The latest from dougbelshaw.com/blog
- Wednesday Wisdom #11: Exaggerated expectations
- Technology in History teaching: disseminating good practice in Turkey
- #uppingyourgame v0.4 now available!
- Things I Learned This Week – #11
- A brief history of infographics.
- You’re doing it wrong.
- Seven types of ambiguity and new literacies
- Wednesday Wisdom #10: Application and ability
- HOWTO: Create iTunes audiobooks from MP3s
- #uppingyourgame: an audio preview
-
Schools to receive more cash for ‘brightest pupils’
3 CommentsBBC News and the Education Guardian report that the government is to give schools extra money to develop extra lessons and activities for their brightest pupils. Whilst this sounds great, it’s just a sop to middle England really. The ‘top 10%’ is done on a school-wide, not a nation-wide basis, meaning that bright pupils in a successful school will get no extra help whereas less bright/talented ones in other areas will. I’m all for extra money, but the fact that the government’s setting up yet another trust/quango to deal with it makes me despair… :s
Published on December 29, 2006 · Filed under: Uncategorized;
3 Responses to “Schools to receive more cash for ‘brightest pupils’”
-
I was quite surprised at the method used to select these kids. At my sons' school, they did a bunch of one-off tests. My elder son, who is almost certainly falls into this classification if lines are to be drawn, was off ill. He was therefore required to attempt the tests on his return while the rest of the class remained in the room and continued with a normal lesson. He was very distracted by the other goings on, turned in below par work and missed the cut. It seems that this was to be his only shot at it. Weird.
He isn't sorry – he says the kids who were selected have extra work to do and, at 15, he can't think of anything worse. My regret for his part is that it seems these kids are taught things like how to learn, delving deeper and self-directed study. Stuff like that. Skills I believe would stand him in good stead for the rest of his life, unlike the ongoing study of Romeo and Juliet that seems scheduled to continue over the full 2 years of his GCSE studies. Much as I love Shakespeare, please picture me rolling my eyes as I groan "Puh-lease!"
The learning professional in me reckons all kids should be learning these skills, not just the top whatever percent. However, if the government sees fit to offer this teaching to only a select few, the parent in me would desperately like my kids to be a part of that select group. -
Yes Karyn, I know what you mean. There's a tension between grabbing all the opportunities possible for your own offspring and attempting to maintain that critical professional eye that kind of says 'So what's the point in this, then?'
I'm sick of the constant reforms in education – and I've only been teaching two and a half years! :o
-
oZJqpj iklhimnudjbi, [url=http://mypucpuficue.com/]mypucpuficue[/url], [link=http://bqueuludoysv.com/]bqueuludoysv[/link], http://pkwsivufytqr.com/
Leave a Reply
