High expectations coupled with discipline can turn around poorly performing schools

[patslatt]

Evidence of educational failure in secondary schools in low income and socially excluded areas in the UK and the USA is so persistent that it is almost a law of socioeconomics. Ireland isn't exempt from the trend,judging by the drop in the latest PISA international ratings for our teenagers.

Occasionally a success story of educational reform in some schools holds out hope of systemic improvement. The Daily Telegraph February 7th article "This quiet disciplinarian has something to shout about" (no link yet) describes how a headteacher turned around two very troubled schools,one of which had the lowest GCSE achievement in its West London borough at only 32% of pupils gaining 5 A to C grades.

Quote:

-"...a refusal to condone disruptive behaviour."
-"...pupils here come from troubled backgrounds...does not mean allowing them to disrupt their own and others' chances of learning."
-"...those who can't settle to lessons are channeled into a learning support unit...(in the early months there were,he admits,high levels of exclusions)...where they receive intense tuition away from fellow pupils before being gradually reintroduced into the mainstream."
-"Underperforming teachers (a total of 18 out of 60) have been encouraged to move on."
-"Attendance is high" at after-school clubs and Saturday school."

An interesting observation in the article is that "The Ofsted chief,Sir Michael Wilshaw,last week damned more than 5,000 school heads "as not up to the job" and accused them of hiding behind excuses for poor performance." Given England's roughly 54 million population,that would be equivalent to over 370 heads in Ireland but let's hope Irish heads are better.

[neiphin]

Evidence of educational failure in secondary schools in low income and socially excluded areas in the UK and the USA is so persistent that it is almost a law of socioeconomics. Ireland isn't exempt from the trend,judging by the drop in the latest PISA international ratings for our teenagers.

Occasionally a success story of educational reform in some schools holds out hope of systemic improvement. The Daily Telegraph February 7th article "This quiet disciplinarian has something to shout about" (no link yet) describes how a headteacher turned around two very troubled schools,one of which had the lowest GCSE achievement in its West London borough at only 32% of pupils gaining 5 A to C grades.

Quote:

-"...a refusal to condone disruptive behaviour."
-"...pupils here come from troubled backgrounds...does not mean allowing them to disrupt their own and others' chances of learning."
-"...those who can't settle to lessons are channeled into a learning support unit...(in the early months there were,he admits,high levels of exclusions)...where they receive intense tuition away from fellow pupils before being gradually reintroduced into the mainstream."
-"Underperforming teachers (a total of 18 out of 60) have been encouraged to move on."
-"Attendance is high" at after-school clubs and Saturday school."

An interesting observation in the article is that "The Ofsted chief,Sir Michael Wilshaw,last week damned more than 5,000 school heads "as not up to the job" and accused them of hiding behind excuses for poor performance." Given England's roughly 54 million population,that would be equivalent to over 370 heads in Ireland but let's hope Irish heads are better.

give my head peace
pat = ps bashing troll

[reg11]

Evidence of educational failure in secondary schools in low income and socially excluded areas in the UK and the USA is so persistent that it is almost a law of socioeconomics. Ireland isn't exempt from the trend,judging by the drop in the latest PISA international ratings for our teenagers.

Occasionally a success story of educational reform in some schools holds out hope of systemic improvement. The Daily Telegraph February 7th article "This quiet disciplinarian has something to shout about" (no link yet) describes how a headteacher turned around two very troubled schools,one of which had the lowest GCSE achievement in its West London borough at only 32% of pupils gaining 5 A to C grades.

Quote:

-"...a refusal to condone disruptive behaviour."
-"...pupils here come from troubled backgrounds...does not mean allowing them to disrupt their own and others' chances of learning."
-"...those who can't settle to lessons are channeled into a learning support unit...(in the early months there were,he admits,high levels of exclusions)...where they receive intense tuition away from fellow pupils before being gradually reintroduced into the mainstream."
-"Underperforming teachers (a total of 18 out of 60) have been encouraged to move on."
-"Attendance is high" at after-school clubs and Saturday school."

An interesting observation in the article is that "The Ofsted chief,Sir Michael Wilshaw,last week damned more than 5,000 school heads "as not up to the job" and accused them of hiding behind excuses for poor performance." Given England's roughly 54 million population,that would be equivalent to over 370 heads in Ireland but let's hope Irish heads are better.

Pat, what would you be hoping to achieve with such an endeavour? Like, what’s your big picture?

Do you really think that not being to the top of some academic league is one of our more pressing national problems?

Pat, Ireland is a country that isn’t next or near able to provide opportunities for all it’s academically accomplished young people. I’ve read that there are 40,000 Irish people on the dole who have a degree, not to mention the tens of thousands of others who have emigrated.

So Pat, according to you, we boost academic standards higher, then what? Are opportunities to appear out of thin air, considering we don’t already have enough of them for those who are accomplished?

It seems like your plan would just result in further grade inflation for the existing opportunities.

In other words, a lot of bother and expense for nothing.

[Big Brother]

We should bring back corporal punishment in schools. Better to have supervised use by teachers than to have parents slapping children.

Then we should bring in sticks for bad teachers and carrots for good ones.

Left & unions will fight both. But they've been holding back education sector for too long. Time to give parents control of policy.

[TropicalCandy]

We should bring back corporal punishment in schools. Better to have supervised use by teachers than to have parents slapping children.

Then we should bring in sticks for bad teachers and carrots for good ones.

Left & unions will fight both. But they've been holding back education sector for too long. Time to give parents control of policy.

You want state sanctioned child abuse? and you DON'T think that will lead to a new generation of people with social problems and bad attitudes in work years later etc resenting all authority figures?

Id prefer higher standards being expected academically, rather than shoving the problem cases into 'special' and foundation classes or down the back of the room they ought to expect the most from students and instil in them the idea that they are perfectly capable of high standards, not to just expect to fail because thats the attitude they got at home from their parents.

Teachers might disagree with me on this but I think there should be one common level instead of H, O and foundation, I was put into an O level class for Irish and it was the 'lets give up on these guys' class, there was no effort made at all, it was the resignation level.

[paulp]

Pat, what would you be hoping to achieve with such an endeavour? Like, what’s your big picture?

Do you really think that not being to the top of some academic league is one of our more pressing national problems?

Pat, Ireland is a country that isn’t next or near able to provide opportunities for all it’s academically accomplished young people. I’ve read that there are 40,000 Irish people on the dole who have a degree, not to mention the tens of thousands of others who have emigrated.

So Pat, according to you, we boost academic standards higher, then what? Are opportunities to appear out of thin air, considering we don’t already have enough of them for those who are accomplished?

It seems like your plan would just result in further grade inflation for the existing opportunities.

In other words, a lot of bother and expense for nothing.

Oh

my

God

[Fides]

Id prefer higher standards being expected academically, rather than shoving the problem cases into 'special' and foundation classes or down the back of the room they ought to expect the most from students and instil in them the idea that they are perfectly capable of high standards, not to just expect to fail because thats the attitude they got at home from their parents.

Are you not then allowing the disruptive pupil mess up whatever educational chances the others have? Ask the teachers on here how a small number of unruly pupils can ruin it for everyone else.

[paulp]

Evidence of educational failure in secondary schools in low income and socially excluded areas in the UK and the USA is so persistent that it is almost a law of socioeconomics. Ireland isn't exempt from the trend,judging by the drop in the latest PISA international ratings for our teenagers.

Occasionally a success story of educational reform in some schools holds out hope of systemic improvement. The Daily Telegraph February 7th article "This quiet disciplinarian has something to shout about" (no link yet) describes how a headteacher turned around two very troubled schools,one of which had the lowest GCSE achievement in its West London borough at only 32% of pupils gaining 5 A to C grades.

Quote:

-"...a refusal to condone disruptive behaviour."
-"...pupils here come from troubled backgrounds...does not mean allowing them to disrupt their own and others' chances of learning."
-"...those who can't settle to lessons are channeled into a learning support unit...(in the early months there were,he admits,high levels of exclusions)...where they receive intense tuition away from fellow pupils before being gradually reintroduced into the mainstream."
-"Underperforming teachers (a total of 18 out of 60) have been encouraged to move on."
-"Attendance is high" at after-school clubs and Saturday school."

An interesting observation in the article is that "The Ofsted chief,Sir Michael Wilshaw,last week damned more than 5,000 school heads "as not up to the job" and accused them of hiding behind excuses for poor performance." Given England's roughly 54 million population,that would be equivalent to over 370 heads in Ireland but let's hope Irish heads are better.

In any field, you will have exceptional people performing substantially above average in very demanding conditions.
This example is no different and doesn't excuse structural problems in the educational system.

Maybe it shows another way to address problems in the system , eg. give more support and training to the school principles, helping them to achieve more for their school with same resources.

[TropicalCandy]

Are you not then allowing the disruptive pupil mess up whatever educational chances the others have? Ask the teachers on here how a small number of unruly pupils can ruin it for everyone else.

I don't need to ask I know, but you can't just take a chunk of the class and toss them aside. They subconciously assimilate the idea that they are secondary trash the school does not care about and it feeds into a general chip on their shoulder about the main body of society they take into their lives when they quit after JC level and the earlier you leave school the more a chance you become a career criminal (60percent + of M.Joy inmates left at junior cert or before)


We need to expect high standards from everyone, if we expect it from them it will add to their self respect cos they'll see we beleive they can do it. If instead they internalize the idea that we beleive they're just useless thickos that have to be quarintined from the smart kids that will not only make them think of themselves as failures (so they wont try hard, assuming they'll fail, and it will thus become a self fulfilling prophecy, but they will develop a bitter chip on their shoulder towards society life long.



I hate these stupid, dumb, willfully ignorant cheap beer mat soloutions like ''ZERO TOLERANCE!!!'' or ''BRING BACK CORPORAL PUNISHMENT'' real world soloutions don't fit on a beer mat they are more complex and nuanced.

[noodles]

We had that system before. All power was given to the principals and you had students expelled for refusing to cut their hair and clashing with the principal over uniforms.

There certainly needs to be a way to remove the most disruptive students from schools but the question is, is it the bottom .5% or the bottom 2% and where do you put these students.

We are now proposing to to not jail criminals for minor crimes, we have to have a costly court case to decide to lock someone up for a crime.

Why is it acceptable to deny someone a mainstream education because of a clash with one or more teachers of questionable ability.