Schools

Right, so I've been a huge net contributor to society these last 10 years, as I pay lots of tax, and I've used very little that the state provides. But now the time comes for me to get something back, as my first daughter will start school next year. As a citizen of this great country I have high expectations of the infrastructure I have helped to build, and I expect my daughter to be able to attend a good school, where she will receive all the attention she deserves, will be taught to read, write and do maths, and to think for herself effectively.

However, I am sorry to report that despite living in a town with apparently good schools, I am very dissappointed at what I have found, and I am frankly rather angry.

This morning I visited the school which has been allocated to my daughter. It is an almost brand new establishment, and first impressions were good. The buildings were of a high standard, and all the facilities appeared to be excellent. The head teacher seemed to be a nice chap.

However, upon closer inspection things didn't seem to be quite so rosey. In the reception year, for children aged 4, there were 60 children. I simply couldn't belileve the chaos that I saw in that double classroom. There were kids everywhere, all running around fighting, chatting in the corner, making a mess and generally being disruptive, loud and obnoxious. These 60 kids are split into two classes of 30, each one with one teacher and one assitant. However, until you have seen what 30 4-year-olds look like, you would never appreciate how this simply doesn't work. I want to know who in God's name thought that classes of 30 children was acceptable. Couple that with the modern way of teaching, in which children are allowed to act pretty much as they please, and you have got a recipe for disaster.

We went into the year 2 class, which is for 5 year olds, and were treated to a heart-breakingly pathetic teaching display. The 30 kids were all sitting on different tables, and the teacher spent no less than 10 minutes marshalling them into a circle in the middle of the room. In the middle of the circle she placed two hoops, and put two toy hedgehogs in each one. She then proceeded to ask the children to count how many hedgehogs were in one of the circles. Once she had the answer she drew it on the white board. Then she asked if anyone know the "plus" sign. Then the number of hedgehogs in the second circle. Then she asked what 2 plus 2 was. This all took about 5 minutes, and once it was over, the class ended and all the children piled out for break.

I mean for Christ's sake, this teacher took 15 minutes to do 2 plus 2 equals 4. My daughter is three and she knew all the answers, and gave them to me as we watched in a kind of "ner, thats obviuous" kind of way. It doesn't fill one with great optimism. I want the best for my kids, like most parents I guess, and I've always tried to give that to them. But its so bitterly depressing that the moment you have to rely on the state, everything is just going to get shit. I just think that if my daughter went to that school, she wouldn't learn anything. She would just sit about, probably ignoring everyone, and never get anywhere.

It made me think that there is some kind of government conspiracy to keep the middle classes down, and to stop them getting too clever.

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We need to exorcise the demon from your Kwaka!

Southern Death Racer
By Appointment to HRH The Duke of Trog

What did you expect them to teach 4 year olds, quantum physics?

Well, when I in primary school, we had 1 teacher to 30 kids, and no teaching assistant, so I would say that 2 people to 30 kids is a vast improvement, myself.

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Remember, when life hands you lemons, ask for tequila and salt, and call me over!

Rev Fred wrote

These 60 kids are split into two classes of 30, each one with one teacher and one assitant. However, until you have seen what 30 4-year-olds look like, you would never appreciate how this simply doesn't work. I want to know who in God's name thought that classes of 30 children was acceptable.

The current Labour gumment, actually.

They increased funding to reduce the maximum number per class, under a certain age, to 30.


news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1000278.stm

The promise to cut class sizes for five, six and seven year olds was one of Labour's key pledges in the run up to the general election.

Following its victory, the party promised no infant class would have more than 30 pupils by 2002, later revised to September 2001.

Giving details of the official statistics, the Education Secretary, David Blunkett, said: "This is excellent news for children and shows not only that this government is delivering on a key election pledge, but that we are doing so early.

"We have achieved this by making available £620m for extra teachers and classrooms - enough for 6,000 extra teachers and more than 2,000 extra classrooms."

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Training info is (C) Malcolm Palmer. He asserts his right to be identified as author under the Copyright Design Patents Act 1988 & may be quoted only as part of a post in the Visordown bb by another board member. Author should be contacted for written permission before any other use, storage, transmission or recording, by any means.

Read my mutterings:

http://the-ride-info.blogspot.com/

30+ per class was always the norm for me right through school up to 2001 when i went to 6th form and they were obviously smaller.

stop being a tight cunt and pay for a private ed ffs.

Mad Liz wrote

Well, when I in primary school, we had 1 teacher to 30 kids, and no teaching assistant, so I would say that 2 people to 30 kids is a vast improvement, myself.

Same here. In theory, yes. But generally, were kids better behaved/more respectful/fearful of the teacher in class 25/30 yrs ago than now, thus only needing 1 person in the class to control 30 kids? Bearing in mind the high proportion of 'dont you tell my kid what to do' chav scum parent mentality nowadays, its not necessarily an improvement in real terms.

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PIG.

Try looking at other schools. The classes might be smaller and you're not truly angry until you've seen a better school and then try to get the kid into it. If you live in the catchment area for a good school, you'll get asked if the parents can "rent with you for a while" What this means is they can get proof of address at a different house and then apply because it's in the catchment area.

You gotta factor in too that the schools are accommodating for all the shite parents who never read with their kids/teach them anything at home, those kids have to play catchup to the kids who have parents that care.

Best you start saving for Private schools.

Rev Fred wrote

I mean for Christ's sake, this teacher took 15 minutes to do 2 plus 2 equals 4. My daughter is three and she knew all the answers, and gave them to me as we watched in a kind of "ner, thats obviuous" kind of way. It doesn't fill one with great optimism.

What should happen is that the kids are 'sorted' in to the areas in which they need help, whether at one end of the spectrum special needs provision, or at the other end it's AGT, Able, Gifted, and Talented.

Within the teaching there should be differences in the way the children are given work, and it could be that after the session you saw the more able kids were given more challenging follow-up work building on the initial input.

eg
www.clc-leicester.org.uk/tmp/gt/website/Guidance%20Primary/Exemplar%20policy%202003.doc

Google the school (and the county/LEA) you looked at, and search for their AGT policy.

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Training info is (C) Malcolm Palmer. He asserts his right to be identified as author under the Copyright Design Patents Act 1988 & may be quoted only as part of a post in the Visordown bb by another board member. Author should be contacted for written permission before any other use, storage, transmission or recording, by any means.

Read my mutterings:

http://the-ride-info.blogspot.com/

If you are a good parent I reckon you'll be teaching your kids more up untill they are 8 or 9 anyway. Reading, and general knowledge, math etc.

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'If you can't be a good example....be a terrible warning' - Shane Salt

You can run.....but you'll only die tired.

Not all schools are the same and, IME, the standard of individual teachers varies enormously. The latter is a particular problem in junior schools where a child generally stays with one teacher all the time, rather than having different teachers for different subjects.

My only suggestion is to look at a few local schools and pick the one you think will be best for your child. Remember that there is more to school than just the academic side, albeit that the academic side is extremely important.

I've had many issues with the schools my children have attended over the last 13 years, but to be fair anything I've considered serious enough to raise with the schools has always been addressed.

We considered private schools but one reason we didn't go for it (apart from the obvious expense, travel time and so on) was that we wanted our children to mix with people from a reasonably wide social spectrum - something that they definitely wouldn't have got at a fee-paying school.

Horse wrote

What should happen is that the kids are 'sorted' in to the areas in which they need help, whether at one end of the spectrum special needs provision, or at the other end it's AGT, Able, Gifted, and Talented.

It should. But even if it does, the less able are usually given less work which puts them further behind

As said, parents need to take the responsibility early on, otherwise it all goes to pot

Thank you Horse.

I am totally naive about all this, having never really bothered to give any of it any thought before. All these stories about schools and class sizes just passed me by before, because I never had any reason to be interested in them.

OK, so Labour deliver on an election plege to make class sizes 30 or less. What I think is that 30 is still far too many. 30 with old fashoined teaching styles is fine, but 30 with liberal hands-off teaching won't work.

In terms of what I want 5 year olds to be learning, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect them to be beyond 2 plus 2 equals 4. I also don't think it is unreasonable to expect teachers to be able to teach one sum in less than 15 minutes.

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We need to exorcise the demon from your Kwaka!

Southern Death Racer
By Appointment to HRH The Duke of Trog

As long as girls are schooled in the art of cooking and cleaning and seeing to their menfolk's needs,that's all that's really necessary. Helps them find their proper place in society. You need to be more concerned about boys education.

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Suspension settings

Pierlucio Tinazzi,a real biker.

The school I visited today was the third I have seen.

The first made me even angrier. It is the closest to our front door, and one we were really interested in, as it has a very good OFSTED report, and a good local reputation. It was also very impressive when we visited, and I liked it alot. However, I was hopping mad after I found out about the allocation system.

You see, despite the fact that this school is almost totally funded by the taxpayer, it is a faith aided school, and so it can choose its pupils based on the religion of their parents. This school has an application proceedure where applicants are rated with a score of 1 down to 9. As we are atheists, we were 9, and were told we probably wouldn't get our child in. It was awful, scores 1 to 5 were given to people who can prove they attended certain local churches, or churches of the same type elsewhere, regularly. The next couple of scores were for siblings of current pupils, or those who attend churches or whatever of other religions, either locally or elsewhere.

At the open day the head teacher gave a speech. She told us all how well the school does, and all the extra and brilliant things it offers. She then read out the school's mission statement. I forget the actual words, but it was a short paragraph along the lines of: we aim to work together . . . blah blah in a caring environment . . . blah blah strive to achieve the best we can." It sounded very encouraging until she came to the end part, where she paused and looked up and said: " . . . and all within the Love of Christ".

With my rather harsh views on religion I just looked at her and thought. "Are you doolally?

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We need to exorcise the demon from your Kwaka!

Southern Death Racer
By Appointment to HRH The Duke of Trog

Horse wrote

Google the school (and the county/LEA) you looked at, and search for their AGT policy.

One of the problems with this school is that it is brand new, and there is almost nothing on line about it. There are no OFSTED reports, and the website has nothing on it at all.

I can talk to the school directly of course, but it would be nice to be able to get a third party objective view.

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We need to exorcise the demon from your Kwaka!

Southern Death Racer
By Appointment to HRH The Duke of Trog

Rev Fred wrote

With my rather harsh views on religion I just looked at her and thought. "Are you doolally?

Seems to me you need to swallow your views on religion for the sake of your daughter. Most of the Roman Catholic schools over here are far an away better performers than the more secular schools.

Maybe you need to ask yourself whether the anti god opinions you hold dear are more important than the little girl's future. She can make her own mind up about these matters in her own time.

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Suspension settings

Pierlucio Tinazzi,a real biker.

choc-ice wrote

It should. But even if it does, the less able are usually given less work which puts them further behind

What do you base that statement on?

FWIW, Filly is a special needs co-ordinator in one of the first primary schools in the UK to achieve a national AGT award, so I have some idea of what goes on.

Edit: 'can' go on.

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Training info is (C) Malcolm Palmer. He asserts his right to be identified as author under the Copyright Design Patents Act 1988 & may be quoted only as part of a post in the Visordown bb by another board member. Author should be contacted for written permission before any other use, storage, transmission or recording, by any means.

Read my mutterings:

http://the-ride-info.blogspot.com/

Skub wrote

Seems to me you need to swallow your views on religion for the sake of your daughter. Most of the Roman Catholic schools over here are far an away better performers than the more secular schools.

Maybe you need to ask yourself whether the anti god opinions you hold dear are more important than the little girl's future. She can make her own mind up about these matters in her own time.

+1

I put my atheism carefully to one side. I made my mind up at age 7, and I'm quite happy for sprog to do the same, if he wants to.

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Training info is (C) Malcolm Palmer. He asserts his right to be identified as author under the Copyright Design Patents Act 1988 & may be quoted only as part of a post in the Visordown bb by another board member. Author should be contacted for written permission before any other use, storage, transmission or recording, by any means.

Read my mutterings:

http://the-ride-info.blogspot.com/

I blame the parents.

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VD Personal Teenage Motivator
Sleepy time, and I lie, with my love by my side, and she's breathing low.