I’ve not heard of that exact phrase. I just don’t think it is the point of education. I think that’s far too cynical. It completely ignores the value of education in and of itself, or that it broadens the mind, or opens doors. It reduces it to something that’s ‘done’ to us as passive victims.
Re-opening Schools?
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I’m not focusing on this one teacher. It was one point in a list of problems I pointed out.
What is interesting is that you and others have made it the focus. Why is that?
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
This bit interests me. You use the word 'consistently'. So all teachers are using a drop down box then? That would be the standardisation of the report form. Done by the SLT. Not the individual teacher. So your ranting against individual teachers for this bit, which seems to have seriously pissed you off, is unjust.
You also say this used to be called 'Effort'. Something that was most commonly, if not always, scored 1-5 or A-E. Did 1-5 or A-E give you more meaning? I can't see how it would.
There are definitely problems with the ways teachers ARE TOLD they have to communicate with parents and carers. In our school we are told the first line of a report must be positive. It's not something I'm in whole-hearted agreement with. But, as somebody else said, can you imagine the backlash if teachers started writing 'lazy' 'feckless' etc on reports? And it was ever thus. Just with different language. My reports used to say 'rests on his laurels'. I remember having to look laurels up when I was 13. I thought it might be a polite word for arse.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
No, it's not the point of education, certainly as far as teachers go, but it's another obstacle to negotiate while teaching and learning is taking place.
Since forever the people at the top insist kids get enough education to work for them, but not so much they start questioning why and how they work for them. My primary school in the late 19th century was opposed by local Conservatives and landowners etc on the grounds that educating the lower orders gives them ideas above their station. This attitude persists in the way governments insist education is "done".
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Service. Jesus christ. You moan about managerialism and corporatisation in schools then you talk in terms of customer service, of education as a product being delivered, which is exactly the mindset behind the increasing managerialism and corporatisation in schools.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
The pupil and parent as customer.
Thing is, I'd bet a lot of money Edie didn't realise what she was writing there (and may not see anything wrong with writing it). Which shows just how insidious this stuff is.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
But also, why has nobody else fixed my kid for me?
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
wtfftw
melting like a toastie
It's why his photos are in black and white.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Nah, he was one of the town elders opposed to the opening of my primary school
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
To be fair Edie - that doesn't sound right. We wouldn't have gotten away with that in my school. I was extremely busy during lockdown with online teaching (whilst simultaneously researching and learning how to teach online effectively). During that time, however, on my daily walk I met a colleague from a different school. She is actually a teacher that I mentored through her training year. She told me that she had nothing to do - they'd sent the kids home with textbooks and put some work online for them. That was it. Absolutely NOT the case in my school. In fact, quite a few of my students really flourished under those circumstances (the more gifted students and the more introverted students) and are doing really really well now. I'm very proud of them.
So I can understand your frustration. In my school we send regular questionnaires out to parents seeking their opinions on such things and that is fed back to staff and acted upon (but we do have incredibly high standards). I think you should feedback to the school if you feel that strongly about it. I don't know what the set up is in your son's school. It may well be that that particular teacher's circumstances were such that she couldn't do more - but in that case the school should have found a solution and stepped up to resolve it.
Thank god a rational response (from a teacher unsurprisingly). Oh, and much respect for the hard work and commitment put in by yourself, and the majority of your colleagues. I generally have the highest respect for good teachers.
Don’t be a dick. Can tell you don’t have kids or teach. They’re not all perfect it’ll surprise you to hear, maybe you’ve never met a teenager before
But on a serious note, again, trying to locate the problem with my son. But again, I remind you, that the issue I’m taking against is a system that predicts a state school lad below his actual grades then tells me they’re aspirational. And the poor leadership that also allows some teachers and some schools to fall way behind the game with covid. You wanna know how many lessons my kids school has delivered online since March? Zero. In total.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Don’t be a dick. Can tell you don’t have kids or teach. They’re not all perfect it’ll surprise you to hear, maybe you’ve never met a teenager before
But on a serious note, again, trying to locate the problem with my son. But again, I remind you, that the issue I’m taking against is a system that predicts a state school lad below his actual grades then tells me they’re aspirational. And the poor leadership that also allows some teachers and some schools to fall way behind the game with covid. You wanna know how many lessons my kids school has delivered online since March? Zero. In total.
I tried constructive input. Constructive input which came from many years' experience working in education as well as the academic work I've done as part of my teacher training. You told me to shove it up my arse.
As for your kid he seems to have exceeded expectations, and entirely under his own steam as his school is staffed by people who do nothing all day. Sound like cause for celebration to me. Instead you call him lazy, and a pain in the arse. Maybe that's a factor affecting his attitude, who knows.
You demand accountability, well that is precisely what the culture of testing, quantification and competition between students, between schools and between teachers purports to deliver. You want schools to provide you with a service, well that is the model teaching has been heading towards ever since the national curriculum was first invented. Seems to me you should be pretty happy with the state of things.
I've met teenagers yes. They can be lazy, petulant, obnoxious, obstinate and many other things besides. But I've always found it easy to forgive them for all that because they are children. You do not have that excuse.
I hear what you say about the pressure and mental health issues and you are correct. That is not okay. There must be a middle ground between what my lad has and that.
But I fundamentally disagree that we should not aim for the private model.
Education is vital for social mobility. But as it currently stands it’s not the whole picture. Even if you get to university and get a first, a middle class person with a worse degree than you will do better in the job market. Middle and upper middle class kids do better cos from an early age they are taught how to get things they want from Institutions. They are literally taught how to speak to authority figures to ask for and get what they want. By their parents and- listen up- by their schools.
By the time kids start school, m/c kids have heard millions more words than w/c kids. Their vocabularies are significantly greater. They are then bought up with Cultural Capital- skills, knowledge, and how to behave. What to wear. How to speak. They get taken to museums, to the theatre (I have still in my life only been twice and my kids not at all ever- yet if you go on the sofa thread people there do this routinely), shown how to speak to doctors and lawyers (I have taught my kids this). But at base it is being taught you belong, you matter, that you are entitled to have other people act on your behalf, in your interest.
State schools need to step UP. Our expectations of them need to RISE, not fall. I hear what you say about the pressure of exam results, but it’s just not enough to shrug and just go ‘well state schools are doing the best they can’. Sure, go ahead and close private schools. But the State schools will still fail our kids unless they are doing a whole lot more than what they are.
What’s going on in my kids school is not acceptable. It is part of what will make the covid class divide even bigger. My lad will be okay cos he has me and I am educated and (to some extent) I will challenge them (and have via email). But don’t expect me to think the current state of play is okay. I reject any system that predicts my son lower than he is achieving.
Rather than focusing on my kids laziness (which I have acknowledged) maybe try and focus on the substantive points I’m making about the failure of State education in the time of covid. Cos yes, my lad is able and lazy. But those failures are still gonna exist for all the other kids in his school that aren’t lazy. Try and think laterally to consider them.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
I think most of us who've been responding are teachers. Good ones, too!
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
You've got nothing to say about how schools are to instantly become better at everything though, you just stamp your foot and demand it despite having no clue what 'better' would even look like. I would be delighted to focus on substantive points, were any forthcoming, but they're not.
Your just not reading my posts.
I didn’t know you were a teacher! I thought you were a researcher. Apologies.I think most of us who've been responding are teachers. Good ones, too!
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
Overnight career change a few years ago. No apology needed - no reason you should have known!
This made me laugh. And it’s a good point about the Effort scores v comments. Maybe they’re not so different. He does sometimes get the box that says ‘You have a positive attitude towards work’. And rarely the bad one: ‘You must engage with learning’. But mostly it’s ‘Expectations met some of the time’.
Good for you.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
Absolute nightmare. We can't do what we trained to do, are used to doing, or want to do. We're working everything out back to front as we go along, with everything in constant flux.
Doing my best, as is everyone else, but this isn't what we or the learners signed up for and it is difficult not to feel like I'm failing people (as in, they're not getting the chances they should have).
Every aspect of what we do is different, so the best I can hope for, given that things aren't going to return to normal for a long time, is that we settle into a way of working for long enough that we can get better at it. It is a process, though, and how smoothly that process goes depends on an overwhelmingly huge range of factors.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
You're half right. I'm not reading them any more.
purenarcotic
Conveniently Pocket Sized
I’m not saying it is okay, it’s quite clearly not okay that some kids have loads of opportunities and resources and others don’t. I am fully aware of what middle class kids get afforded and what working class kids don’t get...
But a model which churns kids to pass exams at a high standard isn’t the way forward to me. Take away the cultural capital etc and that is all that private school does. I don’t want schools that tell kids they are better than other kids. Some of my old school mates are teachers. Do you not think that the messages sent to them in their schooling influence how they teach? Because it absolutely will, even if it’s unconsciously. I want to see structural changes made that removes that inequality.
And there are lots of great state schools anyway, just because your kids isn’t, you can’t say the entire system is rubbish. Also didn’t your eldest go to private school for a brief period?
You haven’t understood what I said. I’ll say is more briefly. I said I acknowledge there’s an argument that private schools need to close (am undecided personally, swing one way and another), but State schools need to massively step up their game. With both exam results and teaching, but also crucially with cultural capital.
(And yes my eldest went for 18 months but his Dad leaving meant that was impossible- that plus truth be told his behaviour wasn’t exactly exemplary enough
).
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
How?
purenarcotic
Conveniently Pocket Sized
You haven’t understood what I said. I’ll say is more briefly. I said I acknowledge there’s an argument that private schools need to close (am undecided personally, swing one way and another), but State schools need to massively step up their game. With both exam results and teaching, but also crucially with cultural capital.
(And yes my eldest went for 18 months but his Dad leaving meant that was impossible- that plus truth be told his behaviour wasn’t exactly exemplary enough
It’s rather hard for schools to give kids all the opportunities when they aren’t funded properly and may be based in communities that can’t afford it either. And I wouldn’t want something that doesn’t offer opportunities to all; it can feel very top down and quite patronising too. ‘We must show the poor ignorant povs some high culture because they have none of their own’ All the trips / books etc I had were paid for as added extras in addition to the fees. Again, the resources already existed within the school community.
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