SATs Exams too middle class.... Options

[DancingDad]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-...s-a7986031.html

In flame pit as not motoring and TBH, cos I feel like a rant on this......

English SATs exam 'left pupils in tears because it was too middle class'

WTF has class got to do with ability to read? I understand that some kids, often from deprived backgrounds, think a book is something that you get from the betting shop and that it can be challenging to teach them to read but "too middle class"
And while ranting, SATs have sweet FA meaning for the pupils. They are purely a check on the school/teacher.
So why the 'ell are kids under so much pressure to do well that they break down in tears?
To me this is the school passing their concerns onto the kids instead of looking at their own responsibilities.
Had that argument with the head at my kid's primary school when she told me that SATs were vital to the kid.... horse laugh from me and stifled a rude word.

Then we have:-

‘The life experiences you needed to access the test were quite unusual. I mean, to put yourself in the place of somebody riding a giraffe, I found that quite hard to envisage’

Surely one of the points of reading, especially for pleasure, is to vicariously enjoy/experience things that you probably will never do in real life?
By the time I was in year 5/6 I'd flown to the moon, flown a biplane over enemy lines, fought with savages in the jungles, lived on a desert island. the list is endless.
Riding a giraffe is child's play.

And from an anonymous head teacher...

“The texts were elitist and suitable for white middle-class English children born in 1823.”

So there we have it, education nowadays is worse then in 1823.... a fact I've been suspicious about for many years.

I can understand complaints that the tests were too difficult, subjective but understandable.
But some of the comments in that article are simply excuses of the worst sort, they tell kids (and parents) that it is okay to fail, that trying is no good cos you come from the wrong background.
And leads to the dumbing down of the whole system.

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[southpaw82]

You and I appear to have read the same books. More nonsense from the Indy, as usual.

[DancingDad]

You and I appear to have read the same books. More nonsense from the Indy, as usual.

Wouldn't be surprised.
If riding a giraffe is too difficult to envisage, what would the poor darlins make of giant, green, four armed warriors in the deserts of Barsoom ?

[The Rookie]

Or Triffids or Krakens?

How George's parents didn't have heart failure I don't know, and why Julian, Dick and Anne's parents let them keep visiting such irresponsible carers I do not know! I suspect the same Teachers from Teeside would be putting them all on that at risk register.

The imagination required for Biggles to be the same age in two world wars over 20 years apart as well, now that really was the tough one!

An exam is meant to provide differentiation, there is no point it being too easy so that you can't separate the top 20% as they all achieve the same, on that basis it will be too hard for some, but if they were properly told what the SATs are for they wouldn't care less.

I assume no primary school student came up with the expression that it was too middle class for them, unless of course they meant they were too upper class for the SATs that is!

[glasgow_bhoy]

I don't like the English education system.

My Aunt was a primary school teacher in Scotland for 10 years before moving to the South East and left after 5 years as she disliked the system.

In Scotland we don't have 'exams' until your 15/16. Teachers are constantly assessing your behaviours and progress, but rely on class tests, homework and interaction in class for the most part. At 10 years old, a child is just that- a child. School should be (and always was for us) about skinning your knees on the ash football pitch, playing marbles and passing notes about in class.

You have a whole life to stress out- high school gets harder, with exams in your last few years, but you should be able to take it by then as thats the point where your going out into the big bad world.

[fedup2]

I don't like the English education system.

My Aunt was a primary school teacher in Scotland for 10 years before moving to the South East and left after 5 years as she disliked the system.

In Scotland we don't have 'exams' until your 15/16. Teachers are constantly assessing your behaviours and progress, but rely on class tests, homework and interaction in class for the most part. At 10 years old, a child is just that- a child. School should be (and always was for us) about skinning your knees on the ash football pitch, playing marbles and passing notes about in class.

You have a whole life to stress out- high school gets harder, with exams in your last few years, but you should be able to take it by then as thats the point where your going out into the big bad world.

An adult is being formed not from 10 but from birth.That is when you start not only education but putting in place the mindest for them to deal with life later.

The trouble with modern times is few see that and then expect to CHANGE their habits later on in life when it suits them.It is of course then far too late.As for football,that Should be a choice,it wont be everyones.Some see it as a little gay after all its mainly men watching men kick a bag of wind about.

School SHould be about English and maths and other subjects determined by the individual,after all they are all different.The reality though is many are failing them because they go to school thinking all day is playtime.
As for marbles,many parents have lost them and that shows in their kids although i dont doubt many blame the schools.

[bama]

Education was based (for centuries) on logic, rhetoric and grammar.
For good reason. Once you have them then you can learn anything.
Education is getting further and further from all three (ponder why that is...)
.
Applying logic, rhetoric and grammar to that p-o-s in the Indy (or to any piece in the media really) reveals it for what it is.
You don't have to be Chomsky to work out what is happening.

[DancingDad]

To be honest Bama, I would be happy with the three Rs
Teach a kid to read and they have access to the vast well of written knowledge created over the centuries
Teach them to write and they can communicate in a manner that preserves their thoughts, communicates them to others and perhaps adds to the store of knowledge.
Teach them 'rithmatic and they can at least check the shopping bill. But hopefully far more.
Add in manners, self discipline and respect and a good teacher can set them up for life.

Many years ago to remember all the details but that seemed to cover my primary school education.
I do know there were at least 3 different primary schools as we moved fairly regularly due to my dad's job.
One year, when 8/9, I travelled summat like 30 miles to school and back each day, two different trains plus a good walk each way.
Done for good reason so my elder sister kept continuity pre her 11 plus and my parents reckoned was better for both of us to travel together.
Dunno what Social Workers would make of that nowadays.
Last primary school was a 2 class school, about 40-50 kids in each class and each including three year/age groups. Single teacher taught all three groups at the same time.
Then my parents split up so myself and sister brought up by a single mum. And moved schools and house yet again.

Put all that together and in modern thinking, I should not have gained any sort of education, low on any scale of "what group of kids do best"
Yet I did, not only a reasonable standard at school but at higher education and indeed had a good career in engineering.
Of an age when spelling mistakes counted and I had to write out the mis-spelt word 10 times in the back of my writing book.
When we learnt multiplication tables by rote, parrot fashion.
Were expected to turn in homework each day and punishment was a lot more painful then withdrawal of privileges.

I won't come out with the "it never did me no harm" but it did seem to work.
I am far less certain that modern methods do.
And articles like that one, trotting out excuses put forward by teachers and heads, really make me wonder.

@Rookie.
Yes.... had forgotten Wyndham, his works were certainly on my reading list back then

How about the Morthbrood and the Svart Alfar ?

[PASTMYBEST]

To be honest Bama, I would be happy with the three Rs
Teach a kid to read and they have access to the vast well of written knowledge created over the centuries
Teach them to write and they can communicate in a manner that preserves their thoughts, communicates them to others and perhaps adds to the store of knowledge.
Teach them 'rithmatic and they can at least check the shopping bill. But hopefully far more.
Add in manners, self discipline and respect and a good teacher can set them up for life.

Many years ago to remember all the details but that seemed to cover my primary school education.
I do know there were at least 3 different primary schools as we moved fairly regularly due to my dad's job.
One year, when 8/9, I travelled summat like 30 miles to school and back each day, two different trains plus a good walk each way.
Done for good reason so my elder sister kept continuity pre her 11 plus and my parents reckoned was better for both of us to travel together.
Dunno what Social Workers would make of that nowadays.
Last primary school was a 2 class school, about 40-50 kids in each class and each including three year/age groups. Single teacher taught all three groups at the same time.
Then my parents split up so myself and sister brought up by a single mum. And moved schools and house yet again.

Put all that together and in modern thinking, I should not have gained any sort of education, low on any scale of "what group of kids do best"
Yet I did, not only a reasonable standard at school but at higher education and indeed had a good career in engineering.
Of an age when spelling mistakes counted and I had to write out the mis-spelt word 10 times in the back of my writing book.
When we learnt multiplication tables by rote, parrot fashion.
Were expected to turn in homework each day and punishment was a lot more painful then withdrawal of privileges.

I won't come out with the "it never did me no harm" but it did seem to work.
I am far less certain that modern methods do.
And articles like that one, trotting out excuses put forward by teachers and heads, really make me wonder.

@Rookie.
Yes.... had forgotten Wyndham, his works were certainly on my reading list back then

How about the Morthbrood and the Svart Alfar ?

being a south Manchester lad, th edge was always a good place to scare a girl into clinging quite tight

[bama]

wanting the three Rs to be better is common.
reason and critical thinking way more important.
And yes you need the three Rs for that.
You see how education is working ? ......

For those that do get to engage reason and critical thinking they face the bulwark of political correctness which is a weapon against both. Of course if you have both reason and critical thinking you don't fall for political correctness, but many do and will use is to try to marginalise/ridicule/ignore your views unless you express them with precision (a la Chomsky, would that we could all be at that level). Examples of this are everywhere.

[PASTMYBEST]

wanting the three Rs to be better is common.
reason and critical thinking way more important.
And yes you need the three Rs for that.
You see how education is working ? ......

For those that do get to engage reason and critical thinking they face the bulwark of political correctness which is a weapon against both. Of course if you have both reason and critical thinking you don't fall for political correctness, but many do and will use is to try to marginalise/ridicule/ignore your views unless you express them with precision (a la Chomsky, would that we could all be at that level). Examples of this are everywhere.

Is thinking allowed. a few years ago I helped my daughter catch up with some work for her degree when she was ill. Original thought did not seem to be allowed. it was more write a dissertation based on published works and spend more time getting the referencing right than actually doing the work

My wife works in a primary school, the kids pick what they want to do and the teachers have to fit the whole curriculum into it. I'm with DD between 5 and 11 teach the kids to read write and do basic maths. They are then equipped to learn.

sex and relationship education foe 4-5 year olds WTF let them be kids, they've got enough sh1t coming

[bama]

Is thinking allowed

only 'approved' thoughts it seems - if you can call them thoughts, which is a bit of a stretch.

[DancingDad]

Is thinking allowed

only 'approved' thoughts it seems - if you can call them thoughts, which is a bit of a stretch.

You bin reading 1984 again?

Trouble there is merit in your comment.

An example:- I've always tried to make sure my kids had a balanced diet.
The sort I had, veg, fibre, protein, dairy etc not too heavy on any of the groups and as varied as possible.
Not OCD on it by any means, not averse to the odd visit to MickyDs or the chippy. Not averse to a few sweets or can of pop but not living on them and tried to make it a treat rather then the normal.
None of them ever overweight, all athletic and quite high achievers in sports. Not overly fussy eaters. Or weren't.

So a little peed off when my youngest comes home from school telling me that they can't have any fat cos it's "bad" for them.
Or that they can only eat green veg and fruit, red meat is "bad" and that milk will make them fat!
"Mrs XXX says you've got to throw the frying pan away and only grill or steam !!!!!
Incidentally, Mrs XXX was within a gnat's whisker of being grossly obese if not well into the zone.

My youngest is 18 now and I still have to remind her that healthy eating does not mean cutting out whatever food group is "bad" this week.
Or only eating whatever is being touted as "healthy"

Another was my son being marked down on Geography homework about crop rotation because he did not mention carbon footprint !
That was a simple one to overcome, just add in a sentence on carbon, global warming or pollution into any answer to any question where it could fit.
Didn't matter if it was overly relevant, may not have gained marks but would never lose any.
Kept the PC brigade happy

My kids learnt to reason. But not at school per se, I think more because I would often ask them "why?" And guide them towards where they could find answers but never did their work for them.

This post has been edited by DancingDad: Mon, 9 Oct 2017 - 20:57

[bama]

Kept the PC brigade happy

QED

[Neil B]

‘The life experiences you needed to access the test were quite unusual. I mean, to put yourself in the place of somebody riding a giraffe, I found that quite hard to envisage’

Surely one of the points of reading, especially for pleasure, is to vicariously enjoy/experience things that you probably will never do in real life?
By the time I was in year 5/6 I'd flown to the moon, flown a biplane over enemy lines, fought with savages in the jungles, lived on a desert island. the list is endless.
Riding a giraffe is child's play.

Presumably, any kind of history book would be entirely incomprehensible.

[seank]

I find myself wondering what has happened to education in the UK.
I seek to recruit graduate engineers to help designing powertrain systems for automotive applications, including engines, gearboxes and steering systems.
We employ just over 600 people in the UK.
I recently stopped employing UK graduates, finding them innumerate, illiterate and with a "benefits" culture where they want anything available, but want to offer nothing in return. This is despite most of them possessing glowing certificates from their universities.
We employed UK teachers for remedial work, but found the teachers worse than the students.
We don't see this in candidates from Europe, Japan or the USA. Those people are prepared to uproot and deliver excellence.

My opinion is that we produce "snowflakes" who are constantly told how good they are, despite having removed the comparisons in the reports teachers used to give.
In my day, you were ranked in class on your end of term report and told when you needed to work harder. Apparently, that causes stress and has been stopped. Around 5% of students went to university, in the 1970s compared to almost 45% now.
These new students study PE, Media Studies, Hairdressing (yes, really) at degree but rarely maths, physics, chemistry or engineering science.
We met teachers who had been teaching those subjects but hadn't even got "A" levels in them.
Apparently, possession of a Dip.Ed or PGCE gives "qualified teacher" status, enabling the holder to "teach" anything.
Thankfully, the rest of Europe has no such nonsense.

[DancingDad]

......Presumably, any kind of history book would be entirely incomprehensible.

From what I saw with my kids, history is being re-written at school.
Or at least taught with severe spin on PC thinking.

@Seank
One of the reasons I was happy to retire from engineering in the UK (apart from companies folding or moving abroad) was meeting more and more graduates in ever more senior positions.
Who knew the buzz words and terms, could swamp the room with spreadsheets and critical path analysis, loved meetings......
But never got their hands dirty and didn't know one end of a spanner from the other.

Time was when a degree meant something special.
Not any more.
Knew plenty of older and very good engineers who had worked their way to HND or HNC via night school.
They could eat the youngsters with a freshly minted degree without breaking sweat.


This post has been edited by DancingDad: Tue, 10 Oct 2017 - 13:39

[seank]

......Presumably, any kind of history book would be entirely incomprehensible.

From what I saw with my kids, history is being re-written at school.
Or at least taught with severe spin on PC thinking.

@Seank
One of the reasons I was happy to retire from engineering in the UK (apart from companies folding or moving abroad) was meeting more and more graduates in ever more senior positions.
Who knew the buzz words and terms, could swamp the room with spreadsheets and critical path analysis, loved meetings......
But never got their hands dirty and didn't know one end of a spanner from the other.

"Typical crap analysis", yes.
How to avoid work, hold a meeting, yes.

We aren't a hands-on engineering company. We design powertrain systems, and I take your points.
I ask myself why UK kids are graded 26th position in the international Pisa tables.
Having met their teachers, I fully understand why.
There is no emphasis on performance and delivery. The hunger that most people felt to succeed only 30 years ago.
Teachers seem to want to act as child minders.
At university, pretty much everyone who was "cranially-challenged" or was too idle to get out of bed, had to go into teaching. If you can, do. If you can't, teach.
The Gov't brought 50 Chinese teachers over to show ours how to do the job. The Chinese were ignored and "The Blob" carried on as normal.

This post has been edited by seank: Tue, 10 Oct 2017 - 13:40

[fedup2]

We live in a society where a piece of paper seems to be king and kids are forced to go get these pieces of paper often without even knowing what or why they are doing them never mind what they will do when they have them.
The problem is the government wont let kids do anything,they tie their hands behind their backs for the sake of figure fixing.By the time they have got their 'Education' the habits are already formed.Lazy, useless and often skint.
But try doing anything else to break the mould and its wall after brick wall hampering real progress.Employers are limited and openings for kids are few.The age for what is a kid seems to be getting higher and higher.The difference in other country's is they ALLOW their kids to get on,we lock the doors doing nothing but educate stupidity and try and educate people that arnt interested in learning,but take away the alternatives.
The whole system needs scrapping and starting again Helping kids to get on in a way that suits them not getting the unemployed figures down.6th form and Uni might be the way for some but for most its just a waste of time and life.Let them go and get jobs and get into the habit of working and earning..............

[seank]

I see where you're coming from FU2, but I'm not sure where the jobs you refer to are coming from.
A good degree certainly isn't required for a McJob. How hard is it to ask someone if they want fries with that?
A good degree certainly is required for practising brain surgery, piloting commercial aircraft and designing billion Pound powertrain systems.
When only 5% of students went to university it was easy for employers to select horses for courses. Nowadays, when the University of Scunthorpe (there isn't one) turns out First Class Honours graduates and an employer finds they can't add up, can't write and is completely unused to the rigour of work, we look abroad.
We import the people who can, and let those who can't do whatever tasks they might find.
I don't think many non-graduate jobs are suitable even for UK "A" level or GCSE students these days.
Their calibre is appalling and the jobs will be taken by immigrants with a better work ethic.