCSE, not 4.

[xyzzy]

What is wrong with the current 'Skills for Life' qualifications in Maths, English and I.T.? I don't know much about them but they seem to be geared towards what people actually need to know in order to balance their budgets, carpet a room, work out whether your furniture will fit through your front door before you buy it ...etc.

What is wrong is the claim that it's equivalent to an O Level.

[xyzzy]

Potentially then you could have 25 year olds sitting GCSEs for the tenth time waste of time, if you ask me.

I know someone who failed her GCSE Maths at 16, finally passed it at 20 and went to university with the A Levels she had obtained in humanities subjects in the meantime. Waste of time resitting?

I'd also be fascinated to know how many people making these sort of sweeping statements about how everyone should get grade X or there's no point in trying to get grade Y have any experience of their own children ending up on the wrong side of these lines. My observation is that the middle-classes tend to change their tune about lazy and feckless children upon whom education is wasted when it's their own child with a D in English.

[mike1880]

However, a fair proportion of what is taught in Maths GCSE is of little or no use in later life. What is wrong with the current 'Skills for Life' qualifications in Maths, English and I.T.? I don't know much about them but they seem to be geared towards what people actually need to know in order to balance their budgets, carpet a room, work out whether your furniture will fit through your front door before you buy it ...etc.

Yes, that's what our education system really needs: lower expectations.

Mike

[xyzzy]

However, a fair proportion of what is taught in Maths GCSE is of little or no use in later life. What is wrong with the current 'Skills for Life' qualifications in Maths, English and I.T.? I don't know much about them but they seem to be geared towards what people actually need to know in order to balance their budgets, carpet a room, work out whether your furniture will fit through your front door before you buy it ...etc.

Yes, that's what our education system really needs: lower expectations.

Mike

Quite. There appear to be a lot of people who fell asleep in 1965 and have only recently woken up, who believe that a modern economy with the standards of living and the levels of technology that we have still can find work for semi-skilled and skilled manual labourers. It's like people who claim that "too many" people are going to university and "what was wrong with it being 15%?" (although, in passing, I note that people who advance that argument always seek a return to the level of university take-up that saw them going to university, not the far smaller level of their parents' generation). They're assuming that all the white-collar jobs for people leaving school at 16 and 18 still exist, and draughtsmen and clerical staff are still in demand. They aren't: computers killed them. If we do not increase the levels of skill in our population, Britain will end up as a third world economy. Why do you think that every technology MSc and PhD programme in our leading universities is 50% or more Chinese, and a substantial portion more are Indian?

[push-pull-mum]

However, a fair proportion of what is taught in Maths GCSE is of little or no use in later life. What is wrong with the current 'Skills for Life' qualifications in Maths, English and I.T.? I don't know much about them but they seem to be geared towards what people actually need to know in order to balance their budgets, carpet a room, work out whether your furniture will fit through your front door before you buy it ...etc.

Yes, that's what our education system really needs: lower expectations.

Mike

I have three post graduate degrees (and A Grade 'O' level Maths) and stuggle to do all of those things.
Good education shouldn't be about high expectations or low expectations but realistic expectations and useful targets.

The majority of the population (including myself) need to be literate and numerate - a lot of the other stuff on the national curriculum is completely unnecessary until you start to specialise. On my children's curriculum there is little more than half the amount of time devoted to Maths and English that there was when I was at school because so much of their time is wasted on things which would be so much more easily covered by the simple principle of -

Teach them to read first - and then give them a book about it.