Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: Wowbagger on 03 March, 2011, 05:27:22 pm
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Jamie's Dream School - 4oD - Channel 4 (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-dream-school/4od#3167909)
My daughter drew my attention to this.
Is this Car Crash TV? Actually, no. I liked the idea and I also liked the way that Jamie Oliver's hand-picked experts struggled to teach a group of 16 year olds whose GCSE results were way below what the government would like them to be.
It also confirmed everything I've always thought about David Starkie.
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David Starkie was a disgrace and should be ashamed.
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David Starkie has always been a disgrace and should be ashamed.
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I'm doing a project at the moment which brings me into contact with similar pupils. I have to draw upon all my experience from street performing and the alternative comedy circuit plus quite a lot of experience in teaching cycling to the full gamut of kids. It's incredibly challenging and you have to work hard to achieve engagement and, through that, attitude change and learning.
I don't know what preparation and briefing the 'teachers' had but it looked to me as though they were thrown in at the deep end. Unfair on them and unfair on the kids.
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With the attitude that Starkie took, no amount of preparation would have made him suitable.
To be honest, if those kids were all that difficult, I didn't think the programme showed it. They were wayward but none of them seemed to be especially hostile. I doubt that anyone seriously disruptive would have got onto the programme.
From what we saw, the graffiti artist (Henry?) was probably the hardest nut to crack because he came from a very well-to-do family and had three siblings who were successful. To be honest, I'd have loved to have been let loose in there with a dozen chess sets.
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<Baggers at the doctors>
"Well, to be honest, this is outside my field of expertise, and you say it was a group of schoolchildren who inserted two Queens, a Rook, and four Pawns up your rectum, with "Now that's checkmate innit!?", but on the whole, er, no pun intended, you feel the classroom lesson was a success?"
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From the limited amount we saw on the screen, I taught much tougher kids than these between 1975 and 1981, and plenty of their younger siblings from 1981 to 1986. The criminally disruptive would not have been allowed on the programme. I had been teaching for 3 weeks when we had a kid taken to hospital for stitches because another had hit him on the head with a machete. Fortunately they were not in my care at the time!
The great thing about chess is that you have to do a minimum of explaining to do before getting them started, and as all of the "teachers" in that programme observed, one thing these kids aren't that good at as a group is listening. The Starkie-style lesson, which only works if you've got their attention, was doomed to failure in that context - even more so when being delivered by a pompous and unsympathetic twat like Starkie. You've got to get them doing stuff, once you've got them playing only so much as a game involving just pawns, the teacher is no longer the centre of attention. Chess also takes advantage of the competitive nature of pretty well all kids.
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I'm with you Baggers my old mucker. My wife has been teaching for nearly thirty years at the challenging (yet rewarding) shitty-end of the education stick.
I thought the lad, insulted by Starkie, restrained himself very well.
Ahem: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5. If you don't move in 5 seconds I'll 'huff' you.
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I'm with you Baggers my old mucker. My wife has been teaching for nearly thirty years at the challenging (yet rewarding) shitty-end of the education stick.
I thought the lad, insulted by Starkie, restrained himself very well.
Ahem: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5. If you don't move in 5 seconds I'll 'huff' you.
Aha! Ruy Lopez!
3... a6.
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No one is a Bad Kid. From what I have read, they are quite similar to the young people I used to do youth work with, many of whom had not been in school for a while, or were at risk of exclusion. Just need to get their interest, whether that's decorating the room (a couple went on to be painters, as it happens), or making & flying kites, which they loved, or putting a show together (we never got to a performance, but it didn't matter), or getting their bikes sorted so they could ride...
Chess actually went down well with many of them, and there were some quite talented players among them.
I learned quite quickly not to go in with a set idea of what should be happening. Just the broad framework within which it needed to take place (safe environment etc).
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Just need to get their interest, whether that's decorating the room (a couple went on to be painters, as it happens)
About 10 years ago we had our extension built (where you slept when you visited us, Clarion). One of the guys to give us estimates was a former pupil, although I didn't recognise him until he recognised me and told me who he was.
He clearly had a rather jaundiced view of his alma mater and one of his comments was rather telling: "Perhaps it didn't occur to anyone that not all of us wanted to work in the construction industry?"
Not everyone did (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Hayman).
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I'm just watching it now. Starkie is a cock of the highest order. I would have punched the twat when I was 16... Probably still would!! The knob.
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YouTube
- Kanal von DreamSchool
(http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool#p/u/21/7xBWed2Bd88)
I just watched Rolf Harris's art lesson in full. Total respect!
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David Starkie was a disgrace and should be ashamed.
And thank god it was televised because it was immediately apparent that everyone's first reaction was to believe Starkie's explanation that the kid started the petty insults.
Kudos to the young lad for being the more dignified one, although he did use a wonderful tactic of mentioning what he didn't mention - "I didn't mention that you are only about 4 feet tall did I?"...
or words to that effect, excellent
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I'm quite looking forward to Starkie's explanation of it all. There was a bit of it in the programme: must have been the kids at fault, I'm the Great David Starkie and I'm not prepared to waste my valuable time on this bunch of failures any more.
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Your homework for tonight is to write out 100 times the line "I must spell David Starkey's name correctly" ;)
The trouble with these kids is that they think that they deserve to be served education much as a diner in a restaurant. If they don't like the food it's the chef's problem not theirs.
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Rolf Harris, a true legend :thumbsup:
The guy that called the kid fat could have done with a punch, but its the problem with some people like him. He knows too much about things, but people skills are lacking. Or at least people skills when people dont just sit and listen.
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Your homework for tonight is to write out 100 times the line "I must spell David Starkey's name correctly" ;)
The trouble with these kids is that they think that they deserve to be served education much as a diner in a restaurant. If they don't like the food it's the chef's problem not theirs.
Up to a point that's true, but take a look at how Rolf Harris dealt with them. Very sympathetic and good results. Starkie(y) is just totally unsuitable for that sort of work. What they don't deserve is to be roundly insulted by someone they've only just met. If you haven't seen the programme, take a look. DS's approach would have been embarrassingly bad if it wasn't so entirely predictable.
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YouTube
- Kanal von DreamSchool
(http://www.youtube.com/dreamschool#p/u/21/7xBWed2Bd88)
I just watched Rolf Harris's art lesson in full. Total respect!
Really enjoyed that :) He's so damn good, Rolf.
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Your homework for tonight is to write out 100 times the line "I must spell David Starkey's name correctly" ;)
The trouble with these kids is that they think that they deserve to be served education much as a diner in a restaurant. If they don't like the food it's the chef's problem not theirs.
Up to a point that's true, but take a look at how Rolf Harris dealt with them. Very sympathetic and good results. Starkie(y) is just totally unsuitable for that sort of work. What they don't deserve is to be roundly insulted by someone they've only just met. If you haven't seen the programme, take a look. DS's approach would have been embarrassingly bad if it wasn't so entirely predictable.
I completely agree with what you are saying about Starkey. I don't like him any more than you do, and I have to admit that I rather enjoyed watching him fail dismally. But it is a bit of a set up isn't it, I mean its clear that the 'teachers' were inadequately prepared - thrown in at the deep end as has already been said - and the students must surely be tempted to play up more/make a bigger deal of things in order to get more coverage of themselves on telly.
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Robert Winstone and Rolf Harris were very well prepared.
It looked to me as though Starkey had a preconceived idea about teaching these kids when he'd probably never dealt with anyone like that in his entire career. He had the source materials but was totally lacking in the necessary skills to put his stuff across. Mind you, I think a cerebral, non-practical subject like history must be one of the hardest to "sell" to that sort of child. None of that mattered, though, when he exhibited the attitude he did.
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If they were all inspirational and successful in doing the teaching it wouldn't have made for good TV or been much of a talking point.
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Agreed. I'd like to think that a programme like this would actually improve the viewing public's attitude towards teachers and the bloody difficult job that many of them do.
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I agree. But with the choice of kids,I don't think that's going to happen as people will say "well, they're difficult kids, aren't they".
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All classes contain difficult kids. It's my belief that the attitude of kids like this is largely fostered in primary schools where the classes are simply too big. If you want to keep a mixed ability group working properly throughout a school day then I reckon a maximum class size of 20 is required.
It's pretty much true that in teaching, 90% of your time is spent on 10% of the kids. They are the 3 kids in a class of 30 that don't / can't concentrate on the work without constant attention and play up as a result. There's probably a similar number of kids who can't / won't concentrate but don't play up so tend not to get noticed.
I look back very fondly on the two weeks in my time in a primary school when about half the class were absent for a fortnight during an epidemic of snottiness and I only had to deal with about 16 kids. Every child was concentrating the whole time, including the "difficult" ones, because they had my attention whenever they needed it. I had the time to mark their work whilst they were standing beside me (marking in a primary school is mostly a waste of time unless you can explain at the time what the child could have done to improve) and that meant that I didn't have to take a pile of books home to mark. That's how it should be. Employ enough teachers in primary schools and you would turn out well-rounded, well-educated stable kids who wanted to learn. I think the large rump of 16-year-olds that this programme is about simply wouldn't exist.
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Robert Winstone and Rolf Harris were very well prepared.
I didn't see the programme, but in my mind confused Ray Winstone with Robert. I can see his lesson:
Bangs a sock filled with snooker balls hard on a desk and asks "who's the Daddy now?"
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Robert Winstone and Rolf Harris were very well prepared.
I didn't see the programme, but in my mind confused Ray Winstone with Robert. I can see his lesson:
Bangs a sock filled with snooker balls hard on a desk and asks "who's the Daddy now?"
I'm so glad it wasn't just me who had thet problem on reading this thread. :-[
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I had to google to find out who Ray Winstone is. I'm none the wiser.
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I had to google to find out who Ray Winstone is. I'm none the wiser.
I tend to think of him as Beowulf in the recent(ish) movie.
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I had to google to find out who Ray Winstone is. I'm none the wiser.
Just googling isn't enough - you have to follow some of the links and read the articles.
Ray Winstone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Winstone)
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Missed Dream School until we watched a recording yesterday. When I saw Starkey on Question Time this week I thought him an insufferable bore and too bumptious to keep my interest. He was added to the small list of people who persuaded me to switch off. Even worse in DS. I don't think he should have been selected for the programme but I guess it follows the trend for reality TV to use shock to gain attention.
Of course, week 2 of DS has now become essential viewing (or at least recording).
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I had to google to find out who Ray Winstone is. I'm none the wiser.
Reading can widen even the most closed mind.
Ray Winstone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Winstone)
Already read it.
If you bothered to read a few of my posts you might learn something about me before offering an opinion.
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Agreed. I'd like to think that a programme like this would actually improve the viewing public's attitude towards teachers and the bloody difficult job that many of them do.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that these kids are the end result of a full schooling's worth of efforts from professional teachers. They are hardly a glowing recommendation.
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Agreed. I'd like to think that a programme like this would actually improve the viewing public's attitude towards teachers and the bloody difficult job that many of them do.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that these kids are the end result of a full schooling's worth of efforts from professional teachers. They are hardly a glowing recommendation.
Children are much more than a product of their school education- in one of my past classes (I won't discuss my present due to confidentiality issues) 31 children, 24 receiving free school meals which means money is very short in the family home, 4 of them had a parent currently in prison, (several others had experienced periods of time when one or other parent had been in prison) two were looked after children, whose early life experience had been one of abuse and deprivation, seven were refugee new arrivals to the country, learning English as a foreign language, one was an unaccompanied minor (refugee arriving alone in this country). A significant number of the rest of the class had experienced disruption to their schooling- by year 4 many of them had been to more than one other school. All the refugee children had had disrupted schooling and had experienced some kind of significant trauma. I'm not saying all teachers are wonderful, and all teaching is perfect. But there are far more factors that affect the emotional and academic development of a child, not just their school experience.
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Agreed. I'd like to think that a programme like this would actually improve the viewing public's attitude towards teachers and the bloody difficult job that many of them do.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that these kids are the end result of a full schooling's worth of efforts from professional teachers. They are hardly a glowing recommendation.
A fairly small sample. Would you like your daily efforts to be judged by the general public's current view of bankers? ;D
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Agreed. I'd like to think that a programme like this would actually improve the viewing public's attitude towards teachers and the bloody difficult job that many of them do.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that these kids are the end result of a full schooling's worth of efforts from professional teachers. They are hardly a glowing recommendation.
A fairly small sample. Would you like your daily efforts to be judged by the general public's current view of bankers? ;D
I believe that it was your post that was aiming to extrapolate from this small sample across to teachers in general. My point is that the professional teaching community have had 11 years to turn this particular sample around and have manifestly failed to do so. It therefore does not behove members of that community to deride the efforts of the guest teachers. In their 1 hour slot they are not only having to tackle the challenge of doing something new but they are also having to overcome the resistance to education engendered by that previous 11 years.
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It depends on what they've done. Starkey made fundamental - fundamental - errors right at the start. They are the sort of errors I made in my first term's teaching, realised they were errors and did my best not to make them again. He is touted as one of this country's top historians and teachers at universities.
No matter what the level you're teaching at, if you antagonise your students in the first 10 minutes of meeting them, they are not going to respect you. At Cambridge, where all the students are in the top 1%, they will achieve in spite of him. At the level we are dealing with, these kids will only succeed where the teacher manages to earn that trust and respect and maintain it. That's what really impressed me about Rolf Harris. I'm pretty certain that there are much better qualified artists around, but probably very few household names who are as well qualified as he is. He combines that with a sympathetic approach and a deep knowledge of human nature.
How I taught Latin at Jamie's Dream School | Television & radio | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/01/taught-latin-jamies-dream-school) is a very interesting piece about Mary Beard's experience. I'll quote a couple of bits because I think they back up what I've said (and I only just read this article).
I was also afraid that the programme would end up as a scarcely veiled attack on the teaching profession. Was the message going to be: regular teachers had failed these kids, but a load of entirely untrained celebrities and academics could set them right again?
In fact, that fear proved groundless. Unless something very odd has happened in the editing process, I am pretty confident that the series will be a great advertisement for the teaching profession and its skills. The first thing that almost all the untrained celebs said to me when we met at the school was: "Doing this really makes you admire proper school teachers."
So what was my verdict? In general policy terms, I thought that quite a lot could be solved with a bit more money going into state education. Despite what some press reports have said, Jamie's kids were not "troubled youngsters" (even Channel 4 wouldn't let a group of untrained celebs loose on troubled youngsters). They were ordinary kids who for a variety of different reasons had not managed to get the bottom line of decent GCSEs. And what would have helped them most? Not, I suspect, a raft of new educational initiatives, nor any major structural reform. Just a bit more money in the system would probably do the trick – to give teachers and kids a bit of space, to fund a little more individual attention, and to pick up those who risk falling through the net.
Also, this piece by Mary Beard in the Times (http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/):
I have to say, though, that in the "staff room" Starkey was the only one who didn't fess up to any nervousness or uncertainty about his ability to wow the kids -- unlike all the other celebs I met. So there is a certain satisfaction in seeing him in a bit of trouble.
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Just a bit more money in the system would probably do the trick
Yes the usual answer from a member of the teaching community when challenged on the failures of the community
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Just a bit more money in the system would probably do the trick
Yes the usual answer from a member of the teaching community when challenged on the failures of the community
Not very different from bankers then - apart from the small matter of scale.
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Mrs Pcolbeck has just been discussing her lesson preparation for next week. The topic is Shakespeare and the pupils must learn things such as things such as the difference between his comedies, tragedies and histories as well as be able to describe his impact on British culture. This is the mandated curriculum not something the schools has made up. It's for 7 year olds. This to me says an awful lot about what's wrong with teaching, too many academics setting a curriculum that's too proscribed and academic for the pupils.
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Gutter TV.
Some broken kids + some non-empathetic adults = Trash TV.
What's new? Anything to get brain dead telly watchers in front of ad breaks, eh?.
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Just a bit more money in the system would probably do the trick
Yes the usual answer from a member of the teaching community when challenged on the failures of the community
Yes, the usual sneering fabrications from one of the forum's least personable bigots.
I quite liked Wow when i met him ;D
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It depends on what they've done. Starkey made fundamental - fundamental - errors right at the start. They are the sort of errors I made in my first term's teaching, realised they were errors and did my best not to make them again. He is touted as one of this country's top historians and teachers at universities.
No matter what the level you're teaching at, if you antagonise your students in the first 10 minutes of meeting them, they are not going to respect you, At Cambridge, where all the students are in the top 1%, they will achieve in spite of him. At the level we are dealing with, these kids will only succeed where the teacher manages to earn that trust and respect and maintain it. That's what really impressed me about Rolf Harris. I'm pretty certain that there are much better qualified artists around, but probably very few household names who are as well qualified as he is. He combines that with a sympathetic approach and a deep knowledge of human nature.
How I taught Latin at Jamie's Dream School | Television & radio | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/01/taught-latin-jamies-dream-school) is a very interesting piece about Mary Beard's experience. I'll quote a couple of bits because I think they back up what I've said (and I only just read this article).
I was also afraid that the programme would end up as a scarcely veiled attack on the teaching profession. Was the message going to be: regular teachers had failed these kids, but a load of entirely untrained celebrities and academics could set them right again?
In fact, that fear proved groundless. Unless something very odd has happened in the editing process, I am pretty confident that the series will be a great advertisement for the teaching profession and its skills. The first thing that almost all the untrained celebs said to me when we met at the school was: "Doing this really makes you admire proper school teachers."
So what was my verdict? In general policy terms, I thought that quite a lot could be solved with a bit more money going into state education. Despite what some press reports have said, Jamie's kids were not "troubled youngsters" (even Channel 4 wouldn't let a group of untrained celebs loose on troubled youngsters). They were ordinary kids who for a variety of different reasons had not managed to get the bottom line of decent GCSEs. And what would have helped them most? Not, I suspect, a raft of new educational initiatives, nor any major structural reform. Just a bit more money in the system would probably do the trick – to give teachers and kids a bit of space, to fund a little more individual attention, and to pick up those who risk falling through the net.
Also, this piece by Mary Beard in the Times (http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/):
I have to say, though, that in the "staff room" Starkey was the only one who didn't fess up to any nervousness or uncertainty about his ability to wow the kids -- unlike all the other celebs I met. So there is a certain satisfaction in seeing him in a bit of trouble.
I think it's fundamentally the difference between a Teacher and a Lecturer.
Teachers tend to get captive, and possibly reluctant, audiences and Lecturers tend to get audiences who made a conscious (and presumably nowadays, expensive) decision to be there.
I imagine Starkey is a Lecturer, used to decades of fawning audiences. I can imagine him, now, being a bit of an intellectual bully at Cambridge as well.
If he'd been a lecturer at Manchester's Openshaw Technical College (where I had the misfortune to attend on day-release from BT in the '80s) he would have been dragged outside, by someone from the building/welding/mechanics...etc course, and asked to continue his observations about classroom obesity without the use of his teeth.
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Just a bit more money in the system would probably do the trick
Yes the usual answer from a member of the teaching community when challenged on the failures of the community
Not very different from bankers then - apart from the small matter of scale.
Let me remind you that the subject in question is the failure of the professional teaching community to educate these students to an acceptable standard over the past 11 years. To simply blame the funding decisions of government/councils is to avoid taking responsibility. I would like to see the teaching community asking themselves what could they have done differently to have achieved a more successful result. By contrast they seem more intent on congratulating themselves on a job well done and deluding themselves into thinking that the programme shows this.
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I would like to see the teaching community asking themselves what could they have done differently to have achieved a more successful result. By contrast they seem more intent on congratulating themselves on a job well done and deluding themselves into thinking that the programme shows this.
Whom do you mean by your phrase "the teaching community". In my school we have just had a long staff meeting reviewing our performance, and identifying areas for improvement. Every term, we look at every child who is achieving below their expected level and attempt to work out why. This means we are constantly reviewing our own practice, modifying it if necessary. In the schools I have taught in, the teaching community has been anything but self congratulatory. Throughout my 20 year career I have met the odd individual teacher who is resistant to changing their outdated and ineffective practice in spite of it failing the children they teach- two in fact. One left the profession. The other is unfortunately still teaching and probably shouldn't be.
I know for a fact that my best teaching has been done in the smaller classes I have had- one of 24, one of 22 and one blissful term I had 16 for one term (until the year 1 teacher had a breakdown due to stress and her class was split and I went back to 30). The reason we don't have classes of less than 30 is money. Money doesn't make a bad teacher a good teacher. But it enables a decent teacher to devote more time to his/her pupils. And that would make a difference to children such as those in the programme.
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Let me remind you that the subject in question is the failure of the professional teaching community to educate these students to an acceptable standard over the past 11 years. To simply blame the funding decisions of government/councils is to avoid taking responsibility. I would like to see the teaching community asking themselves what could they have done differently to have achieved a more successful result. By contrast they seem more intent on congratulating themselves on a job well done and deluding themselves into thinking that the programme shows this.
Sounds like it is time for non-teachers to step up to the mark with some serious involvement. What would you do?
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Mrs Pcolbeck has just been discussing her lesson preparation for next week. The topic is Shakespeare and the pupils must learn things such as things such as the difference between his comedies, tragedies and histories as well as be able to describe his impact on British culture. This is the mandated curriculum not something the schools has made up. It's for 7 year olds. This to me says an awful lot about what's wrong with teaching, too many academics setting a curriculum that's too proscribed and academic for the pupils.
Which primary literacy curriculum for seven year olds (Year 3)? I don't recognise it at all.
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Is it maybe from the QCA famous people stuff from the history side? It doesn't ring any bells for me either - my boy's in Y4, and hasn't run into Shakespeare yet.
Part of my PGCE was a 4 week stint teaching in France. No interactive whiteboards (which I loved teaching with), about 4 computers in the entire school (ICT was one of my strengths in training), not allowed to photocopy, a curriculum that I wasn't familiar with and in a foreign language. Class of 21 kids - it was blissful. And that was one of the bigger classes; one of the infant teachers there, who had a class of 16, said that for her 20 was the cut off where you started to spend too much time on crowd control to be able to really teach effectively. With 30-odd kids there's just not enough of you to go around.
I've known more than one class with over 40 pupils in a primary school, in recent years.
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As a protocol droid, I am hypersensitive to breaches of etiquette and I realise that you are all, after all, only human. However, I must remind you of the requirement that you be excellent to each other.
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I would like to see the teaching community asking themselves what could they have done differently to have achieved a more successful result. By contrast they seem more intent on congratulating themselves on a job well done and deluding themselves into thinking that the programme shows this.
Sorry, but where is your evidence for this?
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I would like to see the teaching community asking themselves what could they have done differently to have achieved a more successful result. By contrast they seem more intent on congratulating themselves on a job well done and deluding themselves into thinking that the programme shows this.
Sorry, but where is your evidence for this?
From Wowbagger
I'd like to think that a programme like this would actually improve the viewing public's attitude towards teachers and the bloody difficult job that many of them do.
and from Mary Beard, quoted by Wowbagger
I am pretty confident that the series will be a great advertisement for the teaching profession and its skills
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Spot the difference?
Fair enough - point taken.
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Let me remind you that the subject in question is the failure of the professional teaching community to educate these students to an acceptable standard over the past 11 years.
No it isn't. That's your agenda. I don't know why.
To simply blame the funding decisions of government/councils is to avoid taking responsibility.
Look at the evidence. The teaching profession takes more responsibility than almost any other I can think of - the responsibility of educating the next generation of adults.
I would like to see the banking community asking themselves what could they have done differently to have achieved a more successful result. By contrast they seem more intent on taking enormous bonuses despite having fucked the world economy, and and having the brass neck to start the whole thing all over again.
A couple of small amendments to your original to increase its accuracy.
Most teachers I know do a bloody difficult job very well. Not all of them, it's true, but I can think of some teachers whose performance may well be below par but will never have the responsibility of dealing with kids like these. I'm thinking of some teachers I've come across in selective schools. It almost doesn't matter how they teach because the kids are so bright and generally well-geared to learning that they succeed, certainly at GCSE level, in spite of the teacher rather than because of them.
Having said that, some of the kids in that programme seem to be fairly well-adjusted. The one I mentioned above - Henry, the one whose three siblings had all been successful at something or other, was an exception to this. Were his parents failures as well? They had brought up three children quite successfully but the fourth not so, by their standards. How could any teacher have altered the way his life developed if his parents couldn't?
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I was a School Governor for eight years.
For a while, it was my job to get up close and personal with stats to do with Progress, Value Added (ugh...) and SATS (double Ugh... damn Labour gubbinsment).
Two things stood out in that time.
(1) The funding was generally adequate, but often wasted because we (Middle School) had no idea how much was coming, for what, and when. Admin was overly complex and provision piecemeal.
(2) The parental support was mixed at best, and in some years completely shameful.
We (Chris and Mrs S) brought our own children up to the best of our abilities. We read to them, listened to them when they talked about stuff, and treated them like people. We were lucky that we could give them opportunities, like learning musical instruments and stuff, that our beloved LEA had already largely pulled from schools.
In my years as a Governor, I was scared sh*tless by the number of kids who didn't have that secure grounding. That's not meant to beat my parental drum - I basically just followed what my parents did, but so many kids came through the school who:
1. Had multiple sets of parents
2. Had no access to parental time in the evenings
3. Treated school as an escape
4. Were essentially disfunctional - as in, at the age of 7, couldn't dress themselves or use a bathroom unattended.
It comes as no surprise to me that secondary schools have trouble making sense of that :(.
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...SATS (double Ugh... damn Labour gubbinsment).
The tests were introduced for 7-year-olds for the academic year ending July 1991, and for 11-year-olds in the academic year ending July 1995.
Similar tests were introduced for 14-year-olds for the academic year ending July 1998 but were scrapped at the end of the academic year ending July 2009.
Labour introduced one out of three sets (which had been planned by the Tories), and removed it anyway.
It's important to remember things accurately.
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Labour introduced one out of three sets (which had been planned by the Tories), and removed it anyway.
It's important to remember things accurately.
FFS. Who cares what colour the government was? Forget the Cons Vs Coms pissing contest for a second. This is kids lives we're talking about.
My mistake I guess - for mentioning a colour. I'll revise my original statement, because it probably works better:
"SATS (double Ugh... damn interfering gubbinsment...)"
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I agree with everything else you say. I only mentioned it because you were blaming the wrong folk.
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A propos of Chris's post, I was vice chair of govs at the kids' primary school from about 1988 to 1997. During that period the funding was consistently and woefully inadequate, with cuts coming year on year. During the final year, the head of an 800+ school had to teach because his budget didn't stretch to employing enough teachers. My younger daughter was in his class.
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It's worth noting at this juncture, the Middle School I was a governor at had "large school" status which, at the time, attracted more money - and we were in the enviable, and very very rare position of never having a problem with the amount of money available - it was all about the manner of the delivery.
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Let me remind you that the subject in question is the failure of the professional teaching community to educate these students to an acceptable standard over the past 11 years.
No it isn't. That's your agenda. I don't know why.
No, that is the agenda of the programme. Jamie Oliver asserts that these students have been let down by their schooling, as was he.
It's you who is trying to switch the agenda of this thread to a different subject by your repeated references to banking.
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From the limited amount we saw on the screen, I taught much tougher kids than these between 1975 and 1981, and plenty of their younger siblings from 1981 to 1986. The criminally disruptive would not have been allowed on the programme. I had been teaching for 3 weeks when we had a kid taken to hospital for stitches because another had hit him on the head with a machete. Fortunately they were not in my care at the time!
The great thing about chess is that you have to do a minimum of explaining to do before getting them started, and as all of the "teachers" in that programme observed, one thing these kids aren't that good at as a group is listening. The Starkie-style lesson, which only works if you've got their attention, was doomed to failure in that context - even more so when being delivered by a pompous and unsympathetic twat like Starkie. You've got to get them doing stuff, once you've got them playing only so much as a game involving just pawns, the teacher is no longer the centre of attention. Chess also takes advantage of the competitive nature of pretty well all kids.
You might like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mxz2-AQ64&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mxz2-AQ64&feature=related)
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I've not seen this yet, but I'm looking forward to catching up with it on iplayer or something.
It's no surprise to me that brilliant academics don't make great teachers. At university there were some academics who were also gifted teachers, and there were some who could write an internationally acclaimed research paper but couldn't impart knowledge to others to save their lives - and then got frustrated by what they perceived as the student's inability to understand. And that was at university; I'd imagine that the same thing at GCSE level would make it worse.
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Let me remind you that the subject in question is the failure of the professional teaching community to educate these students to an acceptable standard over the past 11 years.
No it isn't. That's your agenda. I don't know why.
No, that is the agenda of the programme. Jamie Oliver asserts that these students have been let down by their schooling, as was he.
It's you who is trying to switch the agenda of this thread to a different subject by your repeated references to banking.
The system let me down.
That's from the intro to the first programme.
The system does not equal the teachers. You've chosen to interpret that so that you can have a pop at teachers.
As an aside, teachers can find themselves the subject of disciplinary hearings if they criticise government education policy, as happened to a colleague of my daughter's when he had a letter published in The Times.
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I've now watched episode 2 and I can't see where this programme is going, it doesn't seem to be doing anyone any favours.
It's showing most of the guest experts in a bad light because they are inadequately prepared and given insufficient support (perhaps none at all as far as I can see).
It's showing most of the students as thoroughly deserving of the life in the gutter that most of them are headed for
It's showing the 11 years of professional teaching effort previously administered to these students as being about as ineffective as that delivered by the guest experts
I'm sure Jamie Oliver has a valid point but this programme seems a hugely flawed means of exploring it.
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I was most surprised how Starkey managed to make sufficient peace with the group that his second lesson went quite well.
Robert Winstone was superb again - what was the quote from the girl who got into the fight and was almost suspended as a result of Alistair Campbell's lesson? "I hate science but I never had a teacher like you" or words to that effect. Winstone made it clear to the kids, when doing the DNA experiment with 3 other leading scientists in tow, that only a very few schools would be able to afford to resource that lesson.
Callow is out of his depth.
The point of the programme? To improve ratings and to get people like us nattering about it.
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The point of the programme? To improve ratings and to get people like us nattering about it.
I take it you mean viewing ratings rather than school ratings ?
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The point of the programme? To improve ratings and to get people like us nattering about it.
I take it you mean viewing ratings rather than school ratings ?
Of course.
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I am no educationist.
I know I lack the people skills to engage with a group of kids.
As I see it school education has large incremental components: fail to 'get' literacy and book-based learning is inaccessible etc.
Have a teacher you dislike (or who dislikes you) for a year and child becomes disengaged.
Once a kid has fallen off the conveyor belt that is class-based teaching, it is very hard to get back on, probably impossible if you have any special educational needs.
The larger the class size, the higher the chance of falling (possibly undetected). from the belt.
Many kids will have had 11 years 'in formal education' but nobody addressed their disengagement and the schooling will have passed them by. Those teachers with large classes just don't have the time for the few minutes of individual attention that could have prevented several years wasted at school.
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Sorry, I meant that disengagement had not been addressed successfully...
Jamie's pupils all seemed to show evidence of disengagement IMO.
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Charlie Brooker: Jamie's Dream School – a youth club with David Starkey instead of a pool table | Comment is free | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/14/jamie-olivers-dream-school)
Charlie Brooker on form as usual. :thumbsup:
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Why are people discussing this TV programme as if it was real life?
It is a reality TV celebrity builder. The celebs have all negotiated their involvement with agents, in pursuit of their own celebrity brand positioning goals. Everyone involved has an angle and a is working an agenda - with the possible exception of the kids. The director/producers are creating an opera story in the editing - there will be early heroes unveiled as villains, villains who are redeemed, characters who go on a journey, lovable rogues etc etc. There are plotlines that will be developed.
It is creepy.
Jamie O is a celeb worried his brand is being eclipsed by Fearnley - that is the real story.
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Nevertheless, it gets you thinking about how education, and communication with kids in general, can be improved. It's worth watching for that alone.
Actually, I avoided the programme because I thought it would be too much of a load of rowing and crap, but the clips I've seen on YouTube are genuinely interesting.
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Whereas much of what Tigerrrr says is true, I've still enjoyed watching the different styles of the teacher-celebs. It hasn't surprised me in the slightest that Rolf Harris and Robert Winstone have created a rapport with the students where other less empathetic characters have not.
Winstone's comments about the lesson he gave on DNA being beyond the budgets of the vast majority of school was also a very valid point, and one which answers one post early on in this thread, although I am sure that particular poster would never accept that state schools are chronically underfunded.
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Why are people discussing this TV programme as if it was real life?
It is a reality TV celebrity builder. The celebs have all negotiated their involvement with agents, in pursuit of their own celebrity brand positioning goals. Everyone involved has an angle and a is working an agenda - with the possible exception of the kids. The director/producers are creating an opera story in the editing - there will be early heroes unveiled as villains, villains who are redeemed, characters who go on a journey, lovable rogues etc etc. There are plotlines that will be developed.
It is creepy.
Jamie O is a celeb worried his brand is being eclipsed by Fearnley - that is the real story.
I agree with some of what you say but I think the quality of the guest teachers affords them a status far higher than mere celebs - these are seriously well respected individuals and I'm quite sure that they signed up for this with considerably more altruistic intent than furthering any celebrity status.
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I am prepared to believe that, alongside the continued exposure their ego desires, the participants mainly have a view to helping. In their own ways.
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I agree with some of what you say but I think the quality of the guest teachers affords them a status far higher than mere celebs - these are seriously well respected individuals and I'm quite sure that they signed up for this with considerably more altruistic intent than furthering any celebrity status.
The only people on his list of teachers I have any modicum of respect for are David Starkey and Robert Winston. The rest are Celeb Big Brother wannabes. This is not Jamie Oliver Saves British Education, it's just more gladiatorial 'entertainment' we are supposed to gawp at and say 'How shocking!' along the same lines as Fat Camp etc.
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David Starkey and Robert Winston.
Ooh the gravitas
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Respect? For David Starkey? Really?
Takes all sorts, I suppose.
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Respect? For David Starkey? Really?
Takes all sorts, I suppose.
Because compared to the rest at least Winston and Starkey know their respective subjects and have the possibility of imparting at least some knowledge.
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Starkey does not 'know' his subject, but merely a tiny sliver of it, which he feels is important, but is utterly irrelevant out of the context he refuses to even acknowledge exists, so obsessed is he with his propagandising.
I don't agree with Winston on a lot of things, but he does know his subject, and is good at imparting understanding, which is the basis of teaching.
Rolf Harris I have respect for, not because he is a world expert in anything, but because he is good at finding joy in everything he does, and sharing that.
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Starkey does not 'know' his subject, but merely a tiny sliver of it
His subject is Tudor history. He knows it quite well. Quite likely better than you or I.
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Mrs Pcolbeck has just been discussing her lesson preparation for next week. The topic is Shakespeare and the pupils must learn things such as things such as the difference between his comedies, tragedies and histories as well as be able to describe his impact on British culture. This is the mandated curriculum not something the schools has made up. It's for 7 year olds. This to me says an awful lot about what's wrong with teaching, too many academics setting a curriculum that's too proscribed and academic for the pupils.
Which primary literacy curriculum for seven year olds (Year 3)? I don't recognise it at all.
Having discussed it further with her it seems it wasn't the curriculum - my mistake but was the learning objectives written by one of the teachers then given to Mrs Pcolbeck (a TA) to make lesson plans from. So I can't blame the gubberment just a teacher on this one.