Choice in education (5)

Latest figures confirm the earlier estimates that some 100,000 children failed to get admission to their first choice secondary schools for September - about 1/5 of the total.

Not only does that make a mockery of ministers' promise of choice, it also removes one potentially effective automatic control mechanism.

Choice gives the opportunity to avoid bad schools. Good schools are encouraged by parental support, bad schools are left to wither away. When you stop that process, the bad schools are given an undeserved lifeline.

It must seem sometimes that it is a tremendous waste of resources to let an established school die away. BUT that is precisely the process that nature has used most effectively to ensure continuing development and renewal.

The New Diploma for 14 - 19 year olds

The government has announced a new Extended Diploma, the advanced version being worth four and a half A-levels. But heads' leader John Dunford says the complexity further threatens its chances of success.

He is quoted as saying: "People are not going to go for a qualification which is too difficult to understand".

As usual the government is trying to do the right thing but getting itself in a twist. Once again this is a top-down policy and schools and pupils are being told what's best for them. To do this there must be an army of bureaucrats and they have defined the curriculum in the best bureaucratic tradition.

If you want to look at just one example, try reading the curriculum "guidance" for level one of the creative and media diploma. It is a masterpiece! Nothing is specifically wrong with the intentions and, I'm sure every potential factor has been covered

BUT I defy any ordinary mortal to read it through. Certainly the poor 14 year olds for whom this caourse has been designed will not be encouraged by phrases like:

The ability to develop and express ideas within the fields of creative and media enables young people to 'imagine the world differently'. It offers them the opportunity to shape their identity, culture and society, through challenging what is known or accepted.

I wonder how many teachers will try to get through it. I cannot imagine such a demotivating way of trying to improve education. No wonder the head teachers are critical.

Primary schools 'have got worse'

A narrowing of the curriculum has led to a decrease in the quality of English primary schooling, says a report.
"High stakes" testing of pupils has led to a system "focused on literacy and numeracy at the expense of the broader curriculum", it suggests.

This is a warning that when you use targets and measurement you may distort the system by forgetting what is outside the measurement system. We must certainly not allow the schools to forget the wider objectives of encouraging learning in general and ensuring they are motivated.

I agree that literacy and numeracy are key objectives but we should find a third measure of general knowledge that could be simply tested. The tests should not be too time-consuming or control the curriculum. The results must show that the child has the necessary skills to benefit from secondary school. The schools should be measured on an overall attainment score combined with the percentage of children that fail.

Choice in education (4)

As many as 100,000 children are expected to miss out on their first choice of secondary school this year, according to analysis of official figures by the Conservative Party.

That means that nearly 20% of parents will not be sending their child to the school of their first choice. What a way to motivate a child to learn!

Should we have smaller classes?

The big question in the debate on class sizes is not whether smaller classes produce better academic results - the answer to that is, “of course they do” - a more pertinent question is, “by how much?”

The deputy director of education at the Institute of Education in London concludes that better teaching methods will give a better return simply because we cannot recruit enough teachers of suitable quality.

So perhaps we should recruit as many good teachers as possible, weed out those who don't perform, and then support them in every way possible.

Death to the Middle Classes?!

The extreme Left Wing want to abolish private education to prevent the 'unfair' social advantages it brings. What will they do now that the latest research shows that those same Middle Classes, when they actually make a positive choice in favour of their local comprehensive, still come out on top?

Those of us motivated to encourage our children to reach the highest standards will quite naturally take an active interest in the school to ensure the best results. Every parent can potentially be a school governor but a full 57% of this study group had one parent who was or had been a governor. That is a real time commitment and proof of motivation that must influence the child.

The prime factor in personal success on any measure is the degree of motivation involved. The saddest aspect of many state schools is the way that motivation is killed. The dead hand of the state can never stimulate individual motivation while at the same time imposing prescriptive solutions from above.

Minimum aims of Education

Getting agreement on measurable aims of education may be difficult. But deciding on a minimum level to be achieved by all should be easier. We know when the 'education system' or the individual child has failed.

As a democracy we need every individual to be able to take part in active discussion, understand the main issues and make a choice. As a social economy, we need them to be self-supporting economically and work and live in a community without causing disruption.

Therefore, by the age of 16 every child should:

1) Be able to communicate in English in speech and writing, personally and via IT
2) Be numerate so as to understand finance and basic concepts of engineering and society
3) Understand the structure of UK society with background knowledge of how we arrived at the present position
4) Understand where the UK fits into global society and its issues.
5) Behave lawfully and be able to prove an ability to work with others successfully

Measuring the results on these 5 scales should be the essential requirement for GCSEs. The exams should be more than pass or fail because clearly there is great scope for achieving more than the minimum level agreed. The main measure for the pupil should be the decile ranking he achieves. That way there can be no grade inflation and the top 10% are rated above the next 10%. The main measure for the schools though should be the number of their pupils failing to attain a pre-agreed minimum level.

The structure of the exams would have to change to be able to discriminate successfully between the different levels. Pupils would be motivated by a competitive result that they could use for selection for further training and employment. Schools would be motivated first to minimise the failures so likely to lead to future problems for society. At the same time they would have to raise their standards for the more able pupils to achieve results in a national competition.