UK Falling behind

In maths ?
I tried the test its not maths thats what was called arithmetic, maths is what I did to get my HNC in electronics shit like this

Falling behind Singapore/Shanghai/HK I can understand – these are effectively just cities and it would be more appropriate to compare to other cities. Falling behind Poland is more worrying.

It’s just another stick for the government to beat us teachers with.
“we should prepare students for the PISA tests” was one headline. I suppose we have to do that inbetween teaching the syllabus, marking, revision clubs, lesson planning and preparation.

They are pointless – you can’t compare china with the uk in this way especially when it comes to language.

It’s just another stick for the government to beat us teachers with…

…pointless…

Not another teacher with a chip on you shoulder are you? These rankings are highly relevant I’d say but that they are as much a measure of our goverment’s education policy, parenting, education system from todler up etc than they are an inditement of the quality of our secondary school teaching of maths.

A big shake up is required if we are to compete internationally but our teachers and their unions are a big blocker to this.

Did anyone do the test on the OECD site that was linked to by the BBC? Very easy, common sense type tests that didn’t require “book learning” of dificult maths techniques. More just applying simple techniques to increasingly more tricky scenarios.

Backs up the hypothesys that our education system is geared to producing pupils who can robotically pass our GCSE and A-Level tests but who can’t actually apply the facts they are able to recite.

I can’t read and I can’t write, but that don’t really matter,
‘cuz I be from the West Country and I can drive a tractor.

I’m sure we are, but I wouldn’t want to put my kids through what they go through to acheive academic excellence – and does it really result in a well rounded person better equipped with all the skills they need to deal with life? More like intense coaching to get people through exams. What about common sense and making sense of the world around you? Skills and knowledge you can’t learn in a classroom or from a textbook. Also what about simply happiness and wellbeing? It will take a couple of decades for the true cost of all the pressure and stress and loss of a childhood to manifest itself in the far east cultures.

Our school system does need a huge kick up the backside – standards have been slipping for decades, but the far east model is one I hope we look to for a few pointers, and not to base our system on.

In terms of preparing students for the PISA test, it seems the skills they would need are mathematics and the ability to apply it to everyday situations. If they are not prepared for this as part of their current syllabus, it’s a bit worrying.

I’d want to look into the methodology behind the PISA tests before drawing any conclusions.

What about common sense and making sense of the world around you?

Our school system does need a huge kick up the backside – standards have been slipping for decades, but the far east model is one I hope we look to for a few pointers, and not to base our system on.

Do you understand what these PISA tests are actually testing. It is exactly what you think is lacking in our system (and the tests back up that you are correct). So the conclusion from these tests is that the Far East model is actually better at preparing puplis to solve “real life” problems. Why would you not want to learn from that?

It’s a fundamental attitude problem in the UK. To put it bluntly, we idolise being thick.

Listening to Jeremy Vine yesterday talking about gas bill calculations, he was proud of his inability to work out his bill from the basic figures, and even had the temerity to treat the elderly lady who called in to explain how to do it (not difficult!) with disdain and condescension.

Or look at that blithering idiot on Strictly Get Me Out Of Here On Ice, who’s too stupid to tell the time. Celebrity? Don’t get me started.

It’s weird how we’re boastful of being crap at maths or using a computer; yet you wouldn’t stand up and announce in public that you can’t read or write. That’s why we’re dropping off the bottom of international league tables.

I’d want to look into the methodology behind the PISA tests before drawing any conclusions.

And if you do want to understand them more closely you could do better than pick a site aimed at techers in a country who don’t do so well in the test who will apply a very specific bias to the discussion and debate around how the data is collected and analysed.

Having looked at the tests and some of the questions

Johnny travels 15 miles in one direction it takes him 1/2 an hour returning he takes a longer route of 30 miles and it takes him an hour, what was his average speed.
To me thats being able to see relationships twixt numbers in different formats and simple ARITHMETIC not mathematics.
If our kids care incapable of those basic functions which should be ingrained before leaving junior school we are in big do-do.

Johnny travels 15 miles in one direction it takes him 1/2 an hour returning he takes a longer route of 30 miles and it takes him an hour, what was his average speed.

Looks like we are falling behind with grammar and punctuation as well. 😀

Correct it then and re post.

It’s a fundamental attitude problem in the UK. To put it bluntly, we idolise being thick.

There is definitely some truth in that. Anyway if you read the report on the OECD’s finding for the UK its girls and the Welsh who are to blame.

Johnny travels 15 miles in one direction; it takes him 1/2 an hour. Returning, he takes a longer route of 30 miles and it takes him an hour. What was his average speed?

There are a couple of options but this is the one I would choose.

It will take a couple of decades for the true cost of all the pressure and stress and loss of a childhood to manifest itself in the far east cultures.

On the breakfast news this morning they showed South Korea as an example and with all that intensive schooling and loss of childhood is it a big surprise that they have the highest suicide rate in OECD?

Its OK michael goves reforms are based around the swedish model of free schools

wait a minute they came several places lower than the UK in this league table, oh…

I suspect that this quote,

Teachers are seen as “generals”, able to make their own decisions, the OECD reports, and local government education officials are often drawn from the ranks of head teachers and teachers.

From here may have a lot to do with their success.

In other words when politicians leave well alone and allow the experts to do their job, miraculously things get better.

Currently have two family members who have just moved into year 7/secondary school – one at an Academy & the other a Grammar School. Talking through various bits of school work & homework tasks it seems they are both are taught in very similar ways however, one of them is then pushed further to understand how what he has learnt is relevant to daily life. A good example of this was some geometry work they both did – one was given a number of simple shapes to ‘find the missing angle’ on whereas the other had drawings such as buildings, furniture and even a bike frame to work his out. The former really didn’t see how his homework had anything to do with the real world.

Their DT was the same last term – one had to design a trebuchet, the other designed and made a working model. Knowing the theory and putting it into practice are really very different and I think it’s where the curriculum lets kids down.

I’ll leave you to work out which kid goes to which school…………

And if you do want to understand them more closely you could do better than pick a site aimed at techers in a country who don’t do so well in the test who will apply a very specific bias to the discussion and debate around how the data is collected and analysed.

Obviously.

Listening to Jeremy Vine yesterday talking about gas bill calculations, he was proud of his inability to work out his bill from the basic figures

Jeremy Vine who was privately educated in the years before GCSEs? 🙂

Its OK michael goves reforms are based around the swedish model of free schools

wait a minute they came several places lower than the UK in this league table, oh…

They used to do much better, before the introduction of free schools…

I, like many teachers, would love us to move to a school system more like Finland. Private schools are illegal, they don’t start school until they’re 7, there are no formal exams until age 18, and their equivalent of Ofsted was abolished years ago. Basically, it’s the opposite of what Gove wants to introduce, and they consistently out perform us in league tables.

Or look at that blithering idiot on Strictly Get Me Out Of Here On Ice, who’s too stupid to tell the time. Celebrity?

He can tell the time, just not on an antiquated clock format 🙂

Listened to Radio 4 for a short while this afternoon and a Government spokeswoman was on (didn’t catch the name as it had already started).
It was quite entertaining as, while she was talking about a decline in educational standards, she kept referring to the country of Shanghai.

On a happier note, I managed to make it through another day without needing to balance any quadratic equations

Anyone else?

*goes back to colouring things in*

I, like many teachers, would love us to move to a school system more like Finland. Private schools are illegal, they don’t start school until they’re 7, there are no formal exams until age 18, and their equivalent of Ofsted was abolished years ago. Basically, it’s the opposite of what Gove wants to introduce, and they consistently out perform us in league tables.

Gove wants all this but to wants to keep all of this!

I, like many teachers, would love us to move to a school system more like Finland. Private schools are illegal, they don’t start school until they’re 7, there are no formal exams until age 18, and their equivalent of Ofsted was abolished years ago. Basically, it’s the opposite of what Gove wants to introduce, and they consistently out perform us in league tables.

What do the Finn’s think of their education system, given that they do not believe in league tables? I mean you’re right that it sounds like an intelligent and rewarding approach, but it’s been assessed using a mechanism that they themselves reject.

It’s plainly a futile load of old cobblers in any case – league tables comparing education systems across the whole world, my arse. Estonia is ranked higher than the UK (and the US) in science education – how would you even attempt a comparison given Estonia has no science base and a population smaller than Manchester?

teachers and their unions are a big blocker to this.

standards have been slipping for decades

We are dealing with the same exact issues here in the USA

A big shake up is required if we are to compete internationally but our teachers and their unions are a big blocker to this.

The unions are blocking Gove’s reforms because Gove’s reforms won’t raise standards, not because they don’t want to raise standards.

Backs up the hypothesys that our education system is geared to producing pupils who can robotically pass our GCSE and A-Level tests but who can’t actually apply the facts they are able to recite.

(Reciting facts is what Gove wants to move towards.)

For years, schools have been measured by their GCSE pass rates, so schools have done everything they can to improve GCSE pass rates. If you base my salary progression and the funding of my employer on pass rates, I will work to improve pass rates.

standards have been slipping for decades

But have they?

If I compare the primary education I received, just prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum, and that currently being enjoyed by my two daughters there is simply no comparison.

Equally, looking at what my eldest is just about to do at secondary, she’s is going to have a hugely better experience, and outcomes, than I did.

Sadly, all of the changes being brought in by Gove are going to reverse the improvements made between 1988 and today.

The ‘teaching for exams’ system is flawed, but we live in a society where everyone has a target to hit. Until we abolish that we’re going to continue aiming for daft targets while other necessary elements become a lower priority, or even obsolete.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25156701

“Make no mistake, on December 3, the morale of the profession will take another whack around the ears. It is almost certain.
“Schools will be told, ‘Again you’re hopeless’, ‘Again you’ve messed up’, ‘Again you’re no good’, ‘Sort yourselves out’. All that sort of stuff doesn’t do any good and it doesn’t solve the problem either.”
Sir John suggests that England may be losing out because other countries take the tests more seriously and do more to ensure that pupils perform well.
The former headteacher says one solution would be to familiarise pupils with the style of the tests.
He told BBC News that because the tests are taken by a minority of pupils they are not taken seriously and “nobody bothers”.
“It all seems so far away it doesn’t seem to matter – but when politicians get hold of the results it matters a great deal.”
‘Misunderstand’
He added that no-one would think of entering any other exam “from driving tests to Oxbridge exams” without preparing – but says schools are “dissuaded” from preparing pupils for Pisa.
“Maybe that’s what the government wants. Maybe it’s what Pisa wants too, and if everybody else is doing that, fair enough,” he said.
But unless other countries did the same “you are not comparing like with like”.

at least we haven’t declined as catastrophically as Sweden with it’s free school policy…. Oh wait.

The unions are blocking Gove’s reforms because Gove’s reforms won’t raise standards, not because they don’t want to raise standards.

Can you point me to the last time a teaching union supported reform proposals put forward by any Education Secretary?

Can you point me to the last time a teaching union supported reform proposals put forward by any Education Secretary?

Most of them?

I’ve been teaching since 1999 and this is the first time I remember major ructions about reforms.

I think a problem with Gove is that he’s an idealist basing his vision around his personal education experience, which was not in an inner-city comprehensive.

There was quite a good interview on Radio 4’s “PM” programme tonight that debunked a lot of the nonsense that’s said about Sweden. What came out was that a long term decline in educational attainment had been taking place for 20+ years and was driven by 3 factors:

1. “new” thinking on the purpose of education and a movement away from “teaching” and teachers as enforcers of behaviour and discipline.
2. a lot of unqualified teachers and very poor standards in teacher training.
3. The move to devolve management of schools to local authorities and a break away from a national curriculum.

If Labour were hoping to make political capital out the Swedish performance in the Pisa tests and the role of free schools they must be pretty disappointed because the schools that are disproportionately performing best there (as is the case here) are the Free Schools.

The other thing the PISA results show us is that a whole generation educated since Labour’s “education education education” pledge have sunk to the bottom of the class and the £30Bn of extra spending under Labour achieved precisely nothing.

What’s also interesting is that the apparent reason attainment dropped in Sweden are very similar to the UK experience – conversely the Asian model of “old fashioned” teaching, fixed curricula and strict discipline in the classroom continues to drive excellence.

Can you show me the evidence of the top performing UK free schools please.
Unless reform enables higher quality teachers to be emlyed its all pissing in the winf imo.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/primaryeducation/10214802/Most-Coalition-free-schools-rated-good-or-outstanding.html