The SATS con and our education system

Teach First, the govt’s bright idea to get graduates into teaching before going on failed. It found 20% cleared off after one year and 50% at the end of the second.
 
denislawsbackheel said:
Teach First, the govt’s bright idea to get graduates into teaching before going on failed. It found 20% cleared off after one year and 50% at the end of the second.
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What I find funny is that whenever teachers bring up conditions and pay, they're constantly met with "You spend most of the year on holiday." and "If you don't like it, quit." And then when they do (a record 40,000 last year), everyone moans about class sizes. Almost as if they've called your bluff and you're not happy about it.

As for Teach First, it basically shows what they think of teaching. Not a profession, just some little gap year job to do before you go on to your proper career.
 
Looks good on a potential MP CV.
It helped Will Wragg land a position at Westminster.
Mind you no way can he go back!
 
Bluesince1979 said:
The teaching profession is on its knees. More leaving the profession than coming in and schools looking to take on new inexperienced starters as they are cheaper than experienced teachers , then the newbies cant hack it so leave
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And lots of TAs taking up the slack
 
I'm With Stupid said:
What I find funny is that whenever teachers bring up conditions and pay, they're constantly met with "You spend most of the year on holiday." and "If you don't like it, quit." And then when they do (a record 40,000 last year), everyone moans about class sizes. Almost as if they've called your bluff and you're not happy about it.

As for Teach First, it basically shows what they think of teaching. Not a profession, just some little gap year job to do before you go on to your proper career.
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I did at one stage consider going into teaching, would I do it now if I had just graduated? Not for a gold pig.

I'm sure if you land on your feet at a school in a well healed part of the country its ok, but in some of the inner city and deprived areas it appears, from the outside at least, to be more like running a prison than a place of education.

Whilst there's always been challenging behaviour, the attitude of late that students are immune to any form of sanction, coupled with parents often resorting to aggression and violence as a first port of call, must make it horrendous.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
It basically comes down to what you're trying to measure. Are you trying to compare people to their peer group, or are you trying to figure out if they've learned the things on the curriculum. They basically switched from the former to the latter. And for good reason, really. How my friends do on the test has no bearing on how much of the material I've learned. Imagine if the driving test worked like that. "You only got 5 minors, but unfortunately for you, most of the other people today got 4 or fewer, so you've failed." Or worse "I know you almost crashed three times and stalled twice, but John ran over a granny, so you've passed."
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In order to drive safely on the road you need to reach a certain level of proficiency.

In an examination, identifying the top 7% (or whatever an A grade was) is useful in finding the best candidates.

Different scenarios.
 
Citizen of Legoland said:
I would think that if everyone scored under 10% on an exam they wouldn't be handing out any grade As. Essentially they were trusting the teaching process and the teachers, so it still tested their knowledge of the curriculum. When you leave school you don't all apply for the same jobs at the same time, so it would be unfair if one year got a really hard exam paper and got worse scores than those from the next year who got an easy one when it came to deciding who got the job.
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Hope I'm not misunderstanding what you're saying.

Suppose the cut off mark for an 'A' is the top 7%, and in a typical year a score of 70% on a paper will get you in that top bracket.

In one year the examiners set a really difficult paper, a score of 60% on the exam will get you an 'A'.

In another year the paper was less demanding and a candidate needed a score of 80% to get an 'A'.

In all three scenarios, the best candidates were identified. The comparison at interview disadvantages no one?
 
Eccles Blue said:
EVERY CHILD IS GIFTED. THEY JUST UNWRAP THEIR PACKAGES AT DIFFERENT TIMES AND PACE.
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Unfortunately that's not true. As a former teacher you must have observed hundreds (thousands?) of children and know that the world is inherently unfair.
 
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