Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Written in horror as I listened to Christine Gilbert on the six o'clock news

Great! If you think your school is failing, here is the advice from the Head of Ofsted.
She said parents could be "a major force for change" and should put pressure on weaker schools, such as asking why no homework had been set.

What about this as an idea? Your children go to a 'failing' school? Why not first check that your children arrive at school every day, on time, with a good attitude, well-fed and well-equipped, and with the manners and respect necessary to learn? Most schools I know that no longer set homework have given up because it is either a long drudge or a complete farce getting students to do it, and there is no support from parents if students are then punished for not doing it.
In nearly one in three secondary schools, behaviour was found to be "no better than satisfactory overall, and in these schools there are also instances of disruptive or distracting behaviour from some pupils".
Does this mean that in one in three secondary schools there are terrible teachers who can't control the kids, or could this be an epidemic of awful behaviour which is unchallenged because there is no parental support in changing it?

Oh, Lord preserve us all. And to think I was logging on to post some cheerful stuff.

PS quotes are from the Guardian and the BBC

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This market forces bollocks is precisely how education in the UK got into the mess it's in now. If all those pushy middle-class mums had to put up with whatever they lived next to they'd stop trying to pack as many kids as humanly possible into the supposedly 'good' schools and start doing something about the bad ones.