The TES online forums are a hotbed of debate. Here is just a taste of what users are saying this week. Join the discussion at: www.tes.co.ukstaffroom
A grammar school in every town
Feene : I look at where I live, and there are so many independent and grammar schools...it leaves the comprehensives for those who can’t afford or aren’t bright enough to attend either.
searchforthetruth: Why not have a grammar school in every town? It would allow decent kids to get on with learning and allow the chavs and wasters to get on with developing vocational skills more appropriate to them. It works perfectly well in other countries.
Dreamworld: Yes, bright students will in most cases achieve better in classes with other bright students. Granted, but isn’t that an argument for settingstreaming rather than a separate school?
After all, most kids are stronger in some subject areas than others, and there’s no reason why a reasonably-sized comprehensive can’t provide a high standard of education for all who are able in that subject, as well as vocational lessons for the ones whose talents lead them that way. In fact, most do.
I can’t bear educationists LittleFiba: ...with their insatiable appetite for burdening you with interventions which serve solely to justify their positions, complete lack of identifiable skills outside of teaching, their grating enthusiasm for learning,and their firm belief that they’re teaching you something incredibly new and exciting, and their PowerPoint displays which they read to you as if to suggest you can’t read, and the volume of paperwork they generate for no reason, and their grim little anecdotes which are supposed to be profound, and the fact that some plank pays them and...
So at last heads are considering a boycott of Sats Billji: I see from The TES that the National Association of Head Teachers is considering a boycott of Sats tests. I find it interesting that they have not voiced this opinion in the past while most of the work involved fell to overworked classroom teachers.
Prontoprint: It is a complete waste of a school year. As soon as they reach secondary school the results are binned and, guess what? More tests.
Theheron: At what age should a child sit their first examtest then? 16? Or still too mentally damaging for them? 21?
