Monday, September 03, 2007

Shazney Smallbrain Has Just Graduated From Primary School, Age 26...

Primary School Teachers will no doubt be jumping for joy over Tory proposals to make kids who haven't learnt to read, write or do the odd sum; stay on for another year rather than go to Secondary School where they will have absolutely no chance of keeping up.

Predictably the Teachers Unions have described it as unworkable (forgetting that it works in the US, Germany and several other countries which I'm sure readers will name)

The average member of the public might well say: "Why on Earth can't they manage to teach kids to read in seven years?". After meeting Ashley or Dwayne and their parent, they would probably change this question to: "I wonder if I could get him to sit or fetch a ball?"

The professionals will twitter about self esteem and stress, but I can't help but think that we should teach Wayne to spell 'esteem' before telling him whether it is high or low.

16 comments:

alanorei said...

Repeating a year in primary school, any year - was established practice in Sydney schools, Australia, in the 1950s.

I can recall a handful of pupils with 'problems' who repeated years.

From what Mr C says, that handful is a lorry-load now, although things were starting to unravel in the 60s and 70s in Aust., so I guess they were here to.

Anonymous said...

I agree Mr. Chalk, we need to stop all this rubbish concerning the feelings and wishes of the children and put them back in their place. The only way we are going to get children to be able to read and write whilst at primary school is to bring back proper discipline into schools.

Also stop pandering to the wishes of children and simply make them do, whether they like it or not. We need to go back to the days when children were seen but not heard and until you reached 18 or 21 you did as you were told.

There is far too much drivel about education needing to fit the needs of the individual child. Rubbish, it should be the child fitting in with the teachers and the school.

Make them sit down, be quiet and do as they are told without question and the majority of them will be able to read and write properly.

Stop giving children so many adult freedoms, expectations and privleges and go back to making them do as they are told and I would bet any money that their educational achievements go up.

Children need a firm hand and ruling with a rod of iron, not encouraging to see themselves as mini adults. Also get rid of the national curriculum and all these stupid targets and give teacher's the professional autonomy they deserve and our education system will improve no end.

Anonymous said...

*sigh* our brand new headmaster mentioned this at his introductory meeting today. He commented on it as laughable and dismissed it with a shit joke, but then again he did spout off a load of hippy shit for the rest of the time he spent talking.
God I'm depressed.

Anonymous said...

If that were actually practised, we'd see Dubya still in year one???

Anonymous said...

Anything dismissed by the psychologists and the teaching unions has got to be good.

Anonymous said...

Our introductory meeting started today with a joke about this too, although to be fair, our Head was more concerned about Kayleigh, Connor and co. tearing up the school when they realised they will be staying there until they can read- i.e. the rest of their natural lives.

Anonymous said...

One problem with keeping kids back is the effect they have on the other students. Older & bigger means better at bullying, for a start…

Unknown said...

it could be a much needed wakeup call to both pupils and parents.

Anonymous said...

It DOES make sense, they do it on the continent. Works like this: if a kid doesn't reach the required marks in one core subject plus another subject they are held back a year. In February (they do half years, not terms) if the kid is in danger of having to repeat a year, the parents are notified so the child has until late July or so to work themselves out of it. Or not. anyway, having to repeat a class means to lose your mates, means having to re-integrate with a new class and is generally viewed as a bit embarassing so some kids do pull themselves together and work to avoid it. The onew who don't, can't or won't have a year in which they won't be falling behind further. Sometimes it works, in my eyes it works better than dragging them alont regardless of how much they've taken in as happens in this country.
Since the school system is layered, if a child fails to move up twice in a row, they are downgraded to the next lower school level, ie from grammar school to where you get GCSE's or from middle school (where you get GCSEs) to lower school (where you get o-levels).
It's not a bad idea at all.

Anonymous said...

What I don't understand is why the teachers never support anything strong like this. They just seem so wishy washy.

Unknown said...

because our unions are a bunch of pansys who would rather pass motions to ban youtube than actually addressing the real problems

Anonymous said...

a school that has failed to teach a child to read gets to keep them another year and fail them further?

Has to be better than sending them to secondary school but better to rethink how primary schools operate.

Tomrat said...

The one thing modern children have in abundance is self-esteem: -
1. They are told that if all else fails they can go on benefits for life, be awarded a house and money to pay for food, drink (lots of it) and fags for the rest of their miserable lives.
2. They can get even more (of other peoples) money if you decide to uncross your legs/untie your tracksuit bottoms once too often and decide to unleash a sprog into the state system.
3. If all that fails, when your up to your 14th kid, you get over 34k in benefits and yet you still dont have enough to match your 50 inch plasma screen TV you'll be paying for for life then you can move protest against the labour stronghold you live in with a vote for the BNP "becos off all the durty joos n darkies steelin all awr jobz".

Before anyone accuses me of racism or elitism I live in a run down part of Yorkshire, surrounded by a NuLabour stronghold with all its trappings and some of the most bigotted thugs I have to hear rant about how pathetic their existence is at 3am on a Tuesday night over their third barbecue that week, with Black Lace (shudders) playing in the background; while I get up, tired and cranky, 3 hours later and contribute something to the planet other than CO2.

Boy on a bike said...

I met a kid on Sunday (11 years old) that had to repeat a year. He seemed pretty well adjusted. He started school with my eldest.

I think there have been a few other contemporaries of my eldest that have been held back. For some wierd reason, the other kids don't run around the playground calling him (it's always a him) "thicky". They seem to treat it as a pretty normal event.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely believe that more children need to be held back (well, that and the quality of teaching needs to improve). I'm involved in a tutoring program in Australia (I tutor 10-12 yr olds) which takes place at a government primary school during school hours. 31 pupils in Grade 6 (11 yr olds), only 4 can read at what I consider to be the appropriate level. Of the remainder at least 15 can't read at all, cannot write anything remotely decipherable and have no idea how to use a dictionary or sound out new words phonetically. There are numeracy and literacy tests each year - and as a result of appalling results, the education department in its infinite wisdom decided that this year, if a child scored 40% or above - they would be deemed to have passed. Absolutely rediculous. This is why in Australia an ever increasing number of parents send their children to private schools - the quality of education (i.e. your child will be able to read and write etc)is above and far beyond anything else. Another point to note - of the strugglers - none of their parents read to them at home or help them. Rediculous. These children stand no chance.

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