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Prayer Wall / Re: My Mum
« on: March 25, 2012, 20:38:46 »
My heart goes out to you and yours. May fond memories bring some peace to your grief.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: January 02, 2012, 14:06:08 »So, are you suggesting that a pupil who shows remarkable talent in playing the flute, say, at the age of 14 is necessarily going to develop to the same level of a child who was at that level at, say, 8?I have been very clear - but, yet again you deliberately ignore half of what I'm saying because you don't want to accept that you haven't raised any real problems with this sort of approach.
What I'm suggesting is that the stage that a child needs the sort of specialist tuition we are talking about, varies depending upon a number of factors - when they started playing, the age at which their exceptional talent develops or is recognised, whether specialist teaching to some level is available to them without attending a specialist school and, of course, what sort of education the parents and the pupil think is best, and at what stage. As I say, it's not rocket science, and nothing I'm suggesting is unachievable or unworkable. Importantly, it can be available to all who show talent, to rich people, to not so rich people, and to poor people. Neither you nor Andrew has actually raised any real obstacle to this and you in particular, Andy, are beginning to look silly by pretending that I haven't said half of what I have said.
I agree that, with the current state of the country and world, that we are so far away from this that it can seem like something that can't be achieved, but that's not because there's any real practical problem with it working, it's because the rich don't give up their privilege lightly and there is a massive propaganda machine telling people that change for the better is impossible. We should not abandon the dream of a better world just because it seems a long haul to get there.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: January 02, 2012, 10:57:48 »It just doesn't work that way Martin. If they are not at the specialist school from the word go they loose critical time in that speciality, as you well know.Not true. Children start to learn musical instruments at different times and reach various standards at different times. Very often a school will have a peripatetic teacher, for instruction in a particular instrument, whose skills will suffice to a certain level. At some stage, dependent on the skills of that teacher, the peripatetic teacher may say that a pupil has attained such a high standard that they have reached the limit of what that teacher can teach them, and this can happen at various ages. So it's at that point that the pupil and her parents, taking advice from the school, might consider transfer to a specialist school where a more intense programme under the instruction of a more highly qualified teacher can be embarked upon.
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Furthermore it is far harder to change schools half way through, as the different schools will use different examining boards with different syllabi - the exception to this clearly being at the start of 2-year exam courses.
Frankly though, we are not going to agree about the best way forward so I do not propose to continue with this argument!
Indeed, there are better and worse times to move schools and any move needs to be considered carefully by the parent and the pupil taking advice from the schools. But, as you can see, this is not the same as selecting pupils at the age of 11. It's not rocket science. Perhaps you need to think about it a bit more, but nothing I have suggested is particularly unachievable or unworkable.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: January 02, 2012, 01:55:55 »So it isn't a creaming off of the best, and it isn't based upon selection at any particular age.Except that it is just that. A school has to take children from more or less a given age, in order to prepare them for the all-important exams (the results of which, after all, are the means by which the pupils are able to show how talented or gifted they are to future employers/financial backers). Otherwise, we just let the cream rise of their own accord, as per folk like Richard Branson and Alan Sugar.
I'm not saying that music wouldn't be taught in ordinary schools Andy! I would expect comprehensives to provide great education to GCSE level in music. So ALL schools would prepare children for their exams and ALL schools would teach the core syllabus. But if you had a child prodigy cellist or violinist, the music teacher at the comprehensive would probably not suffice, a child who showed fantastic aptitude in such an instrument might move to a specialist school at the stage they were identified as such. They would still be able to study for the same exams that they were studing for at the comprehensive, though, of course, they might have to drop non-core subjects. They'd probably fly through their GCSE music exam, and also take some high graded examinations in the Cello or Violin (which they can take at any time they're ready for it).
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If the system was the same now as it was 30 or 40 years ago, this would be a valid comment, Martin: but it isn't. Not only is the exam system completely different, but the social and technological context in which the education takes place is completely different.
You're right that much has changed. Remember I was making my argument against the lament that Grammar Schooling had been abolished and that the current system was poorer than the old Grammar Schools and Secondary moderns. If it's impossible to make comparisons, then it is equally impossible for the authors of the supposed articles
you were referring to. So you shoot your own argument down as usual. 7
News Review / Re: Strike
« on: January 02, 2012, 01:34:10 »No, all my posts haven't been about this. Did they teach you to read at your school Andy?Sorry Martin, you were clearly never taught about rhetorical questions at school, and that might explain, at least in part, why your children appear to have been taught better than you, giving you the impression that education as a whole is better now.
You started by saying:
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You seem to equate 'better education' with 'uplifting the less academic', but they are two completely different issues.
I responded that you had not got this from my posts. (for example it can't have escaped you that a significant number of my posts on this thread have been about schooling to maximise the potential of the exceptionally gifted, who are certainly not 'the less academically gifted'). Personally I think you had written your post above, with very little thought to its accuracy, in order to write a jibe rather than it being anything you truly believe.
That's probably why you want to insist that the following question was rhetorical - you didn't want an answer because you wanted to be able to get away with mis-characterising someone else's argument without comeback. Well sorry to burst your bubble Andy, you've been found out again.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: January 01, 2012, 16:58:39 »But haven't all your posts been about the fact that if we got rid of private schools, rich parents would be forced to send their children to local state schools, and would therefore plough their monies into improving the teaching/facilities/extracurricula activities/ ... - thus providing a better education for all, and uplifting the less academic as a result? Or have you begun to change your mind on that?
No, all my posts haven't been about this. Did they teach you to read at your school Andy?
9
News Review / Re: Strike
« on: January 01, 2012, 16:35:22 »If you are going to have schools for specially gifted kids (which you agree is a logistical necessity) you have to select at some point which kids go to those schools and which do not. How is this compatible with your bald statement that selection at a given age is wrong?
Well firstly, just because you have schools for the exceptionally gifted it doesn't mean that selection for those schools must be done at any one age. But, secondly, to state the obvious, if one or two exceptionally gifted musicians are selected from a comprehensive school it doesn't mean that they are better than the pupils who are left, it simply means that they have a special gift in one particular area that, for obvious reasons, can be developed better with specialist tuition. There will be other gifted children whose gift doesn't require such specialist teaching or equipment to properly develop, who will continue to be educated at the comprehensive, and there will be good all-rounders who will continue to be educated at the comprehensive school. So it isn't a creaming off of the best, and it isn't based upon selection at any particular age.
Compare that with dividing the population into two, the top half and the bottom half, on the basis of an exam at the age of eleven and it is stating the bleedin' obvious that this is not, in any way, a similar thing.
This must be the place, second place in the human race,
down in the basement, now I know what she meant,
this is the hand that you never shook,
you never gave me the chance that I took. Elvis Costello - Secondary Modern.
As regard to the rising pass marks in exams, yes there are other factors which affect the figures, but you cant have 24 years of rising pass marks without the education system having got better at its job.
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I am not saying that the old system was better - simply that the comparison is much harder than you are suggesting, because so many of the parameters are completely different.
I'm glad you're not saying the old system was better, and I agree that there are factors which don't make comparison over time easy, but I think it would be very hard to argue that the system is worse than it was, and that you would find much more evidence to support the idea that it has improved over the years.
10
News Review / Re: Strike
« on: December 31, 2011, 19:03:53 »You seem to equate 'better education' with 'uplifting the less academic', but they are two completely different issues.
I don't know where you get that from Andy, probably from another one of those documents you've read
, it certainly is not in any of my posts.
11
News Review / Re: Strike
« on: December 31, 2011, 16:14:15 »
Oh I see! These documents are ones that you can't produce.
Certainly you will read reports in the Daily Mail and other such lie-sheets, that education is far less effective now than it was in the 'good old days', alongside calls to bring back the cane and reintroduce the death penalty. But it doesn't seem to be the case if you look at, say, the GCSE examination statistics. My own experience confirms that education has improved. I have been favourably impressed with my children's comprehensive education - much better than my grammar school education.
Certainly you will read reports in the Daily Mail and other such lie-sheets, that education is far less effective now than it was in the 'good old days', alongside calls to bring back the cane and reintroduce the death penalty. But it doesn't seem to be the case if you look at, say, the GCSE examination statistics. My own experience confirms that education has improved. I have been favourably impressed with my children's comprehensive education - much better than my grammar school education.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: December 31, 2011, 13:34:46 »There seems to be a slight contradiction between these two statements of yours Martin...No contradiction Andrew. Choosing one particular age to decide if a child is clever or not is wrong - children develop at different rates at different ages. Also segregating the entire school population into two halves is a million miles away from providing special tuition for the especially gifted.
What I was commenting on, in terms of special education for the especially gifted, was essentially the need to develop the potential of each child to the max. I can see that especially gifted children would benefit from very specialised teaching - for example especially musically gifted children will need teachers with talents not necessarily available in every comprehensive school. That might be an argument for a special state school a bit like a state version of Chethams. The reason you might opt for a school for the gifted is logistical, if you tried to implement it in the ordinary state school, these specialist teachers would be teaching classes of one and spending most of their day travelling.
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And no, it is not just Andy's opinion that most comps tend not to encourage the gifted to rise to the best o their potential, but to sink to the median. I will happily grant you that this is not universal, but it is all too common - and there is plenty of documentary evidence to demonstrate this. I think it is improving now that the majority of comps DO stream the kids, rather than insisting on teaching mixed ability classes with the total thicko's in with the brainboxes (to be truly un-PC!), but it is still the case in far too many schools.
Indeed, streaming is the norm in core subjects in most comprehensive schools. I think it's a reasonable approach.
But what are these documents that you and Andy are referring to and why are they at such odds with the other documented evidence? Children get better exam grades now than they ever did, more children end up getting degrees than ever before, the young population is better educated now than it has ever been. Sure, the system has its failures, but as a proportion more children achieve better results than when we had grammar schools and secondary modern schools.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: December 31, 2011, 13:11:07 »Which reports would these be Andy? They aren't the official reports that have been coming from government.In your opinion.Well, of course - so long as you want to treat official reports over the past 40-odd years as 'my opinion', Martin!
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: December 30, 2011, 21:30:21 »and which have been shown to be largely ineffective at pulling the 'least gifted' up to anywhere near the level of the average, let alone the most gifted (most of whom are actually pulled down to the average).In your opinion.
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News Review / Re: Strike
« on: December 30, 2011, 16:46:35 »Or in the remaining Grammar schools... - I wonder why they were abolished in most LEA's???
The idea of selecting children on the basis of an examination at the age of 11 and then segregating the 'intelligent' from the 'less intelligent' is a very poor one. Children develop at various stages. Far better to have streaming within the same school where children can move between streams at the end of each year.