EXAM SCRIPT (II)

ZERO RATING FOR CHEATING SCHOOLS
BBC News 6 Dec 2007

How many schools cheat to make their exam results look better than they should?
Impossible to know, for obvious reasons, but we do know that five primary schools have been given a zero rating because of evidence that they had cheated in SATs tests. Mick Brookes is the General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. And they would cheat just to look better…, Mr Brookes?

-Erm... yes, I think that’s part of it, and good morning, erm… that’s, that’s part of it. Er…we…we think there’s undue pressure on schools over this whole business of testing, and… let’s just take this straight, it’s not about the test and the NAHT is not into a culture where children are not assessed, but it’s what’s done with the information that’s a problem, erm… and… and we, and of course, we… we don’t condone cheating in these tests either, and if people do that then they suffer the consequences.
-But what’s done with the information is it’s given to us parents so that we can make our own choice. Isn’t that a good thing?
-Erm…, well, indeed it is, and schools should be giving information to parents, but it’s also produced into league tables and we sent out a press release yesterday congratulating the schools that actually this morning find themselves at the bottom of those league tables because they must feel that all the work they’ve done over the year has been wasted, because there they are, down bottom of the league table; actually…
-Probably they deserve to be down the bottom of the table!
-Well… well, so they deserve to have … a community that has a large number of children with special needs.. It’s not, John, it’s not their fault, and this is, this is what’s happening, this, it’s polarizing what’s happening. I think that the work that’s going on in some of these schools that are down the bottom end of the league tables is fantastic, and some of these teachers actually have to take on problems with the children before they can even start teaching them, that they’ve encountered on the night before.
-Well, that may very well be the case, I’m sure it is the case in certain schools, but perhaps not in all! Surely you should accept, if you’re going to congratulate those who’ve done very well, surely you should say in some cases those schools that are at the bottom of the league table are there for a very good reason, that is, perhaps the head teacher has failed!
-Well… again, I think...
-There must be some like that, surely!
-John, you keep using that language of failure, and we’re…
-Yes, because some head teachers aren’t doing a very good job!
-Well, that’s what you’re saying. I’m saying that actually head teachers are trying to do a good job in sometimes extremely difficult circumstances. Now, we’ve got to stop criticising these people…
- Well, you surely…
- Hang on! We’ve got to stop criticizing these people and we’ve got to start supporting them. Now, where… where there are head teachers, and indeed teachers, and er.. working in a school, any member of staff that’s not actually doing a good job, there are measures in there to make sure that... erm... they either get support to improve, or they don’t stay with us. And we just rolled out this year a new performance management system so that every member of the teaching staff including the head teacher will have a thorough and rigorous performance management system applied to them. Now, that’s in place already. What the league tables do, I think at best they tell you where rich people live and, at worse, they deeply demoralize those schools who are struggling day after day trying to bring education to areas that… in the history of this country there has never been a quality of education.
- So you’d get rid of league tables altogether, would you?
-League tables would have to go, and… we don’t have a problem with testing and in fact, the fact that schools invest in buying standardised tests for years 3, 4 and 5 to check their progress I think shows that my colleagues are not against assessment, not against testing, it’s what’s done with the tests that’s the problem.


EXTRA: Now, we need to change that culture. The results have been a plateau for about the last five or six years and if we’re going to move on, then we surely need to think about this in a new way, ewe need to free schools up, we need to encourage them to be innovative and actually as Anthony Seldon, the master of Wellington College says, children are encouraged to develop an attitude of “if it’s not in the exam, it doesn’t matter”, intellectual curiosity is stifled, and young people’s deeper cultural, moral, sporting, social and spiritual faculties are marginalised by a system in which all must come second to delivering improving testing exam numbers. Therefore, liberal education is being replaced by a mere instruction. Now, that is bad news for our education system, it’s also very bad news for those people who’ve become disenchanted, disenfranchised and they disappear from the system as soon as they can.

Discipline issues

20somethings say 'six of the best' would curb unruly pupils
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent

FOR generations of school children the threat of receiving “six of the best” from the headmaster’s cane unleashed an emotional tidal wave of resentment and fear. But now the generation that has been spared the rod wants it back for its own children.

Seventeen years after beatings were banned in state schools and five years after private schools were brought into line, 47 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds, who were never caned or slippered at school themselves, say they think that society would benefit from the reintroduction of the cane as a “punishment of last resort”.

The survey found a big gender gap on attitudes to corporal punishment amongst both genders and classes. 54 per cent of men support its reintroduction compared to 39 per cent of women. Having children appeared to make no difference to the views held. 46 per cent of those with children were in favour of corporal punishment compared with 47 per cent of those without.
The proposal has found support in some surprising areas. Ralph Woodling, 26, who has just started a teaching course at Cambridge University said the cane “certainly has its place”. “I think it should be used as a preventative measure,” he said. “Not just for someone who hasn’t done his homework, he needs encouragement for that, but if he’s done something naughty then it should be used. “I was given the slipper seven times as a boy and I feel that those who didn’t get it are a little bit cheekier. I also think it shouldn’t be just for the young but it should be used up to the age of 18,” he added.

The finding was greeted with surprise by teaching unions, who insisted the notion would find no support among policy makers or teachers.
But most accepted that the level of support for the return of the cane and the slipper was a reflection of widespread anxiety about deteriorating levels of behaviour within and outside the school gates. Teachers now cite poor behaviour as the biggest single obstacle to their work, according to research published last week by the Times Educational Supplement. Separate research published by the Government shows that 62,000 pupils were permanently or temporarily excluded from school during the summer term of 2003, 17,000 of whom were disciplined for attacking teachers or fellow pupils.

Phil Williamson, head of the Christian Fellowship School in Liverpool, whose legal challenge to bring back the cane in his school will reach the House of Lords in December, said: “A lot of those who want corporal punishment reintroduced will have been in a situation where the unruly pupils in their class really have ruled the roost and spoiled it for the majority of the others who want to get on with their learning,” he said. The alternatives of excluding or suspending unruly pupils did not work, Mr Williamson said. “They merely shift the problem elsewhere.”

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that the poll finding reflected the fact that the younger generations were thoroughly fed up with bad behaviour and indiscipline and were casting about for solutions: “The younger generation is saying what you might expect the older generation to day,” he said.

Jonathan Dunford general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said that corporal punishment clearly did not work. “When I became a headteacher I found an old punishment book and the first thing I noticed was the frequency with which the same names cropped up in it. It obviously did not act as a deterrent,” he said.


The Times September 13, 2004

Exaggerated?

Bring Back the Cane!

As you sit listening to the news, a black cloud of despair descends and you have to worry where Australia is heading.

I'm not talking on the political front, or the economic front - although we have become a pack of complete wussers and still have the world's worst company management - but rather young people of today.

And, it has to be said, the reason is gutless politicians and uncaring - or unthinking - parents. Politicians have put so many restrictions on schools - and in particular removing corporal punishment - that kids today laugh at authority. Many parents either don't care about - or never impose - discipline at home and this of course makes the little (or big) beggars think they can get away with anything. Breaking things, being smartarses, getting up to mischief (or, in some suburbs, just starting straight off with armed robbery) and generally being painful and annoying to everyone who has the misfortune to pass them in the street or shops.

And, pity the poor old teachers who have to not only try to educate the little pustules, but maintain discipline long enough to be able to do so. An Australian report has teachers suffering from more and more physical abuse and intimidation at the hands of these little monsters and their cretinous parents. More than 40 phone calls a week go to the teachers' union from staff who have copped something nasty.

Assaults are rising and so what do the politicians do? Yup, stick their heads up their own fundamental orifices and say that nothing seems to be wrong. If a Liberal Party is in power the line is: "We've given more money to schools than ever before and we are getting it right." Wrong! If a Labour Party is in power it's: "Children are little people and we must accord them the same rights as adults. Corporal punishment is barbaric and we have better ways of disciplining them." Bollocks!
Kids understand discipline and when an outbreak of them is standing on a street corner abusing folks - the last thing on their collective brain cell is "ooooh, we may get a detention."
What has always kept kids in line - myself included - is the threat of a damned good caning on the backside by a large male teacher. At my school we had a chap who used to cane overarm - like a cricket bowler. By all accounts it was a ferocious sight and more than one allegedly tough guy left the office with tears in his eyes and a determination not to cop the same thing again.

So, bring back the cane and the strap and put the fear of God back into these little swines, who will - no doubt - turn in teenage monsters and criminals given half the chance.

http://www.webwombat.com.au/entertainment/humour/Grumpy_Old_Coot/grump_cane.htm

How do things work in Europe?

http://www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/EuryCountry
description of education systems acros Europe – updated 2006-07

Teaching has NEVER been easy

SERMON ON THE MOUNTAIN

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain, and gathering them around, he taught them saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;
Blessed are the meek;
Blessed are those who mourn;
Blessed are the merciful
Blessed are they that thirst for justice;
Blessed are you when you suffer;
Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.

Then Simon and Peter said: “Are we supposed to learn this?”
And Andrew said: “Do we have to write this down?”
And Philip said “I don’t have any paper”.
And John said: ”The other disciples didn’t have to learn this”
And Thomas started doing his maths for the next period.
And Bartholomew said: ”Do we have to hand this in?”
And James said: “Will we have a test on this?”
And Mark said: ”Is that gonna be marked?”
And Matthew, leaving the mountain unauthorized, said: “May I go to the toilet?”

Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see Jesus’s lesson plan and inquired of Jesus: “Where is your anticipatory set and your objectives in the cognitive domain?”

And Jesus wept.

Science teaching in "top" countries (links to videoclips)

PISA videoclips on top countries
http://www.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_32252351_32236191_39718850_1_1_1_1,00.html

(Canada, Finland, Japan, Germany and Mexico)

reaction to PISA results in the UK - video links

Pupils share their concerns over global table slide
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7120000/newsid_7126900/7126980.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

Children's Secretary Ed Balls speaks to Andrew Marr
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7130000/newsid_7135100/7135173.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

Finland stays top of global class
South Korean academic results are flying high

Finland and South Korea remain among the superpowers of education, according to a major international study.

The three-yearly Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) shows that the two countries are in the top five for reading and maths. The rankings are based on tests taken by 15-year-olds in 57 countries.

South Korea has made rapid progress since 2000, says the report - with its pupils improving by the equivalent of a whole school year. Finland, a consistent top performer in international education surveys, also came top of the science league table, published last week.

The survey, gathered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also highlights the improvements in Poland. The rankings for reading, based on tests taken in 2006, show that Poland is ninth placed, among a group of leading countries identified as significantly above average.

The latest findings also show the extent of global competition in education - with the northern European countries now challenged by and overtaken by Asian rivals, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. South Korea has continued to strengthen its position - after a remarkable rise in achievement against international competitors. In the 1960s, the OECD says South Korea's national wealth was similar to Afghanistan's. But a sustained drive in education has seen it rise to the upper ranks in international education leagues - both in subject scores and in completion rates in secondary school. As with Finland, there has been an emphasis in South Korea on education as a key to economic success and the "knowledge economy".

The OECD also highlights improvements in maths scores from teenagers in Mexico and Greece.
The UK has shown a downward turn in its standing - leaving the top 10 for both maths and reading despite an increase in spending on education. It has joined other major European countries such as Germany and France in a group with "average" standards for maths and reading.

And the report says that overall the industrialised OECD countries have not seen improvements to match extra investment. It says that between 1995 and 2004, OECD countries increased education spending by 39% on average, but that in response "learning outcomes have generally remained flat".

BBC News 4 December 2007