Age 11 rankings..

I went to school here in Year 8 and because my English was non-existent, they put in the bottom set/group for every single subject. They couldn't take my grades in Hong Kong into account. So I saw first hand what the teaching/students were like in the bottom.

Absurd, terrible, it was like play time.

Teachers knew the kids were in the bottom set and had a mind set these kids are not going to do anything so in most classes we just muck around. I recall playing kissing games at the back of the classroom during Geography. My English was terrible and it was my first time in England and I wondered WTF was going on. (I had not idea at the time I was in the bottom set btw)

However, it was in Maths where I wasn't held back from the language barrier. Teachers gave out a in class worksheets and allocate the lesson for the children to do (45min). I was done inside 10 mins (sometimes less) with a 95% average score....i had done those maths 2 years younger back in Hong Kong. I did this almost every time, so when they knew I am not an idiot I went from Bottom set (4th) to 3rd inside 2 weeks I started in school, my English still non-existent. Then 1 month in 3rd set they then put me in 1st set and skipping 2nd. All the while I had a pocket English to Chinese dictionary with me and whenever I didn't know a word I would get it out and look it up.

What is the point of this post?

Children in the bottom set, from my experience, are not taught in a way that are bringing them up to the level in the top set. They are not given extra tuition, they are not given 1 to 1 tuition. In fact, they are left behind by the system because they are deemed not smart enough to study with the smarter children.

I say put them all together, so the not so smart kids knows they need to work harder to keep up or faced left behind. A bit of real world truth in the classroom.
 
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wesimmo said:
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.
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Indeed - I taught for a while, 14-19 year olds. Out of the classes of ~15, I ended up spending over half my time on the same 3-4 students who insisted on playing their music loudly in the class, shouting abuse at each other, throwing things at each other, wasting time playing flash games and watching youtube videos. That left me with little time to dedicate to the other 10 odd students in the class who actually wanted to learn. Does that seem "fair"?

Don't forget also that if you assess, and in doing so, identify those students who are struggling, you are then able to ensure they get the additional support required.
 
I purposely dropped from set 1 to 3 simply because the maths teacher was a milf also a few mates :p . Looking back , it wasn't my finest decision as I only achieved a B and could have probably got ad least an A.
 
Haggisman said:
Indeed - I taught for a while, 14-19 year olds. Out of the classes of ~15, I ended up spending over half my time on the same 3-4 students who insisted on playing their music loudly in the class, shouting abuse at each other, throwing things at each other, wasting time playing flash games and watching youtube videos. That left me with little time to dedicate to the other 10 odd students in the class who actually wanted to learn. Does that seem "fair"?

Don't forget also that if you assess, and in doing so, identify those students who are struggling, you are then able to ensure they get the additional support required.
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Exactly, it's easy to fall into the trap of saying that such kids are labelled failures and then left to rot and therefore it's a bad thing.

What it can actually do, if done correctly, is allow them to be given the additional support and guidance that they require due to their circumstances.

As i said, it's often not about ability but attitude and upbringing, some children need to be taught very basic social skills such as consideration for others, before they can even be taught anything else. I just don't think that some people appreciate what life can be like for some kids who are unlucky enough to be born to parents who just don't give a flying......

I also have a friend who works with "troubled families", just the other day she was verbally abused by a 4 year old as she left a house.

Another incident i recall was she was dealing with a child who hero worshiped their father to the point of having walls covered in paper cuttings of the coverage of their "responsible adult's" arrest and conviction, to that kid going to prison was a badge of honour and something that was accepted as a part of life.

There is no way in the world i want my daughter having to share a classroom with that sort of person, irrespective of whether it's the kid's fault or not, they are where they are in life and they will impact negatively on my daughter.
 
boobaca said:
I purposely dropped from set 1 to 3 simply because the maths teacher was a milf also a few mates :p . Looking back , it wasn't my finest decision as I only achieved a B and could have probably got ad least an A.
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********..

Only set 1 and 2 could gets A's and B's. Highest set 3 could get was a C.
 
Ability based sets are most certainly required. We had sets for English, maths, science, but not for RE, geography etc.. where it was mixed ability on purpose.

In every class (mixed ability or not), the attention was always focused on the weaker students, so those of us that didn't need the extra help got pretty much the same level of attention. At least the in setted subjects we weren't "completely" bored though.


IMO setting is needed, but should be strucured like so:

[-----------Top set----------] 30 or so students
----[------Other set------]
-----[----Middle set----]
-------[--Other set--]
----------[Bottom] Very small classes

Those at the very bottom either are dispruptive, and thrive on the attention they get from playing around, or genuinely need extra help. Having small class sizes limits the attention they can receive, and gives more tuition for everyone.


Those at the top aren't pushed at all by school curriculum anyway, so bigger classes and some sort of competition based motivation would work fine.
 
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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Haggisman said:
Couldn't agree more with your post, but in particular those first two lines.

Or would those against these assessments suggest we continue the trend of lying to them about their abilities for their whole lives?
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Well mainly because that's not what's happening.

Children (and their parents) are being given a true of their attainment levels, just not in relation to a percentile against the rest of the country.

They are also being continually assessed and appraised, so I don't really see how these myths are being perpetuated. Especially if, as you say Haggisman, you've been a teacher yourself.

It does sound as though you had some behaviour management issues to be honest. What made you stop teaching?
 
boobaca said:
There was 4 sets total at my school , set 1,2,3 did higher paper allowing b / a / a* , set 4 could only get a c.
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We had 5 sets, not all of the top set did the higher paper, set 2 did intermediate papers where they could get b's, and the rest the lower. There have been a lot of different standards.
 
I still think they should change the entire school system to the south african model.

In SA they start primary school at age 7 to age 13. At grade 4 at age 10. The children start exams twice a year. At age 13 they leave primary school and move to high school which is from ages 14-18. High school they start with 8 subjects + two languages. For grade 8 and 9 they do 10 subjects. When they get to grade 10 at age 16. They get too pick 6 subjects (plus two languages) out of 10-20 available subjects that they will take for the next three years. Grades 10 11 and 12 and finish high school age 18. Then on to uni after that.

I actually left after grade 10 and did my grade 11 and 12 in a specialist business college.

In SA the school year also runs from January to December, unlike here where it runs from half way through the year, very nonsensical.

In sa, terms are:

First 16 January-28 March
Second 08 April-21 June
Third 15 July-20 September
Fourth 01 October-04 December

Obviously if they did that here they would just have to switch the long holiday in dec to june july break as summer is in dec in SA.

But every june they have exams and every nov/dev they have final exams from grade 4-12.

They also do school from 8am to 2pm not 9:30-15:30. This leaves more time for school sports after school which usually finishes about 16-5pm.

The benefit for doing primary school from age 7 to 13 is that segregates the older people 14-18 from the younger kids quite well. When a child reaches 14 i think they are old enough to start mixing with older people.


Thought i would add, What they also do in SA is split the classes up in such a way that prevents trouble makers from being in the same class and always leaves one or two classes with top pupils and dedicated pupils that have no trouble makers in them. This is done to prevent the trouble makers from affecting the hard working pupils. I was always one of the trouble makers so i was put in to an average class, there was not a "stupid" class, the underachieving pupils were spread across all the classes. The splitting up was more focused on behaviour than ability.
 
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The idea is though is that the government plans to tell parents how their child has performed nationally and where they are ranked nationally. In schools, for streaming purposes, it is all relative. I went to a grammar school and was in the bottom set for maths, but that was relative to my school. In a different school I would have been in a higher set.
I now work in a primary school where we do set for maths (we have 4 classes in a year group so it works for us).

The thing is, that children are going to be ranked nationally. This means that children are potentially going to be labelled as being one of the lowest ability children in the entire country for their age. Soul destroying much? I don't think they need to know at the age of 11.

I am really fed up of Michael Gove and the Department for Education's constant, "We make no apologies for having high standards" rubbish. Banging on about being 'rigorous' without really explaining what he means by that. And basing his policies on his memories of being in school in the 1950s, rather than on research or evidence of education/children NOWADAYS. He's just an idiot and has managed to pretty much alienate an entire workforce. I don't know of a single person who works in education who agrees with most of the rubbish he spouts. And I am fed up of constantly being told that as a profession, we are doing a **** job - I know that I actually do a good one (and if my current class' SATS results are what he is basing his judgement of performance on, I am doing an excellent one).

Anyway. Rant over!
 
I didn't get in to Grammar school yet my twin brother did, yet I did better at my GCSEs and A Levels.

The problem with a test is that a child might have a bad day and be labelled thick for the next 5 years. As long as there are also tests every year or so so an average can be taken and kids get a chance to redeem themseleves then I am all for it, but I doubt this will happen.
 
Soul destroying ? For facing the truth?

The world is bigger than that classroom or their school, what's wrong with a bit of honesty. If the child is average then he will rank average nationally. If he thinks he is amazing but then not then it'll keep his ego in check.
 
With debates like this raging all I can say is thank god for independent Scottish education.

Segregation of children at school in this manner will only further entrench some of the prevalent attitudes in here towards those with lesser ability.
 
vicisthebest said:
Anyway. Rant over!
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Couldn't have put it better myself!

Raymond Lin said:
Soul destroying ? For facing the truth?

The world is bigger than that classroom or their school, what's wrong with a bit of honesty. If the child is average then he will rank average nationally. If he thinks he is amazing but then not then it'll keep his ego in check.
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There's a difference between telling a child (or their parents) that they need to work a bit harder to achieve the level expected of them at a certain age (which is what happens at the moment) and telling them they are in the bottom 20% of children in the country.

I also doubt there are many children who think they are 'amazing' and need their ego checked when it comes to academic ability. Most kids are pretty honest with themselves about their own capabilities.
 
Irish_Tom said:
There's a difference between telling a child (or their parents) that they need to work a bit harder to achieve the level expected of them at a certain age (which is what happens at the moment) and telling them they are in the bottom 20% of children in the country.
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All this proposed change seems to be is to make the SATs grade a little more granular, breaking it into 10 grades. As a parent I appreciate as much information about my child's performance as possible so I can help in areas where she is weak and encourage areas where she is strong.
 
Irish_Tom said:
It does sound as though you had some behaviour management issues to be honest. What made you stop teaching?
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The absolute frustration that the kids who ****ed about in every class and did the bare minimum to tick the pass/merit/distinction criteria 2 weeks late got EXACTLY the same qualification as the ones who worked hard, paid attention and handed in well written and structured pieces of work on time, or even early.

That's a fantastic way of encouraging people to work to the best of their ability. :rolleyes:

That and the fact there was virtually no way of having a disruptive student disciplined, given extra support, or removed from class so as not to impact everyone else's learning. Something to do with "bums on seats" funding from the LEA...

So you end up with a classroom with several students who don't give a ****, are just there for their EMA, know you can't do anything to stop them messing about or get rid of them, and will end up with the same qualification as everyone else, all the while the kids who want to learn are constantly held back.

Not only does it penalise the hard workers, it devalues the qualifications they get, in exactly the same way as the govt.'s "genius" idea to get more people going to university and getting a degree, despite the fact an academic education just isn't right for some people (not saying they're stupid, but a practical/hands-on qualification may be far more appropriate for them). It means you end up in the situation where a degree on your CV doesn't really mean that much these days.

vicisthebest said:
This means that children are potentially going to be labelled as being one of the lowest ability children in the entire country for their age. Soul destroying much? I don't think they need to know at the age of 11.
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Why not? If they don't like it, there's an easy solution, maybe it will give them the kick up the **** they need to start paying attention in class and doing some work, instead of scratching their initials into the desk when the teacher isn't watching...

Its far more useful to know how they measure up against the rest of their peers who are the competition they will be facing when it comes to getting a job, otherwise they'll be coming out of school thinking they've done well, and be in for a huge shock when they don't even get any job interviews.

When my son gets to school age, I'd want a realistic indication of how he's doing, so I know whether he needs more support, or if he deserves a pat on the head. :p

Biohazard said:
With debates like this raging all I can say is thank god for independent Scottish education.

Segregation of children at school in this manner will only further entrench some of the prevalent attitudes in here towards those with lesser ability.
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So you think it's a good thing that the learning of hard working students with the right attitude is hampered by disruptive students?

Do you think it's right that the students with behavioural problems/learning issues are lumped in with the rest of the class and just left to struggle along without any extra support?
 
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