I can which is why I take issue with the statement that any time off school will be detrimental to GCSE results…

Don’t be thick.

We’re not saying you will definitely get worse GCSEs if you take some time off school 🙄

On what data are you suggesting my kid is a genius ?

That was in reference to the tone of your posts, which sound like bragging.

He just did some rather basic maths that 99% of 7yr olds could do if teachers hadn’t already held them back.

Teachers don’t hold kids back. Teachers have to teach the whole class, and the brighter kids will always get stuff faster and then be waiting for the slower ones.

It all comes down to expectations and the bar has been lowered year on year for decades.

You seem to be ranting in a rather confused way, rather than making an informed post backed by research. Are you saying that teachers deliberately slow down when they could progress faster? Why the hell would anyone do that?

and in most maths he is far advanced over his mother (who is a teacher)

The difference is HE UNDERSTANDS the maths, his mother doesn’t she learns it and teaches it but doesn’t actually UNDERSTAND IT.

To be fair, better at maths than his maths teacher mother isn’t bad for a seven year old.

To be fair, better at maths than his maths teacher mother isn’t bad for a seven year old.

Well his mother is an English teacher by training… but has to do basic maths… the thing is that she doesn’t understandmaths as a reality.

It’s like someone who can teach someone to drive but doesn’t actually understand how an internal combustion engine works… indeed, when she was learning to drive she kept asking “what gear should I be in for a certain speed” and she was learning in a petrol and practising in a diesel.

In the same way she can calculate basic maths … but she does it by following instructions she doesn’t actually understand the why’s because she wasn’t taught that way.

she does it by following instructions she doesn’t actually understand the why’s because she wasn’t taught that way.

So… in other words she was taught rote rather than being given a proper understanding of numeracy… ?

the thing is that she doesn’t understandmaths as a reality.

Is it because her teachers held her back? If not, what else might be the cause of that?

In case you are unsure where I am going with this – I’m saying people have different aptitudes, and whilst your son ‘gets’ it easily, your wife (who is presumably intelligent enough) does not. What this means is that what seems like holding some kids back could be required work for the rest of the class.

…anyway, it’s probably been done to death a few pages ago, but a lot of what schools do is just keep kids off the street, and vaguely institutionalise them. This isn’t a bad thing but hasn’t got much to do with education.

Don’t be thick.

We’re not saying you will definitely get worse GCSEs if you take some time off school

Not you, this was the carefully worded and released government statement!

That was in reference to the tone of your posts, which sound like bragging.

Only if you think there is anything exceptional a 7yr old doing what 80% of 5 yr olds were doing a few decades ago!

Teachers don’t hold kids back. Teachers have to teach the whole class, and the brighter kids will always get stuff faster and then be waiting for the slower ones…….

………..Are you saying that teachers deliberately slow down when they could progress faster? Why the hell would anyone do that?

Addressing the why first… I’d have thought it was implicit that I believe teachers are holding kids back (and after I can give you an actual real example)

Why would they hold kids back….

the brighter kids will always get stuff faster and then be waiting for the slower ones

I’d argue its as much or more about interest than being brighter… but the short term answer is in your actual post.

Why are they then waiting, not being given new and stimulating challenges?
Because the teacher has to prepare them. It creates MORE WORK and at the end of this MORE WORK it achieves nothing because at the end of TERM or the end of YEAR the kids need to be at a certain level because there is no mechanism for them to do anything different.

I can perhaps illustrate with reading…
My kid loves reading … not because I’m claiming he’s a genius but because he’s been encouraged from a very early age by both parents and he sort of half taught himself. (Before he could read he memorised whole books he loved… and he’d follow along stuff like Julie Donaldson .. and when I made a mistake he’d know and he started recognising words.. and half we helped/encouraged him (like reading signs)…

(Again, nothing exceptional here… one of his best friends at school read fluently in 3 languages before reception)

When he started reception he was already reading… he could read Tales of Peter Rabbit for example…

Then he started reception and got told to read books with about 30 words cover to cover. I’m making this up as accurately as I can though..

John has a Dog.
John’s dog is called Sandy
John went to the park.
John took Sandy to the park.
John and Sandy played in the park.

Despite it being obvious this was not really reading or interesting he was forced to read these books .. which took him and a few other kids 20 seconds..after which they then had to wait for the remaining 59 minutes (or whatever) whilst behaving!

In Yr 2 he had a teacher who encouraged them to keep learning/exploring and he and 2-3 other kids were allowed to the bigger kids library to choose books. Over last summer he read amongst other books Tom Sawyer but start of Year 3 he was given books a level above John goes to the park and forced to bring them home to read… as the new teacher insisted they all read from the Yr 3 reading list.

Again these are simply books with no story, no character development etc. and he actually stopped reading for pleasure he started hating it that much. Luckily she left (got a year head position at another school)

As to do teachers… you can choose to believe or not but..
a) His teacher said bluntly he was reading these books as she didn’t have time to read every book in the school
b) Before his mother went back to work she volunteered as a TA. (Bargain for the school with an unpaid QTS working as TA) and she oversaw the Reading testing. She was explicitly told NOT to test certain kids as they were too far ahead already. (Not our kids year group)

However, take a step back… breathe…
What this all culminates in is taking some exams aged 16 and now 18…

From Reception through to GCSE are simply a set of expectations as to where a kid needs to be start of the next term/year.

There is simply no facility for what that kid does if they finish that years curriculum after 1 term …

As my OH is discovering and as I presume many enthusiastic teachers have found out before… the state education system has no facility at all for anyone who learns more quickly except to hold them back.

You can’t be put up a year… etc. so if it takes 1 term then there is nothing for the teacher to give you for the other 2 terms that won’t then impact your NEXT year… etc. etc.

So I bolded the state education system… so to pre-empt the next question of why then don’t we home educate …

There are some purely practical reasons, social interaction reasons etc. all of which can be overcome but then what NEXT ???

There are a few kids that went to Uni aged 10… for example…
It rarely works out well… think about it.. suddenly they are in a group of Freshers aged 10-11??

This actually happened to one of my best friends though his home education was more to do with his father’s work than by design.. he finished his 1st degree (in the US) aged 14… (he’s 50 this week btw) .. then what?

Anyway, he’s over the drugs now and has always strongly said that it is a terrible thing to do to a kid… There was a UK one who got famous after running off from Uni to be a prostitute aged 14 or something.. (you can google Sufiah Yusof ) and even if nothing goes badly wrong they are not allowed to work full time until they are 18 …

Point is the school system simply delivers suitably qualified people off a conveyor belt aged 18. There is no market for the system to deliver university post grads at 14…

Going faster than the conveyor simply means that they end up in limbo .. be that on a term by term basis or going to Uni aged 10…

Jesus, maybe you should take your kid on a holiday you seemed stressed!!

Blimey that’s a long old post boasting about how great your kid is and moaning about how average your current school is.

I suggest you put him in a private school where his needs can be better catered for.

Or find a state school which uses differentiated instruction.

the state education system has no facility at all for anyone who learns more quickly except to hold them back.

You’re wrong. Teachers have to provide differentiated work for all pupils, the school is responsible for ensuring pupils progress ‘n’ levels each year/key stage.

Yes, there are genius children for whom almost no conventional educational experience is appropriate but they’re very few and far between.

Equally, there are a large number of state Special Needs schools catering for children who will never attain within a conventional exam system.

Is it because her teachers held her back? If not, what else might be the cause of that?

It’s because HER teachers didn’t understand maths either.

In case you are unsure where I am going with this – I’m saying people have different aptitudes, and whilst your son ‘gets’ it easily, your wife (who is presumably intelligent enough) does not. What this means is that what seems like holding some kids back could be required work for the rest of the class.

I don’t disagree (see my above post)
But the point is it IS holding them back….

I’m not even saying it’s a BAD thing…. what I’m saying is if a kid has already finished the entire syllabus for a term or year then it’s not only doing them no harm going on holiday for a week or even two.. its probably good for them and also good for the rest of the class.

We go cycling every Sunday…. it’s contingent however on the kid having done chores and homework. I can’t see why if a kid can pass the end of term test with >95% or end of year test > 95% why they can’t take some time off.

The issue I fear is with those who can’t… but by definiotion the ones who actually NEED the extra time.

Blimey that’s a long old post boasting about how great your kid is

Again, how is it boasting how great my kid is when all he is doing is the same level that my whole class was expected to attain in the early 70’s.

and moaning about how average your current school is.

Nope I’m reasonably happy with the school… there is no advantage educationally to him going faster, I’m merely pointing out that he could be absent from today till the end of summer term and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to his GCSE’s…

He’s 7 and he’s managed not to be stabbed at school and he’s not taking drugs… and I see no reason that wouldn’t continue until he’s 11..

I suggest you put him in a private school where his needs can be better catered for.

Again why?
It’s not like it will change anything (except perhaps access to drugs).

School is just a placeholder where kids are parked before they are allowed to work….

School is just a placeholder where kids are parked before they are allowed to work….

Hopefully they will learn a few social skills along the way.

No bold or caps on that one,slacking.

Yes, there are genius children for whom almost no conventional educational experience is appropriate but they’re very few and far between.

Rather than argue about “genius children” (I’m not Mozart’s father asking why the school hasn’t had him write a symphony) I’m simply taking a simple bit of fact, extrapolation and logic.

Fact: 50% of children are below the mean academically.

Extrapolation: Academic performance has a tangible link to IQ and has a normal distribution

Logic: A kid in the top 25th percentile will progress much more quickly than a kid in the lower 25 percentile

You can add some very conservative figures to that…lets simply say (for a nice easy model) they are 25% faster than a lower 25 percentile
Lets say they spend 4 hours a day in school actually LEARNING. (They have to eat, piss and whatever)

That means that for each day of 4 hours the top 25% kid is 1 hour ahead .. after a week then are 5 hours ahead and after 39 weeks that’s 195 hours a school year!

They can’t start the next school year 195 hours ahead … but even supposing they could what would happen at the end of THAT year…

Hopefully they will learn a few social skills along the way.

Again I agree.... and one reason I’m not pushing to home educate.
It would be nice if it also pleasant, fun even 😀

It’s because HER teachers didn’t understand maths either.

It sounds like you haven’t spent much time teaching maths or other things to a diverse range of people….

what I’m saying is if a kid has already finished the entire syllabus for a term or year then it’s not only doing them no harm going on holiday for a week or even two

I’m saying the same thing. I’m in favour of the discretionary approach with the power to grant leave when it’s appropriate. In other words, if a genius kid is already well ahead, then it might be deemed appropriate.

You are making a good argument for education tailored to the needs of different abilities, stevextc. And it’s long been realised (because it’s obvious) that bright kids learn quicker and would benefit from specialist education. And also that slower kids learn more slowly and also benefit from specialist education. But this takes a lot more resources – we’d need three times the teachers and three times the classrooms for a start.

AND

There are also significant downsides to society from segregating kids. That’s why grammar schools were a bad idea.

I haven’t got kids so I prefer them to have to be on holidays at set times, means I can avoid the whiny little shits.
Oh, Steve, the whole bold, italic, general ranting thing? Makes you come across as a bit mental. Hard to take your point of view seriously as a result.

Fact: 50% of children are below the mean academically.

Are you sure about that? I would be frankly astonished were that actually the case.

Median perhaps?

(probably should have spent more than a few days on that Basic Statistics CSE eh? 😉 )

stevextc – Member

Fact: 50% of children are below the mean academically.

Only if precisely no children are exactly at the mean.

And it is a perfectly uniform distribution.

Hey,

I was taken out of skool term for holadaze, and I are not ficker than yoo.

DrP

@Mattbee ha ha ha that’s an awesome response! Especially those poorly disciplined children with awful parents who let their darlings scream shout, whine, and tear things to pieces …. what happened to go manners and a harsh thwack 😀

Especially those poorly disciplined children with awful parents who let their darlings scream shout, whine, and tear things to pieces ….

I call it ‘free play’ or ‘montessori’ or something…..

I just see my kids as a disruption from my frantic smartphone Facebooking schedule, TBH… 😉

DrP

Can somebody explain to me what stevextc’s rant about how rubbish the teachers are at his school (but actually he’s reasonably happy with it – even if I suspect that’s damning with faint praise), how awful the system is that it means bright kids have to be held back (but actually there’s no advantage to him learning faster) has to do with whether kids taking holidays during term time has an impact on the education of whole classes (of kids who mostly aren’t as educationally advanced as steve’s)?

I took it to be a shining example of the self absorbed wankery of modern society.