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Post by captainconfident on Aug 3, 2024 11:54:54 GMT
I went to a comprehensive, and it was a really good school. I think learning not to get beaten up by the more psychopathic thickos was an important life lesson. My school was streamed, I'm not sure if that was the norm. I'm also not sure what quality of education the streams 2 and 3 got were. But just writing the end of that last sentence gives me great pleasure as I can imagine excellent English teacher Mr Parry shaking his head sadly at me. My brother went to a non streamed Comprehensive he always said 1/2 of every lesson was getting the non engaged kids just to sit down and be quiet in his 3rd year the school introduced a form of streaming where all the non engaged kids were in one class and the other 3 classes were able to work, this still meant teachers ( and in those days teachers taught classes of 30+ with no teaching assistant ) spent a disproportionate amount of time with the less able kids. My parents were both teachers and took action when I was destined by catchment area to go to the local comp. , as it had a bad reputation. They got me sent to the streamed one instead. Later my poor mum went as supply teacher to the former one, and I remember finding her crying on several evenings. She said exactly the same thing, as the classes were mixed ability they went at the speed of the slowest, who were disruptive for all the others. I think it was a Labour government 'equality' principle, that all children should have equal educational opportunity. Great in principle but a total disaster in practice.
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 3, 2024 12:11:47 GMT
My brother went to a non streamed Comprehensive he always said 1/2 of every lesson was getting the non engaged kids just to sit down and be quiet in his 3rd year the school introduced a form of streaming where all the non engaged kids were in one class and the other 3 classes were able to work, this still meant teachers ( and in those days teachers taught classes of 30+ with no teaching assistant ) spent a disproportionate amount of time with the less able kids. My parents were both teachers and took action when I was destined by catchment area to go to the local comp. , as it had a bad reputation. They got me sent to the streamed one instead. Later my poor mum went as supply teacher to the former one, and I remember finding her crying on several evenings. She said exactly the same thing, as the classes were mixed ability they went at the speed of the slowest, who were disruptive for all the others. I think it was a Labour government 'equality' principle, that all children should have equal educational opportunity. Great in principle but a total disaster in practice. If only we could give double upticks...! Went at the speed of the slowest. This, to me, is the compelling argument for streaming... and by logical extension, grammar schools. Peeling off the brightest kids, then the next brightest and so on, means those towards the bottom get a better education more focussed to their needs too. Everybody wins. It also means those at the top can receive the proper education they need to go on to become our future doctors, scientists and engineers, not held back by the misbehaving bottom stream. Lumping everybody together is a total disaster in practice, I agree entirely.
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Post by crabbyoldgit on Aug 3, 2024 12:25:56 GMT
Captain confident, Mr Parry , english teacher, Portland Royal Manor sec mod perhaps. Do we know each other?
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Post by captainconfident on Aug 3, 2024 12:52:27 GMT
Captain confident, Mr Parry , english teacher, Portland Royal Manor sec mod perhaps. Do we know each other? Fullbrook Comprehensive, West Byfleet 1978-80. He may have moved about though. His distinguishing feature was that he would not tolerate the use of the words 'got' and 'get'. "There are plenty of better words you can choose".
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 3, 2024 13:00:36 GMT
My bright daughter was forced by catchment into the nearest comprehensive, with its appalling record. The worst performing school in our large town. We appealed to get her into a better school, but failed the appeal/interview process.
Her first year was pretty dire. She described the typical lesson as the teacher wasting the first 50% of the lesson trying to persuade the boys to stop jumping around and running across the tops of the desks! This was so utterly different to my grammar school, where we had to stand up when the teacher entered the room and could sit down only once they'd invited us to. Real discipline, and you'd better comply or you'd potentially be sent to the headmaster for detention, or the cane. Although, in practice, he was a very kind man and his cane/slipper was administered so rarely (I didn't hear of a single case in all my 7 years there), the mere threat was enough, plus nobody wants detention.
Teachers at this appalling school didn't stay long and you can't blame them. We appealed in her second year, on the grounds she was keen to study the sciences and this school only offered one science, and that she'd had no fewer than 3 maths teachers in one term, and to our great surprise and immense relief, our appeal succeeded and she was granted a place at the best school in the town.
At this good school (the town's ex-grammar, with a remainder pool of decent teachers), she absolutely thrived and was photographed in the local paper in her final year as the highest A level achiever in the whole school! She is now a university lecturer in a STEM subject, researching one of the causes of blindness, amongst other papers she's published. I dread to think what she'd be doing now had we failed that second appeal.
We were lucky, very lucky, but something in our society has failed terribly to allow these circumstances to have arisen at all. We are failing so many children, it's disgraceful.
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 3, 2024 13:21:02 GMT
That won't mean anything to someone with your background What's my "background", and why wouldn't it? You've previously mentioned your mother was a highly paid senior manager and, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure you've mentioned your private education at a boarding school for a period? That lifestyle doesn't normally gel with a family living hand-to-mouth, buying everything on the never-never from glossy catalogues. It was presumptuous of me and I apologise.
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keitha
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2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Aug 3, 2024 13:22:39 GMT
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Aug 3, 2024 13:27:22 GMT
Whatever happened to the good old days when if you misbehaved the wooden blackboard duster was targeted at you.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Aug 3, 2024 13:33:29 GMT
Whatever happened to the good old days when if you misbehaved the wooden blackboard duster was targeted at you. Not allowed along with many other things, I was recently told by a friend that his grandson was in trouble at school, but didn't get a detention as his parents had refused to allow it, as it would inconvenience them. I don't remember punishments being optional, and I remember collective punishments too, ie the whole class being pumished as the teacher was unable to identify the culprit and they didn't own up.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 3, 2024 13:44:49 GMT
My brother went to a non streamed Comprehensive he always said 1/2 of every lesson was getting the non engaged kids just to sit down and be quiet in his 3rd year the school introduced a form of streaming where all the non engaged kids were in one class and the other 3 classes were able to work, this still meant teachers ( and in those days teachers taught classes of 30+ with no teaching assistant ) spent a disproportionate amount of time with the less able kids. My parents were both teachers and took action when I was destined by catchment area to go to the local comp. , as it had a bad reputation. They got me sent to the streamed one instead. Later my poor mum went as supply teacher to the former one, and I remember finding her crying on several evenings. She said exactly the same thing, as the classes were mixed ability they went at the speed of the slowest, who were disruptive for all the others. I think it was a Labour government 'equality' principle, that all children should have equal educational opportunity. Great in principle but a total disaster in practice. But of course that is NOT what "equal opportunity" is actually meant to mean. Receiving THE SAME is NOT being given "equal opportunity".
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Aug 3, 2024 15:53:38 GMT
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Post by captainconfident on Aug 3, 2024 16:20:03 GMT
I'm not sure about the history of mixed ability education. I remember that Fullbrook was in conflict with the local education authority over streaming. Mixed ability must have been a phenomenon of the Callaghan government period but must surely have been scrapped by Thatcher. Anyone know if it carried on after? To use the words 'mixed ability' has almost become an invitation to people to take sides, often with the emotions flying, the definitions widely different, and the evidence selective. This paper tries to minimise those risks: it does not take sides; it records what HM Inspectors found in visits between 1970 and 1977 and it concentrates on a single definition of mixed ability organisation, namely one in which, at least up to the end of the third year of the normal secondary course, the curriculum was taught wholly or mainly (ie with not more than two subjects excluded) in classes in which the span of ability ranged from significantly below to significantly above the average.
It is true that, despite the good work seen, HM Inspectors' main impression was that schools had often underestimated the complexity and difficulty of what they were taking on. It is true, too, that HM Inspectors found that the more able pupils were the most likely to be put at a disadvantage in terms of academic learning. The paper is therefore, in parts, necessarily critical although its main theme remains constructive. Some schools have adopted mixed ability organisation with broad success
education-uk.org/documents/hmi-discussion/mixed-ability.html |
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 3, 2024 17:14:44 GMT
I'm not sure about the history of mixed ability education. I remember that Fullbrook was in conflict with the local education authority over streaming. Mixed ability must have been a phenomenon of the Callaghan government period but must surely have been scrapped by Thatcher. Anyone know if it carried on after? To use the words 'mixed ability' has almost become an invitation to people to take sides, often with the emotions flying, the definitions widely different, and the evidence selective. This paper tries to minimise those risks: it does not take sides; it records what HM Inspectors found in visits between 1970 and 1977 and it concentrates on a single definition of mixed ability organisation, namely one in which, at least up to the end of the third year of the normal secondary course, the curriculum was taught wholly or mainly (ie with not more than two subjects excluded) in classes in which the span of ability ranged from significantly below to significantly above the average.
It is true that, despite the good work seen, HM Inspectors' main impression was that schools had often underestimated the complexity and difficulty of what they were taking on. It is true, too, that HM Inspectors found that the more able pupils were the most likely to be put at a disadvantage in terms of academic learning. The paper is therefore, in parts, necessarily critical although its main theme remains constructive. Some schools have adopted mixed ability organisation with broad success
education-uk.org/documents/hmi-discussion/mixed-ability.htmlI am not surprised. The government message at the time was very mixed. Policy even came down to arguing whether to "request" or "require" LAs to act. This article seems quite authoritative and worth a read from the 'Wilson' section onwards: education-uk.org/articles/31labourgrammar.html
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Post by captainconfident on Aug 3, 2024 18:10:00 GMT
I see ‘selection’ being here to refer to schools selecting their pupils. What I don’t understand is how these governments got themselves a comprehensive school system, where the school had to take all within catchment nonselectively, and these schools were either streamed or mixed, or something in between (English and maths in earlier example). And for the parents, on the surface no choice between the school types, just the nearest. Messy.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Aug 3, 2024 19:21:59 GMT
I see ‘selection’ being here to refer to schools selecting their pupils. What I don’t understand is how these governments got themselves a comprehensive school system, where the school had to take all within catchment nonselectively, and these schools were either streamed or mixed, or something in between (English and maths in earlier example). And for the parents, on the surface no choice between the school types, just the nearest. Messy. and even with that system the rich win, how they are much more able to buy or rent properties within the catchment of "better" schools
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