Age 11 rankings..

We had this at my Secondary school when I joined in 2001. I am 'fairly' bright, I got level 5's in my three SATs, but after our Joing Tests, i was then put in 'set' 5, 6, and 7 (out of 12, for each of or 10 or so subjects- it was a big school!). I managed pretty good GCSEs, a few A's, one C and the rest B grades, and went on to get a 2:1 Geography degree at not crap uni, despite being told by exasperated teachers on various occasions that, as being Set 7, we were realistically are only going to get C's, not go to uni and lead a life of mediocrity.

I like streaming (if that is what it is called), I didn't like being with disruptive, uninterested pupils in my lowest sets, and would have disliked it even more so if I was top grades material.

However if you have a bad day on the test day, like I did, or your attitude towards learning changes, there isn't much you can do about it as at my school it was notoriously hard to change sets- it must have been a lot if hassle with neatly 2000 kids.
 
Gove is a simpleton who is determined to re-invent ome rose tinted education system from the 1950's I await the day he starts talking about the introduction of the cane.

All this mucking about and chaging is just waisting money and moving one set of trgeats to another very similar set of targets while ignoring the very real issues that are behind the poor standards in some areas of education namely the social collapse of the working classes.
 
DB_SamX said:
All for it; nothing like competition to get you motivated.
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Not everybody is motivated by competition, which fits with the wider problem.

Trying to use a "one size fits all" system for children when they are all different, all we are doing is rewarding the children which fit well into the current version of our education system & punishing those who do not.

Some kids take longer to learn, we all develop mentally at different speeds - grouping children by age is frankly stupid to be honest.

I was ahead at school which resulted in me being demotivated due to boredom - as the teachers had to slow down all the time, on the other side of the coin the kids who developed a little slower got forced into classes beyond their ability.

School should be about learning skills which equip you for life, not about testing.
 
Where I grew up in Mauritius, exams are set by Cambridge Uni, and all 30000 odd primary school students are ranked, and top tiers get priority to the better secondary schools. Results are printed in the national papers etc. It is a big deal every year. So it is a real achievement to come top 150 (averaging 95%+ across all subjects) or so and go to the best school in the country. (cough...53rd...cough)
 
i sat 11plus, and i was graded and then placed in a school according to my test results.

I both agreed that you can differentiate between skill levels with tests, however, i dont agree that all children learn in the same way.

Some children are driven by an urge to learn through competition with their peers and strive for praise from their teachers, my eldest daughter and son are like this, they want to get ahead of the game, be first, get everything right.

My youngest daughter is completely different, she is engaged primarily by things that interest her, things which she finds beautiful or amazing or incredible and she doesnt perform as well as the 'competitors' in her class. Does this make her any less able, or does it just mean that different people learn in different ways.

I think that they shouldnt be addressing the way, or age, they test a student and focus more on the way in which they teach, and tailor the teaching methods to the way in which the students are most responsive, identify the students talents and evolve those talents so that the child can flourish.
 
Phosgene1974 said:
i sat 11plus, and i was graded and then placed in a school according to my test results.

I both agreed that you can differentiate between skill levels with tests, however, i dont agree that all children learn in the same way.

Some children are driven by an urge to learn through competition with their peers and strive for praise from their teachers, my eldest daughter and son are like this, they want to get ahead of the game, be first, get everything right.

My youngest daughter is completely different, she is engaged primarily by things that interest her, things which she finds beautiful or amazing or incredible and she doesnt perform as well as the 'competitors' in her class. Does this make her any less able, or does it just mean that different people learn in different ways.

I think that they shouldnt be addressing the way, or age, they test a student and focus more on the way in which they teach, and tailor the teaching methods to the way in which the students are most responsive, identify the students talents and evolve those talents so that the child can flourish.
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All very salient points.

I'd also add that our current perspective on intelligence/ability is pretty primitive - as firstly it doesn't take into account the potential advantages/disadvantages one child may have over another.

We also under-value creativity in it's pure sense, the ability to have unique ideas which have value - emotional intelligence & critical thinking.

Almost all standardised testing is simply repeating learned formulae or facts & figure, which while it's a skill - isn't the only metric on ability (this crosses across all fields).

I can imagine we have wasted many potential great artists, scientists, inventors & great thinkers because they lost self-esteem as a result of our education system labelling them as "thick".
 
Can we clear something up:

Streaming usually means you're deemed to be a good student so you are placed in the top class 'stream' with all of the other good students for every subject.

Setting is the same but on a subject by subject basis, so you can be in the top set for English but the middle set for maths and the bottom set for geography.

I personally favour a setting structure as it takes all of an individual's strengths and weaknesses into consideration and 'sets' them appropriately.

This also ties-in with what elmarko has just said about one size fits all fits no one.

My thoughts on the current proposal are as follows:

Children are currently undergoing continuous assessment and monitoring which results in them being given attainment levels within each Key Stage. This information is given to parents in reports and at parents' evenings and it is also used by the school to monitor progress.

When a child enters secondary school (depending on the system) they will usually be set based on their Key Stage Two attainment levels from primary school which will then be reviewed after the first full term of Year Seven.

Parents may find the attainment levels confusing but for the most part they are for the use of teachers. If little bobby is in the bottom set for every class, you can assume he's not going to be flush with A*s at the end of his GCSEs.

What this percentage banding appears to be doing is presenting exactly the same information in a different way which will pit one child against another.

I'm struggling to see how this benefits the children which, after all, is the most important thing.
 
jsmoke said:
Good or bad idea?

I can see positives and negatives, back in my day, we sat one test in our first year of high school which determined what level of class you would be in. I think that was a bad system, as all it needs is for an 11 year to have a bad day or be underdeveloped and hence do
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We sat the equivalent back in the mid 80's and even if kids were stuck in a class that was holding them back (or vice versa) their performance over each subsequent school year dictated whether they moved up or down and it worked well.
 
Meh, won't make any difference when they arrive at secondary school.

In my school they only cared about the top and the bottom. So that's only if you were going to get 5 A's at A-Level (and thus be in their Oxbridge applicant figures), or if you were unlikely to even get 5 C's in rubbish subjects at GCSE (as that's another league table figure).
If you were probably going to get 12 As & Bs at GCSE and then go on to get 3 B's at A-Level (in proper subjects) they just didn't care... whereas if they'd given those students the same attention that the very top and very bottom got, they could have pushed them further.
 
AJK said:
Sets (or streams, whatever term you prefer) should be fluid though - children should be moved up and down appropriately to their level of achievement.
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Its what happened when I went to school, got moved up and down sets.
 
MrMoonX said:
Ridiculous Gove 1950s logic, telling kids they are rubbish and labelling them is very very wrong
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Lie to them and tell them they are as good as everyone else is?

What's wrong with telling them the truth? If they are rubbish at Science, tell them. If they are good at History, tell them. Have them living in a bubble oblivious to the world around them and how the rest of the children are moving on, and they are not isn't going to help. I see it as one way to get their arse in gear, perhaps a sign to the parents to make their kids study more at home, perhaps after school tuition, perhaps take away their Playstation for a term until their grades improve. Carrots and sticks, it is up to the parents and teacher how they use the data. At least keeping track of their development throughout the childhood would give a much better chance and scope to know how far you got to go to get better. It would be a bit late to find out in GCSE mocks that you are a terrible at everything and have only a couple of months to study hard instead of knowing you are falling behind when you are 11 and begin making up with hard work.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Lie to them and tell them they are as good as everyone else is?

What's wrong with telling them the truth?
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Couldn't agree more with your post, but in particular those first two lines. The "softly softly, don't want to hurt anyone's feelings" approach can do far more harm than being honest with them. Not only does it disenfranchise those who are actually putting the work in and doing well, as they get no recognition for it - it also means those who aren't doing as well or falling behind think they are doing fine, and don't need to do any additional work/catching up, work which could actually bring them to the same level as their peers.

That's ignoring the fact that when they finish school and go into the world of work, they get a massive culture shock when they mysteriously don't get the same payrise as their colleagues who are much better at the job than them.

Or would those against these assessments suggest we continue the trend of lying to them about their abilities for their whole lives?
 
MooMoo444 said:
splitting children into 'sets' at school is stupid. One kid has just as much potential as the next, they just need motivation and teaching to use it.
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Wrong.

It is this attitude that will screw up those who DO have more potential. All people are not equal when it comes to learning and intellectual ability.

The same kind of thinking has turned sports days into everyone wins for taking part instead of actually being what it should be - COMPETITION.
 
I think anybody who disputes that grouping people on achievement (note NOT ability) is a good idea is highly naive.

My sister has been a secondary head of year for some years now and has told me horror stories about certain classes she teaches.

It's not even so much the less able pupils, it's those with a bad attitude to learning / school / authority that are disruptive to the detriment of the others in their class, and especially when their parents are not interested in correcting that behaviour.

Trying to be "fair" to those kids by not "labelling them" is actually massively unfair on those kids that do try and do want to work hard to achieve things in life.
 
My suggestion would be why not have the exams far more regularly to create a positive feedback loop in which we are able to determine, with more precision and accuracy, where children are with regards to their intelligence and education. This way, if anyone gets better at learning, they are not held back the moment this is discovered. Also, this would remove pressure as it is not an "all your eggs in one basket" scenario - it removes much of the pressure from one exam. Children learn at the own pace, with there own points of interest - which can make for more specialization and enthusiasm whilst learning.
 
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