Note: for those who don't know: KS1 is ages 5-7, KS2 7-11, KS3 11-14, KS4 14-16, KS5 16-18


Hi Arran,


Interesting post, I think I need to take it bit by bit:

Arran Cameron:

I’m of the opinion that school is 75% about friendship and only 25% about education.

From my children I'd say 25/75, but I agree it's an important point.

 Schools are actually very poor at teaching social skills as the curriculum is mostly academic and the majority of social skills that kids learn from / require at school are in reality school survival skills that have little use or relevance outside of school or for life as an adult. Despite this, countless adults strongly hold the view that school is essential for children to learn social skills – although I suspect that they conflate social skills with socialisation or social skills with discipline and conformity.

My perspective is that the school environment provides an opportunity for children to learn social skills - as they will come up against a wide variety of different people. (Again, a concern I have about all forms of selective education - by "academic ability", by wealth of the parents, or by sex.) But I do absolutely agree that schools would ideally do far, far more to support children in learning about this world.


I disagree about the "survival skills", the workplace (for example) needs these same "survival skills", which aren't going to be learnt at home. The problem is that different schools teach (deliberately or not) different survival skills. Some skills effectively teach "keep your head down, don't get caught", some teach "stand up tall and show the world how brilliant you are". And we see these differences when people enter the workplace. I want to see every school teaching "stand up tall and show the world how brilliant you are - and that you appreciate that other people are brilliant too". It can be done, I've seen it.

Alex Barrett makes a good point about the specific qualities of the school, et al, as I strongly believe that the other people at the school are a determining factor in how much an individual child enjoys school that is more prominent than anything academic. I have met plenty of people who were not very bright, or academically quite weak, that enjoyed school because of factors like friendships, sports, or extra curricular activities rather than the education itself.

Yes quite. And I think that's hugely important for growing their self confidence.

I agree with David Houssein’s theory that lots of highly intelligent kids don't enjoy school because it's too slow and restrictive, and frustrates them. KS2 and KS3 drives students in low gear where those who are ahead of the curriculum in the core subjects for their year group become bored and frustrated that they aren’t being stretched.

Depends on the school. It really does. (And, in my experience, very much on the headteacher.) It is perfectly possible to support children of all abilities through the KS2 and 3 curriculums, it depends how you decide to teach them.

Gifted and talented only really applies to sports and music. If a 10 year old is a talented sportsman or musician then they are a superstar but if a 10 year old is proficient in higher level GCSE mathematics then they are a problem child as schools do not have the facility for accelerated learning in mathematics and teachers have to teach the National Curriculum for the year group that the student is in. Most year 5 teachers do not want a kid who is doing quadratic equations and trigonometry in their class.

Again, in my experience, that totally depends on the teacher. They're human beings (underpaid and overworked human beings) so will all be different, and it is certainly true that at KS2 the problem is that classes will typically only have a single teacher with a single point of view - which may have their own biases. But good KS2 teachers will and do identify each child's abilities.



I live in a poor and, I guess you could say, underachieving area of the country, so the following comments are generally based on schools with that background. I love going into KS1 and KS2 classes as I find them full of energy, inquiry, enthusiasm, and a willingness to just learn anything. Yes, I would like it if children could have more influences than mostly one teacher for an entire year, but it's rarely the end of the world. (Each of my children had one teacher who didn't understand them at KS2, but in the end that wasn't a huge part of their lives.)


KS3 is a difficult time, it really is that transition you sort of mention from the fun and random inquiry of KS2 to the serious exam time of KS4. I do agree that this is where schools could (given the resources) put more effort into a) transitioning to adult social skills (they do try) and b) learning how to learn. I suspect many teachers would agree with me here. Really proactive headteachers do manage to achieve this in the KS3 curriculum.


And after that you're into exams and puberty - a really, really bad combination. When I was studying psychology (quite late in life) my psychology tutor's specialism was the psychology of education. After I'd had a particularly rough session as a STEM Ambassador with a group of 15 year olds I joked to her that kids should leave school at 15, get puberty out of their system, and go back at (say) 21. She looked at me very directly and said "I absolutely seriously agree with you." Thinking back to my own time at that age, and also my experiences with my own children, I am slightly cynical when GCSE and A level students claim the subject is "too slow and boring" - it can be code for "actually I think there are much more exciting things I could be doing" (which, they later find out, they are probably wrong about - as they often prove come summer holiday time!)


Incidentally, I was chatting to someone recently who was training experienced engineers, who had one class with a group who again claimed they "knew it already" and "this is too slow". Sadly that same group also failed the end of course test rather spectacularly (and he was making the point that he'd seen this happen again and again). So it's not just school children who sometimes incorrectly misjudge their abilities! A minor case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Of course this isn't always the case, I didn't ever have a problem in school with finding lessons too slow (I would just read ahead in the textbook if the teacher was helping other people in the class) but I have had various training course - particularly repeat health and safety for certification - where sometimes the tutor is not, shall we say, sensitive to the groups needs. But my attitude is that learning to cope with such issues is part of Life - and put a constructive comment on the course review form!.


It's a hugely complicated subject, a good inspirational head teacher - who in turn will recruit good inspirational teachers - can work wonders. So it's not exactly the system that's broken. But who these days would want to become a teacher?


Incidentally I mentioned this thread to my daughter - who's currently a 22 year old PhD science student - she came up with a very good comment that her friends who said they hated school tended to think of the 1 hour in the playground, whilst those who said they enjoyed it tended to think of the 5 hours in the classroom. As ever, a fairly self -selected group, but interesting view that once again it's not about necessarily school but can be about the attitude you bring to it. Of course in my case it was the school


Cheers,


Andy

Note: for those who don't know: KS1 is ages 5-7, KS2 7-11, KS3 11-14, KS4 14-16, KS5 16-18


Hi Arran,


Interesting post, I think I need to take it bit by bit:

Arran Cameron:

I’m of the opinion that school is 75% about friendship and only 25% about education.

From my children I'd say 25/75, but I agree it's an important point.

 Schools are actually very poor at teaching social skills as the curriculum is mostly academic and the majority of social skills that kids learn from / require at school are in reality school survival skills that have little use or relevance outside of school or for life as an adult. Despite this, countless adults strongly hold the view that school is essential for children to learn social skills – although I suspect that they conflate social skills with socialisation or social skills with discipline and conformity.

My perspective is that the school environment provides an opportunity for children to learn social skills - as they will come up against a wide variety of different people. (Again, a concern I have about all forms of selective education - by "academic ability", by wealth of the parents, or by sex.) But I do absolutely agree that schools would ideally do far, far more to support children in learning about this world.


I disagree about the "survival skills", the workplace (for example) needs these same "survival skills", which aren't going to be learnt at home. The problem is that different schools teach (deliberately or not) different survival skills. Some skills effectively teach "keep your head down, don't get caught", some teach "stand up tall and show the world how brilliant you are". And we see these differences when people enter the workplace. I want to see every school teaching "stand up tall and show the world how brilliant you are - and that you appreciate that other people are brilliant too". It can be done, I've seen it.

Alex Barrett makes a good point about the specific qualities of the school, et al, as I strongly believe that the other people at the school are a determining factor in how much an individual child enjoys school that is more prominent than anything academic. I have met plenty of people who were not very bright, or academically quite weak, that enjoyed school because of factors like friendships, sports, or extra curricular activities rather than the education itself.

Yes quite. And I think that's hugely important for growing their self confidence.

I agree with David Houssein’s theory that lots of highly intelligent kids don't enjoy school because it's too slow and restrictive, and frustrates them. KS2 and KS3 drives students in low gear where those who are ahead of the curriculum in the core subjects for their year group become bored and frustrated that they aren’t being stretched.

Depends on the school. It really does. (And, in my experience, very much on the headteacher.) It is perfectly possible to support children of all abilities through the KS2 and 3 curriculums, it depends how you decide to teach them.

Gifted and talented only really applies to sports and music. If a 10 year old is a talented sportsman or musician then they are a superstar but if a 10 year old is proficient in higher level GCSE mathematics then they are a problem child as schools do not have the facility for accelerated learning in mathematics and teachers have to teach the National Curriculum for the year group that the student is in. Most year 5 teachers do not want a kid who is doing quadratic equations and trigonometry in their class.

Again, in my experience, that totally depends on the teacher. They're human beings (underpaid and overworked human beings) so will all be different, and it is certainly true that at KS2 the problem is that classes will typically only have a single teacher with a single point of view - which may have their own biases. But good KS2 teachers will and do identify each child's abilities.



I live in a poor and, I guess you could say, underachieving area of the country, so the following comments are generally based on schools with that background. I love going into KS1 and KS2 classes as I find them full of energy, inquiry, enthusiasm, and a willingness to just learn anything. Yes, I would like it if children could have more influences than mostly one teacher for an entire year, but it's rarely the end of the world. (Each of my children had one teacher who didn't understand them at KS2, but in the end that wasn't a huge part of their lives.)


KS3 is a difficult time, it really is that transition you sort of mention from the fun and random inquiry of KS2 to the serious exam time of KS4. I do agree that this is where schools could (given the resources) put more effort into a) transitioning to adult social skills (they do try) and b) learning how to learn. I suspect many teachers would agree with me here. Really proactive headteachers do manage to achieve this in the KS3 curriculum.


And after that you're into exams and puberty - a really, really bad combination. When I was studying psychology (quite late in life) my psychology tutor's specialism was the psychology of education. After I'd had a particularly rough session as a STEM Ambassador with a group of 15 year olds I joked to her that kids should leave school at 15, get puberty out of their system, and go back at (say) 21. She looked at me very directly and said "I absolutely seriously agree with you." Thinking back to my own time at that age, and also my experiences with my own children, I am slightly cynical when GCSE and A level students claim the subject is "too slow and boring" - it can be code for "actually I think there are much more exciting things I could be doing" (which, they later find out, they are probably wrong about - as they often prove come summer holiday time!)


Incidentally, I was chatting to someone recently who was training experienced engineers, who had one class with a group who again claimed they "knew it already" and "this is too slow". Sadly that same group also failed the end of course test rather spectacularly (and he was making the point that he'd seen this happen again and again). So it's not just school children who sometimes incorrectly misjudge their abilities! A minor case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Of course this isn't always the case, I didn't ever have a problem in school with finding lessons too slow (I would just read ahead in the textbook if the teacher was helping other people in the class) but I have had various training course - particularly repeat health and safety for certification - where sometimes the tutor is not, shall we say, sensitive to the groups needs. But my attitude is that learning to cope with such issues is part of Life - and put a constructive comment on the course review form!.


It's a hugely complicated subject, a good inspirational head teacher - who in turn will recruit good inspirational teachers - can work wonders. So it's not exactly the system that's broken. But who these days would want to become a teacher?


Incidentally I mentioned this thread to my daughter - who's currently a 22 year old PhD science student - she came up with a very good comment that her friends who said they hated school tended to think of the 1 hour in the playground, whilst those who said they enjoyed it tended to think of the 5 hours in the classroom. As ever, a fairly self -selected group, but interesting view that once again it's not about necessarily school but can be about the attitude you bring to it. Of course in my case it was the school


Cheers,


Andy