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UK spending power 'in heavy fall'

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  • Stardust77
    Stardust77 Posts: 61 Forumite
    I'm sorry if this happens at all (no sports day racers) it is rare!

    My kids school don't allow competitive sports days. Apparently it can ruin a child who is not more able in sporting activities. They simply have team building exercises team games but no winners or losers. Which would be all well and good if the world they were heading for wasn't so competitive! I personally think the kids are being set up for a downfall as soon as they reach high school and the bigger world.
  • neverdespairgirl
    neverdespairgirl Posts: 16,501 Forumite
    Even the most able kids are not able in every single area - so on what criteria are you picking your academic elite at 11?:confused:

    I'm not sure about that. I've got a mate, who is from Croatia. She came to my school on a scholarship for the GCSE years, during the Balkan wars, and stayed until A level. English was her 4th language. She did A levels (at a time when most people only did 3 or 4 at the most) in Latin, Ancient Greek, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. And got all As. She then got a 1st in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, and at the same time a 1st in linguistics at Zagreb university. She knocked off her PhD at Cambridge in 2.5 years, and got her PhD in linguistics a year later.
    ...much enquiry having been made concerning a gentleman, who had quitted a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained; at last Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney'.
  • Stardust77
    Stardust77 Posts: 61 Forumite
    As for grammars, we have 2 nearby in Essex. The kids within the council catchment have to pass at 86%, the kids from any other catchment have to pass at 93%.

    The majority of primaries around here don't teach the entire curriculum (seem to be missing verbal and non-verbal reasoning) and certainly dont promote the 11+ in any shape or form, so if you wanted your child to go to grammar, you need the money to pay for tuition. Then when your child's lucky enough to pass, the schools are so over-subscribed they find themselves at the comprehensive school anyway!
  • chrisandanne
    chrisandanne Posts: 434 Forumite
    Unbelievable! Can I ask you when you were last in a school also?

    Of course you can...I left school 40 years ago. I have two children who went to comprehensive school just after the change. One straight after and one 4 years after.
    My remark wasn't a researched opinion...it was just MY opinion based on the experience I had with my children and of my own experience of grammar school...I feel that my two very bright children would have done better and felt more comfortable at a grammar school....indeed I sent my daughter to a grammar school for her last two years because the local comp had gone down the rattle so much.
    Also when I was at school the children at grammar school came from a wide range of backgrounds (I hate talk of 'class' I think it's an outdated concept).
    You are obviously much more informed BACKFROMTHEEDGE on the education system as it is now and I am always willing to read informative posts and take on board what is being said. As I said it was just my own experience the remark was made on. A x
    Don't believe everything you think.

    Blessed are the cracked...for they are the ones who let in the light. A x
  • fc123
    fc123 Posts: 6,573 Forumite
    I'm sorry if this happens at all (no sports day racers) it is rare! The reality is that most state schools today are actually highly competitive environments. This is what actually happens in today's school. From the moment children arrive at school they are assessed in reading, writing and numeracy at age 4. This is called a Baseline assessment. In every class in the infant department (age to 7) children are separated by ability and arranged by groups on to separate tables where the teacher organises work to match the different children's abilities. This is done in all schools. After age 7 most schools also set in at least maths (this means that children's ability are assessed in each subject and they are put into the relevant class). Setting is the norm from age 7 and continues into High School. Of course this can become competitive, but most schools will try to minimise its impact on children as so much of education is to do with confidence. So the reality is that school's these days are actually highly competitive environments.

    This is absolute clap trap. You either live in one of those nicey nicey areas of Middle England that have absolutely no concept of life in a dodgy suburb or you are an Ofsted inspector.
    We lived in Grotsville (which is exp BTW) and both our kids attended state primaries. 1st pulled out at age 8. 2nd had to go all the way to 11 as we could not afford double fees (~we had a 7 yr gap in ages).

    My good friend, the most fervant socialist in the world (and a top acacdemic in her field plus Prof hubby) just pulled their 13 yr old out of the 'best' state school in the borough. I would love to post her letter on here to the head. Her older son is about to leave with pretty much zilch qualifications.
    As she put it' Our child has been sacrificed on the alter of state education'.....or some such emotional phrase.

    Her kids had a good,, stable homelife with a decent set of genes that should have got them somewhere at this stage in their lives.
  • fc123
    fc123 Posts: 6,573 Forumite
    Stardust77 wrote: »
    My kids school don't allow competitive sports days. Apparently it can ruin a child who is not more able in sporting activities. They simply have team building exercises team games but no winners or losers. Which would be all well and good if the world they were heading for wasn't so competitive! I personally think the kids are being set up for a downfall as soon as they reach high school and the bigger world.
    This is a key point.
    I remember going to a 'Non competitive sports day' some yrs ago. The kids set up there own rules for winning and losing...it's instinctive.


    No ammount of socila engineering and tinkering is going to make everyone equal. It's been tried before and failed.

    BTW I have 2 kids, girl and boy. Same dad, same upbringing, values. Both totally different in personality, aptitude, energy, inner competitiveness....one has a lot, the other couldn't care less.

    That's the problem with the state system....put all into the mincer and try to get them squeezed put all the same....not possible.
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    !!!!!!? wrote: »
    Glad to hear that things have improved in the last two years then:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/aug/21/schools.topstories3

    One in three businesses is having to send staff for remedial "catch-up" lessons in basic literacy and numeracy skills that they have failed to acquire at school, a damning report reveals today.The employers' organisation CBI says the government must act urgently to improve poor standards of maths and English among Britain's school leavers. The evidence emerges days before GCSE results are expected to show that more than half of all 16-year-olds have failed to achieve good grades in both key subjects.

    Still, A-level grades continue to improve so I guess it's all an illusion that the general standard of academic ability seems to be so appalling....

    Hi !!!!!!

    I can never win a debate then can I? - because when I argue that more kids get GCSEs and A levels (and better grades) than ever before, then the counter argument just becomes- oh but exams now are easier.:confused: BUT the fact is kids do get more qualifications than they did in the past. Many, many kids left grammar schools (we're not even talking about the appalling lack of qualifications of kids who attended seconary moderns) in the 50's and 60's with no qualifications at all. Many of these kids were from working class back grounds. Many, many grammar schools were actually carp.

    It is true that some kids still leave school with low abilities in English & Maths but there are far less of them than in the days of sink secondary moderns & poor performing grammars. This is to do with their backgrounds and everyone must work to reduce these numbers - going back to a divisive educaton system will not improve the levels of attainment for these kids.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    The exams are getting easier so results get better makes teachers and politicians look good.

    This is just carp, nobody has ever been able to produce any real evidence to back up these claims.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    I persoanlly think that very large schools aren't a good thing. And to have a huge spread of ability means that you do have to have large schools, with a big range of subjects taught.

    I greatly enjoyed my secondary school. It wouldn't have suited everyone, but it was great for me. It was a very academic, high-acheiving school, and I loved it. There were also only 100 girls per year, so the whole school was 700, which is a good number. You get to know everyone in your year, for example, quite quickly.

    Nothing wrong with having schools which are more or less focused on academics.

    Not all schools are large these days - though I would agree that the majority are. Despite that the kids that attend them enjoy them.

    There is everything wrong with having schools which are more or less focused on "academics". Where do I even start:-
    1) What is "academic"
    2) How do you measure IT
    3) How do you account for the fact that most "academics" come from middle class backgrounds
    4) Why do you want to go back to a situation of separating kids into different schools? Kids are separated by ability in most comprehensives. All High Schools use setting - it is government policy. Nearly all primary schools use setting from age 7. There is no need for kids to be ghettoed into separate schools. High Schools can deal with kids with a wide range of abilities in all subjects. All the research evidence shows that there is no differenence in the attainment of the bright if they go to a comprehensive versus going to an old style grammar. Bright kids do well everywhere. They do not have to be ghettoized.

    Just because you had a lovely time at school doesn't mean that your peers were having such a great time in the sink school secondary mod down the road.

    Funny you hear folk say "Bring back Grammars", you never hear them say "Bring back Secondary Moderns":rolleyes:
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
  • BACKFRMTHEEDGE
    BACKFRMTHEEDGE Posts: 1,294 Forumite
    I'm not sure about that. I've got a mate, who is from Croatia. She came to my school on a scholarship for the GCSE years, during the Balkan wars, and stayed until A level. English was her 4th language. She did A levels (at a time when most people only did 3 or 4 at the most) in Latin, Ancient Greek, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. And got all As. She then got a 1st in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, and at the same time a 1st in linguistics at Zagreb university. She knocked off her PhD at Cambridge in 2.5 years, and got her PhD in linguistics a year later.

    Fine - was she any good at Art? Music? Design and technology? Drama? Geography? History? RE? Sociology?

    Nearly all of us have strengths and weaknesses and large numbers of highly "intelligent" people who changed the world were carp at school and left with no qualifications.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

    Savings For Kids 1st Jan 2019 £16,112
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