Have schools stopped teaching children to use cutlery, wipe their noses, and not drop litter as well?
Of course in my day they didn't teach that either; we were expected to know that before we went to school.
Owain
Steve Firth (%steve%@malloc.co.uk) wibbled on Monday 14 March 2011 13:15:
Weird.
Our village primary school is doing very well on the 3Rs front.
Maths and reading are both streamed with several maths groups and a very large number of reading levels which are progressed through.
Due to having tiny classes and not enough teachers, some years are merged - which is very good for the kids as they are allowed to progress into the next year's level if it suits them.[1]
This is the way it should be.
I see no evidence at primary level that *all* the kids are thick - there is a wide band of ability but the bright ones are definately encouraged to go for more advanced sets - and they are encouraged seperately by subject without undue stress to perform.
As it seems to be the case that the stupid loony left "everyone must be equally thick" approach is gone, at least officially, perhaps the next generation will be better.
[1] Though there is a question of what happens in their last year - councils still don't seem to like the idea of letting kids jump a year if they are upto it.Of course, a lot also depends on how good the teachers are - we are lucky like that - but at least a deliberate set of handcuffs seems to have been removed.
Yes, it's impressively s**te isn't it? I assume that Duhg Bollen was the former Labour Education Minister.
Precisely. And add manners in too!
Trouble is that many kids /don't/ come to school already knowing that. I see it every day at school - children who've been housed and fed but not much more. If even in Year 3 you're still struggling to get them to sit on a chair or tie their shoelaces [1] then really the parents aren't doing their bit.
[1] 25 in a class, 30 seconds per child to do up their laces (if you're lucky and they're cooperating) and there's nearly quarter of an hour gone.
...
Talking about secondaries rather than primaries, but that's why I don't like the "small school" concept. Small classes yes, but small schools no. With a large enough school the spread of kids' abilities gives sufficient numbers to have classes of similar abilities. If there's only 60 kids per year you're forced to have classes containing 50% of the ability range.
Additionally, if you're a one-in-a-hundred oddball like I was, in a school of 2000 pupils there'll be three or four others like you in your year group.
JGH
And what the other 24 are getting up to at the time ...
Owain
You don't want to know.
There were others like you?
Owain
And there is me getting a bollocking because a few weeks ago the girlfriends lad (along with ever other children in his class) were asked to stand up and tell the class what they had done over the weekend.
The words "Adam let me drive his car" caused a bit of a stir. I have let him change gears when sat in the passenger seat for a while now but as the roads were quiet I let him sit on my knee (no rude comments please) and do the steering and the gears.
Tell me about it. On second thoughts, don't. Primary school deputy head for ~25 years: BTDTGTTS. Now enjoying early retirement!
jgharston ( snipped-for-privacy@arcade.demon.co.uk) wibbled on Monday 14 March 2011 22:01:
Our school is rather at the extreme - it is so small that per-capita funding means they are mising a couple of teachers - so my daughter is in year 2, but in a y2/y3 combined class (ie they cannot even make one class per year on average).
That's excellent at the moment as the kids can "float" across a single set of levels spanning both years - but such an arrangement is inherently limited in how long it can go on for.
We're also lucky because our area is rural and civilised so the teachers don't have to contend with crap so can devote their entire time to actually teaching.
Something I find a little weird (in a good way) though is the fact that every class has a teacher and a TA - great for more attention per pupil, but weird considering how in my day a teacher could run a 30 strong class of virtually tots single handed day in day out. Mind you - we were rooted to our desks in neat little rows bar the leaky-roof-bucket - sod all of the interactive stuff they get to do now.
Anyone remember the "Alpha" and "Beta" maths books? Every lesson I remember was pretty much 10 minutes of teaching and the rest was working your way through those books. And sniffing the bandoliered handouts of course :)
Sounds very much like our primary school combined years the lot.
60 per year! 60 is about half of our secondary schools total pupil numbers, 5 years (no sixth form). Doesn't seem to hold anyone back, consistently above the national average for the 3 Rs and gets good exam results. Bright kids will be put into exams when they are ready not when the year they happen to be in "does exams".
What really counts is the size of the class. At my first school, class size was about 10-15. One class per year. That meant that while most of the class got on with the standard stuff, one or two bright ones got to wander off alone, and extra time was spent on the nearly hopeless cases.
The next school but one, classes were in the high 20's. Personal attention simply was almost nonexistent.
Bandagraph?
Skipweasel ( snipped-for-privacy@googlemail.com) wibbled on Tuesday 15 March
2011 08:20:
Yep - lovely blue-purple ink - almost unreadable.
Van de Graaf.
Still damp from the alcohol.
"Roeneo" (OSLT) copiers spring to mind...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Frank Erskine saying something like:
Theme One.
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