WWC boys, least likely to go to Uni of all school leavers.
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
And appoint a Tsar. Are they still doing Tsars or is that all a bit Blare's Britain.
Course they could just remove the need to rack up thousands of pounds in debt before you even graduate, let alone get a decent paid job. Foster a climate where kids get more supervised placements in local businesses. Gaining skills and experience in the local comunity. Sort out some basic discipline issues in schools. Unburden teachers of burocratic accountacy work. More scollarships for those accademically inclined...
Or just commission some more reports stating the fucking obvious.
rioted
redundant
But it is true, is it not, that when we had a two-tier system - grammars and secondary moderns - there was more class mobility than in the present education set-up of one size fits all?
rioted
redundant
Any suggestions? Mine is: make it all voluntary.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
There was, but i don't think that had much to do with the education sysytem (sponsored mobility aside). There was just more space to move into in a context of capitalist boom. Today that space is being shut down and forced right back - if you 'escape' today you're still in viewing distance and about to get a whole lot closer.
The educational ideology today seems to be about individual escape (or, please don't let me become like them) not mobility.
Any suggestions? Mine is: make it all voluntary.
Seemingly small things like having a school uniform policy, a 0 tollerence approach to classroom violence and abusive language. Both from pupils and teachers. Breakfasts being available at school. Things like this repuitidly make a significant positive difference to school life.
Yes I appreciate there are issues regarding cost of uniforms. Some schools insisting on using a particular, more expensive than the alternatives, provider. These aren't unsurmountable though.
rioted
redundant
You'll have to be patient with me - I've worked in schools for 20 years and see no evidence of these having much effect. The theory seems to be "Boys at Eton wear uniform, they succeed: therefore uniform engenders success". Zero tolerance? You mean exclude the transgressors? It's why the academies (well some of them) do well - they just remove the problem, give it to someone else. Breakfasts IS a good idea, but at our place doesn't have a good take-up. "Reputedly" is the key.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
if and only if it is sailor fuku
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
This is pretty meaningless.
Anyone got any idea which pro-business report this is, it's hard to tell with the Excellence for business:
http://www.dius.gov.uk/publications/index.html
You'll have to be patient with me - I've worked in schools for 20 years and see no evidence of these having much effect. The theory seems to be "Boys at Eton wear uniform, they succeed: therefore uniform engenders success". Zero tolerance? You mean exclude the transgressors? It's why the academies (well some of them) do well - they just remove the problem, give it to someone else. Breakfasts IS a good idea, but at our place doesn't have a good take-up. "Reputedly" is the key.
Well as you'll tell from my wording. The OFSTED report mentioned in this Guardian article was what initially sprung to mind.
"Strong headteachers should crack down on badly behaved pupils, introduce traditional uniforms and adopt the private-school system of "houses" to transform
failing institutions, inspectors suggested today.
A report from Ofsted found that schools in "special measures" - the most serious category of concern - improved dramatically when new headteachers arrived with a "zero tolerance" approach to unruly pupils."
Admittidly these aproaches were tried in failing schools. But there seems to be a certain amount of logic in what they've discovered, that could be applied more widely.
Of course, I don't say you can try these things arbiteraly. It would seem more about changing the culture and expectations of both pupils and staff as well as adopting practicle measures such as I mention.
It's true that I've been no where near a school for some 16 years. But where there's evidence for concrete improvements, is it not obvious to try and emulate the conditions and policies that lead to them. These are not Etons and Harrows being talked about in that report.
o, what do you think is the "solution"? Indeed, what do you think should be the desirable end outcome?
Everyone going to "university"?
Or, some people going to university, but quotas to be enforced to ensure a representative cross-section of social classes and abilities?
Or something else?
The reasons why working class kids do worse at school are of course, many: lack of parental encouragement and resources, anti-academic mindset, low expectations, tendency to be more disruptive - especially when there are lots of them together in a class, even a plain lack of desire to do academic work.
Giles..
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
It does make me wonder whether the society that we are living in makes "culture" rather than "race" (Personally I like to think we're all part of the same human race but hey) more significant when people talk about ethnic minorities - especially when we're seen as one big homogenous mass. Every so often I'm often told what my background is, to which I have to respond "I didn't know that, but thank you for telling me - I now know better."
Yes, I can't see the Party for Working Socialism getting their placards out for people living on the council estates. The only place I seem to come across activists is near established universities. Much as most of us despise the far right, you can't blame people in run down estates for voting for them if they are the only political parties seen to be engaging with them - even if they do turn out to be pants at being elected representatives.
Unfortunately there are too many people on the far left that I've met who are a little bit like firebrand preachers. Rather than asking "what are your problems?" or "what are the things in your area that concern you?" before applying said political philosophy to a given problem, there's too much preaching and "it will be alright after the revolution once we've organised workers soviets to decide on how production should be organised." Yeah...and who's going to repair my glasses when you've shut down all the opticians? "Oh that will be decided by democratically elected workers soviets." What about the long term high price of oil? How am I going to afford to fill my car up with petrol to get from A to B? "Oh that will be decided by the locally democractically elected workers soviets."
Excerpts from a real conversation.
Ace post.
Andy the Don
Wise men say only fools..
Has anyone mentioned the fact that boys, of all backgrounds do better academically at single sex schools. Something to do with the feminisation of education not setting male pupils strong enough boundaries. Anyone else think that we should return to single sex schools..??
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I don't and I went to one. It's too artificial an environment.
rioted
redundant
What logic is that, then? The only "logic" that has been demonstrated time and time again is that the one thing that makes a strong showing in the attainment stakes is poverty. More important even than skill of teachers. Of course OFSTED isn't going to big this up - it's outside their remit, but if the government really wanted to improve results in any meaningful way it would do something about poverty, not announce (as it did this month) that there are 100,000 more kids living in poverty.
Of course poverty is important. Especially in relation to social mobility. Actually it's probably the type of poverty, gap between rich and poor. Since many poorer countries seem to handle education much more successfully with less resources. But if you see nothing valid in that OFSTED report and your only idea is social revolution, eliminating poverty. Then you'll be talking about this for the next 100 years cos poverty aint going any where soon.
I'm looking at the system as is, deffective and unjust though it may be. Asking what can be done today to improve chances for kids within it. If something evidencial comes to light and seems to suggest answers to how their lott can be improved. It's worth looking at.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
I think it's fair to say the increased numbers going to university have helped encourage a situation where many employers now demand graduate-level qualifiications for the most mundane of jobs. This helps further crucify and disadvantage those who haven't been to university.
This sounds like a mith to me. IME. Speaking as someone with a degree and employed to do pretty mundane jobs. No one has ever asked for a degree. It's not even been mentioned other than in passing chat in interviews. In fact if you're talking mundane ofice / customer service work. They rarely mention qualifications above GCSE level at all.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Nope. I've seen job adverts for typists/secretaries that demand 2.1 degrees as a condition of entry.
What as a general rule or are you recalling a couple of instances?
None of the admin jobs I've ever applied for wanted a degree.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
I've seen a fair few - enough to say that employers seem to be demanding graduates for the most trivial of reasons now.
I'll agree with you that, there aren't the jobs for graduates that you're lead to believe. Found it quite surprising to hear about peple with science degrees, that have been unable to find work in a relevant field. Despite the government banging on about how we need science graduates. Anicdotally I'm aware that call centres round here have a pretty high percentage of degree holding staff.
Employers seem to want ready made cogs coming straight to them. No or very little opportunity for on the job training. It's worse in many ways, if you're over 25 because the apprentichips, thin on the ground as they are, aren't available to you.
"Life long learning." Yeah right.
Employers seem to want ready made cogs coming straight to them. No or very little opportunity for on the job training. It's worse in many ways, if you're over 25 because the apprentichips, thin on the ground as they are, aren't available to you.
"Life long learning." Yeah right.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
i don't disagree with this. when i left uni i was shocked to discover that my degree enabled me to start an entry level admin position on under 15K. not sure why i was shocked, i guess i'd just accidentally bought into the mythology.
JHE
.
The reason is pretty much just that they can. Some years ago they might have demanded a clutch of O Levels or a few A levels. Now they ask for a degree.
I suppose the more reasonable employers are not dogmatic about it, but it's easy to see why they do it. They want to narrow the number of applications to a more manageable number and they hope that a degree indicates a modicum of intelligence, literacy and industriousness.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Here's two examples. When my ex-girlfriend left uni, she got a job working in the HR department at Clinton Cards in Debden. As an HR assistant, they demanded a degree and offered a starting salary of 14K.
When I left uni and was living on the south coast, my degree was considered important enough to make up for my lack of experience, and allowed me to do something dull and moronic with spreadsheets for Seeboard for 12K a year.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
And the media is even harder for working class people to get into. Most media industry roles of any value whatsoever expect experience, and experience is drawn from working as an intern or getting work experience. Six months to a year of unpaid work is pretty normal. Thus, you need to have economic support from somewhere to survive for the year that it takes to clock up the experience. I gave up after six months of sofa surfing, because I couldn't support myself. If my parents had had cash I'd have been OK. Even after that starting salaries are low - the job i was hoping to get was in london, involved eight hours a day, plus most evenings were spent at gigs and stuff schmoozing and networking, and paid 12K.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
It's ludicrous, isn't it?. Think of the shit that those without degrees are in.
Employers demanding Degrees totally unneccesarily belongs in the dustbin of history. But goes on all too much, it should be challenged.
Discriminating in favour of candidates who have been educationally privelleged is a disgrace.
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