UKH

Background: I am a secondary school teacher currently on a 6 months career break. I have taught French for almost 20 years in Scotland. I am just back from 4 months in France where my kids 12 (1st year secondary) and 8 (4th year primary) have had a taste of French education.

Upon our return last week and kids starting back this morning, I happen to read this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65293430

I am friend with someone who works in statistics for the Geneva government in educational matters and currently doing a PHd in those things (comparing systems throughout Europe and a bit worldwide using things like PISA and OECD comparators).

And my first thought was, wow I agree with Sunak!!!!! My kids found maths a challenge (not a language issue as they were bilingual to start with) and got a bit of a shock in class.

2nd thought, my friends tells me France is also doing badly in all international comparisons in maths… so where does that leave Scotland?!?

3rd thought: plenty other things that damage the economy! Not least the fact that the UK is desperately monoglottal (I have to preach for my own chapel some!)

4th thought: actually not all negative as I wasn’t particularly impressed with science provision in France in both schools

5th thought: my kids were taken aback by how much more demanding and rigorous the school experience was.

6th thought: I was gobsmacked by the learning opportunities provided by both schools within the 4 months. Less red tape and much less reluctance to do things outwith schools.

So, after a long bit of reading- thanks for reading  through- what do you think about how we educate our children? What do you think is lacking? What do you think is good?

One super positive aspect of Scottish education in my opinion is inclusion: normalisation of all sorts of conditions, illnesses and learning difficulties. It does come at a price which is a general pulling down of general level in terms of academic achievement (again my own personal view) but I tend to be willing to pay it.

In reply to French Erick:

Agree that inclusion is a good thing, but totally disagree that it pulls down academic achievement (my wife teaches primary, always chatting about one of her pupils who is SEN who has extra support with nothing negative whatsoever. In fact, mathematically speaking the academic attainment may have actually increased by a small % simply due to the improvement in this one child). 

In reply to French Erick:

I'm not sure how trying to get kids to take maths up to 18 would address the problems we face.

Most kids should have a good understanding of maths by 16. If they don't, the problem is earlier in the education system and trying to get someone up to that level of understanding between the ages of 16 and 18 would come with an opportunity cost; losing time that could be spent on other subjects or vocational training that might be more suitable for the individual.

In reply to French Erick:

I was very pleased to see that my daughter's A level maths course contains substantial practical elements on statistics and mechanics (and probably other applications). I always tell my kids that maths is a tool as useful as a swiss army knife.

In reply to pasbury:

Well, i for one am glad maths was not compulsory up to 18. My daughter really struggled with maths and had to retake her maths GCSEs twice. This is despite my wife and i both holding maths degrees, working in science and her older brother getting A* in his A levels and going onto a science degree. So a fairly high level of maths understanding in the family. 

She eventually went to a school specializing in performance arts where there were many others who struggled with maths as well.

In reply to RX-78:

And yet maths is part of music ( I have yet to meet a mathematican who cannot easily read music for example) and a whole host of performing arts have maths behind them. And if you get into theatre management you will need to have an undertanding of  numbers for accounts. And so on and so on.

My daughters flat mates maths masters thesis was on David Beckhams infamous free kick against Greece and the maths around that.

Just maybe ideas for getting across how important it is and a cultural shift in peoples attitudes to maths is a staring point.

In reply to French Erick:

Can't help but agree with you on this one - arguably more damaging than bad maths ability (admittedly I have always learnt maths easily and found languages hard, so this could easily just be my prejudices showing. Every single one of my non-UK friends speaks at least two languages, and has perfectly adequate maths skills. More focus on languages from an early age please!

In reply to French Erick:

It's a tricky one. There's certainly a cultural acceptance to be bad at 'maths'. Last time this came up the BBC presenters were joking about their own poor maths skills - they wouldn't have joked about their own poor literacy skills.

As a teacher of undergraduate biology, I find many students have an aversion to what they think is 'advanced maths' e.g. logarithms or use of exponentials . Most of the time they have little numerical literacy - what they think is maths is actually basic numeracy (being familiar with handling numbers), or even representing numbers in different ways (such as logs). I explain we won't be dealing with anything more complicated that counting (very big or small numbers) and simple arithmetic (adding or multiplying) most of the time.

Whatever we do, they need to lose this fear. I don't care if they can do calculus (I can always teach them) but I do want them to be numerate (and happy to learn)

In reply to French Erick:

I was impressed recently to hear that a friend's kids have a subject (in Scotland) of Applied Maths as a separate course to normal maths. This makes a lot of sense to me, assuming it is done well, as for most people this is a much more useful subject. I will never need to know any calculus or SOH CAH TOA etc. However, tax, loans, budgeting etc are things that we really should make sure everyone can do. 

I got my higher maths, and promptly forgot all of it the day after the exam. Our teacher taught us to pass an exam and didn't need to understand how it worked. 

I am so with you on the languages. I try to convince kids all the time to stick in with languages!

In reply to ianstevens:

We all know that Maths is going to be kingpin in the economies of the future....whether people like it or not.

At least a PM is trying to address this and I will give him credit for at least setting up a panel to have a look at a way to address our negative cultural view of it.

In reply to French Erick:

Assuming that the content of a maths GCSE is similar to what is was 25 years ago, I think that very little of it teaches you things that you will use in everyday adult life. Applied Maths was mentioned above, very valuable; I think that everyone who is taught maths should be taught how to apply it. I really enjoyed Maths at school, I enjoyed the puzzles, the logic and the complexity, but I would now hardly ever use differential equations or the quadratic formula for example and I think I've forgotten most of what I learned.

If you are looking to study maths further at an academic level then I think GCSE Maths is a great start, but that represents a tiny fraction of the population.

This feels like a flaw with the UK education system in general, it is focussed on churning out grades, on equipping children to specialise in an academic area and study it further. If you're not academically minded, the system dumps you at age 16. If we are looking at growing our economy by equipping our children with the skills to become an efficient and productive workforce, it is lacking.

In reply to Jimbo C:

The lack of/aversion to maths is, as said above, largely accepted by many. Sometimes I feel the comment, "I'm no good at maths" is said not so much as an excuse for not being able to do basic calculations but almost a badge of honour.

Agree about Applied Maths. Years ago I did an Open University degree and one year at summer school(do they still exist in the OU?) the best maths tutor there was a physicist and saw maths as a tool to get the answers to something you found important/interesting.

Dave

In reply to neilh:

I'm not saying we shouldn't teach maths at all, rather I'm saying if we want to add stuff to the curriculum langauges would be much more useful than even more maths. And I say this as lover of maths and hater of languages.  

In reply to girlymonkey:

Hope  the Scottish "Applied Maths" is different to what was taught as applied maths when I did double maths A level many years ago. That was divided into pure & applied  with applied maths being of little relevance to tax, budgetting etc -  from memory it was mostly mechanics (which included some calculus & statistics).

In reply to Doug:

Indeed, 'Applied Maths' is a poor title, since it has many different meanings and does have very specific meanings to a mathematician. The Scottish course is actually called Applications of Mathematics, and is available at National 3, 4 and 5. (National 5 is roughly GCSE equivalent.) It covers basic numeracy, financial skills, some basic statistical skills, measurement skills (including navigation and bearings), geometric skills, and graphical data and probability skills (including using data to help make decisions). 

In short, it is less academically oriented that a conventional maths course and more oriented to those skills which are most likely to be used in day-to-day life. 

I think there are two aspects which bother me most about all the calls for more maths. The first is that a lot of what is being called for is already being taught. English GCSE students are already exposed to a wide range of practical elements of maths. It therefore seems there is a considerable clamour for what is already described in the National Curriculum. The second element is the simple fact that many students will forget what they have been taught, if they ever learn it in the first place, despite it being present in the National Curriculum.

The PM is right to say that it should not be okay to admit to being poor at maths. However, rather than suggesting that another two years of maths post-16 is what is needed, I would have thought it better to explore the reasons why so many children leave school with levels of numeracy some way short of the levels they should be achieving. A student who struggles with maths to the age of 16 would have been better served with a better founding in the basics, from primary school upwards, rather than have the horror of another two years of maths hanging over them. If they haven't grasped some basic concepts by the age of 16, they have been let down badly. Resolving this is, to my mind, a far more pressing issue than trying to decide what should be taught at 16-18. 

In reply to French Erick:

Sorry this isn't about maths but it's about French education and might interest you.

My 17 year old daughter is doing 1st year Bac at Lycée in Avignon. Last week they had a test in PE. 

<Brace yourselves>

All the kids were weighed (in front of everyone else) then their recorded body weight was halved. Then they all drew straws and had to do either bench-press, squat or deadlift of half their own bodyweight. 
Their results go towards their moyenne grade. Some kids got zero, some got 20/20, some were crying at being weighed.

True story! I had to be restrained when my daughter told me what had happened. Hope I never meet her PE teacher in person.

E

In reply to hang_about:

Luckily kids won't go near R2 but several presenters act as though it's cool to say they aren't or weren't upto standard with maths. Mind you some sound pretty dire at everything else too. 

I do think many parents are counter productive little X is very wordy, but not so good at maths and it's accepted. Just like reading from a young age, simple board games that develop numeracy are no longer the norm in many household, even just playing cards, dominoes etc..

In reply to neilh:

But they had done something very similar about 5 years ago and ignored the results. At the same time because teaching is becoming increasingly a comparatively poorly viewed and poorly paid career, they aren't recruiting anything like enough teachers, particularly of maths. 

At best this is Sunak realising this is a problem, having ignored it or been unaware of when he was chancellor, a back bencher etc and now rushing to do something. At worst it's some more red meat for the base before the May elections and will sink without much trace afterwards, like the last maths teaching review. 

In reply to ExiledScot:

Believe me, you see plenty of kids who whilst doing fine in maths at whatever level they are at, can be atrocious at expressing themselves in written English. It seems incredibly rare for teenage boys to read at all currently - I probably read more than most 35 years ago when I was that age, but I wasn't by any means weird in that I read for pleasure. It seems basically just not done now. Not only are kids (particularly boys) are missing out on learning and experiences from reading, they have next to no exposure to well written, grammatically correct written English. I have to tell Y12s regularly that you can't have a sentence that goes on for more than a page of A4. And younger kids who when you tell them they need to use full stops and capital letters they just say "why?" 

So maybe whilst there are people on the radio happy to say "I'm rubbish at maths", what they really mean is I did it to GCSE, passed with an OK grade and haven't studied it since then and that's the "anti-Maths culture". So middle class adults might not say "I'm rubbish at reading", there are plenty of kids - often from more deprived backgrounds who will say "I don't care about reading. Don't want to do it, so won't do it." 

In reply to neilh:

Maybe but given his primary plan so far is the make it compulsory to 18 doesnt really give confidence in his plans.

Maybe the panel will be able to do something more useful because that is rather flawed and most likely counterproductive.

In reply to TobyA:

I doubt the red meaters are even interested in this...its far too thoughtful for them. I recall if I am correct a post from you bemoaning how vry well paid maths teachers were in comparison with others( maybe it was somebody else).

In reply to mondite:

Who knows, but as young people have to stay in education until 18 there is already compulsion which ever way you look at it.

In reply to TobyA:

Sad isn't it. If only some tiktokers would sit down with a book!

I think it's all part of why the class divide won't change, why x percent of top jobs go to people who went to certain schools, they are the primarily the ones doing more than the bare minimum to scrape through the education system. Obviously there's a bigger debate about funding, motivation, role models and so on. 

In reply to French Erick:

I think kids should do PE everyday and I think homework should be illegal.

In reply to Jimbo C:, 

The last maths exam I passed was GCE Elementary winter 1971 and I have definitely used quite a lot of stuff from that over the years and even now, as well as interchangeable metric and imperial units on a regular basis.  Basic trig and geometry is indispensible in everyday life, particularly as an "old age pensioner".

I think one useful and Essential part of the solution is that there should be lifelong, and I mean LIFELONG, past retirement even, opportunities to improve maths knowledge for everyone as mathematical ability and understanding develop at different ages and times of life and many people, myself included, left school as mathematical under achievers (in the sense that we never reached our potential) and would love adult education possibilities that are more than just GCSE or basic numeracy, scrapbooking and family history tracing.  My teachers ar O level were horrified that I abandoned science for A level but I felt I could not go on as I had not mastered maths enough to go on with science but in a perfect world I would have loved to go on and have done science A level subjects rather than what I did do.

In reply to neilh:

No, they get paid the same as all other teachers at the same level. It's the great support you get to train as a maths teacher, and sometimes golden handshakes you get joining a school - but that's just a reflection of how desperately short of maths teachers we are. The government cut their recruitment target as they kept missing it and then still missed the lower target. 

In reply to neilh:

Yes but that wasnt what I was getting at.

The claim is kids are coming out of school without basic maths skills after 11 years of education. Exactly how will adding another two years solve this especially given the difficulty already with getting maths teachers.

In reply to French Erick:

It could be a positive step, but as others have said who is going to deliver the extra lessons? When the initial proposal was discussed on here before Christmas montyjohn made a reasonable suggestion that it could be an online course, but that doesn't sound as inspirational as teaching maths through the medium of music, especially for students who given the choice don't want to study maths. I'm concerned the needs of a (apologises for the English bias) grade 9 GCSE student will be massively different to someone who has scraped a 4. I'd much prefer the focus to be on younger students

Pretty high up, but I'd take the results with a pinch of salt. Delaying the students taking the test by sixth months and having a higher percentage of no entries than any other country might have had an effect. In terms of maths inprovement in western Europe I would look at Switzerland a decade or so ago and more recently the Netherlands 

Isn't MFL struggling to recruit/retain even more than maths. Possibly indicating language graduates are currently more in demand than maths? I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, how many of your students have bi-lingual parents? 

Good to hear. My experience over the last 20 years, is that partly due to league tables provision has generally narrowed. I don't recall DoE, music, sports, drama etc. featuring prominently in too many OFSTED reports 

Intresting I'm sort of the complete opposite view. I'm in the small minority of maths teachers who believes in mixed ability teaching in order to improve attainment, but with the caveat that those 10/15% with cognitive issues need specialist help (and possibly the same for the top 3% or so who are gifted) 

In reply to mondite:

Which is why I agree with you and others that the focus should be with younger students. It seems to be an indication that passing GCSE maths isn't deemed to be a high enough standard, in fact if everyone is going to study maths until 18, what is the point of GCSE maths at 16?

For it to have a meaningful impact the extra staffing will be significant, between 10%-20% depending on the amount of time allocated. Virtually every maths department needing an extra full time member of staff seems a bit unrealistic at the moment. 

In reply to Doug:

Yes, sorry, it's what Harry Jarvis said! This particular teenager calls it Maths App, so I had only half remembered what the explanation was!

In reply to jiminy483:

Surely we want kids to enjoy being active?? No need to put them off by doing more PE!

I agree about the homework though!

In reply to RobAJones:

Interestingly, I remember when I was graduating from a languages degree, people assumed I would use it to teach. I couldn't think of anything worse. But I think this assumption is part of why kids don't want to learn it, they don't see it as anything other than a route into teaching. 

I am constantly telling kids about the brilliant opportunities languages have opened up for me and telling them why they should study them. It is interesting how their attitudes change when they hear stories of what else they are useful for. 

I also just throw random language facts into conversations, and often those go down well too. 

In reply to neilh:

Maths is important, but most members of the public will rarely, if ever, need to use anything on the A-Level syllabus. 

I'm a mechanical engineer and I rarely use maths beyond GCSE level. The understanding of it is necessary to help with understanding how things work, however it's not that useful on a day to day basis.

Maths is never going to be a subject that will limit someone's options at A-Level and it being compulsory will help prevent people from being shut out of studying STEM subjects by making the wrong subject choices at school, but there are much better ways of increasing the engineering workforce (which we desperately need to do).

In reply to girlymonkey:

Not surprising. For many of the kids I've taught in Cumbria the only people they or their parents know who can speak a second language would be their language teacher. Obviously school needs to play a part in educating them, but some parental attitudes to students learning a language, I've experienced, have been shocking. We are now discussing making maths compulsory until 18, I think you can make more of an argument for making a second language compulsory until 16. I think Labour abolished this requirement in the mid 2000's

I think the main reason is it is perceived to be "hard" That isn't helped by for many students it will be their lowest GCSE score. 

Everything helps, but in the UK we are always going to struggle compared with other western countries and the obvious benefits of being able to speak English. I've heard of a few schools trying to teach subjects like History and Geography in French/German, it would be great if that could become as widespread as it is in the Netherlands, but how many staff could cope, nevermind the kids. Partly it comes back to staff in primary schools, how many in the UK are reasonably fluent in a second language? 

In reply to Enty:

Sounds pretty full on! 
My eldest went skiing a half day and then had another 60 min during which she learned the joys of wrestling !

Later on she did orienteering. Nae bad compared to yours!

In reply to RobAJones:

It seems to be more how many students fail GCSE maths. Which if anything is more of an argument for focusing on the younger students. Why wait for them to fail before somehow fixing it when they hit 16?

In reply to French Erick:

Putting kids on scales would've been out of date when I was a kid in the 80s.

Unbelievable. 

E

In reply to mondite:

But this proposal isn't aimed at the 27% of students who "fail" GCSE maths, down from 50% when I started. They currently have to continue to study maths until they are 18 unless they are one of the 20% (of that re-sit cohort) or so who "pass“  when they are 17. This proposal is about making it compulsory for those that 'pass" at 16 (or 17) to continue until they are 18.

In reply to RobAJones:

If you look at the text of his speech he does talk about those who did badly at GCSE and how that impacts both them and the economy before wandering off onto the broader use of maths.

So think the main problem is the incoherence of his plan and what he is trying to solve with it.

Logically shouldnt he be waiting for this expert group to do their work before coming up with his solution of compulsory maths?

In reply to girlymonkey:

Agreed. And I would add some measurement skills - sufficient to be competent at DIY, and some understanding of statistics and large numbers - sufficient to be politically literate and able to see through political propaganda.

Far too often I hear government spokespeople say something like "we've invested four billion in social care". This is just pulling wool over the average person's eyes. Is that four billion per year or once off? Is it extra money or the total? And what percentage of the population understand what a billion is, other than an impressively large number? Every time I hear someone talk about a billion pounds I wish they'd add - "that's just £20 for each adult in the country", That would put some perspective on it.

Martin

In reply to girlymonkey:

+1.

Compulsory PE is probably responsible for most of the population vowing never to do sport again after leaving school.

In reply to Martin Hore:

Why on earth would any UK government want that?

In reply to neilh:

I have two counter-examples in my own household.

Such an interesting thread. When I was doing O-level maths, millions of years ago, the girl I sat next to and I raced each other all the way to an A-grade, but it was obvious to us and to everyone that she should do A-level maths and I shouldn't, because to her it came naturally.

Or so we thought. Some people have a maths-y sparkle, but we all need maths even if it doesn't come easily to us. In my trade I need to be able to read a set of company accounts without fainting, and I need to understand statistics and probability. I could really have used an applied maths course

But I was too busy at A-level doing languages ... I think one of the real issues lurking behind this discussion is the dramatic narrowing of our range of subjects at 16. Which the French and others don't do.

And I agree that English monoglossity (mmm see my lovely new word) is dreadful.

In reply to spenser:

Who said anything about everybody doing A level maths.  Clearly that is not the right way forward , even Sunak  acknowledges that. 
 

But the overall level of numeracy etc needs improving in this age of maths and data etc. 

everybody acknowledge that , it’s just the way forward that nobody agrees on. 

In reply to BusyLizzie:

The french aren't averagely better with monoglossity . They all put a lot of energy into it at school but frankly their ensuing problem is reserve ie. they're too shy. It's amazing how many people rub sides with (here in France) during months and years - who never utter a word in english until some chance circumstance necessitates, then Voila !

On the further differences between education in France and Britain (broadly) and watching our son progress through the system - learning by rote seems far too prevalent. But I can't compare directly having not monitored a child go through in UK.

Rohan is now 18 and in his 1st year of Uni studying LEA 'Langues Appliqué Etrangers' (applied foreign language). What an irony. The teaching method is just that - rote. Endless grammar tests in three languages simultaneously - the students even had a prof apologise for this intensively tedious method from the lectern ! There are some practical interactive exercises but far too little.

I am otherwise suspicous about that course organisation - they take on 3000 kids in the 1st year and expect to only have 500 progress into year two ??!

In reply to neilh:

The whole structure and level of learning will evolve is about to worsen, with computer usage being so prevalent, esp once AI gets a footing

You can take that as a generational lament. I met a 72 yr old frenchman recently - ex prof in greek and latin - already bemoaning this trend in his lifetime.

In reply to LeeWood:

It's not just being shy, it can also be fear or worry of making mistakes in front of their friends. When I first worked in France I was based in a research lab with lots of mostly French PhD students. I shared the Postdocs office with a French Canadian & a Swede & between us we mostly spoke English - myself & Elna (the Swede) had only just arrived in France & our French was pretty poor. If we spoke to a group of the postgrads they would only speak French with us but individually, many of them would speak English. Several admitted they didn't want to make a fool of themselves in front of their colleagues so avoided speaking English.

But that was 30 years ago so maybe its different today.

In reply to Doug:

I don't think so. The other alternatives are a stronger sense of self and a more robust sense of humour - is their a french Rowan  Atkinson ?!

In reply to neilh:

I think there is a reasonable amount of agreement, but the government don't like the cost or the long term nature of the investment involved. Good teachers make more of a difference with younger pupils, we need better provision in primary school and that probably means more specialists in subjects like maths and languages. I worry making things compulsory to older students can have the opposite effect, people have mentioned being forced to do PE as an example. Officially, part of the reason for making languages optional rather than compulsory was to raise standards, by not having disruptive students in those GCSE classes? 

In reply to LeeWood:

😌 so the old strategy still applies, from the era of no entry selection at Uni, that is to fail 50% of 1st and 2nd year systematically and regardless of results.

I thought that since a British inspired, entry selection style with  « Parcoursup », would have put an end to it… old habits die hard seemingly.

In reply to Doug:

I spend much of my summer guiding French tourists in Scottish hills (my first tour is imminent and I have had a winter of only using my Russian! Eeck, could be a messy first day or two!). 

My experience is that the French are a bit better than the Brits on the whole, but not by much. Many of my clients are in thier 50s and 60s, I do tend to find the younger ones I do get are often a bit better. My role is every bit as much about translation as it is about guiding in the hills. 

In reply to RobAJones:

Are "specialists" the answer, I knew the vast majority of the maths that I still regularly use today before I left our village primary school and my teacher was not a specialist.  He taught all subjects to a class of over 30 mixed ability pupils.

He was just a great teacher, maybe it is better teachers that we need rather than degree educated specialists?

In reply to LeeWood:

One of his most celebrated creations - Mr Bean - has distinctly French origins.

In reply to RobAJones:

Well, as far as languages are concerned it backfired spectacularly ! Even the « success story » of Spanish is really an admission that languages are culturally irrelevant in the UK: the number of entrants at exams in 2019 in Spanish (fastest growing MFL) was lower than the average level of French pre 2001. German has almost disappeared, and French has decreased every year to be half what it used to be. Meanwhile, the UK has not recognised its minority languages (Urdu, Punjabi, Polish…) and utilised this incredible pool of skill and knowledge. 
Someone upthread mentioned the number of bilingual families: it’s much bigger than you would think.

in my wee highland town in a school roll of 640, we had 30+ kids with another language spoken at home… and it’s hardly ethnically diverse!

Also, I wholeheartedly agree with the comment made about narrowing the number of subject through so-called « choice/options ». It’s way too early, age 15, to make those choices! I only discovered my true language abilities when I was 17!

In reply to LeeWood:

As I understand it that is standard for most French uni courses.

In reply to timjones:

There are different kinds of specialists. What is needed, in my opinion, is specialists in teaching mathematics. That is different to specialist mathematicians, who may be very good at maths but not good at teaching it. Of course, it helps to be a good mathematician (degree level and beyond) to be a good maths teacher, because of the detailed and in-depth understanding of the subject, but if a teacher cannot communicate, all their maths knowledge will be wasted. 

Sadly, there seem to be a number of primary teachers whose maths is barely adequate. Without at least a good grounding in the subject, they are not going to be able to teach adequately. In particular, it will be the weaker children who suffer most in these circumstances. 

And then there are teachers such as yours who were simply good teachers. I would not like to speculate as to whether we have more or fewer than in previous times. 

In reply to timjones:

There are many brilliant primary school teachers, but pupils experience will be very variable. As a secondary maths teacher it was often obvious which feeder primary students came from. It had it faults but the numeracy strategy did improve that inconsistency by helping the schools with weaker maths provision. I thinks it's telling that I'm going into (secondary) school tomorrow and teaching PE in the morning, before a bit of maths. I think it's telling that language is the other subject that has cropped up in this thread, I would be teaching in a German class, but child minding in any other language even if it was KS3. 

I accept that students are better at identifying outstanding teachers than senior leader or inspectors, but the evidence is that they aren't very good. I think I was able (like many others) to teach A level reasonably well after about 5/6 years in the profession. Teaching kids (as opposed to entertaining them) with special needs and primary school kids well effectively is, to me at least, far more intellectually challenging. Can you be a good primary maths teachers without  a degree in maths and a masters in education, definitely, but I suspect you will need the support of colleagues who are. 

In reply to girlymonkey:

exactly this .

a good friend of mine recently left maths teaching after 20 years largely in challenging schools . He reckons that at 14  most kids should take a subject called maths for life ,  other subjects might be pure math or whatever . In principle I agree My unease is how one would choose who does what as it has the slight wiff of of a secondary ( second best ) or second system.  My eldest son finds gcse maths easy and likes the subject  his teacher. My middle son is exactly the opposite 

In reply to French Erick:

Many years ago when English secondary schools could bid for specialist status I decided to go for the least popular option - Languages. We were determined to tackle head-on the cultural issues raised in this thread: parochialism and arrogance. I admit I was at first taken aback by the lack of interest from local businesses when I was trying to raise the necessary funding for the bid.  Eventually HSBC gave us a big wodge of cash. However, over the years we were very successful in persuading our students,  parents and community that foreign languages could be life-enhancing and career-improving. Every student did at least one MFL to GCSE, many took two and some did three. My point is that it's perfectly possible to change attitudes if you stick to your guns. The problem for us as a nation is that no government, whatever its hue has ever had the courage to do so. They've always buckled, so we've never created a generation or two who see the utility and enjoyment of language learning and pass this onto their kids. Given the sad lack of vision in both the main parties' education policies I can't see this changing soon.

In reply to French Erick:

I think the "real" reason was to address the shortage of MFL teachers, in that regard it has unfortunately been successful to some degree 

For the wrong reason, it will be something any competent leader in an English/Welsh secondary school will know. Me entering a Polish student for GCSE Polish is educationally pointless, but helps significantly with P8 and Ebaac scores. It will vary massively depending on the catchment, for me it was a handful in each year, some schools it will be over 80%

In reply to RobAJones:

We looked when we first moved over as to whether there was a GCSE Finnish, my kids being bilingual. But of course there is none. We figured the school would like an easy pass if they could but I was quite surprised how few other languages could be taken. I don't think there is GCSE Turkish, but lots of kids speak Turkish in this country. 

In reply to French Erick:

Economically speaking it’s irrelevant for us. We have a huge comparative advantage in languages and in general we should (and do) use the time that frees up to learn other things. Learning languages for the British is generally for fun, not profit. If we want an education system with more fun in it then we have to pay for it, which we are unwilling to do. 

This is absolutely true, there are tons of bilingual families in the U.K. but it’s very much a private thing. I live in a bilingual household and in some areas of the country it’s clear that speaking not-English in public isn’t particularly welcome. 

I’m curious as to what you think we should actually do with our huge numbers of minority language speakers. I can speak basic Urdu/Hindi and it’s hard… there’s a reason the East India Company didn’t accept candidates after they were 16! You have to be fairly keen to be able to do more than ask for a couple of samosas. 
 

What we can really really learn from South Asians is a total go for it attitude with language. Every part of the subcontinent is so overwhelmingly polyglot that everyone just tries to use what they can to get by, people chop and change languages mid-sentence, there is much less fear of making a mistake, it’s just a more linguistically fluid place. Until language and politics overlaps, of course, and then the rioting and killing starts, but we can gloss over that for the purposes of this discussion…

In reply to TobyA:

Seems there has been a reduction in the languages available at GCSE (probably cost plays a part) I remember having problems find a Dutch speaker in Cumbria (we ended up asking for dispensation to allow a relative to do it) to do the GCSE oral, but it seems that Dutch GCSE isn't available now either. 

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Well done for taking the language direction.  I agree, I feel it is a very beneficial way to go and has the added bonus of increasing emotional language (perhaps obviously!) which in turn benefits mental health through greater understanding and versatility of language.

Although the government presents as a little reticent in backing the move to studying languages, my experience is that da yoof often sort things for themselves.  Duo Lingo (sp?) and other apps are popular, and a lot of kids seem to enjoy learning languages themselves, and often competitively with their mates.  

I have learned four languages, and can think of numerous times in my life that being multi-lingual has been positive and life-enhancing. 

In reply to RobAJones:

 

This might be the case with Polish but not necessarily other minority languages. My partner has GCSE Sinhala and said it was hard, despite her spoken fluency from childhood. Becoming totally at home in a foreign script is difficult, and in Sinhala (like many South Asian languages I think) there’s a big difference between the spoken and formal written versions. 

In reply to gribble:

I'm a huge fan of duolingo but if the proof of the pudding is in the eating ...I'm not so sure! I haven't had a chance to test my new found expertise as the last few trips to France have been with mu daughter, who is a fluent French speaker. What I like is that you can repeat the same exercises and make the same mistakes over and over without a teacher tut-tutting or (totally understandably) getting bored. That is, after all, how we learned our mother tongue(s) in the first place.

In reply to RobAJones:

At the time I would probably not have identified him as an outstanding teacher, it is with the benfit of hindsight and knowledge of he wide range of careers that even his less able pupils have gone on to thrive in that I am judging his ability.

In reply to seankenny:

It's well outside of my area, but was that to get a 9 or a 4? On one hand my experience, which was limited to European languages, was with minimal input even non academic students would get at least a pass. On the otherhand in the days when we regularly had sixthform exchange students for a term, in German lad liked it so much, he stopped for the full two years to do his A levels and then went to Durham Uni. He did go along to "help" in the German A level lessons. In the actual exam he was most upset that everyone in the class got a higher mark than he did. Although he did get an A and there were only 3 others in the class. 

In reply to timjones:

That's an intresting one, there really should be more research into that sort of criteria. Difficult to separate his input from that of the infant school teachers, secondary school teachers and parents.

I've not been able to follow it up, but I've got a few years of data that show that although the results from end of year 9 exams led to concerns about two members of staff, those students consistently went on to perform really well at GCSE irrespective of who taught them at KS4. Were they doing something that although it wasn't immediately obviously ended up being really beneficial? I don't know. 

In reply to RobAJones:

She got an A, but this was for the equivalent of an English language GCSE and it required plenty of reading and the comprehension of written sources. My old Urdu teacher used to tutor teenagers for their GCSE and A-level so it clearly wasn’t straightforward - you need a good deal of skill to read novels and poetry in the original Urdu.

More generally, there’s a huge range of language skills amongst the second generation Asians I know, from complete fluency to so bad so even I can tell their accent is way off. 

In reply to seankenny:

My French father in law spoke Yiddish (which uses the Hebrew alphabet) at home as a child, learning French when he went to school. He didn't learn to read & write Yiddish till he was an adult, his brother never really learnt to read or write Yiddish. Similarly my mum's first language was Spanish but as all her schooling was in English, her written Spanish remained poor all her life.

In reply to seankenny:

So more like Welsh GCSE than Welsh as a Second Language GCSE? A friend's son got 9A*'s and a B in Welsh, but as neither of his parents spoke much Welsh I thought that the B was more impressive than all the A*'s. I should got full marks on the written sections of GCSE German, but I doubt I'd perform well on an exam in Germany. 

In reply to French Erick:

From the Telegraph

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I've become a big fan of Duolingo - didn't like it when I tried a few years ago but started again in Italian last summer and understood why it is as it is and the value of painless repetition. A couple of months ago I started zoom conversation sessions with an Italian teacher and my comment after the first lesson was : wow, Duolingo does work!

In reply to RobAJones:

 

Yes exactly, so not quite the same as doing a language GCSE in your family language. I’m reliably informed that it was really tough! 

I took a look at the syllabus for the Urdu A level for British students and there are several literary works included, I suspect (I might be wrong mind) that this goes well beyond what a lot of kids would pick up at home. South Asian culture is rich and complex, and I’m not sure studying it is a necessarily a simple tick even for British Asian kids. 

In reply to BusyLizzie:

There are some  great podcasts . I’ve been downloading coffee time Spanish and making the kids listen and repeat for the first half an hour of any long  car  journey . As usual the middle  refused to join in until I pointed out that when I had just filled up  the car I d purchased 3 bottles of prime , one  for anybody who asked in Spanish .  “ hola papa “ 

In reply to Ciro:

Completely agree with this.

I agree that we have a problem with maths in this country. I teach programming and statistics to biology students, and I agree with the point that someone else made that it's common to find UK students with an aversion to maths, even when they are in fact perfectly capable.

However, I'm not convinced that forcing reluctant teenagers to take a subject that they already have an aversion to is not going to help. It's similar to forcing children to play hockey at school and thinking that's going to promote physical activity. The problem needs to be addressed much earlier on, in thinking about how we engage with children with maths in their primary and early secondary years. If this is done correctly, one of the knock-on effects that we'll see is more children choosing to continue with maths after 16 because they want to do it.

In reply to kathrync:

Interestingly, no other European countries give pupils a choice. You do what is on your timetable for as long as your in school. Cons: some kids really hate what they do.

pros: unless you’re willing to fully disengage (the case for 10/15%) you gain, even though reluctantly, some basics which would allow you to pick it up proper at a later stage.
 

That’s what happened to me with languages. I could do maths but really couldn’t be bothered with it. So, whilst numerate enough, I am not « good » at maths. 

In reply to French Erick:

Here, maths is already compulsory until 16. My feeling is that by then, you should have the basics to pick it up again later already. If you don't, that's still a failure of earlier maths teaching, and I still don't think that forcing people to take it until they are 18 is the answer.

In reply to kathrync:

I always remember my shock when I went to uni to see that in every what was a social sciences faculty there was a compulsory stats module in every subject ( including sociology).You had to do it in  whole range of non maths subjects at the time.

Perhaps people need to be to pushed a bit more.......

In reply to neilh:

Sure - and that makes sense. However, it should also be possible for someone who has done maths to 16 to pick up statistics in an undergraduate course if their foundation is good, even if they didn't do maths at A level. So, again, we come to teaching maths well, and pushing people a bit more earlier on.

I could also comment that including relevant applied maths into other A levels will also help to fill this gap. For example, my biology A level included some basic, relevant statistics. I can't imagine teaching physics or computer science at A level without including some maths. I'm sure this can also be done in other subject areas that I am less familiar with....

In reply to kathrync:

When I took physics A level (mid 70s) part of the syllabus wasn't taught in physics classes as it was covered in A level maths & the school had decided that no one could do physics or chemistry A levels without also doing maths. For some reason I can't remember, it was possible to do biology without maths.

In reply to kathrync:

Doesn't look like anything is going to happen until 2025 at the earliest, but I will be interested in the proposal. I worry that this principle is being overlooked and interested parties are hoping for specific skills to be taught. Even (when I taught)  A level Maths there was maths required by other subjects Geography, Biology, Psychology to name three, that wasn't covered in A level Maths or Further Maths, usually a simple statistical technique. It wasn't much of a problem if the students had good understanding of GCSE maths, it just needed to be taught. Adressing this within the subjects seems easier and more effective than trying to design a course that covers all they techniques all the students might require. When you extend this to what will/might be useful in certain jobs it becomes even more problematic and probably ineffective. Another camp seem to want some element of financial planning to be included. For a start many members of  Maths department's I've worked in would be the last people I'd ask for financial advice. I'd go back to your point if a student at 16 has a good understanding of the GCSE course with topics like compound interest, they have the foundation to be able to understand financial decisions and they are going to be far more interested in applying that knowledge when they actually need to use it. 

I'm actually not completely opposed to maths being compulsory until 18, we are an outlier in Europe, but I think that is part of a wider issue of why do we limit the number of subjects studied post 16 to three/four.

I'm not sure that an extra add on course/qualification will help universities/employers much or lead to better financial planning, but it will definitely add to the workload of most sixthform students. 

In reply to neilh:

My daughter, who wasn’t a huge fan of maths at school, but got an OK GCSE pass, had to do lots f stats as part of her Biology degree. She got a first, so only be OK at maths and only doing it to 16 obviously didn’t hold her back too much.

In reply to RobAJones:

In my view you touched a nerve here: education has become too utilitarian! Teach skills,  not specific knowledge up to 18. Uni/ apprenticeship is when you specialise not flipping 16! Pigeonholing young people so early is criminal!

In reply to French Erick:

And yet results for the U.K. as a whole are in the middle of the European pack. And results for England are superior to results for Scotland - with England pushing post 16 specialising to a greater degree. 
 

I recall my further maths A-level being anything but utilitarian, we were pushed to interesting concepts and explored ideas - similarly in Biology. We were blessed with a very good set of teachers.

In reply to girlymonkey:

and earlier

how do you work out how much further you have to travel up/down hill without trig ? You have the adjacent (map distance) and the opposite  (height gain/loss) - you need the Hypot.   Yes i am sure you have rules of thumb and little tricks, 'add 3 for every contour' type thing  and  i am not suggesting you nees/have/use a calculator on the hill but helps to understand whats' happening.... to dismiss it out of hand seems folly.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. The current Scottish certification system is an abject disaster. 

In reply to DaveHK:

Just to expand on this a bit...

We've had over a decade of continuous changes in the qualifications to get us to the point where the decision has been taken to scrap them.

In my subject (Geography), those changes have included things like changing the marking standard at least 3 times one of which was over a term into teaching the course. 

There isn't a curriculum as such, just a list of topics that could be examined which occupies a side, maybe 2 of A4. That's the extent of the centrally produced teaching materials. Everything else is produced by individual teachers making the quality of those materials a total lottery.

The exam board says they're an exam board so it's not their job to produce teaching materials, the body they say should do that says 'that's exam stuff,  it's not our job either'. While they argue, pupils suffer.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to replace the exam board with a new one consisting of pretty much the same people.

It is, to borrow a phrase, a total clusterf*ck and I have zero faith in the current government to make any meaningful improvement. Judge me on education said Nicola Sturgeon, well I've judged and found you sadly wanting.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

So we could learn something from those at the top? We are in the middle even though we are the only country that tried to manipulate the results, most obviously by delaying students taking the assessments and not letting students we though would do poorly to take them. That the same data collection indicates teachers in England work significantly longer hours, I'd argue we are achieving those average  results despite rather than because of the system. 

Most of the curriculum changes I've witnessed have been IMO rushed and poorly resourced, but Dave's post does make it sound as if it's even worse North of the border. 

Similar for me if you replace Biology foe Physics. For us current and previous systems worked very well, it's possibly one of the best systems in Europe for pupils who enjoy and succeed in Further Maths. We need a system that works really well for more than a small percentage of students 

Which is incredibly important, but due to lack of  recruitment, and much more importantly retention, is becoming less likely. 

In reply to RobAJones:

I’m 100% sure that we can learn from other countries - I was replying to the OP’s observation that we are very specialised compared to other countries - if we end up middling then that may not be the thing to focus on?

I suspect whatever system you have (within limits) capable and engaged teachers are absolutely critical.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

I think we have to look at it from a student perspective, I think 17 year olds in general would be more interested in choice and not so keen on mandatory courses. When AS exams existed Y12 students could specialize if they wanted by doing Maths, FMaths, (and  possibly AdditionalFurtherMaths) Physics, Chemistry and Biology. But others could chose to replace one or two if these by a Language/History etc. 

In reply to RobAJones:

Probably true - but I thought French Eric said in other countries there was no choice at this stage of education?

In reply to Dr.S at work:

In some ways they have to choose to specialize earlier, usually by deciding what type of school they go to at around 14, but they often do have some compulsory subjects often maths, their own language and English until 18. They will choose to follow more than our typical 3 subjects. You also have to take into account the amount of time allocated to subjects. My 15 year old niece is in a Language specialist  school in Italy, so she is studying Latin, Greek, French and Manderin as well as English and Italien. She does study "compulsory" maths course but because she has fewer lesson per week than students in England I don't think she will have covered much more content by the time she is 18, compared to an English GCSE student. 

In reply to French Erick:

This is maybe where teaching students awareness of other options than A-levels route is important. Knowing that FE colleges with alternative teaching methods and outcomes are available post 16 and enabling the students to make educated decisions on what type of learning works best for them would enable the students that would be daunted by an extra 2 years of mandatory maths in a school environment to consider other options. This, coupled with an expansion of Lifelong learning courses, modular degrees and an understanding by students that GCSE-A Level-Degree isn't the only way in to Higher Education would give a far more flexible approach to ensuring that people have the numeracy and language skills they need to do their job or get on in life (I hate the idea that the purpose of education is to be able to get a job!)

I was impressed with a guy that did work experience with me when he was 16, did OK at GCSE's but then felt the A-level teaching wasn't working for him and looked at FE courses. He worked his way through the Engineering levels at the local college, struggled with the maths but persevered as he understood the importance and could see the application, which the A-level course didn't give him. He then went on to do a degree in Aerospace Engineering (serious maths!). It took courage and a lot of maturity on his part to go down that route rather than stick with the A-levels as his teachers and parents wanted.

Interesting thread thanks!

In reply to RobAJones:

I presume you are referring to PISA? I lived in Finland for the time when it was the darling of the PISA tests and, hence, educationalists and journalists (including Michael Moore back when he was super famous) flocked to Finland to try and find out what the magic sauce was. I remember hearing long pieces on R4 when I was back at Christmas and just thinking "that's not true, that's not really true, that's only like that because of... <specific cultural/historical issue>" and so on. I also remember hearing the BBC interview a random Finnish mom at the school gates who just happened to be not only a friend, but the head of the British Council in Helsinki! I became a bit sceptical after that. The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs opened a special education office to manage all the requests for research visits to Finnish schools from around the world.

Then about 10 years ago they went from the top of PISA to mid ranking - not really that great at all, and the result was mass heartache for everyone from the government down to the normal parents who suddenly didn't have the "worlds best education system" any more. It struck me that the only people who weren't surprised were teachers who had been saying for ages - there are real structural problems, but were ignored because, well, "PISA says we're the best!" They've made massive changes to the whole curriculum recently, which while impressively ambitious, don't seem to be super successful so far. 

There's a lot that is good there, but I think school systems are far more the result of society beyond them than they are the cause or seed of the society beyond them, so what's good about Finnish schools reflects what is good about Finland - less inequality, a more inclusive welfare state etc. but as those things change so do schools.

But being the top of PISA just seems to set you up for a fall!

In reply to TobyA:

That was largely the conclusion of a talk given by an OECD speaker at the Scottish Learning Festival some years ago where she was presenting the latest set of PISA rankings. Her view was that schools would be successful when teachers and learning were valued and seen as an important part of society. Interestingly, this was at a time when Finland and Singapore were the darlings of the PISA rankings - very far apart in terms of teaching methodologies, but sharing an appreciation of the value of teaching. 

In reply to girlymonkey:

I have to disagree about SOHCAHTOA.  I am not able to remember these relationships without the rhyme and even though it was taught me back in 1970-1 (I took GCE Elementary in Dec 71) I refer to it several times a year as trigonometry is a useful skill in all sorts of practical applications - If I said daily or weekly that would not be true but several times a year.

For instance, stays on a mast - I used school maths to work out the distance to pace out on the ground between two pegs that form one leg of a triangle of pegs to hold up a pole.  I already knew the distance from the pole base for the 3 pegs and could try to place 3 pegs at 120 degrees but it is far easier and quicker to put 2 pegs in and briefly raise the mast to find where to put the 3rd peg.  I worked that out last year as something to reduce wasted time.  It is about twice as fast and much easier than positioning the 3 pegs first.

GCE maths was my friend

In reply to TobyA:

At the time Carlisle sent a lorry driver over, he was quite impressed and wanted to recreate something similar in Carlisle, surprisingly it didn't end well.

Five years later at least it was about 50 maths teachers that went to Shanghai, I thought their (56?) findings were quite intresting  even allowing for the cultural differences, but Gove and Cummings were only interested in the 5 or so that didn't cost anything. At the time I thought we should have been looking at Switzerland as well. 

I agree with this, we are actually one of the few countries that actively attempts to tackle the underperformance of disadvantaged students, unfortunately it seems to be virtually impossible for schools to do it. What we need is fewer disadvantaged pupils in society, so that problem is going to get significantly worse over the next few years. 

Perhaps if your complacent like it seems Finland were, but I'll still put money on Shanghai and Singapore to be at the top, for maths, next time, although I would question some of the ways they will use to achieve it.

But seriously I think the PISA results in the past were intresting, the survey results (I think Finland still does pretty well on those, unlike Singapore) possibly more so than the attainment figures. Unfortunately now like any measure that becomes a target for a significant number of the participants it will become less and less meaningful as more and more countries attempt to game the system (or set up their own like the US) 

In reply to lithos:

It is a very simple concept, is it necessary to use trig to understand something that we all encounter regularly throughout our lives?

In reply to timjones:

Basic trig is also a simple concept, used by builders every day. You could get through life not knowing any concepts about anything, but you'd be severely limited.

In reply to Ridge:

Are the basic concept and the mathematical techniques the same thing?

I was replying to the suggestion that you needed to know trig in order to understand something that is inherently obvious.

Some builders may use trig but I have seen plenty that can do a great job without it.

In reply to Deri Jones:

That's not my nephew by any chance? Not great at school and left early; BAe apprentice of the year; got a degree and PHd and now researches bacteriology as a result of his other interest, creating prosthetic limbs.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Ha! I think it may be fairly common - a friend from school had a car crash at his A-levels, went HNC/HND-degree-masters and is now a pretty senior aerospace engineer. 

In reply to lithos:

I think Pythagoras would suffice for that, and I would hesitate to call that trigonometry.

Not that I can see any practical use in calculating the along-slope distance, unless perhaps you are planning how much fixed rope to lay up a perfectly uniform incline.

In reply to Charles_Martin:

Thank YOU too, Charles! What's the weather like by you?

In reply to Darkinbad:

I can remember seeing a documentary about the history of the great mapping of India, narrated by Patrick Stewart, starting from a single baseline.  Thanks to remembering SOHCAHTOA etc I was able to work out from that how they did it and understood it for the first time in my life, decades after leaving school.  It made their achievement seem even more staggering.

In reply to TobyA:

I think you are misrepresenting Finland on PISA a bit. Just checked and Finland are still top of the main list for girls on science and reading. Maths scores have dropped but it's still above EU average (close to equal 4th ) and one of a handful of nations where girls out-perform boys.

https://data.oecd.org/pisa/mathematics-performance-pisa.htm#indicator-chart

I think a key reason for the interest from educationalists was high outcomes despite it being the exact opposite of the damaging pressured education cultures so common in the high performing wealthy eastern nations. Another key reason was equity clearly doesn't damage performance.

Great thread.... shame Sunaks bleating on maths is so massively two faced. I think the professionals in education from primary to HE deserve massive thanks for what they have managed to achieve in the last decade, despite austerity, erosion of pay and conditions and an increasingly threatening external culture.

In reply to RobAJones:

From what I can gather, one of the big differences is that in England and Wales the exam board provides teaching resources. Is that correct? I've certainly seen and used good quality teaching resources from English exam boards. In Scotland we got absolutely no centrally produced resources for the new quals when they were introduced. Some local authorities managed to organise production of some materials but it was pretty variable and we ended up in a situation where a probationer/NQT could have turned up in a school that had no course in their subject and they were expected to write/beg/borrow/steal it.

There's now a consultation going on about what will replace this shambles and my biggest fear is that exactly the same will happen again.

In reply to Darkinbad:

I quite often use pythagoras for estimating distances on maps and trigonometry for estimating bearings (using the fact that for reeasonably small angles the tangent is pretty close to the angle in radians and then counting squares). Also for estimating the angle of elevation of a mountain compared to the moon for photography.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Yes, but you're not normal.  

In reply to DaveHK:

No, English exam boards do not provide their own teaching resources beyond past papers and practice papers. They also make mark schemes available. However, commercial publishers do produce board-specific textbooks and revision guides, some of which are endorsed by the exam boards as being fit for use with the appropriate exam. The endorsement process is a little hit-and-miss, and seems to depend on the person undertaking the assessment. I have seen cases where the assessment review has been very cursory, so exam board endorsement is not always an indicator of quality. 

By contrast, there is no endorsement of commercial products by Education Scotland, and as you say, no centrally produced resources. In the past, some local authorities did produce, or try to produce their own resources, which were quite often shared across the country, but local authority education departments have been so stripped of staff they no longer have the capability to do so.  

One of the other problems in Scotland has been the lack of joined-up thinking between the CfE BGE and the Nat4/5 and Highers. CfE builds from P1 up, while Nat4/5 and Highers build from the top down, with a clash at S4. In some subjects, there is a sensible transition from CfE Level 4 into Nat5, but in other subjects, there is a misalignment, leaving something of a mish-mash of topics within a subject which may or may not be taught. 

In reply to DaveHK:

To some degree, yes. The last big change in maths was 2015, so before that they produced some quite scary specimen papers (that was normal practice as there will be less complaints about the actual exam being easier than the specimen papers) The new textbooks were rushed, so they could have been better thought out and contain fewer mistakes, but they did exist. 

It certainly seems worse than my experience, in meeting with examiners prior to the first new exam they were as helpful as they could be, in fact the meetings had to be recored in case they were too helpful. Although I'm still not convinced anyone knows how to teach problem solving effectively. 

If teachers want to do their own thing, prepare there own resources/lessons that's is fine, but I don't understand why this can't be done centrally. I'm starting to see resources produced by my old employer (United Learning) being used in more and more local schools that are not part of the Trust. It makes sense to me that a Trust with over 100 schools will have the capacity to produce better resources compared to one with 6, but that isn't really any different to an old LEA or in IMO a national system. 

Comparing changes in Education in England over the last 25 years with the 25 that preceeded it there has IMO been remarkably little development (if I'm honest what I was doing in the classroom in 2015 wasn't much different to 1995) and what change there has been often hasn't been positive. 

In reply to Darkinbad:

yep so do I

pacing ? 

how about working out slope angle for avalanche potential ?  

In reply to Offwidth:

I agree with all this. One of the greatest sources of stress and threat for staff is undoubtedly Ofsted - as we've recently seen in stark and tragic relief. I know of serving Heads who do an occasional stint as an Inspector - usually justified as enabling them to prepare better for their own school's Ofsted. I know of more recently retired senior staff who do so. I wonder if the whole apparatus would collapse if no serving or retired Heads or Deputies were complicit in it? I can't find any data on the numbers. Mind you, it's probably not the sort of job most people would admit to doing at civilised dinner parties.

In reply to lithos:

Well, yes. And perhaps also compute the normal to the slope and compare it with the prevailing wind to gauge the potential for windslab 😊

In reply to Offwidth:

This is indicative of the sort of debate 10 years ago https://yle.fi/a/3-6965192 when the results went down quite a lot. I think that's part of the problem of being top, there's only one way you can go! It's interesting that Sahlberg rightly points out that Finnish parents shouldn't fear immigration and diverse classrooms but unfortunately many did, and continue to do so. There was "white flight" happening already by the late Noughties from what I was told, and that was a novel thing, the vast vast majority of people just went to their local school until a few local schools started getting noticeable numbers of Black kids, then suddenly some parents felt the need for their kid to travel to a different part of Helsinki to go to school. 

There has been some good news in more recent rounds but in Finland there seems to be a lot of worry over the drop off in boys literacy levels. A more recent discussion of the 2018 results is here: https://yle.fi/a/3-11160051 they are noting as well that socio economic class is also having more of an impact than before, so either society is changing or the school system is or both!

There's a discussion happening now over further/higher education provision or lack thereof for kids who have gone through the English language stream in the system - it's really interesting because Finland desperately needs foreign workers, particularly skilled ones, although one of the biggest parties (quite likely to be in the next government) very much doesn't want that. One of the big problems in attracting people is the weird/tough language so providing education in English has sort to get round that, but its looking like a cul-de-sac or at least a real tight bottle neck at 16. 

In reply to TobyA:

Cheers for the extra input. To be clear, I agreed with most of your previous points... just not what how your words read to me on the level of decline in PISA scores. 

I almost posted on the recent elections hoping for input from you ..... I am very aware of the far right and their tropes gaining ground.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

The school I was in yesterday had just had a visit from such a person, retired Head now part time inspector. I was sat next to the head as he was delivering a summary at staff briefing. He was careful to say that it was about school improvement not just preparing to be inspected. I thought this narrative was slightly difficult to maintain, when it was about the need to coach the students in what to say to inspectors, especially during student/inspector meetings. 

In reply to TobyA:

It is telling that for improvement of any system, nations, governments, teachers and people at large are much more likely to go seek an answer abroad and try to import wholesale a system (and blatantly ignoring the cultural differences and of interpretation that they bring) than try to have a hard look at what they have and be brave enough to decide what needs to remain, what needs to be ditched (traditions can be both good and bad) and what is only there as a political crowd- read electorate - pleasing exercise.

silver bullet and snake oil come to mind.

In reply to French Erick:

Equally, we get sold other types of snake oil in the UK: on the government claims of billions of extra funding (when the system is almost broke); on the vital need for oversimplistic inspection to maintain quality (as opposed to systems designed for genuine quality enhancement) ; on overly rigid syllabi and learning methodologies (in the face of research evidence that advises against this); on the denigration of LEAs and unevidenced suposedly huge benefits of academies; and the almost active encouragement of ritual humiliation of the professionals (especially teachers and lecturers)

We also stopped supporting good stuff outside syllabi in schools, have allowed a criminal decline in adult Ed and made huge funding cuts that mean FE has gone from a range from broadly OK  to often excellent, to now nearly all limping along... all during my nearly four decade career and mostly due to tory cuts and political ideology.

Finland showed you can do well with kids starting school late, with minimal testing, and almost everyone going to the same schools, and with especially good results for girls in STEM.

I'd add PISA has many evidenced issues in the research literature. It's not the best way to judge. Hothoused kids may score well on PISA but that too often comes with damaged mental health.

In reply to French Erick:

On one hand, I think this is, to some degree, also true of schools within the UK. Toby mentioned a school in Sheffield that seemed to want to become a Northern Michaela, Eton seem to be branching out as well. Given their P8 scores Toby also said it would be intresting to visit Michaela, I think it probably would be, but I'd be concerned if the outcome was someone wanting to copy every aspect.

I don't see anyone wanting to import OFSTED 

To some degree I think that mastery in Maths is having two problems. One is as you say Shanghai, South Korea and Singapore are culturally very different, but it could be argued that has been exacerbated by not importing the system wholesale, mainly due to the cost. 

As others have said good staff is  key requirement. The system is of secondary importance and it should be their to support the staff/students. 

In reply to Offwidth:

Although that doesn't translate to them continuing with STEM courses at University or linked careers yet. 

In reply to RobAJones:

Sadly true

https://knowhow.distrelec.com/stem/women-in-stem-in-eu/

A familiar story:

In reply to RobAJones:

I wonder how many people are aware that the founding Chair of Governors of Michaela School was Suella Braverman. That speaks volumes for me about the values and attitudes underpinning its ethos. I don't care how good the exam results are, I wouldn't have touched their culture or  pedagogy with a ten foot cane. Banning group work, for heaven's sake. It's perfectly possible to achieve excellent results with a far more humane and progressive approach that far better prepares students to live in and take forward a civilised society. A plague on Birbalsingh and her acolytes.

In reply to RobAJones:

I agree: the idea that Ofsted is about school improvement is a transparent fig leaf. The areas reports identify for improvement are often woefully vague: "Target questions to better identify gaps in students' knowledge" etc. Thanks for the top tip.

The more I ruminate about how many serving and retired senior school staff are involved in Ofsted the more uncomfortable I become. Maybe in the early days it was forgiveable, but who on earth any longer thinks Ofsted is fit for purpose?

In reply to Andy Clarke:

I wasn’t aware of Braverman’s involvement until fairly recently. However, I had already formed a well evidenced opinion on Birbalsingh based on her contributions to public debate (primarily Twitter). It’s not a good opinion.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Could be worse Kemi Bandenoch is involved with a few schools and thinks TA's are a waste of resources and anything outside of the curriculum is a frivolous waste of time 

I think it goes back to Erik's and Offwidth's points about cultural difference, mental health and the need to scrutinise how any  results (including Pisa or GCSE) are achieved. Tunisia and UAE achieve gender equality in STEM graduates, it's quite easy to do, if you don't give students a choice. 

In reply to French Erick:

I think part of the problem with CfE in Scotland was that they didn't import the system wholesale from the countries they looked at. They picked the bits that looked cheap and easy to do and left the rest regardless of how important it was to the success of the system.

And now it looks like what they're going to replace it with is homespun version of the International Baccalaureat. Which rather begs the question, why not just use the IB? There might be practical reasons for that but I wonder if it's partly because it's not homegrown and having a system that at least looks homegrown is probably important to an SNP government.

In reply to DaveHK:

Surely this is somewhat pointless although about a very valueable aspect of society? Why? Because we won't agree and more to the point , because of this changes either won't be made, will be ineffectual or constantaly reverersed.

I speak from 30 years of experience in the primary education sector and 10 years before that in OE .

I went from an enthusiastic NQT in an inner city school, through short term contract stuff to supply cover and now 4 years as a TA. My main complaint is change for changes sake.  I know some will moan but why? My education from the late 60's on was fine. I was a lazy sod, retaking almost every exam I sat. I still ended up with a degree, the job I wanted (at the time and it's too late to change at 60) and a reasonable lifestyle which would be better if I wasn't still lazy. 

We introduced the Literacy and Numeracy strategies in the 90's. They lasted a while but changed. We are no at the point whereby every so often another subject is shoved upo us yet the school day is no longer. Something has to give. This week my year 5 and 6 kids are at a residential camp. Brilliant idea with SATs coming up and the powers above saying that "they will reach the expected levels won't they?" We are asked to cover too much yet allow parents to hinder us. 2 of my class of 24 are late every day, several have attendance in the 80% region but will anyone slap a court order on these parents? Nope. 

We have 9 year 6 (10/11 year old)  kids. Only 40 in the school. Of that 9, 1 has an EHCP and reads and writes at a 5 year olds level. 3 have My Plans 3 others have aknowledged difficulties in English including two incomplete dyslexia investigations. Looking good to get all 9 to have expected SATs results acroos the board isn't it? 

So what goes? All the fun bits? All the arts? All the humanities or all their time home with their families? (probably in their bedrooms messing about with something electronic) 

I feel that as a nation we are lazy, greedy and whinging and all we want is our own way. Those  prepared to give up their own perks are few and far between and not enough to count. 

In reply to RobAJones:

A d you do not question that assumption of a comparison with UAE and Tunisia?

In reply to neilh:

Sorry,  I probably wasn't clear. My point was that simply looking at countries (or schools) that are top of tables doesn't mean you want to simply copy them. Most observers think  gender equality (or at least something close) is a desirable outcome for  STEM graduates. This is achieved in some countries, simply by deciding for them, which subjects, girls in particular, study at university. I don't think anyone would suggest this as a policy in the UK. Similarly some countries with very high maths achievement do that by methods that wouldn't be accepted here. I can't see kids in school uniform, having to walki across Manchester at 10pm to go to their next  extra maths lesson, like they do in Seoul, with the predictable mental health problems that result. 

In reply to French Erick:

I've not read this whole thread, has much been said about attendance?

In my current school it is pretty poor and has definitely deteriorated since covid. I think the lockdowns broke the notion, for some, that going to school every day was important.

I have S1-S3 classes of 25-30 that regularly have 4 or 5 pupils missing, often more. In the senior phase it's worse, in my 2 Higher classes 75% attendance is quite normal. Lots of pupils are sitting on 80% attendance, they think that's OK because it would be a decent mark in a test but change their minds when you tell them that over 5 years in high school that equates to a whole year of education lost.

I've been in a few other schools with similar attendance. If it's the pattern up and down the land then it would go a long way to explaining Scotland's fall.

Is this the same south of the border?

In reply to DaveHK:

Pretty much, a significant increase is pupil absence from it usually being about 4%. or 5%. to 7.6% last year. Pupils who are persistently absent also increased significantly (nearly double?) to over 20% last year. So it seems your experience is fairly typical both sides of the border 

In reply to DaveHK:

Mate who Lives in Scotland reckons that less funding goes into Scottish schools becuase they are having to find the cost of students going to uni.

In reply to neilh:

Your mate is wrong. 

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/scotland-pupil-school-funding-hig...

In reply to Harry Jarvis:

It does note the additional funding goes on early years…. perhaps it’s the other way round. Worryingly for all higher spending had not improved attainment as it mentions in that article. 

In reply to DaveHK:

Very good point Dave. Attendance is monitored really closely in French schools. 
The threat isn’t fines but a ridiculous amount of reminding you to account for any absence ( we had a few  strike days during which the only teacher in was the English teacher… we took the liberty to take our daughter out and go to Italy for the day)!

 I reckon the constant administrative hassle was a better deterrent than anything else: texts, emails and letters!

Apparently fewer absences witnessed but I have no sources to confirm.

In reply to French Erick:

The hilariously old fashion way of accounting for absence with a specific coloured paper coupon, emails or phone calls wouldn’t cut the mustard, made it such an utter pain in the arse as to make it a further deterrent… anything to avoid having to deal with it all, even it that means sending your kids to school unless they are literally dying! 
It certainly did work for me!

In reply to neilh:

So they get more free nursery places, whereas parents south of the border have to pay for them

But are they effectively  replacing private nursery places with state funded ones, why would this make much difference to outcomes? I'm actually with Tim upthread on how to judge the difference good nursery and primary teachers make, but if you want exam results the article cites improvements in primary students literacy 3.7% and numeracy 3.3%. I'm not sure that the nursery funding will have an effect on PISA or secondary school results for at least a decade. 

In reply to French Erick:

I think in my school's "community" for the want of a better word there are some families or single parents who aren't engaging with school at all, so I suspect they just wouldn't engage with your bureaucratic attendance system any more than they engage at the moment with anything to do with school. It's not huge numbers who are like this but from talking to the pastoral care people there's definitely more of this happening. Where you teach do you have an attendance officer/support worker who goes out to kids houses to try and find them and bring them into school?

In reply to DaveHK:

Amazing isn't it that you report those failings in the Scottish system and yet Welsh Government has been determined to make the same mistake, thank you for Prof Donaldson! 

In reply to RobAJones:

Talking of which it seems they're getting there (to being the Northern Michaela) in that Ofsted officially loves them ! https://www.thestar.co.uk/education/mercia-school-sheffield-secondary-schoo...

In reply to Mark Morris:

What's the story here?

In reply to TobyA:

Mercia's website does include a well-written summary of their traditionalist  pedagogy: didactic, with frequent silent working. The phrase 'rote learning' doesn't appear anywhere, but I think it probably should. Can't find anything similar on Michaela's website, but there are plenty of video clips of Birbalsingh's media pronouncements. I wonder if the majority of Ofsted inspectors are traditionalists at heart?

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Nought wrong with a bit of rote-learning : absolutely essential to acquire another language anyways

In reply to French Erick:

For me, the key part of that is "a bit."

In reply to TobyA:

OFSTED produces a document "Twelve Outstanding School" in 2009 based on a dozen schools, in deprived areas, that got outstanding judgements across the board. I did spend a bit of time looking at it to see if there was any commonality amongst their approaches. Unfortunately, several years later I came to the conclusion that they were either just lucky with their intake or managed to manipulate it well. For example only one of the schools was like mine with an intake of  around 95% white British. For some reason, very unusually for a school in a deprived area, their intake was skewed very much towards the more able. They were praised at the time for their well above average GCSE attainment, but when we moved to P8 there overall score was negative. 

In reply to Andy Clarke:

I think rote learning got a really bad name because there was the impression that it was over done for a long time and it was set in contrast to other methods that are seen as more meaningful. I actually wonder if it's time to swing back to doing a bit more of it. After all, what it actually boils down to is memorising stuff which is a pretty useful skill. You can’t do the more meaningful stuff if it doesn't have a base to work on.

Amo, amas, amat...

In reply to DaveHK:

I don't disagree that there can be a place for a bit of rote as part of a rich mix of teaching and learning techniques - and I'd expect the size of this bit to vary among subjects. I would add that the impression there was too much rote was entirely accurate in my view. The pendulum between 'traditional' and 'progessive' pedagogy does swing back and forth - partly I suppose because research into the most effective methods is so difficult. I expect it's fairly clear I veer towards the progressive end: mixed-ability, discovery methods, small group work etc - but this was always allied to a lot of whole-class work and teacher-led discussion. What puts me off the pedagogies of schools like Michaela and Mercia is that they don't seem to have a rich mix at all. I get the impression I could walk along their corridors and see rooms full of bowed heads in rows scribbling away while the teacher walks up and down. I don't deny that they have very effective approaches for getting excellent exam results - but I always believed you could achieve the same great results with methods that enabled students to develop a wider range of personal and intellectual skills.

In reply to French Erick:

I’m interested in the monoglottal state of the British. In that respect I suspect that the fact we are an island nation with something of a superiority complex is the prime cause of this. The situation is only made worse by the coming of the internet where the lingua franca (ironically enough) is English. In recent years I have noticed a huge change in France, where a few decades back very few French people seemed to speak any more English than than we did French (or at least wouldn’t admit to it if they did). Now it seems almost all youngsters (anyone below 40 in my book) not only speak English quite well but are pleased to have a chance to practise conversation with English speakers, monoglot or otherwise.

In reply to RobAJones:

There are all sorts of significant community effects going on in some deprived areas on big cities. I always knew ethnicity links to educational outcomes were complex, with some huge differences, but it took knowing overseas students,  research students and newer post docs well, who had kids and could only afford to live in deprived areas, to understand some of the additional subtleties in local support groups. I'd now always be unsurprised to see good results in some very mixed deprived communities, especially in big University cities with plenty of families of middle class refugees or overseas students/newish postgrads; and I 'd be much more impressed  by those in deprived areas that are more uniformly poor with a more uniform ethnicity... especially so for areas with mainly poor white kids. In my view it's another reason big northern towns get treated unfairly: this needs change in support funding and training  if we really want to level up.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

There are other island nations such as Iceland and Malta whose inhabitants speak two languages or a foreign language well, and I’ve met people from insanely patriotic countries who speak perfect English on top of their mother tongue. England in the 18th and 19th centuries was fairly self-regarding (to put it mildly) and yet the educated classes learned classical languages, French and maybe Italian for travel, and various other languages for empire building (Kipling’s first language as a child was Hindi). 

The situation was almost entirely created by the fact we in the west have been under the economic, military and cultural umbrella of an English-speaking superpower for over 70 years. The internet is actually much less Anglophone than it appears to us - there are whole worlds online that are closed to us because we can’t read Mandarin or Arabic or whatever. 

In reply to DaveHK:

Caesar adsum iam forte

Brutus aderat

Caesar sic in omnibus

Brutus sic inat.

In reply to Offwidth:

Yep, I agree with all of that

Not just deprived areas, the one student I know who is classed as disadvantaged and got a university place to do medicine last year had a teacher and academic as parents.

Even with hindsight it seems difficult to unpick the reasons behind the success of London Challenge under Labour. I think the this is part of the reason it has been difficult replicate in other areas.

This made me think of a previous chair of OFSTED, who when questioned about the poor inspection grades of schools on the Isle of Wight, didn't blame poor teaching or badly run schools but because it was "a poor (white?)ghetto that suffers from inbreeding" I would have phrased it very differently but it did resonate with the lack of ambition, isolation and deprivation that students in some pockets of West Cumbria suffer from.

It's always going to be a challenge when 20% of money spent on education (in England) is directed at the most privileged 6% of kids. I've always thought that levelling up would require that spending to be directed at the least privileged. Previously I'd always thought that sort of increase in government education spending was a bit pie in the sky, but after Neil's mate prompted Harry to point out that Scotland has increased their spending by 18%, that doesn't sound too unrealistic

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Until I retired I used to be invited to lecture from time in French universities & other educational institutes, mostly but not only, to MSc students. Twenty years ago it was just assumed that I would speak French, but maybe 10 years ago I started to get requests asking me to lecture in English - not just because I'm British as my boss (French) had the same requests. Towards the end I used to speak English but have any slides with text in French & leave students to choose which language they used for questions.

Meanwhile I can remember the horror from Scottish students when I included French or Spanish publications (always a tiny minority) on lists of recomended reading.

In reply to Doug:

There certainly now seems more of an expectation for some lectures in Italy to be delivered in English. Not sure how much pressure is being applied, by my brother has three private clients who are professors  wanting to improve their English to enable them to do this. 

In reply to RobAJones:

The key driver for lectures in English in EU countries is the lucrative overseas student market. Often the entire course is delivered in English. Even the French are doing it now.

In reply to French Erick:

The sister of Ruth Perry - who committed suicide after Ofsted downgraded her school - has called on Headteachers to stop co-operating with Ofsted by working as inspectors and trumpeting their ratings:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/apr/29/ruth-perry-sister-headtea...

After a bit of amateur detective work on the Ofsted database I estimate that at a minimum, around 50% of those who've worked as Inspectors are current or recently retired senior school staff. I do find that level of collaboration depressing.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Around 2008 the average length of  tenure for  a headteacher was 6 to 8 years. Do you or anyone else know of someone who was a head for 20+ years and perceived to be successful at 2/3 different establishments? I know of about 20 that were at their first, but were unable to replicate that at subsequent appointments, including two who lasted less than a year.

Since then, IME, the average length of time in post has got significantly shorter, I don't know many secondary heads who have been in post for more than 3 years. I'm not comfortable with this trend, on one hand you will have some deemed to be failures leaving the profession, those that are fleetingly thought to be successful must find the lure of security, in terms of reputation, being a MAT CEO or OFSTED inspector alluring. I'm not sure that which camp you end up in is down to skill or luck 

In reply to RobAJones:

I don't disagree with much of that analysis, and I've mentioned elsewhere how ridiculous I find it that any ordinary mortal expects to achieve significant school improvement in two or three years, unless they're stepping in to sort out a proper clusterf*ck. Two obvious drivers of this trend are the grossly inefficient fragmentation of the system wrought by academisation and the high stakes threat environment created by Ofsted. I know it's easy for me to say from the safety of retirement, but it really is within the hands of the profession to take action to reverse the damage. Most obviously: Heads should stop working for Ofsted and should stick around for 5+ years to  build enduring culture and systems in their school. There are times one has to stand up and be counted.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

I thought most schools were inspected every 10 years or so, if so it suggests a fear of ofsted might not be contributing factor. With a bit of timing yiu could as a head based on that cycle avoid any inspection. 

In reply to neilh:

It's much more frequently than that. Perhaps you're thinking of the fact that outstanding schools were exempt for a time, but that exemption has now been rescinded meaning that some have been reinspected after a long gap, such as ten years. A four year cycle for Good and Outstanding schools is the current aim. There are more frequent visits for those judged Inadequate or Requiring Improvement. I did three Ofsteds in twelve years as a Head. Even now Heads are moving on faster than Chelsea managers, you'd have to be extremely lucky to avoid the dreaded phone call.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Speaking as an outsider, it's curious that the underlying principles of Ofsted are diametrically opposed to the W Edwards Deming management principles which partly underpinned, for example, the economic growth of Japan after WWII.

2 of which are 'Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. ' I.e. build in quality by having it an intrinsic part of the production process or service delivery. And secondly, even more ironic, 'Drive out fear from the workplace.' (Quite a few others are relevant as well.)

In reply to Andy Clarke:

That was the aim for the initial Section 8 inspection.

If the school was thought  to be the same grade as previously, the aim is then to follow up with full section 5 inspections, within 1/2 years. If they were down graded, which would require the initial section 8 to be flipped to a Section 5, see below. 

Many of those school will have termly monitoring visits in addition to inspections every year or two. 

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Excellent points. Inspection that uncovers failure is always too late for the students experiencing it. Sadly, I don't think Ofsted is about improving the quality of education and schools in any serious way. Rather, it's a regulator for the market of parental choice, as government clings to the notion that competition among schools for pupils will magically drive up standards. 

In reply to neilh:

Allow me to raise my hand here. Maths I have always found easy, but I constantly fail to learn to understand music.