Parents role in Education ?

Lets get back to the traditional 3 R's, taught in the traditional way, it worked, it is as simple as that.

Let's first review the data, and let that take us where it may. Here's a start:

the tendency of a significant proportion of the population to have low literacy skills is not a recent phenomenon, but dates back at least to the generation who entered school around 1925.

More data can be found here:

The proportion succeeding in their examinations at age 16 remained stagnant from around 1970 to the mid 1980s. Thus in the 1980s not only were around half the cohort leaving full time education altogether after the age of 16 but they were leaving with no qualifications.

The accompanying graph shows that rates of examination success had been increasing since 1955 through to 1970, then stays virtually unchanged until the late 1980s where there's a dramatic increase. The paper argues that the increase is most likely a result of the market reforms, together with the National Curriculum, introduced by the Thatcher government. IIRC the educational establishment was opposed to these reforms.

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As Chris comments - Education standards have slipped badly since about the mid 1970s.

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In the early 1960s 8% of school leavers were considered illiterate and relatively enumerate. Today that level is now estimated to be 23%. This fact is almost certainly due to the fiddling and fads that emanate from Educational Psychologists.

When I was at Junior school we had RI or Religious Instruction, but it was seen as to formal so they renamed it RE or Religious Education. Similarly we had Physical Training or PT. Nope, it wouldn't do as it was seen as too authoritarian, so it was changed to PE or Physical Education.

10 years ago years ago they introduced Key Skills, which was basically shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. The abilities you would learn at L2 were about the same as any average school leaver would have had 30 years ago. In other words Key Skills teach adults what they should have learned in full time school in the first place. FE Colleges are being used to pick up the pieces of the failed mainstream education system.

But do you want the best bit? one module was called "Application of Number". We daren't call it maths they said as it will turn the students off, and they'll arrive in class with a pre conceived idea that they won't like it. Ahh diddums ..... No wonder we're turning into a nation of pampered and mollycoddled under achievers.

Then we had the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) which was supposed to help financial hardship, but was basically a government bribe not to play truant. That has now gone and been replaced with by 16 to 19 bursaries. We will see what happens next.

Don't forget of course we also have Citizenship classes, a compulsory part of the national curriculum for 11 to 16 year-olds in England since 2002. Wasn't that something your parents used to teach you at home as a normal part of bringing you up?

How did we get in this sorry mess? Easy. Too many modern day parents don't give a fig about their kids education, they bring them up until the age of 5, then hand them over to the State Education system, and then wash their hands of any further responsibility. The schools are dumbing down exams to maintain results and keep their funding, and they can't discipline kids because teachers would get sued for assault. Universities offer soft degrees no one wants for much of the same reasons.

Add into the melting pot successive governments that refuse to champion marriage with the resultant increase in one parent families, without role models, and its not hard to see why we are in this situation. What to do about it? Well that's the question isn't it?

As Chris comments - Education standards have slipped badly since about the mid 1970s.

These recommendations were an attempt to reduce the proportion of early leavers from technician and other programmes, especially among younger students. The reasons for dropout were familiar: poor teaching, problems associated with weak basic literacy and numeracy, and an inadequate appreciation or knowledge of scientific concepts.

How about this for a fine how d'ya do, you couldn't make it up if you tried. You might well notice, as I did, that at no stage were parents being involved. Anyone care to postulate why? Now I know for absolute sure that the UK educational system has totally lost the plot .....

How to teach kids to behave

Some further points here.

The school stated that no child of the age of 5 was in anger management classes, therefore as a Primary school, we are left to conclude that the age group concerned is from 6-11. Anger management classes are usually given as part of sentences at Youth Courts to unruly teenagers up to the age of 17, it is incredible that this should prove to be necessary with children of that age.

One of the reasons for this is likely to be that in addition to having little or no interest in their education, parents are also not taking any responsibility for their childrens behaviour. It is not hard to see how a child could think, if I don't have to behave at home, why do I have to at school?

I'm glad the school is making some effort to redress the situation it finds itself in, and anger management classes are better than nothing, but the fact that they are needed at all is a sad indictment upon the way things are. I would suggest it's going to be an uphill struggle without strong support and backing from the parents, and I would like to have seen the inspector recommend closer parental involvement, and the school looking at introducing that.

In my opinion, neither the Inspector nor the school made any references to parents, because they probably knew that for all practical purposes they would get little if any support from them, so they are leaving them out of the equation. That's half the problem, a teachers job is to educate, not instil acceptable behaviour and respect for others, that's basically a parents job, which through in loco parentis, a school can helpfully reinforce.

The Education sector should be pressing that point home, to parents and Government, until then education is reactive not proactive, so in my view they have lost the plot!

I agree with your view Chris.

Back in the 1950s the solution to unruly behaviour was brief and worked effectively.
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The old ways of education and control were shown to be effective in the general pupil population, and the result was higher achievement in examination results which were much more searching than current offerings.
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"Why should children not be given the same protection from assault that adults expect?"

It seems the lesson of "the plural of anecdote is not data" refuses to sink in.

not a useful basis for discussion given that data on the subject has been systematically collected and reviewed.

Physical punishment (of any type) would be inconceivable as a method of behavior correction in a typical work environment, adults would rightly object and take matters to the police

One of the old fashioned, and it doesn't hurt, methods I would be content to advocate in an extremely unruly class is -

- choose 1 pupil, preferably a ring leader(backed by class nomination). Carefully draw a kukri, sharpened as the Gurkha do, and bleed the chosen pupil in to a large bowl (like a chicken). Get all the class to drink the contents of the bowl, and dispose of the body in the school furnace. It will help global warming.

I doubt is any of the remaining class members would ever step out of line again.

Problem solved for the rest of the school as well!

Oh, the discipline would have been sanctioned by the local police chief ....
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