Educashun...

Originally Posted by 454697819

Correct Foey,

Imho it starts at home, you cannot expect the education system to teach children from scratch as there is NO hope of that given how many children and all thier different problems,

I have whitnessed my 5 yr old cousin as a little genius start school and is now board because her mum did such a great job in the early years.

hey ho...

this is what is worrying me a bit. Libby is quite a bright wee thing, not 2 until xmas but she can recognise most letters of the alphabet and tell me what sound they make or tell me their name, does sign language and has started saying the word while signing. she knows all her colours and knows her shapes including oval, pentagon. But I worry that when she gets to school she will know too much and get bored. The infant school she will be going to had ofsted inspection last month and it is a good school with outstanding bits but "children start reception class with a well below average of knowledge and understanding". The english education system seems to take a bit to get going. In reception down here its like nursery, lots of learning thru play. In scotland you sit at a desk and learn to read and write. I like the idea of home schooling until maybe junior school age but worry about her not having pals, she is a quiet wee thing. My older kids treated school as a big social experience. dilema dilema

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

I think Kettering is a bit of a fick town.

Beat me to it mate.
Most are thick as pigsh1t.

[Swin]

My wife and I put a lot of effort into our kids homework, I agree with Fooey, you can't blame the teachers completely for this, my youngest boy has a friend who is round ours by 4 every day wanting to play the X-box while Dan is still doing his reading, seeing as he wouldn't get home until at least 3.30pm there's no way he's done his homework - too many parents just want the kids out of the way and don't want to bother with them

Originally Posted by Foey

Are we not missing the point slightly here, it's all well & good saying the kids are thick but a child is a bit like a blank canvass & will only become as good as they are taught.
Surely the problem is that they are not being taught correctly by their teachers & parents.

Hence the title of the thread!

Originally Posted by 454697819

Correct Foey,

Imho it starts at home, you cannot expect the education system to teach children from scratch

Originally Posted by kitkat

I like the idea of home schooling until maybe junior school age but worry about her not having pals, she is a quiet wee thing. My older kids treated school as a big social experience. dilema dilema

I think a mix of the two is the way ahead, BUT though we can't expect the education system to teach everything, the education system is missing out a lot of stuff that it should be teaching, stuff that I find out various kids I come across just don't have a clue about, stuff which I specifically remember being taught in school, and it's mainly primary school stuff.

Parents are going to have to use home schooling to fill the gaps until it gets sorted out.

I was taught to read at home, to count, some basic maths, how to behave, and basic practical life skills, but I wasn't taught my times tables at home, I was taught them at school with backup and practice from my parents at homework time. The traditional educational curriculum of English, Maths, Geography, History, etc should be led by the school.

I was learning about William the Conqueror at primary school, many teenagers now would look at you blankly and say "William the Who?". In primary school geography lessons we went out into the sports field and picked a leaf off each tree, then stuck it in our books, and learned what type of tree it had come from and what shape that tree and it's leaves were, most teenagers now wouldn't know an oak from a weeping willow. My fear is that I'm going to have to do a lot of this type of teaching at home, in order that my kid gets a complete education.

The kids in my wife's class are 12 and 13, if they can't put the months of the year in order, the combined system of parenting and schooling has failed them, they should be able to do this at 6 or 7 years old.

[Stingo]

A teenager turned up to join the RN and start his training...a couple of years ago. It soon became apparent that he was unable to tie shoe laces having only ever had shoes with velcro straps. Don't know where he is now...bless.

[timwilky]

Unfortunately, there is an underlying problem.

Education is not considered important by a huge undercurrent of kids who are now knocking out the current generation of school kids. These parents are poorly qualified, if they have jobs they are of low quality and generally they feel failed by the system.

You only have to look at some of the breakdown of qualifications by sex, by ethnic group etc and suddenly you see "middle class" and certain groups of Asian kids doing well. You see those considered marginalised performing badly. I have friends who teach in poor areas, they tell me they do their best. But if the parents are not supportive and in many cases obstructive. How the hell can they as teachers enthuse and enlighten a child and give them that thirst for knowledge.

Okay it may be half a century since I was at school BUT I blame a lot on the teachers and the system.My daughter in law is a teacher and the crap she comes out with is unreal. Last night,helping my granddaughter with her homework I said something was "Wrong".
You do not say wrong apparently,the answer should be modified and then she goes into a speech about the three ways of correcting something.
If it is wrong it is wrong----plain English--help the kid get to the correct answer.
Even showing my granddaughter the old fashioned way of doing simple arithmetic was wrong,even although my granddaughter found it easier and quicker.
"That's not the way we want them to do it"

Surely getting the right answer is what you strive for and providing you can show how it is done that is what is required.

Being young with an intuitive mine seems to be going against the grain where as when I was at school it was encouraged as long as you could display the method used and the answer was correct. We were taught to think which under today's system doesn't seem accepted

Originally Posted by timwilky

Unfortunately, there is an underlying problem.

Education is not considered important by a huge undercurrent of kids who are now knocking out the current generation of school kids. These parents are poorly qualified, if they have jobs they are of low quality and generally they feel failed by the system.

You only have to look at some of the breakdown of qualifications by sex, by ethnic group etc and suddenly you see "middle class" and certain groups of Asian kids doing well. You see those considered marginalised performing badly. I have friends who teach in poor areas, they tell me they do their best. But if the parents are not supportive and in many cases obstructive. How the hell can they as teachers enthuse and enlighten a child and give them that thirst for knowledge.

I'm not sure about the parents being "failed by the system", after all since when did the system owe anybody a living? I was taught that if you find yourself in a deep hole, then you find yourself a way of climbing out of it. My wife and I have a set of friends who are both working unskilled jobs, both at less than average salary, both found themselves out of work at some point in the past and got themselves back into a new job within a few months, live in a two up two down terrace in a poor area, and have two lovely daughters who share a bedroom, and spend a lot of time disciplining and educating them both. They work bloody hard to make the best of the position they are in, and although they find it hard, I can honestly say the kids don't suffer for it at all. They are lovely, bright, intelligent, courteous and well behaved girls. Your life is what you make of it.

Totally agree with what you say that the teachers can't do it alone though, a couple of examples from my wife's school

• A 15 year old kid who won't come to detention, doesn't care if you phone his parents because he lives with his Grandmother, if she says boo to him, he beats her up.
• Another kid that can't be put in after school detention, because that requires phoning the parents, in which case they beat him up
• A kid that gets drunk on Vodka in the school toilets, smashes the bottle, then self harms with it. She lives with her older sister because the Dad is in prison and the mother is an alcoholic who lost her house and now lives on the streets
• A kid who requires medication falling asleep in class, the school think the parents are overdosing her in order to keep to her quiet
• A young boy always in school by 7:45. "Why are you always here so early, do your parents need to drop you off before work?", "No miss, my parents don't work, I just get up and leave the house early so that they can stay in bed"

It surprised me when I was teaching 7-8 year olds in an afterschool Wildlife club how even the basic reading skills were missing. Some of the games we came up with involved matching words on a card to a description...until we realised most of them couldn't read the basic words....didn't we look stupid, had to think up something else to do quick on the spot! I was so shocked though, my first proper book was a dictionary at 4 (really not kidding, my mum still laughs about it now) and I was the first kid in my class allowed the privilege of "free reading" (where you could read any book in the library instead of the ones with 10 words in maximum ). For this reason i think home schooling is the way forward...or I might just become a teacher and secretly teach my kids more than whats on the crappy excuse for a syllabus these days.

Originally Posted by Bibio

he says 90% are dumb as feck.

Your son said that? I would definitely be having words with his English teacher....

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

surprised us last week, when we watching a falconry display at the zoo. He asked how fast a Harris Hawk flew, and the bloke who had the birds asked why, he said 'oh the Perigrine falcon flies at 200 mph, and I wondered if this one might be faster!

Great! Dilbert's first binoculars for his next birthday methinks!