British education

What's happened?

I'm noticing increasingly that young people, intelligent young people at that, seem to be struggling with reading, writing and basic maths. It's not that they're thick, it seems they're just not adequately educated.

There's a news article today about a head teacher that's written to her MP complaining that the most recent SATS paper is far too difficult.

Granted it's the daily mail, so should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it's still an eye opener.

Fury over SATs exams which 'left kids in tears'... so could YOU answer these questions? | Daily Mail Online

The article contains examples of some of these 'too hard' questions if anyone fancies having a go. My English skills are hardly award winning, but I breezed through it. If the education system is serving it's purpose I'd expect an 8 or 9 year old to find it easy, never mind 10 year olds.

 

Must admit I never had any dealings with "clauses" and main or subordinates.
I dont understand the terminology.
We never had that when I went to skool.

Its not surprising that kids cant read and write, nearly every month some "person" comes on the TV and wants yet another subject added to the school curriculum and its usually something to do with common sense or what their parents should be dealing with.

The schools seem to be expected to almost totally bring the kids up and the parents just get them up in the morning and put them to bed at night.

 

They don't have a APP to teach them, i think there is to much none basic teaching going on etc

I'm a think git any way but i have the basic's, lots of things are more to do with getting the best marks more an teaching the basic's, i want my child to go to the best school etc

The first question is easy but the second one i can not understand, can some one en lighten me please

 

Before my eldest son started secondary school, he absolutely loved maths and was surprisingly good at it. Then when he started secondary that interest just went, rapidly.

One day we got a message from the school that he is behind on his maths homework so I had a chat with him. He showed me the online thing he has to use to do it. It was utterly ridiculous and demoralising. The maths questions were not hard, or they wouldn't have been if the questions were written in actual English rather than the utter gibberish rantings of an uneducated monkey trying to type while wearing boxing gloves. The grammar was terrible leading to huge ambiguity.

What made it worse was if you got one question wrong in the set, it wouldn't tell you which one, and you'd have to do the whole set again before it would mark it as complete.

I told my son, don't do it. If the teachers give him a hard time over it, tell them to speak to me.

 

I don't understand the second one either. But if you scroll down to the bottom of the article there are ten questions in a row that are easy.

 

I find that the General Knowledge of today's younger adults is sadly lacking. I enjoyed BBC's "Bridge of Lies" but some of the supposedly intelligent competitors (nurses, engineers) lacked basic skills. An example, not knowing what south of the equator referred to.

 

Often on quiz programmes you get the reply, from the younger contestants, Oh that's before my time.
Do they only learn about stuff that has happened in their lifetime?

 

I loved mathematics, but when my daughter started learning basic arithmetic and was doing sets and subsets I was lost. What was wrong with the way they taught arithmetic in the 50s and before?

 

This was covered on Radio 4 pm programme. According to one parent his son had been reduced to a snot and vomit covered wreck who went straight to bed when he got home; to me this sounds more like parental expectations and pressure from the teachers about how important these tests are. Another parent complained the SAT test was different to the practice tests.
Didn't have SATs when I was growing up, nor tutors for the 11+, we just got handed a "test" and told to complete in x minutes and once finished sit quietly until the tests were collected.
These days children tend not to read books with online videos and audiobooks, joined up writing is also dying out.
Who needs arithmetic when the phone does the calculation, general knowledge Mr Google does the remembering.
I was roped in to help a nephew with maths at one point looked at the first question and explained how I would do it and he told me that was the wrong way and he had to do it as teacher said. We ended up with me being taught how they do maths today and then explaining, to him, how to get the correct answer with his method.

 

I dont know much about teaching, but where I learnt how to do maths and English differently from different teachers over the school years, there seems to be now, the accepted named methods of teaching certain subjects, and I'm not sure they are making it easier, or building in the idea that there is more than one way of going about it.

Which seems to be creating a population of young adults who think there is only one right way of doing things in general.

 

I think a big part of the problem is that teachers aren't allowed to be actual teachers any more. While I have no doubt that they actually have teaching skills, I think the system is so rigid that teachers are more like admin clerks now, simply ensuring that the syllabus is taught in exactly the way someone else has dictated. It must be really frustrating for good teachers, watching kids lose interest because they don't perfectly fit the square peg that the governor or Ofsted or whoever has defined.

After I told my son not to do his maths homework, his interest in maths has come back, and he does maths challenges for fun (a bit geeky I know, but he enjoys it so I encourage it).

I think a massive clue that our education system was terrible happened just after Brexit, when suddenly everyone was panicking that we have a skills shortage. My instant thought was that successive governments had managed to hide our education failings by importing skilled workers, and when they all go home, our education crisis is laid bare for all to see.

 

Like all things these days, so organised and regimented it all just turns into a box ticking exercise.

 

I have been most baffled with the scoring system. My Little One used to bring home A*s one after another and scooped As even in subjects she didn't have a clue about.

I asked her what the score needed for A* was and it was around 75%.

I don't think getting 75% correct deserves highest mark, 75% is roughly a good understanding of the subject. 100% would in my mind be worth A*, and the pass score of any exam should be well above 50%.

Honestly, if you have only learnt 50% of the subject, you shouldn't pass.

Then again, my understanding of British educational system is largely based on Harry Potter books