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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Taking Kids Out-Of-School
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
If you take a pupil out of school, the teacher has to spend one to one time with them to help them catch up. That is time stolen from other pupils.
This is nonsense, in so many different ways.
I'm still waiting for you to justify this assertion.
It certainly wasn't the case with me. I can guarantee nobody spent extra time with me. In a class with 30 plus kids? Dream on! I couldn't get any one-to-one attention when I WAS there and went out of my way to ask for it!
As I said above, nobody even checked all the work I had been set to do by the school, when I returned. Not that that bothered me.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
But they're adults writing about schooling 20 or more years ago. Lots has changed since then.
Yes, and for the worse. This ridiculous culture of targets and bureaucracy is killing education.
And that's all this is - some faceless bureaucrat decides that a certain attendance percentage is the right amount and suddenly everybody has to obey regardless of any other circumstances.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Here's a quote from 1904:-
"Oh, the power of a great teacher! In all the educational talk of our time, never let us forget that the one quality which is essential to, and beyond, any system is the teacher himself or herself. If the development of bereaucracy means the deterioration of the quality, the personal power of the teacher, then I say let the bureaucracy perish"
Prof. Lang, Principal of Aberdeen University.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
There seem to be a number of educational issues which swing back and forth. Phonics / Whole book reading has been going back and forth for well over a hundred years, with occasional sidesteps to weird methods (ITA, anyone?)
Bureaucracy in teaching is another. Many of todays issues were being hashed out in the 1860s and 1870s. Today, alas, modern communications means that bureaucracy is capable of a stranglehold which couldn't be as tight in Victorian times, no matter how much the Victorian bureaucrats themselves might have desired it.
Here's another quote:
"(In 1868) the Government grant to the school was made dependent mainly on the children six years of age and over passing an individual examination. Each child was worth so many shillings, and the shillings ruled. They also formed the test of a teacher's so-called efficiency. How to make a child pass became the predominant business of the school. Everything else was secondary. The Code was a severe blow to real education...generating mechanical methods of work, and therefore barren of good results."
George Duthie, headmaster of Woodside School, and past president of the E.I.S.
Does that quote not ring a bell today?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Cathscats
Shipmate
# 17827
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Posted
ITA! Why I love spellcheck. I can still read ITA, but that is now a completely obsolete skill! Up until the 1980s the signage about the animals in Edinburgh zoo used ITA as a kind of second language. I haven't seen it anywhere since then.
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"...damp hands and theological doubts - the two always seem to go together..." (O. Douglas, "The Setons")
Posts: 176 | From: Central Highlands | Registered: Sep 2013
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
It rather depends on what is missed. My daughter was off sick for trigonometry during her GCSEs and didn't realise she had a missing piece until she was reading an engineering degree, even though she has Physics and Maths A levels and Further Maths AS. She came home during one summer vacation and we covered trigonometry.
It's the reason I take the students I work with who have fallen out of the education system through Entry Level maths to make sure we pick up any basics that have been missed. I tell them it is just a mopping up operation and they can work fast through anything they know, but it's the fastest way of making sure they have that grounding before going on to Functional Skills and GCSEs. Even the students I work with who were officially in school managed to miss lessons - being sent out or internal truancy. Maths and sciences require a basic understanding of concepts before moving on the next section.
(To be honest most of these kids have underlying difficulties that haven't been picked up and have been masked by the behaviours that have had them excluded. Many of these students have severe speech, language and communication needs.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
If you take a pupil out of school, the teacher has to spend one to one time with them to help them catch up. That is time stolen from other pupils.
This is nonsense, in so many different ways.
I'm still waiting for you to justify this assertion.
It certainly wasn't the case with me. I can guarantee nobody spent extra time with me. In a class with 30 plus kids? Dream on! I couldn't get any one-to-one attention when I WAS there and went out of my way to ask for it!
As I said above, nobody even checked all the work I had been set to do by the school, when I returned. Not that that bothered me.
I realize this conversation is really about young children, not the university students I teach. But as an aside let me say I'd probably bend over backwards to help any student who didn't begin the request with "I was absent last week. Did I miss anything?"
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
...
In Math(s), if you miss the section on one procedure, you will likely need to know that procedure for the rest of your math career, and you will have to be playing catch-up learning that procedure while simultaneously learning things that presuppose that you are able to use it fluidly. It can be very hard for students, especially the ones who are not quick-picker-uppers, to do this.
Through a fortnight's illness at the age of 10 or thereabouts I "missed" highest common factors and lowest common multiples; I didn't even know they existed until well into an honours maths degree. It didn't matter! Your model of learning is, it seems to me, just too linear: there are many many ways of navigating the great web of mathematics. I think that is true of all "real" subjects; they are stable enough for the odd hole (caused by illness, holidays, inattention or whatever) not to really matter. But I can see, alas, that this may not be the case in syllabuses designed (as they tend to be nowadays) for easy testing.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
realize this conversation is really about young children, not the university students I teach. But as an aside let me say I'd probably bend over backwards to help any student who didn't begin the request with "I was absent last week. Did I miss anything?"
Say "Nah, I rabbited on to a packed room, but - fear not - I still got paid."
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
I "missed" highest common factors and lowest common multiples; I didn't even know they existed until well into an honours maths degree.
I still couldn't confidently say which part of a fraction is the numerator and which the denominator. Guess I must have missed that lesson at some point. And it has never once had more than a trifling effect on my life.
I'm a data analyst, by the way.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
Your model of learning is, it seems to me, just too linear
Indeed - the whole way in which governments understand and thereby legislate syllabusses and curriculum has been so since 1988 when they stopped teachers from using their expertise to design snd facilitate learning.
The current generation of teachers, apart from a very few dinosaurs, did not start work until after 1988 and are deskilled.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
should you be judging the child for what was almost certainly a parental decision?
or 'saving them' from the folly of their parents?
You make my point for me. We can do better than using nasty language about students stealing, parental folly, or [fill in the blank] teachers.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The current generation of teachers, apart from a very few dinosaurs, did not start work until after 1988 and are deskilled.
No, no: not deskilled, just differently skilled. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) Although you and I might not specially value the new skills.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
It rather depends on what is missed. My daughter was off sick for trigonometry during her GCSEs and didn't realise she had a missing piece until she was reading an engineering degree,
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
Through a fortnight's illness at the age of 10 or thereabouts I "missed" highest common factors and lowest common multiples; I didn't even know they existed until well into an honours maths degree.
I'm completely confused by this. Did you people not have textbooks?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
or 'saving them' from the folly of their parents?
I think this discussion is another proxy for the discussion about the relative roles of parents and the state in raising children.
You want to force all children to be educated in state-run schools, and be taught the things that the state thinks they should learn in the way that the state thinks it should be taught.
So it's consistent that you want to punish parents for interfering with the state's plans for their children.
I want to give parents the primary responsibility for directing their children's education, leaving it up to them to choose the schooling they find most appropriate (which may or may not be the state's offering). So I find it completely reasonable for parents to make judgements about whether this particular trip is worth missing school for.
But it doesn't make any sense for the parents to make that choice, and then to blame the school for the fact that little Johnny didn't get taught X. If you choose to remove your child from class during the week that X is taught, then you own the primary responsibility for ensuring that your child learns X. The school should support you (by telling you what's on the syllabus for the week your child will miss, by marking the week's homework a couple of days late, and so on) but your child is going to miss the class presentation of X, and it's down to you to make up for it.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Well, we used a GCSE textbook to go back and find the trigonometry for my daughter, but as she sailed through GCSE maths, A level maths and AS further maths plus physics A level without realising she'd missed anything important until she started calculating complicated stressors part way through an engineering degree, it wasn't obvious.
I didn't learn about highest common factors and lowest common multiples until I was teaching. I knew what they were and calculated those numbers automatically, but hadn't picked up this particular jargon. It's like the vocabulary of numerator and denominator in fractions - another piece of jargon to describe something you may well understand and manipulate without being able to use the language.
The sort of knowledge that I deal with the students I work with is lack of ability to multiply or divide, understand fractions or decimals, write money as a decimal.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I'm completely confused by this. Did you people not have textbooks?
Of course not. We had teachers. And parents. And friends.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I'm completely confused by this. Did you people not have textbooks?
It might be worth saying that a lot of teachers (at least in my experience) would not follow a textbook straight through; instead they would skip around, conflate two or three different sources, and so on. So it wasn't just a matter of saying "Well, I missed pages 245-273."
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
...
In Math(s), if you miss the section on one procedure, you will likely need to know that procedure for the rest of your math career, and you will have to be playing catch-up learning that procedure while simultaneously learning things that presuppose that you are able to use it fluidly. It can be very hard for students, especially the ones who are not quick-picker-uppers, to do this.
Through a fortnight's illness at the age of 10 or thereabouts I "missed" highest common factors and lowest common multiples; I didn't even know they existed until well into an honours maths degree. It didn't matter! Your model of learning is, it seems to me, just too linear: there are many many ways of navigating the great web of mathematics. I think that is true of all "real" subjects; they are stable enough for the odd hole (caused by illness, holidays, inattention or whatever) not to really matter. But I can see, alas, that this may not be the case in syllabuses designed (as they tend to be nowadays) for easy testing.
This seems a simple bit of confirmation bias.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
...
In Math(s), if you miss the section on one procedure, you will likely need to know that procedure for the rest of your math career, and you will have to be playing catch-up learning that procedure while simultaneously learning things that presuppose that you are able to use it fluidly. It can be very hard for students, especially the ones who are not quick-picker-uppers, to do this.
Through a fortnight's illness at the age of 10 or thereabouts I "missed" highest common factors and lowest common multiples; I didn't even know they existed until well into an honours maths degree. It didn't matter! Your model of learning is, it seems to me, just too linear: there are many many ways of navigating the great web of mathematics. I think that is true of all "real" subjects; they are stable enough for the odd hole (caused by illness, holidays, inattention or whatever) not to really matter. But I can see, alas, that this may not be the case in syllabuses designed (as they tend to be nowadays) for easy testing.
I'd say you were just extremely fortunate to have missed a part of the course which wasn't critical to the rest.
I don't think this is wholly about testing either, although it has to be said that decades ago when I was learning A-level mathematics I got into a (friendly) fight with my teacher about imaginary numbers who was incapable of explaining what the point was and resorted to "they're easy marks in the exam. Just learn the process, you don't have to understand what they're for." I don't think they've been part of the standard A-level curriculum for many years, no great loss.
So the idea that "nowadays they're teaching Maths for the exam" isn't something I have a lot of truck with.
In terms of pre-University mathematics, I'd argue that for the majority of STEM subjects outwith of physics and pure mathematics, students would be best to get a good basic understanding of and familiarity with statistics. And that is clearly something which needs to be learned sequentially and without holes. I think the majority can fairly easily pick up trig if they need to later, but someone with no familiarity with stats is going to struggle.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Complex numbers and imaginary numbers are used extensively in engineering and quantum physics as a way of expressing complex concepts in a way that can be handled more easily - electromagnetic fields being one area that can be expressed in complex numbers
(I used them for the quantum physics bits of my Chemistry degree - how atoms work, my daughter uses them to model friction forces in engineering calculations.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
For sure. I'm not saying they have no use, but clearly statistics are far more use in far more STEM situations. I'm betting the vast majority of the A-level students who went on to do science careers never used complex numbers, but almost all will have needed to use statistics.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I am not sure what you are arguing here. Statistics and data handling are part of the GCSE syllabus. I would agree not to the level I studied at A level, but a lot of that content is now in the GCSE and data handling is in the entry level and Functional Skills qualifications.
I chose the statistics option as against the mechanics option at A level and have used far less of that since. Complex numbers was part of the mathematics compulsory part of the A level course. I still had to learn mechanics to pass the physics A level.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I'm just making the point that the A-level content has changed over the decades and that at various times the content has included material that the majority of students would not have used in most STEM university situations.
I fully appreciate that you benefited from learning about imaginary numbers, I'm simply saying that you'd probably have been able to pick that up as you needed to - whereas statistics needs to be built up and is much more likely to be a necessary basis for the majority of STEM university degrees.
Most STEM students would benefit from more familiarity with statistics before they get to university. Very few would benefit from a familiarity with imaginary numbers or trig.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I don't think, since I left school (over 50 years ago now), that I've needed any maths except addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages, how fractions work and how to average something. I don't think I've even needed to use a square root, yet alone a quadratic equation.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
You will almost certainly have used
- some algebra to work out numbers you don't know when trying to work out something else - simplified versions of quadratic equations,
- some statistics to understand information presented to you in the press, one hopes;
- carried out some complicated calculations to judge whether one deal is a better deal than another,
- used perimeter and area calculations to work out fencing, turfing, painting areas, curtains,
- used ratios to calculate how to adapt a recipe to how much of an ingredient you have, or how much you need for more people;
- depending on how much craft work you do,
used pi to calculate circumferences and areas of circles - that one I do a lot
I could go on.
[ 12. April 2017, 08:03: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
OK, can we just agree that there are certain bits of maths that are indeed sequential and which need to have A B and C learned before moving onto D; and that there are other bits of maths that can be missed and learned later?
The fact that someone was able to learn Trig later is not an indication that students need to learn the majority of maths in a building block way.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
But you've just argued that statistics should be taught sequentially and through the maths syllabus, and I have just pointed out that this happens.
Science and maths are often cited as examples of the spiral learning model. e.g. In KS2 students will learn shapes and maybe Pythagoras's theorem, in KS3 they will start learning how to calculate lengths and angles in right angle triangles using cos, sin, tan. At KS4 they will be able to apply this understanding to bearings and calculate other angles. At A level the students learn the calculation to compute angles of triangles. If in KS3 they start calculating using cos, sin and tan and don't really understand what a triangle is, that becomes a problem. In science, the same happens for atomic structure for example - starting with the Bohr model to learn about electron layers and how those work, gradually developing that through different stages to when students learn about molecular orbital theories at A level. (The Periodic Table organisation matches orbital theory patterns.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But you've just argued that statistics should be taught sequentially and through the maths syllabus, and I have just pointed out that this happens.
Sorry, I happen to know about the current A-level maths syllabus and one has to make a special effort to learn much statistics.
I'm bored of this argument, I am simply pointing out that there were, when I was learning, parts of the A level curriculum which I never used - through two STEM degrees - and also other parts that other university students struggled with because they'd not learned enough statistics.
Like it or leave it, I don't care.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The lack of emphasis on statistics is part of the Gove changes. I hadn't been paying attention as I'm not teaching A level
Most of the Entry Levels are no longer available now, either. All students will be able to pass Functional Skills (80% pass mark, choice of pass or fail) or the new GCSE maths, which includes even more of the old A level curriculum.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
You will almost certainly have used
[*]used perimeter and area calculations to work out fencing, turfing, painting areas, curtains,
I could go on.
I ordered some stones to fill a gap between a driveway and a fence. Fortunately I discussed this with my youngest brother in time to cancel the truckloads I had ordered to fill a gap 300mm x 25 metres to a depth of 100mm. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
I was probably away the day they taught that.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
or 'saving them' from the folly of their parents?
I think this discussion is another proxy for the discussion about the relative roles of parents and the state in raising children.
You want to force all children to be educated in state-run schools, and be taught the things that the state thinks they should learn in the way that the state thinks it should be taught.
So it's consistent that you want to punish parents for interfering with the state's plans for their children.
I want to give parents the primary responsibility for directing their children's education, leaving it up to them to choose the schooling they find most appropriate (which may or may not be the state's offering). So I find it completely reasonable for parents to make judgements about whether this particular trip is worth missing school for.
But it doesn't make any sense for the parents to make that choice, and then to blame the school for the fact that little Johnny didn't get taught X. If you choose to remove your child from class during the week that X is taught, then you own the primary responsibility for ensuring that your child learns X. The school should support you (by telling you what's on the syllabus for the week your child will miss, by marking the week's homework a couple of days late, and so on) but your child is going to miss the class presentation of X, and it's down to you to make up for it.
This is pretty much what I think, with the exception that I don't think it needs to be framed in such binary terms. Part of the problem with these sorts of disputes is that polarizing thinking-- education is either the State's job, or it's the parent's job. I don't know about cross-pond, but in the US those two camps have solidified into angry, hostile, defensive postures that jealously guard any perceived invasion into those perceived "rights".
Far better IMHO to see it as partnership. It's a sacred responsibility we assume together. The State is better equipped to keep an eye on the big picture and the latest data on skills that will be needed in the future, current findings in the field of learning and cognitive development, etc. Parents are better equipped to keep tabs on the individual diversity-- of the particular needs of this particular child at this particular time. Yet both presumably have the same goal-- equipping and preparing kids with the knowledge and skills they need for the future. Simply believing that it really is possible for us to work together on this will go along way to making that happen.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I'd like to believe that parents are best at knowing the individual needs of their children better than schools, but I'm far from convinced that it is the case in even that vast majority of cases (in most it's about par, in a small minority parents know better, in a discouragingly large fraction that school knows the child better than the parents).
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'd like to believe that parents are best at knowing the individual needs of their children better than schools, but I'm far from convinced that it is the case in even that vast majority of cases (in most it's about par, in a small minority parents know better, in a discouragingly large fraction that school knows the child better than the parents).
In that case we have a very serious problem because schools typically have care of children for seven hours of the 200 days of the year, which is about one-sixth of the year.
Whatever the government, the courts or headteachers may say a partnership is needed and in addition to these annoying holidays and unavoidable sick absence schools could do a lot more for those moving from one school to another: I did quite a bit of this with my Dad in the RAF through my schooldays and I can't recall any school making provision for catching up let alone systematic catching up. I'd be interested to know if schools do this nowadays as there are still schools attended by large numbers of "Scaleys" / "Forces Brats".
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
We had one poor lad arrive back in the country the February of his year 11, after some years in Spain. He sat GCSEs that summer with a lot of additional support from everyone - English, Spanish, maths, single science, food technology and ICT. There was a meeting to discuss what he could reasonably be offered and achieve and all the teachers spent breaks and spare periods supporting him to catch up. When he wasn't timetabled he was in learning support to work and get support from everyone there, if he wasn't in food tech (which was upstairs) catching up.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
It rather depends on what is missed. My daughter was off sick for trigonometry during her GCSEs and didn't realise she had a missing piece until she was reading an engineering degree,
quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
Through a fortnight's illness at the age of 10 or thereabouts I "missed" highest common factors and lowest common multiples; I didn't even know they existed until well into an honours maths degree.
I'm completely confused by this. Did you people not have textbooks?
never used textbooks in 40 years
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alisdair
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# 15837
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Posted
Regardless of whether we agree with him in detail, or even in general, Ivan Illich's 'De-schooling Society' remains a telling indictment of 'institutional education'. Whatever it's strengths and efficiencies, and it certainly can have them, the attempt to 'educate' the mass of a society through conformity to an arbitrary set of centrally set 'standards' is always going to be an exercise in catering to the lowest common denominator, while offering opportunities to those who are skilled at gaming the system.
I'm not suggesting there is some magical panacea of an alternative. There isn't. But, given the weaknesses it is always heartening to see people who are not content to simply conform, as though the 'system' offers their children (and society) the best and only possibility for 'education'.
Posts: 334 | From: Washed up in England | Registered: Aug 2010
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Garden Hermit
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# 109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
You will almost certainly have used
[*]used perimeter and area calculations to work out fencing, turfing, painting areas, curtains,
I could go on.
I ordered some stones to fill a gap between a driveway and a fence. Fortunately I discussed this with my youngest brother in time to cancel the truckloads I had ordered to fill a gap 300mm x 25 metres to a depth of 100mm.
I was probably away the day they taught that.
Huia
I found this very funny !!!
Posts: 1413 | From: Reading UK | Registered: May 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I'd be interested to know if schools do this nowadays as there are still schools attended by large numbers of "Scaleys" / "Forces Brats".
I couldn't say precisely, as it's not an area I deal with, but I do know that forces kids are one of the categories of students who are monitored more closely (others might be those in care, those who themselves are carers) both individually and in terms of outcomes as a group.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
never used textbooks in 40 years
You teach Religious Studies, right? I'm not terribly surprised by that. I'd be surprised to find many maths teachers making the same claim.
(As a sidenote, how do you communicate the syllabus to your pupils? Do you hand out a sheet of paper at the start of the year?)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
never used textbooks in 40 years
You teach Religious Studies, right? I'm not terribly surprised by that. I'd be surprised to find many maths teachers making the same claim.
(As a sidenote, how do you communicate the syllabus to your pupils? Do you hand out a sheet of paper at the start of the year?)
Every LA has a different syllabus so the market for textbooks would be very limited.
Why would anyone want to communicate the syllabus to students at the start of the year?
[ 13. April 2017, 16:48: Message edited by: leo ]
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Why not?
My students used to appreciate knowing what was coming down the pike, so to speak. And when I sat through a non-syllabus'd course last year, I found myself floundering mentally because I had no real sense of what goal we were driving for.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
I echo Lamb Chopped: why on earth do you want to deny students the opportunity to understand the structure of their subject?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
never used textbooks in 40 years
You teach Religious Studies, right? I'm not terribly surprised by that. I'd be surprised to find many maths teachers making the same claim.
(As a sidenote, how do you communicate the syllabus to your pupils? Do you hand out a sheet of paper at the start of the year?)
Every LA has a different syllabus so the market for textbooks would be very limited.
Why would anyone want to communicate the syllabus to students at the start of the year?
Here is the government's outline guidance to schools in England for the GCSE stage of Religious Education/Religious Studies. As you can see it gives schools a good deal of latitude teaching this subject, far more than is allowed in any other subject.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Why not?
My students used to appreciate knowing what was coming down the pike, so to speak. And when I sat through a non-syllabus'd course last year, I found myself floundering mentally because I had no real sense of what goal we were driving for.
Our WASC accreditation requires that syllabi for all courses be posted online months before the start of classes. Like Lamb I find a well written syllabus to be essential to a successful class
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Whatever the government, the courts or headteachers may say a partnership is needed and in addition to these annoying holidays and unavoidable sick absence schools could do a lot more for those moving from one school to another: I did quite a bit of this with my Dad in the RAF through my schooldays and I can't recall any school making provision for catching up let alone systematic catching up. I'd be interested to know if schools do this nowadays as there are still schools attended by large numbers of "Scaleys" / "Forces Brats".
In my Primary School we had loads of them (about 50% of the class). Much of the time was spent playing catch up for those who had just joined us - it made school pretty boring and repetitive for the rest of us. Didn't help that the Head rather enjoyed spending time with the Group Captain.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
Re syllabuses: what age are we talking about? Because I'd assumed we were talking secondary age (11-16 year olds). I'm sorry to add another anecdote to all the others here, but I can't remember ever receiving a syllabus at the start of a course at secondary school - is this a thing in England now?
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I'm sorry to add another anecdote to all the others here, but I can't remember ever receiving a syllabus at the start of a course at secondary school - is this a thing in England now?
I'll see your anecdote, and raise you mine. It was completely normal for us to understand the syllabus at secondary level. In some cases, the syllabus was implicit (here's the maths or chemistry textbook, which is also the syllabus), in other cases we were told at the start of the term. And certainly once we started studying for public examinations, the syllabus was both explicit and important.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
My A-level teen spends a lot of time looking at the syllabus to ensure that gaps* are filled in before the exam.
During GCSEs this tactic was used to answer a question from a "more interesting" topic which wasn't covered in class.
* inevitable, it seems. Not necessarily a problem due to the teaching, I hasten to add, but it appears that they have to be very on-the-ball to ensure that they (a) have good exam techniques and (b) know what it is that they're supposed to know before the exam.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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