BBC1 The day the immigrants left

Charterhouse

As a Pole I was pretty amused and proud. It really showed why it's probably a good idea to get out of this country asap.

avantra

aelitaman wrote: »

First off the parents have responibility but to say the schools do not is wrong.

If you had watched the Channel 4 dispatches on primary school teaching over the past 2 weeks then you would see the issues. They were focussing on maths teaching and SATS attainment. The simple fact is that if the kids are taught by a teacher whos maths is weak and you only need a Maths GSCE at C level to be a primary school teacher, then the kids maths will be weak. No rocket science there. C4 tested the maths of 196 primary school teachers by getting them to sit the SATS test that the primary school kids take. 1 teacher got 100% and very large percentage failed (I forget the actual percentage) then they asked the teachers if they liked Maths and a lot of the teachers said no. What hope have the kids got.

Then on the subject of the SATS test itself because it really only measures the percentage of kids that achieve and average level the goal of the school is to get pupils to achieve that level, so kids that are so far below the level needed the school has no incentive to better them because they will never get to the level required and so cannot affect the schools SATS ranking. Same with the smart kids who will easily achieve the level so they do not reach there potential either. The kids that get intensive focus are the kids just above the require SATS level so the school needs to make sure they pass and the kids just below the required SATS level as they have a chance of passing with intensive teaching.

All this system of SATS does is promote mediocracy and casts the kids that can not reach the level onto the scrapheap as when they go to secondary school they have no chance of understanding the maths being taught.

A smart govt would recongise this and insist that a dedicated maths teacher is installed in every primary school in the land to teach the 50mins of maths per day required to all the classes and stop the one teacher teaches all subjects. Then publish all sats results at the levels and compare to all schools across the land and measure the school on percentage top achievers, average and underachevers.

What is Bully Boy Balls doing, nothing. It is a disgrace.

Wow, I didn't know that maths is thought by a non-dedicated maths teachers. This is taking the biscuit in the great effort we name primary education IMO.

I don't have kids so wasn't aware of this, where I grow up many many moons ago I had a dedicated maths teachers and we were divided to three levels according to our ability in this unbelievably boring subject. I did ok but never really used algebra and trigonometry in my day to day.:p

Davesnave

avantra wrote: »

Even the queen took a job in MickyD according to your avatar. That's what I call COPING. :rotfl:

I stole that jokey picture from The Sun when we were first in danger of financial meltdown, adding the caption before using it here. At the time, it was because I was angry about the place to which politicians had brought us.

Now, I keep it because Lizzie Queen is someone who represents the old British work and duty ethics better than almost anyone else. The pic shows symbolically that we can still have dignity, even in these times when the UK's power has waned.

lostinrates

michaels wrote: »

I'm amazed there has not been more discussion on this - I only saw a review not the show but it just sounded like the show this thread would have made...where are the ladies and their thoughts tonight?

I didn't see the programme. I think a lot of us are posting less.

ses6jwg

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

We have a problem of a number of school leavers coming out of schools with poor numeracy and literacy. They blame is with those people and with their parents - not the schools. Unless the majority of kids - or anywhere near it - come out of those schools without basic skills, then its clear that the schools are completely competent at teaching.

Some people don't want to learn. That gives them basically three options - crime, dole or poor jobs. What we need to do is make dole no longer a viable option. Thats NOT to scrap JSA or cut the money available. But it needs to be better targeted.

I heard Frank Field on the radio yesterday with a very sensible idea. The government have launched a job guarantee. Young people will be guaranteed a job within 6 months. If they've been unable to find work in that time they won't get much of a choice in what job, but beggers can't be choosers. Field's suggestion is this - if people don't take the job offered to them, or drop out quickly, take their benefits off them.

A job - any job - is better than the dole. If you have a family to maintain it becomes harder to get one that pays enough, but the principle still applies. For the young who have no commitments thats not an issue - either work, or get your parents to pay for your sloth. Why should the rest of us who graft have to do it?

Where I work, they recently started a government initiative through Jobcentre which offers 6 month placements to people who have been unemployed for 6 months or more. This is an area with oen of the highest unemployment rates in the UK and highest levels of benefit claimants.

The job is minimum wage, 25 hours a week but flexible, and I believe because it is a government scheme the impact on benefits is very very small.

Guess what?

Of the 5 people invited for interview only 1 turned up. The others didn't even ring in to explain why they did not turn up.

A lot of the unemployed deserve to be poor and unemployed, they are thick, lazy and think far too highly of themselves.

Why should somebody who can barely read or write and have virtually no GCSE's expect to be earning 20k+ a year?

All they are good for is cleaning toilets for £1.50 an hour.

pingu2209

I have 3 children. 2 are at school. 1 is very bright indeed, the other has learning difficulties. I have to face both ends of the spectrum.

My very bright child gets given 1 book a week to read. I keep asking them to change it for 2 books a week but they wont as their system is 1 a week. There is no flexibility for bright children. He gets bored, he learns quickly and has to wait for the other children to catch up. I have discussed this with the teacher and I was told I should be pleased that he is bright and not like my other son, but no advice as to how to keep my bright son occupied.

My child with learning difficulties has high level language problems. The 'additional support' he gets is to get lumped into a small group once a week with a support teacher (who is not a trained specialist). The other children in the group have literacy problems like he does, but the reasons for their literacy problems are all different. One has asbergers, another is dyslexic etc. I complained and said that he needed to be in a small group but only children with the same problems as he does.

He needs to see a speech and language therapist once a week, that is the advised approach by the speech and language council of Britain. The school offers a speech and language therapist 3 times a year. That is the maximum.

Primary schools are failing our children. It is not the parents fault.

The reason children leave school not reading and writing is not all ways because of parents, believe me I make sure I work with my sons at home. But if the school continues to only offer my child with learning problems a half hearted approach then he will never leave school reading and writing.

I have now gone the private route and pay for weekly private lessons with a speech and language therapist and daily literacy lessons with a teaching assistant after school - the cost is £120/week. More than many people's mortgages.

lostinrates

pingu2209 wrote: »

I have 3 children. 2 are at school. 1 is very bright indeed, the other has learning difficulties. I have to face both ends of the spectrum.

My very bright child gets given 1 book a week to read. I keep asking them to change it for 2 books a week but they wont as their system is 1 a week. There is no flexibility for bright children. He gets bored, he learns quickly and has to wait for the other children to catch up. I have discussed this with the teacher and I was told I should be pleased that he is bright and not like my other son, but no advice as to how to keep my bright son occupied.

My child with learning difficulties has high level language problems. The 'additional support' he gets is to get lumped into a small group once a week with a support teacher (who is not a trained specialist). The other children in the group have literacy problems like he does, but the reasons for their literacy problems are all different. One has asbergers, another is dyslexic etc. I complained and said that he needed to be in a small group but only children with the same problems as he does.

He needs to see a speech and language therapist once a week, that is the advised approach by the speech and language council of Britain. The school offers a speech and language therapist 3 times a year. That is the maximum.

Primary schools are failing our children. It is not the parents fault.

The reason children leave school not reading and writing is not all ways because of parents, believe me I make sure I work with my sons at home. But if the school continues to only offer my child with learning problems a half hearted approach then he will never leave school reading and writing.

I have now gone the private route and pay for weekly private lessons with a speech and language therapist and daily literacy lessons with a teaching assistant after school - the cost is £120/week. More than many people's mortgages.

re son one...what can you do at home to keep inspired? here is your nearest library, for example?

pingu2209

lostinrates wrote: »

re son one...what can you do at home to keep inspired? here is your nearest library, for example?

I don't know what you mean by that?

I know where my library is, have a card and lots of books of my own at home.

The problem with high level language difficulties is that even if they can read individual words and spell words out phonetically, they can't connect the words into a scentence to be able to understand what it means.

They may read out loud 'the box is red'. When you ask them what colour is the box, their reply tends to be 'what box?'. It isn't to do with reading, it is to do with comprehension.

ninky_2

i thought it was a great show. it really did show that it is not a case of foreigners taking jobs off brits.

it was unbelievable that over half the brits couldn't even be arsed to put a decent show on for the cameras for two days. i mean that guy who texted in at gone midnight saying he'd just got in and felt a bit 'ill' so wasn't going to make it. cut to him playing computer games and saying he's not prepared to take any job.

others that were late because their kid had been ill in the night and then had the nerve to backchat the manager for saying it wasn't really acceptable!!

and that guy who wanted to call his new colleague 'bill' because 'uri' was too foreign a word for him to manage. and then said he couldn't understand his accent.

glad they mentioned that eastern europeans contribute more in tax on average than britons.

oh the shame.

bring in the immigrants. life in britain would be a lot more miserable without them.

aelitaman

I think he was refereing to your very bright son. The channel4 program I watched used countdown. You could video countdown and then play it but say to him you do the sums as well it as well.