h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Braid went with schools that had uniform. Hutchie, Glasgow High School etc. (the private and well posh ones)
When I was at Uni I used to live just along from a Girls School (quiet at the back!) which was private and had all the piping and blazers and stuff. Interestingly (to me) my Gran had attended said school as a Primary (up to 12) when it was The Laurel Bank School for Chaste Young Ladies
As to my school, as mentioned it was a comprehensive and hence we only got as far as a wee badge when being a prefect, but at least they made prefects wear uniform.
I am finding all the other systems very interesting, but I can see why it is very difficult to compare between systems. Even the Scots and English are too different to properly compare.

This is going to be a very short post because the subject is something I am (probably) unecessarily bitter about and could rant for years about so am going to be controlled and to the point.

Setting. Grading. Mixed abilitly classes. Call it what you will.

I HATE the whole idea of a mixed ability class. I was in lots of them. In my school, which you have already heard about from MaW, they were under the mistaken impression that setting ud only for Maths, English, Language and Science at the GCSE level was a good plan. These sets were so broad that the were rather unhelpful. How can an English class with pupils expected to get grades ranging from D to A* in can really work. How can a science class with some people who were really struggling (me in physiscs and chemistry) and people who's fathers taught at Cambridge Uni and who had understandably had a little extra tuition so didnot even need to refer to the text book conceivably work? Even worse was the mixed ability idea. This was for everything else, humanities stands in the memory as being the worst. Thirty or so people. Four of us who were in the top sets for everything else (except maths for which my shcool year had nine sets in each half of the year which is the one thing they did right) a handful of people who were torn between trying to get their C grades and deciding who had the coolest boyfriend or who to be mean to next. And then there was the rest of the class which was comprised of the wodge of population that we were allocated because they had to be split up from the rest of their friends for reasons of public safety. They were expected tio get a grade in the subject. It was just very unclear what that grade was. And several of them didn't finish school anyway. The net result of this wonderful class was me and my friend did the assignments and left early to go to work on another subject. (highly illegal) The two other bright sparks went to sleep on the odd occasion they managed to show up. And the rest of the class had paper fights. It couldn't benefit any if us because who the hell was the teacher expected to gear the lesson towards in the five minutes they got in order to prepare the lesson?

The whole idea of not being allowed to move up to the next year if your performanece is not good enough is incredibly appealing to me as it means people would at least have to try instead of wasting the class time of those that genuinely want to be there.

And why could any body ever imagine a mixed ability class is a good idea?

When I went to sixth form it was great. I did the IB with people who actually liked studying. Liberating. University was even better. I was finally diagnosed as being mildly dislexic which explained a whole lot.

I would like to know: does any body have a single good reason why mixed abililty classes were a good idea.

Aren't you glad I didn't rant...................heheheheheheh

FABT

And I didn't even mention year nine music riots!

I agree and thank my lucky stars that my kids are in a system which caters for their way of thinking.

All teaching has to go as slow as the slowest, which can only lead to boredom, disruption and dissatisfaction among those who would be able to get on faster. The slower ones would benefit from having a more homogenous class, and maybe even get on faster without the disruptions of those who have a quicker grasp of things.

It's not so much intelligence really, or knowledge, but more a question of wavelengths, which to a great extent is synonymous with intelligence. This, too, is why everyone gets on well with some teachers well and not with others, Wavelength is a rather general lay term for a whole aspect of psychology which is unfortunately ignored in too many places (work, school, societies and organisations). I don't know much about it, but I know it's there!

So true, and FABT's experiences are similar to my own, except we were probably looking at the same problem from different perspectives, as we are different people after all. Shows the school didn't change much in the three years between us. And yes, sixth form was liberating for me too, but then again I went to the same sixth form FABT had previously been to.

At least I'm at a different university

Maths was really the only subject that was setted properly - there were about fifteen in my GCSE maths class and we all ended up with As or A*s. That was good.

Mind you, my IB Higher Maths class started out with nine, then dropped down to five of us who actually took the exam. It was hard. Plus we had the people who only came for a year anyway, the people who just vanished and the people who dropped down to Maths Methods.

Mixed-ability teaching is bad. There is a risk of the people in lower sets getting stuck and not able to rise above it even if they are capable of it, but if the system is run correctly they should be able to move between sets as and when is necessary. Obviously different syllabuses (usually caused by doing different levels of the same GCSE) cause problems, but within the sets doing the same GCSE or whatever movement should certainly be possible and easy. That way, the primary problem with sets is at least partially eliminated.

At the Standard Grade/GCSE level, Standard Grades are/were split into three sections. Those expected to do well were educated for, and sat the Credit level exam (which allowed you to get a mark of 1(high), 2 (not bad) or 7 (fail)). Those who were a bit middly were taught, and sat, the General paper (marks, 3,4 and 7) and those who were slower did Foundation (5,6,7). In theory this helped streaming, and also tailored the papers to the ability (slightly). I thought that style applied to GCSE as well. Obvously not.
Incidently, you tended to sit two papers, just in case you narrowly missed a 2 (say) and wanted to avoid a 7.

GCSE applies three levels for maths (Higher, Intermediate and Foundation "tiers") and two for most others, I think. Usually you can get A* to D (higher) or C to G (foundation); if you don't get the lowest mark you get a U (ungraded), which basically means "total failure". GCSE foundation papers are generally so easy that there's no significant risk of failing them. (I think in French you need only get about 10% for a G; this might be different for each board.)

Two similar examples: I got an A in biology even though I had terrible coursework because my exams were somewhere in the 90% band. Meanwhile, despite having good (A/B-grade) coursework for English language, I only got a C in the end because I had a mental block during one of the exams and didn't have a clue what to write, missing out two entire questions.

"Institute of further education" seems the prevailing "generic" term for places that offer post-GCSE (non-degree) education.

Some places (such as my school's sixth form) actually use year numbers 12 and 13. They're not superstitious (even though football teams never have a number 13 sub and buildings rarely have a 13th floor ).

I ended up with about 27% in English because the entire course structure was based around writing essays quickly. I could always write good essays, given enough time, but I could only get about 1 1/2 of the three essays done in exams (or about half for the in-class essays)

It surprises me, looking back, that so little time is spent in classes on what we can loosely call'how to pass exams'. I know that technically you are supposed to be getting educated, but some of the things you need to know, like how to write quickly/to a deadline, or even how to write at all (since so many of our exams rely on written tests), are in themselves useful skills for work, and certainly for higher education (depending on your subject I suppose). And since, technically, some of the skills in say the eng exam should be useful in of themselves (understanding a text, writing a summery), then learning ho\w to do them, even though it is for an exam shopuld be a worth while exercise in itself. Trouble is sometimes the exam tasks are pointless inthemselves.

I am teaching some english for forigners exam classes at the moment, and I find that whilst half of what I do is exam prep, not only does this raise the accuracy of the students to phenominal levels, but the writing paper has forced them to learn to write properly. And, compared to when I did GCSE/Alevel, these writing tasks are much more realistic. Writing transactional letters (formal and informal), writing newspaper articles, writing reviews, writing essays (still useful in acedimia), and writing reports. Not all of these are relevant to a native class, but I've learnt more about writing from teaching this course than the br ed system ever taught me. And the thing is they are really stupid, obvious things too, like linking words. I got through a uni course without using anything more than but however and thus it can be seen that. The reading paper is also pretty challenging, and the questions are really designed to check that the student can comprehend. Great literature is all very well, but disecting a newspaper artiucle or a report about xyz is much more useful in the end.

What did I say about learning to write. I'll give this load of waffle a c-

I used to like the old system of exams because, although I never figured out how or why to revise, when sat in front of an exam paper, everything came rushing back. During term I was fairly mediocre in class. There are a few other people like me, but, I agree, not the majority and it is not really a fair system.

Oh well, I was always ok at exams too, but in my opinion teachers could be more helpful than in my experience they were in getting students through exams without jepordising the ed aims of schooling. I think that the entire exam training I ever got, and the only help I ever got in writing other than being set bits of writing to do on a regular basis, can be summed up as...when writing an essay it needs an intro, a middle and a conclusion. Oh and here you go, write another essay on capital punishment. You'd think the least they could do was to manage acouple of timed dry runs. With enforced planning.

This seems a little odd to me -- in the US, while most classes are not aimed towards exams, those that are (i.e., AP or IB classes), do spend a decent amount of time on "how to take an exam" skills, plus taking 1-2 practice tests. The teacher's (and the school's) status is influenced by how well the students do on the exams, so everyone is motivated to help the students do well. Many schools also offer programs to help prep students for the college entrance exams (SAT and ACT) -- since the actual material on the exams is familiar to most students, it largely comes down to a math review, vocabulary review, and a lot on test taking skills. I currently teach one such class, and actually feel rather sorry for my students -- their parents are making them take the prep class over and over again (I have one who's in his 3rd year) until they can get near-perfect scores on the exams (i.e., 770 or more out of 800 on each section).

Mikey

Well, I can't say my school was one of the greatest and they had probably resigned themselves to not doing very well on the leauge tables and all that but still. And yes, some exams and exam prep courses are a bit heartbreaking in their monotony. When I get overenthusiastic (too much caffine) I start mentally redesigning the whole Br ed system viv a vis exams. Worrying, no?

So now you know. Nobody really knows!.. This is the problem with the education system in Britain today. Everywhere you look they are doing something else. I accept that the Scottish system has always been different (and better) but the authorities need to step back and have an overview of the whole system before another generation looses out. Everyone talks about the vast array of exams they sat. I think the last figures I saw suggested that 27% of all pupils are leaving school without the basics of a qualification in English or Maths. How does the American system compare with that? As with all areas of post-Tory Britain, the gap between the classes is wider than at any time since we had children working up chimneys. The few are better qualified and more employable, the rest work in call centres, the modern production line. Perhaps this should become a new conversation, sorry.

I don't think the Scottish system is "better", it's just different. Hence for years Scots have claimed it is better. Of course, the literacy rates etc. are much the same as other Western nations (I think) and last years exams were f___ed up no end, with this year not expected to be very good either, so I don't think the Scots can claim too much superiority.

It came as a shock to me to realise, on reading this and recent news (last few years) that children in this country were still being taught in mixed ability classes.

I was fully setted for everything and thought everyone else was amd cannot see how any other system can ever work.

I am like TC, cannot suss this revision thing out. My opinion is if you cannot rememeber it for 9 months what's the point.


On a slightly different point, was anyone here taught SMP Maths?

If so do you want to join me (especially if you are a lawyer) in taking a class action against them and the LEAs that used SMP? As I feel the course was so poor it has significantly affected my career prospects, I know how to add two matrixes together but that's about it.


CHawke

SMP maths? The different board thing is certainly odd. My GCSE maths exam was such a walk in the park, especially compared to the boys who we later shared Alevel maths classes with, that we were behind and desperately trying to catch up for the first year. My physics teacher, on the other hand, taught us the wrong syllabus (ie for a different board) but luckily it was harder and so we could manage the stuff on our paper ok.

So here's a question -- In the British high school/secondary school, are you ever taught classes that *aren't* for these big exams? For example, I took the standard "US History" and "World History" that almost all Americans take when I was in 10th and 11th grade, but in 9th I took "Medieval History" and in 12th I took "Cold War History".

For literature, I took the standards of "American Lit" in 9th, "World Lit" in 10th, but then took Russian Dramatic Literature in 11th and Utopian Literature and Philosophy in 12th (it was a double class, counting towards both literature and history).

Same thing for science -- took the standards of chemistry, biology, and physics (and then the AP versions of each), but then also took astrophysics, "modern physics" (quantum and relativity), and geophysics.

Do British students get to take electives like that, too, or do they only take the "standardized" courses aimed at exams?


Mikey

I only went to a very small school (= low budget) so we were quite limited in teacher-power and book funds. (We didn't buy our own books. In Germany we are spending up to DM 600 a year on them for our three boys)

So we were limited to what we had to learn for the syllabuses. Which is a point I had intended to make earlier, but was rather shocked by the amount I had written . A German friend asked me about the Age of Enlightenment and how it took place in England. I HAD NO IDEA. I only vaguely knew when it was because I had heard something about it in connection with Mozart.

I felt rather silly - otherwise I manage to keep up with the conversation among my husband's colleagues (all grammar school teachers) but our history lessons covered 1485 - 1703 and that was it. Our O level syllabus. There was a bit of free time in the Third and Fourth years (13 and 14 year-olds) where we covered some late Victorian politics and some current affairs, but we had no say in what we did. We just went into the history class and the teacher told us these things. We wouldn't have dreamt of saying"Can you tell us about the French Revolution" or "We want to know more about the Vikings" or whatever. Our school two history teachers and a music teacher who doubled up as another.

I don't know how it is now - if schools are bigger, they can offer courses to choose from, but I can't imagine that, even now, the system has changed so radically that you actually CHOOSE to go to which lessons you want. You choose geography or economics, you go to the lessons - you have no further choice as to what you actually do in those lessons. In Germany there is no choice here either.

When I was at secondary school we had non exam based courses for the first three years in all the subjects we took (which we had no choice about but which differs abit between schools). Then we got to choose abit (usually things like geog or history, french or german, it or man technology or typing) with some fixed subjects like maths and english. There were nine of these as a basic course, so in the main, from 14 to 16 you were studying mostly for exams, and likewise for 16 to 18.

But there was PE/Games (compulsary up to 16) though some schools did it as an extra GCSE.

And PSE. PSE stood for personal social education and went on until we were 18 at my school. Basically its the bit where the teacher has the difficult job of trying to convince teenagers that drugs are bad, bullying is bad, sex is bad if you are under (insert arbitary number here)and you should Have Protection (fave moment at school, putting comdoms on carrots time after time until we got it right following an excruciating 10 minutes when teach asked us to name the sexual positions we knew), smoking is bad, underage drinking is bad, war is bad (second fave moment, watching a video from the 50s where a turtle is teaching kids how not to get vapourised in the event of a nuclear attack "duck and cover, duck and cover", the whole point being to get under you desk and put your hands over your head. That and the teacher telling us in minute detail what would happen to our town if a bomb was dropped on London. You have to realise that my home town might actually be improved if it was flattened by a huge blast of wind and nothing could live there for 100s of years), where was I? oh, yes, sexism is bad, racism is bad, getting a job is, surprisingly, good. To which end we filled in 1000s of questionaires about our likes/aptitudes for different jobs, and promptly ignored them when it came to handing out work experience placements.

There was no choice about this.

It's probably possible to offer a wider range of electives in Am if the schools are so big. In Br, as the schools are up to 1000 students on the whole, this means limited nos of classes too. When it came to A level, in order to offer such bizzare subjects as pollitics and sociology, our school banded together with neighbouring schools (if you offer politics and let our students come, we'll do art and your lot can attend).