Already told my daughter to not let it affect her, I just want her to enjoy reading and learning to spell right, her maths is fine anything else is a bonus. I’m saving up now to take her to Japan in two years as she’s declared she fancied it and I’ve always wanted to go, this will be an education for her and me.I was unlucky enough to be involved in the first ever SATs.
I still remember the fear of failure. When I got the mark which was less than I expected I was miserable for weeks. I'm convinced now it's a core memory which prevented me from reaching my full potential. Because I saw myself as a failure. Any success I still have in work or life imposter syndrome follows. I put it all down to those fucking tests at such a young age. I was boxed in to my future that day.
You're a good father. Encourage her to follow her talents and she'll turn out well.Already told my daughter to not let it affect her, I just want her to enjoy reading and learning to spell right, her maths is fine anything else is a bonus. I’m saving up now to take her to Japan in two years as she’s declared she fancied it and I’ve always wanted to go, this will be an education for her and me.
I remember reading that Rick Stein got into Oxford with an E in History and English, so is this true or is it just one of those clouded judgements of ''everything was harder in my day''.Many degrees are essential, Medical, science, law etc but a vast majority of students at University should not or need to be there.
When I left school in the 80s you had to be seriously clever to get into a Uni, no longer, they are now a money making scam and I feel for a lot of students who fall for it and leave with mountains of debt and their dreams shattered when they go into the real world.
It doesn't work in business either. What gets measured gets done, and everything that can't be measured gets dropped, not matter how important it is.Out of curiosity, as I know you were in the teaching profession, what did they do to measure school performance before OFSTED and SATS ?
This obsession with measuring performance against arbitrary targets, might work in business, but to me its not conducive to providing a rounded education to kids, in particular at junior school age.
He's 77 and went to public school, and I suspect back then, a well-connected individual could probably get into Oxford with pretty average grades. Hell, look at the grades that got King Charles into Cambridge.I remember reading that Rick Stein got into Oxford with an E in History and English, so is this true or is it just one of those clouded judgements of ''everything was harder in my day''.
A pass in an exam is just like equality in life - there are varying levels.Those were the days. Even if you passed it you weren't guaranteed to be accepted into grammar school.
It doesn't work in business either. What gets measured gets done, and everything that can't be measured gets dropped, not matter how important it is.
I remember watching this ages ago, and it's still true now:
But it's also worth mentioning the role parents play in this. They all moan about it, but then they're the first to ask what rating the local schools got when they try to enrol their kids. In Finland, which for years had the best education system in the world, there are no published performance metrics of schools (it's especially ridiculous to boil the performance of a whole school down to a one word description), but imagine the fuss that would be made if Ofsted tried to do that in this country.
Classes of 25 have become 40+.
All that counts is the test.
An entire system of education dismantled. As is the case in the NHS, with the removal of trusted GP's who see a patient face to face, the once totally implicit ideas of continuity of care, 'whole patient' approach, gone.
Because they stare at their bank balances so much, they find it easy to believe that people are no more than robots.
Rather than emotional, living creatures with rather a lot more going on under the surface than is ideal.
Same thing in education. It was an investment in the whole person. You lay the foundations and encourage a person to live, exist and thrive. And hope the culture passes on it's wisdom. The nous to give people a shot at a balanced way to think about themselves and the world.
Whatever there is in SAT - there is no wisdom.
I'm afraid culture wars are a terrible answer to this. There is no right answer to the things we sometimes insist on imposing. Kids will get that. Even if we can't explain it. Sometimes we just end up showing that something is wrong. A resistance builds. We aren't smart or clear enough to know what the truth is - we just end up forcing strange things through for the silliest of reasons.
The best goal is different; get the individuals to think well for themselves, to work around the limitations of people inherently and neccessarily disagreeing. To accept the contradictions of the world, and approach it all as a work in progress, a best effort. To know, their view is of value. But to give them the confidence to keep thinking openly about it, privately as well as publicly. So they are not holding on to it desperately. And so they are not prone to end up swayed by small stuff. There is no value in producing fodder for people seeking to exploit easy false answers.
We have to try to give people a sense that something a bit better and more durable is possible, if they keep working for themselves, on their invisible estate, the unwritten unknowable balance sheet, the hidden garden or the secret library of the mind.
It can be measured in outcomes. The outcomes we are failing at now. That's how this happened. We only ever discuss this year's results. And so we totally overlook the obvious truth lives are shaped over decades. Fruition is a whole life deal. So are many many mental health problems. They don't emerge out of the blue and it doesn't happen overnight.
I dunno. I don't expect this to be solved. We will always be distracted by the short term. The latest cycle of results. I don't think that changes.
All I'm saying is, we can do better. IDGAF about train privatisation or many other things. I just hope that there is some move to reverse the trend on class sizes and other short sighted refusals to acknowledge humans for what they are.