The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Doozergirl

Cakeguts wrote: »

That could be because GCSE was too easy for him. There are some people who get terrible results in exams because they find the course extremely boring because it is all too easy.



What they used to do with young people who found the O level courses too easy was to send them out for musical instrument lessons to give them something else to focus on while they waited for the rest of the class to catch up. GCSE is much much easier than O level and you don't get free musical instrument lessons anymore so I often wondered what happened to people who found GCSE too easy.



If they are at a decent school sometimes they just take the GCSEs several years earlier and then go onto something more challenging between GCSEs and the second A level year.



The people I feel sorry for are the ones at non flexible schools where they don't bother to help people who find the whole GCSE system too easy and there must be a lot of them.

I think you can thank Michael Gove for the fact that they are not anymore. In the last few years the upshift has resulted in children in two consecutive year groups studying the many of the same things because teachers couldn't change the syllabus fast enough for the older group of children stuck between the KS2 SATs and those working towards the new GCSEs.

No blame on the teachers, they just had to prioritise those taking the tests. Teaching to tests is very much a thing again, and not a good thing.

LydiaJ

Doozergirl wrote: »

There are even girls whose parents have dictated what GCSE options they take! It horrifies me that parents can dictate their children's life path.

This can be a cultural thing. Having spent most of my career in schools with at least some boarding element, I have seen a lot of this in overseas boarders, especially those from South Asia and East Asia.

I taught one girl in sixth form who told me with pride that she had very liberal parents who had accepted her unconventional choice of degree subject. She went to Imperial to read maths, but that's not medicine or engineering, so was regarded as suspect among her parents' friendship group in Beijing.

I also taught another girl A-level physics who was neither suited to it nor interested in it. Her passion was art, but the most artistic career her Hong Kong parents were willing to consider was architecture, so she was stuck in my physics class.

Doozergirl wrote: »

DD's friends have a homework strategy which is to collaborate over social media and make it a team effort. They're set vast amounts of homework and I certainly don't see it as cheating because they are collaborating and explaining to each other, building understanding - which is what I think homework is supposed to do.

I tell my students that I expect them to have the maturity to know the difference between "telling someone the answers" and "explaining how to do it". Some of them do, and others don't.

I was recently on a training course where we were shown some "beat the cheat" worksheets where every child gets the same questions, but with different numbers in, so they all need the same method, but shouldn't get the same answers. This obviously makes extra work for the teacher, but apparently feedback from the students was good when it was tried. The bright students felt their answers weren't just being plagiarised, and the less able felt they were learning more from the experience, because asking a friend for help meant they had to explain how to do it, rather than just give the answer.

Doozergirl wrote: »

Sorry for the waffle.

Not waffling. No need to apologise.

Loanranger

I have always believed that homework was to help embed the learning from that day's teaching. To practise what you have been taught. Struggling with it until you understand it and can apply it is a valuable learning process.
Having a collaborative approach is counter productive in my view.

LydiaJ

Loanranger wrote: »

I have always believed that homework was to help embed the learning from that day's teaching. To practise what you have been taught. Struggling with it until you understand it and can apply it is a valuable learning process.
Having a collaborative approach is counter productive in my view.

Actually, students helping each other can be very effective, if it's done well. A student who is completely stuck can get a hint that will enable them to get started on the problem, rather than being unable to start at all. A student who already understands gets valuable "explaining practice" that improves their ability to write clear explanations in exams later. Students all writing down the answer that one student has been able to do - that's counterproductive, I agree.

I'm writing from the standpoint of physics. It may be different in other subjects.

michaels

MY kids go to supposedly an ofsted excellent school, they get minimal homework and tend to do ti by copying from one of the from swaps in morning tutor time on the day it is due in. DD1 is in Y10 (1st year gcse), set 2 of 4 for maths, her teacher said she is fine to get a 6 and shouldn't try any harder. DD1 said she struggles to control the class and she could easily get at least an 8 if she were motivated but she isn't. Revision for maths and science end of year is a challenge for her as she has very little notes and isn't sure if they just haven't been taught stuff or she wasn't listening.

Her choice of gcses would have been on the basis of which boys she fancied were in each subject and what was the least work, we decided jointly, biggest disaster has been her 'less academic' choice, music, she is ok at playing but has no interest in the theory and feels entirely out of place with the very talented students who are really into it so makes no effort. In general she would have been better of in the top sets and choosing the most academic subjects (eg triple science rather than double) as she does just enough to get by and is bright enough to have got by in the top sets and would have done a lot more in order to do so.

I have to say I am worried about the pressure to drop SATS. Experience in Wales shows that this has resulted in worse academic performance all the way through to GCSE. The problem with SATS is that they are treated as a measure of performance of the child and become a huge stress thing whereas they should be about checking that teachers are teaching properly and that each child is getting the necessary support to make the required progress.

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

MY kids go to supposedly an ofsted excellent school, they get minimal homework and tend to do ti by copying from one of the from swaps in morning tutor time on the day it is due in. DD1 is in Y10 (1st year gcse), set 2 of 4 for maths, her teacher said she is fine to get a 6 and shouldn't try any harder. DD1 said she struggles to control the class and she could easily get at least an 8 if she were motivated but she isn't. Revision for maths and science end of year is a challenge for her as she has very little notes and isn't sure if they just haven't been taught stuff or she wasn't listening.

Her choice of gcses would have been on the basis of which boys she fancied were in each subject and what was the least work, we decided jointly, biggest disaster has been her 'less academic' choice, music, she is ok at playing but has no interest in the theory and feels entirely out of place with the very talented students who are really into it so makes no effort. In general she would have been better of in the top sets and choosing the most academic subjects (eg triple science rather than double) as she does just enough to get by and is bright enough to have got by in the top sets and would have done a lot more in order to do so.

I have to say I am worried about the pressure to drop SATS. Experience in Wales shows that this has resulted in worse academic performance all the way through to GCSE. The problem with SATS is that they are treated as a measure of performance of the child and become a huge stress thing whereas they should be about checking that teachers are teaching properly and that each child is getting the necessary support to make the required progress.

How frustrating for you. I imagine Mrs S isn't exactly thrilled about it either??

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

MY kids go to supposedly an ofsted excellent school, they get minimal homework and tend to do ti by copying from one of the from swaps in morning tutor time on the day it is due in. DD1 is in Y10 (1st year gcse), set 2 of 4 for maths, her teacher said she is fine to get a 6 and shouldn't try any harder. DD1 said she struggles to control the class and she could easily get at least an 8 if she were motivated but she isn't. Revision for maths and science end of year is a challenge for her as she has very little notes and isn't sure if they just haven't been taught stuff or she wasn't listening.

I find that the students who do the best are the ones who collaborate with others (that even remains true at university).

The internet can actually be helpful; in the Science GCSEs there are lots of teachers who've put resources online, because they know that the students don't always feel much motivation and need good support notes.
Doc Brown, Biology QuestionBanks, science and maths prep, plus bbc revision pages, and many more.

If I was still a parent with children in that the GCSE and A-level age range, I'd be exploring these and downloading as many resources as I could before the sites (or their links) vanish, as the teacher - produced ones aren't being financed at all.

The government have tasked the teachers to make the students into independent learners as quickly as possible, and I wish I could say it's because that's a genuinely good thing in itself because it absolutely is, but I'm genuinely concerned it's primarily due to cost-cutting and a failure to believe that the next generation are worth investing in properly.

SingleSue

Online resources have been vitally important to Joe as he had to spend so much time off school. He didn't go full time until he was halfway through year 6 and even then due to his disabilities (and the school going into a panic at the slightest wheeze or sniffle), his attendance was pretty poor right the way through until he left.

To prevent getting too far behind, he went online and this increased when he went to college as he was hell bent on proving he wasn't stupid after his first attempt at GCSEs and then later on, not losing his number one position in the year group. This led to him being so far ahead whilst at college that he got bored, he had already covered the work and completed the assignments/homework required weeks and sometimes months before they were needed.

Joe doesn't do well in group things, not really a surprise as he doesn't really like people and especially when they come in groups but he does try. Josh does better socially with groups but then groups also tend to take advantage of him as he is still quite naïve (two fellow students got into trouble for it last year at uni, they got him to do the things they couldn't do and then ran off with the work leaving him with nothing), James is the natural leader in a group and does very well.

Jazee

Interesting comment about the new series on Earth from space. I only kind of enjoyed it. I wanted more information on the timespans between the images. Also I want them to zoom in on humans, we're animals too after all. I may watch the next episode.

I'm currently enjoying Victoria, the only costume drama I like, and the first episode of Ghosts was hilarious, particularly the ghost MP with no trousers.
I can't wait for the next episode on Monday.

I also normally watch Line of Duty but after the first episode decided I couldn't stomach any more. I have been known to faint watching films and TV before.

SingleSue

I was sitting watching brain and facial surgery last night whilst eating my dinner, Joe walks in and asks how I could do it.

Never bothered me, if it had been anyone touching feet or worse, cutting toenails, it would have been a different matter......