The state of UK's education and why employers are weary
Discussion
The problem, IMO, isn't the fact that some people have failings.
The problem arises when people are proud to be seen as thick, and the intelligent kids/kids that try hard are picked on.
My sister has just started teaching maths to secondary school children (at a not very good school), and she admits that most of her time isn't teaching kids maths, but crowd control. The parents simply haven't instilled basic lessons such as respect and manners, which are among the most basic of life skills. You don't have to be academically gifted to succeed, but lowering the standard to accomodate the slowest learners benefits no-one. The bright children become bored and disruptive, and no-one excels.
As an aside, my OH has told me when we have kids she doesn't want them going to a private school as they would become 'snobby'
The problem arises when people are proud to be seen as thick, and the intelligent kids/kids that try hard are picked on.
My sister has just started teaching maths to secondary school children (at a not very good school), and she admits that most of her time isn't teaching kids maths, but crowd control. The parents simply haven't instilled basic lessons such as respect and manners, which are among the most basic of life skills. You don't have to be academically gifted to succeed, but lowering the standard to accomodate the slowest learners benefits no-one. The bright children become bored and disruptive, and no-one excels.
As an aside, my OH has told me when we have kids she doesn't want them going to a private school as they would become 'snobby'
bga said:
Iain328 said:
That is indeed happening - and so some kids are bailing out of private schools after GCSE's & heading to 6th form colleges to get around the problem which shouldn't exist in the first place - which is ridiculous.
That was happening throughout my time in secondary school - 15 years ago. We always had loads of kids from public school join us for 6th form.oh hang on...
bga said:
Iain328 said:
That is indeed happening - and so some kids are bailing out of private schools after GCSE's & heading to 6th form colleges to get around the problem which shouldn't exist in the first place - which is ridiculous.
That was happening throughout my time in secondary school - 15 years ago. We always had loads of kids from public school join us for 6th form.One thing that strikes me as odd in the Times article si the statement "Last year he interviewed 52 graduates — all educated in state schools."
Where they graduates from ex-Poly's? My oldest daughter went to Birmingham and she was the only state school educated student on the floor of her hall, amongst her fellow students and others that she met. My other daughter went to Nottingham and did encounter one or two other state school pupils but that's all.
Deva Link said:
bga said:
Iain328 said:
That is indeed happening - and so some kids are bailing out of private schools after GCSE's & heading to 6th form colleges to get around the problem which shouldn't exist in the first place - which is ridiculous.
That was happening throughout my time in secondary school - 15 years ago. We always had loads of kids from public school join us for 6th form.One thing that strikes me as odd in the Times article si the statement "Last year he interviewed 52 graduates — all educated in state schools."
Where they graduates from ex-Poly's? My oldest daughter went to Birmingham and she was the only state school educated student on the floor of her hall, amongst her fellow students and others that she met. My other daughter went to Nottingham and did encounter one or two other state school pupils but that's all.
bga said:
My dads g/f was teaching in state and public schools for donkeys years before becoming an Ofstead inspector. She reckons that a mediocre public school is just as bad as a mediocre state school. Unfortunately there are lots of parents who are paying over and above the usual tax burden for their children to get an education that is sub-standard compared to that of nearby state schools. She does go on to say that good public schools are a good deal better than anything that the state provides. Mentioning Steiner schools is always a good way to liven up a quiet evening.
The thing that often gets forgotten when considering the quality of a school's education is the parents. I went to a private school and I would say that the teaching and facilities were on par with a good state school, no better really. What made the school exceptional was that every single kid in my school had parents who understood the importance of a good education and cared enough to send their children there. The school offered a large percentage of assisted places so it didn't always come down to money, but certainly the parents all made sacrifices and put thought and effort into their kids' education - extra tuition for the entrance exams, choosing to separate them from their friends, etc. As a parent, anything you can do to minimise the chance your child will be held back by other kids, get into the wrong crowd etc is vitally important.Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
Oh dear...my daughter's education...don't get me started! Because she hadn't learned punctuation and how to set her work out properly by the time she'd got to secondary, they weren't interested. She's gone through years of handing work in that's been badly written, screwed up in her bag and is totally unreadable. YET, IT'S BEEN MARKED AS A GOOD PIECE OF WORK AND WE'VE ONLY JUST FOUND OUT THAT SHE'S BEEN STRUGGLING LIKE THIS! We thought these silly scraps of paper were her own musings and nothing to do with her schoolwork. She's never been the academic type and we know this, but when we went for parents evenings, we were presented by one small sheet of paper with a few numbers on it. It was explained that she was doing well because of all these numbers. The person who showed us this was the head of her tutor group who didn't actually teach her. 'Can we see some of her work?'...'Um...I'll have to email the teacher and see what we can do'. 'Can we talk to them?'...'Um...I'll email the teacher and you can make an appointment...but she's doing well...there's no need to worry'. We couldn't work it out because we KNEW she wouldn't have been able to cope with what they told us she had achieved...we are her parents! After lots of complaining that parents evenings aren't as they used to be when we were at school (your parents got to see every teacher and see your work), they have finally, this year, changed things. We saw all the teachers and saw my daughter's work. They know they have to sort themselves out. I hope it stays like this.
Thinking about it...when I was at school, we didn't have all these new vocational qualifications. If pupils weren't doing well, they were pushed to opt for a childcare qualification. It was a well known thing. A few of my friends went on to become nursery nurses and they worked their way up. Fair play to them. I have been wondering lately if schools started to fail because of these people who had been forced to do childcare because they were not academic to study for anything else. It's a weird theory but it would make perfect sense. So, alongside some really good teachers that had been driven to become teachers and were ultra intelligent and confident, there are these less intelligent and less motivated teachers that are weakening the system. I'm probably wrong, but it was just a thought.
Kids these days don't have to work hard at school. They can muck about and do what they want because a lot of teachers are weak and just let them get on with it. Some parents don't help by letting their kids out on to the streets without supervision from an early age and then wonder why they are so badly behaved and keep getting brought back by the police (at 6 years old)...yes I've seen them! Role models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
Thinking about it...when I was at school, we didn't have all these new vocational qualifications. If pupils weren't doing well, they were pushed to opt for a childcare qualification. It was a well known thing. A few of my friends went on to become nursery nurses and they worked their way up. Fair play to them. I have been wondering lately if schools started to fail because of these people who had been forced to do childcare because they were not academic to study for anything else. It's a weird theory but it would make perfect sense. So, alongside some really good teachers that had been driven to become teachers and were ultra intelligent and confident, there are these less intelligent and less motivated teachers that are weakening the system. I'm probably wrong, but it was just a thought.
Kids these days don't have to work hard at school. They can muck about and do what they want because a lot of teachers are weak and just let them get on with it. Some parents don't help by letting their kids out on to the streets without supervision from an early age and then wonder why they are so badly behaved and keep getting brought back by the police (at 6 years old)...yes I've seen them! Role models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
Edited by BearFacedLiar on Monday 22 February 23:59
After teaching in 25 schools after a load of years....I can tell you that....
Outcome based learning is the rotten core of this whole system. You focus on the outcome of results and pretty soon, it will be key points recalled, forgetting any understanding. You put the people who had "a bit of this" into the classroom as teachers and unless they take it upon themselves to improve their own understanding, they haven't got a clue either.
If that doesn't work, you have a rethink of the whole curriculum, which makes the whole thing more "relevant" and difficult to teach and difficult to understand.
Whilst we up the number of successful outcomes, we devalue the quality of understanding. A lot of the problem is the utter shocking quality of the staff.
Anyway, not to moan!
Outcome based learning is the rotten core of this whole system. You focus on the outcome of results and pretty soon, it will be key points recalled, forgetting any understanding. You put the people who had "a bit of this" into the classroom as teachers and unless they take it upon themselves to improve their own understanding, they haven't got a clue either.
If that doesn't work, you have a rethink of the whole curriculum, which makes the whole thing more "relevant" and difficult to teach and difficult to understand.
Whilst we up the number of successful outcomes, we devalue the quality of understanding. A lot of the problem is the utter shocking quality of the staff.
Anyway, not to moan!
BearFacedLiar said:
<SNIP>
Role models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
All so trueRole models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
rypt said:
BearFacedLiar said:
<SNIP>
Role models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
All so trueRole models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
bogwoppit said:
[
Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
Ofstead is fairly flawed but is really the only consistent measure that we have of evaluating a schools "value add" to a pupil. The impression I get is that you would struggle to find anyone in education who does not agree with you about vital the role of parents. I suppose the problem that schools have is that they do not have a consistent baseline for kids to start with and the family influence cannot really be counted on throughout the life of a pupil.Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
ShadownINja said:
This is impossible. Every year the exam results get better and better so I say you are making it up and the Times is lying. We all know the Times is a Tory paper.
With all seriousness, that article is 5 years late.
More like 15.With all seriousness, that article is 5 years late.
Edited by ShadownINja on Monday 22 February 15:03
Tangent Police said:
rypt said:
BearFacedLiar said:
<SNIP>
Role models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
All so trueRole models are lacking...it's all too easy to start a family, get a house off the council and apply for benefits. Who's paying for all this?? WE ARE! But who will pay for it all when we are gone and the younger generations of scroungers, who don't know how to exist without handouts, are left to fend for themselves? Who will pay taxes to support them? One day, it will all revert back to how it was years and years ago when people HAD TO WORK or they DIDN'T EAT! People talk about being on the 'bread line'....they have no idea whatsoever what that really means and how the term came about. They bloody well will do soon when they've bled this country dry of money!
Look at all the immigrants who are coming into this country to work...they WANT to work! People moan about them taking jobs, but THEY WANT TO WORK! Pretty soon, it will be these people who are supporting this country because we are breeding hoardes of lazy buggers who are too used to having it all handed to them on a plate.
bga said:
bogwoppit said:
[
Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
Ofstead is fairly flawed but is really the only consistent measure that we have of evaluating a schools "value add" to a pupil. The impression I get is that you would struggle to find anyone in education who does not agree with you about vital the role of parents. I suppose the problem that schools have is that they do not have a consistent baseline for kids to start with and the family influence cannot really be counted on throughout the life of a pupil.Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
t which represents nothing apart from a waste of time, money and ink. After my experience in 20 or so state schools, the ones where the quality of learning/teaching was the best was not reflected in Ofsted. Oddly enough the reverse was true.
I spent some time in a couple of 'outstanding' Plymouth Schools. All I can suggest is that the inspectors had been out smoking crack with the year 8's.
I've had ofsted in a few schools and the amount of preparation that goes into it is ridiculous. The most mental thing I've seen is getting a couple of field trips on the go to get rid of all the spackers, I've heard of kids being bribed WITH MONEY.
The only thing Ofsted Reports well is how good schools are at pulling the stops out. Here's my textbook lesson with interactive ICT and celebrating the holiness of the EU, as well as cross curricular links where children actively learn and teach each other, novel methods of assessment are employed whilst simultaneously facilitating group interaction, support and allowing every child to thrive, whilst simultaneously celebrating lesbian diversity through novel assessment methods.
It's a bag of s
t. There is only one way of finding out if your school is any good and it involves you getting off your arse and doing some research. Speaking to kids, parents, teachers, looking with your fricking eyes.
The first school I had a contract at was "Outstanding" closer to the truth would have been "A prison where everything is stifled and staff are bullied and isolated".
You couldn't make it up, I've seen coursework being WRITTEN by support staff so that these idle retards can "join the statistics". I've also seen kids at A' Levels get excluded from the school figures (if their mock results are s
t) by having to enter themselves. The amount of prep for Ofsted is equally misleading in my experience. Seriously, SENDING THE MONKEYS OUT ON A FIELD TRIP. When I was at a school in plimuff (which should for all intents and purposes be bulldozed into a hole, complete with staff and kids) HALF THE FRICKING KIDS WERE MISSING!!!!!!!
This is what happens when you place too much emphasis on outcome rather than process. It isn't rocket science and until we realise that understanding and knowledge are independent from A*s and the actual value of a school is more than a report conducted in the most ridiculous of circumstances.
Anyway...... if it gets really really really bad, you can always turn it into an academy
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Does not seem to help things when everyone claims to have Dyslexia these days.
I can't seem to let one day go without someone mentioning that they have Dyslexia.
Makes the very rare person who DOES actually have it look like a liar.
There was a girl in my postgraduate course who had dislexia. I don't doubt that she had some sort of handicap (female in a geeky environment .. just kidding) but she was given twice as long to do each examination and it did seem a tad unfair to everyone else. In fact, she only raised the issue after the exams had started. And that's the whole problem when you lower the bar for examinations or entry to higher education .. where does it end. Poor? State-school? Live in a cr8p postcode? - no problems - you just need 3As to get in to our finest university. Rather than providing promising hopefulls with grants, Labour seem intent on lowering the standards for everyone. Social-engineering twunts.I can't seem to let one day go without someone mentioning that they have Dyslexia.
Makes the very rare person who DOES actually have it look like a liar.
Edited by fido on Tuesday 23 February 10:15
Orb the Impaler said:
And the final proof: I was working for part of the medical school at Manchester Uni a few years ago. They were having to have their own entrance examination because kids were coming to them all with wedges of straight As and yet lacked fundemental knowledge of the subject and elementary spelling and math skills.
The University of York Physics and Electronics department has given the entire fresher intake the same maths exam every year for about 3 decades (I don't know if they still do it, but I imagine they may). The average score drops as the years progress. RDMcG said:
In business, it is just unacceptable at a senior level to be unable to communicate crisply and clearly. I have often received letters and emails that were bullet points,misspelled, or with appalling grammar or syntax.
I'd suggest bullet points can be the definition of "communicating crisply", and indeed make breaking said mail up to reply to in a relevant fashion particularly easy. But I've always used email as a 2 way conversation with a time lag than as a formal letter/document...Puggit said:
Standards are definitely slipping on PH, no one has commented on this:
I almost don't believe it TBH. What's the source of this stat?article said:
...of the 1.7m jobs created since 1997, 81% have gone to foreign workers
Tangent Police said:
Whilst we up the number of successful outcomes, we devalue the quality of understanding. A lot of the problem is the utter shocking quality of the staff.
That would be because, with each successive generation, the teachers are a product of the failing education system that came before. Left unchecked, it can only ever get worse.That article in the OP is really quite disturbing. I do, however, absolutely buy the central proposition.
I was lucky enough to have parents who were able to give me a very high-quality private education, from Nursery right through to A-level. I went to fee-paying schools locally till I was 13, went to one of the better-known (and better-regarded) public schools, and thence to Oxford. Clearly, my educational experience is hardly the norm for the UK, and I am profoundly conscious that my education was a remarkable privelege.
Right the way through this golden education (except University, probably - which was a litany of missed opportunities, and nobody's fault but mine) the emphasis was on learning in order to understand rather than learning in order to pass exams. We had plenty of exam practice - a set every term, pretty much - but the teaching was structured to help us understand the underlying concepts rather than rote-learn "perfect" answers. This was difficult, and probably far harder on everyone involved than the coaching-for-exams approach, but ultimately it worked.
An example: I spent my first year of sixth form entirely failing to "get" some basic concepts of A-level Chemistry. It was frustrating (and probably doubly so for my long-suffering teacher) but when it finally "clicked" at the start of the following year, the subjects in the syllabus fell like dominoes.
Many elements of this sort of education are applicable throughout life; the ability to communicate clearly, which I can't even remember beginning to learn, remains vital to me 12 years after I graduated. The ability to structure my thinking, grasp complex ideas and apply their principles to new situations is the very stuff of which my career has been made. I can't see a "result-driven" education offering this to those who are subjected to it.
I recently helped out with graduate recruitment at my current employer. I will not be doing it again; I found it depressing. If the worst of it had been error-laden CVs and so on, I wouldn't have minded so much - that can be fixed, with enough effort. The thing that really got to me was this: of the several dozen candidates I saw for initial interview, all of whom had good degrees (albeit mainly in vocational, "businessy" subjects), not one offered me an original or interesting discussion. Parrot-fashion repetition of business theory? Yes. A view that was recognisably their own? No. What is the point of University, if not to foster original thinking?
I was lucky enough to have parents who were able to give me a very high-quality private education, from Nursery right through to A-level. I went to fee-paying schools locally till I was 13, went to one of the better-known (and better-regarded) public schools, and thence to Oxford. Clearly, my educational experience is hardly the norm for the UK, and I am profoundly conscious that my education was a remarkable privelege.
Right the way through this golden education (except University, probably - which was a litany of missed opportunities, and nobody's fault but mine) the emphasis was on learning in order to understand rather than learning in order to pass exams. We had plenty of exam practice - a set every term, pretty much - but the teaching was structured to help us understand the underlying concepts rather than rote-learn "perfect" answers. This was difficult, and probably far harder on everyone involved than the coaching-for-exams approach, but ultimately it worked.
An example: I spent my first year of sixth form entirely failing to "get" some basic concepts of A-level Chemistry. It was frustrating (and probably doubly so for my long-suffering teacher) but when it finally "clicked" at the start of the following year, the subjects in the syllabus fell like dominoes.
Many elements of this sort of education are applicable throughout life; the ability to communicate clearly, which I can't even remember beginning to learn, remains vital to me 12 years after I graduated. The ability to structure my thinking, grasp complex ideas and apply their principles to new situations is the very stuff of which my career has been made. I can't see a "result-driven" education offering this to those who are subjected to it.
I recently helped out with graduate recruitment at my current employer. I will not be doing it again; I found it depressing. If the worst of it had been error-laden CVs and so on, I wouldn't have minded so much - that can be fixed, with enough effort. The thing that really got to me was this: of the several dozen candidates I saw for initial interview, all of whom had good degrees (albeit mainly in vocational, "businessy" subjects), not one offered me an original or interesting discussion. Parrot-fashion repetition of business theory? Yes. A view that was recognisably their own? No. What is the point of University, if not to foster original thinking?
Tangent Police said:
bga said:
bogwoppit said:
[
Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
Ofstead is fairly flawed but is really the only consistent measure that we have of evaluating a schools "value add" to a pupil. The impression I get is that you would struggle to find anyone in education who does not agree with you about vital the role of parents. I suppose the problem that schools have is that they do not have a consistent baseline for kids to start with and the family influence cannot really be counted on throughout the life of a pupil.Ofsted can't possibly take this into account when evaluating a school's performance. And I'm amazed at how few teachers, inspectors, politicians and parents understand its value. Or maybe they do but it's just not PC to talk about it.
t which represents nothing apart from a waste of time, money and ink. After my experience in 20 or so state schools, the ones where the quality of learning/teaching was the best was not reflected in Ofsted. Oddly enough the reverse was true.
I spent some time in a couple of 'outstanding' Plymouth Schools. All I can suggest is that the inspectors had been out smoking crack with the year 8's.
I've had ofsted in a few schools and the amount of preparation that goes into it is ridiculous. The most mental thing I've seen is getting a couple of field trips on the go to get rid of all the spackers, I've heard of kids being bribed WITH MONEY.
The only thing Ofsted Reports well is how good schools are at pulling the stops out. Here's my textbook lesson with interactive ICT and celebrating the holiness of the EU, as well as cross curricular links where children actively learn and teach each other, novel methods of assessment are employed whilst simultaneously facilitating group interaction, support and allowing every child to thrive, whilst simultaneously celebrating lesbian diversity through novel assessment methods.
It's a bag of s
t. There is only one way of finding out if your school is any good and it involves you getting off your arse and doing some research. Speaking to kids, parents, teachers, looking with your fricking eyes.
The first school I had a contract at was "Outstanding" closer to the truth would have been "A prison where everything is stifled and staff are bullied and isolated".
You couldn't make it up, I've seen coursework being WRITTEN by support staff so that these idle retards can "join the statistics". I've also seen kids at A' Levels get excluded from the school figures (if their mock results are s
t) by having to enter themselves. The amount of prep for Ofsted is equally misleading in my experience. Seriously, SENDING THE MONKEYS OUT ON A FIELD TRIP. When I was at a school in plimuff (which should for all intents and purposes be bulldozed into a hole, complete with staff and kids) HALF THE FRICKING KIDS WERE MISSING!!!!!!!
This is what happens when you place too much emphasis on outcome rather than process. It isn't rocket science and until we realise that understanding and knowledge are independent from A*s and the actual value of a school is more than a report conducted in the most ridiculous of circumstances.
Anyway...... if it gets really really really bad, you can always turn it into an academy
The reality is that nearly all of those in that group that I have encountered couldn't butter toast.
I heard something on the radio the other week warning that in 10 years (or maybe 20), there will be no home-grown people qualified in traditional trades, builders, plumbers, electricians, mechanics etc. and these will need to be sourced from outside the UK.
Maybe one solution is work-based training. But this still relies on candidates having the right work ethic.
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