Overzealous Teacher?

Oldernotwiser

LandyAndy wrote: »

I certainly agree with that. I'm also pretty sure that ICT at GCSE is one of the worst organised and worst taught subjects on the syllabus based on what I've seen of my sons' experience over the last few years.

I'm not sure the ECDL is any better. It doesn't even deal with practical applications like word processing and spread sheets until the 'advanced' stage. I think MrsLA has done it.

To the OP. Your son's future will be severely affected without computer literacy. The school may have jumped the gun a bit but I think they are right to be concerned, as should you.

I started an ECDL once and word processing was the first thing we did, followed by spreadsheets.

However, I do agree with your opinion of ICT which is, I imagine, why the course is being stopped.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16503032

Lunar_Eclipse

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Do I think it sounds worth £56 and a great opportunity for your son to learn some important skills? Yes.

Do I think the school should have done this without talking to you? Absolutely not.

I'd be furious with them.
But I also think that he should strongly consider taking the course.

Totally agree with this.

However, I also think time taken away from other subjects is key in Y11 and I'm not sure now is the time for the OP's son. If this course is so beneficial, he could always do it in the future, even if it is more expensive. At 3x the price, the additional £110 or so might be more than worth it for a calmer teenager now and possible exam confidence in other subjects in the Summer (let alone any potential grade improvement.)

dizzie

Thanks Lunar Girl. Yes, I must stress that IT is not a GCSE subject at school. The children generally do something called Key Skills and very little time is allowed within the school timetable for the tuition. The EDCL seems to have been provoked by my son failing his Key Skills IT exam (twice). He is hoping for mainly A/A* in most of his actual GCSE subjects (Maths, Eng, Eng Lit, Biol, Chem, Physics, French, History, Geography....though perhaps not in DT (Systems Control since he is really struggling with computer based PIC chip and the CAD case design aspects). We would be happy for him to attend something perhaps over the summer holiday (even if it costs a lot more) to address his weaknesses in IT. It is the timing that is bad in our opinion and we really would have liked the opportunity of discussing this with the IT teacher first.

Lunar_Eclipse

dizzie wrote: »

We would be happy for him to attend something perhaps over the summer holiday (even if it costs a lot more) to address his weaknesses in IT. It is the timing that is bad in our opinion and we really would have liked the opportunity of discussing this with the IT teacher first.

I think that's a good idea and your last sentence sums up how I would approach a discussion with his school.

(I was going to add a comment about it all being about A/A*'s these days, but decided against it since that's not the case for every child and opens the can of worms about school/exams and education in general. All the best to your son in his exams!)

brokenlily

I do think the school should have communicated with you on this.

However, I will stress as other posters have done that key skills - English, maths and ICT - are necessary for pretty much everything these days, and I work with a lot of young people who leave school without the required skillsets, and as a consequence, they struggle to get on to courses, get jobs etc. I do think it is worth considering. I would look into what options your son has once he leaves school before you decide to reject the proposal altogether. It may be that he can do a Foundation Learning course with a local provider or do something at the local college for example there is something called CLAiT that is offered by college for learners who need ICT input (ie didn't achieve the required levels at school).

Once you have informed yourself on his further options, then you can make a clearer decision, but it needs to be stressed that neglecting it altogether shouldn't be an option. Schools don't always teach ICT very well and sometimes it may be that they will "get" it with a better tutor, so it may be better for him to do it elsewhere.

Errata

Perhaps the school's communication could have been better, but I'm left wondering what discussion took place between the school and the pupil. Did he agree with the school that he would do it and then not inform the OP?

Oldernotwiser

brokenlily wrote: »

However, I will stress as other posters have done that key skills - English, maths and ICT - are necessary for pretty much everything these days,

Not necessarily for degree level study as long as the student can word process essays and use the internet for research.

melb

it's wrong of the school to assume that someone has £56 available just like that

brokenlily

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Not necessarily for degree level study as long as the student can word process essays and use the internet for research.

But for most workplaces, at least a grasp of Excel is usually necessary.

dizzie

Hi Errata,

My son was expecting to fail the Key Skills again. He came out of the exam quite annoyed and told me that the resit questions were worse than the first time around and said that he could not have possibly passed. He was quite disheartened about the whole thing. He says he doesn't understand how his friends know all of this stuff when he doesn't. Even in his DT class, he tells me he was concentrating really hard on listening to the teacher when he was explaining how to use the CAD programme for case design and how to configure PIC chips, but he still couldnt do it. He tells me that one of his friends missed the lesson but was still able to do this without even being taught. He clearly has a lot of IT savy friends! This is making him feel very inadequate and incompetant and it is a shame that the emphasis being placed on this is having the effect of overshadowing his whole academic confidence. Despite his clear ability in other areas, he is not a confident child. For example, he was very downbeat about his performance in unit exams for geography and history and did not think he would get the A*s he wanted. Yet when results came out he scored 100 UMS in both. He is an individual who will not react well to this added pressure and I think an individual approach should have been taken.

I don't think it is a bad thing for a person to experience failure, but I don't think it is sensible or healthy to set someone up for repeat failure by just putting them in for more exams when it is clear that the fundamentals have not been understood. Anyway, he has not passed the enforced resit - the IT teacher told him yesterday and then said that he would have to resit it again. There was no further discussion or negotiation about Key Skills or any other qualification. That he would have to resit again was put to him as an instruction, not an option. We both had to look up what the EDCL was on the internet to find out what I have been charged for! It seems that this is different to Key Skills. Surely school could have sent a letter explaining their recommendations and detailing what an EDCL is. All I know is what I have read on the internet and the fact that school office have today confirmed that his teacher has signed him up for this after school adult education class. We know no further details about how much study time is required/how long the course takes/ how many after school sessions are taken or when the class starts! We only know that we have been billed for it.

I really do appreciate that the IT teacher is very keen to ensure that all of his students attain IT competency. I am glad that he is an enthusiastic teacher, really - I am. The money is not the issue - school may presume that because we donate almost £80 a month to them (contribution to school funds and financial pledge which was requested to upgrade school facilities) that we can afford it. And certainly, they would be correct that this is not going to cause any financial hardship. But it is the principal of signing him up to do something about which (i) he or I have no knowledge in, (ii) in an area in which his confidence is already rock bottom and importantly (iii) at a time when he is already beginning to get more than a little stressed about his GCSE workload. Had the teacher entered into any discussion with us, I would have gleaned more information about the course and perhaps opted to postpone this. Now, it appears that we do not have a choice.