You make some excellent points on schools and the way they educate

Comment on Conservative Policies : Conservative Schools Policy by David.

You make some excellent points on schools and the way they educate our children.

Because of the way school failed me** (under a Conservative government) when I was younger we decided to home educate our children, to provide them with a better education. There were other reasons to home educate, but good education was the primary reason.

** Despite the failures on the part of the schools and the education system, as an adult I went back into education and eventually went to University to study genetics. Therefore I was capable of achieving University level, but the school system failed me.

We home educated our eldest son from birth to 16, currently (18 years old) at University studying computer sciences. Second eldest son, currently at school (started age 15) and we consider what he’d achieved before going to school as a failure on our part. And our youngest son (13) still home educated and doing very well (should do at least as well as his eldest brother).

A two out of three success rate based on the level of education WE expect our children to achieve as home educated children isn’t too bad (we had one difficult child when it came to education).

Our second eldest son (who isn’t very interested in education, hence school at 15) is at a local comprehensive school (not a very good one) and the way they have talked about him you’d think he was a bloody genius!

They are teaching kids at GCSE level things I was learning at 12 years old in a normal comprehensive school and remember I failed at school (pre 16 years old).

The education system is not even close to what I’d consider fit for purpose. Watched a recent program on mathematics in schools (Channel 4 I think) and was shocked that 10 year old kids couldn’t add

1/2 + 1/4

Even a poorly educated child should know that’s 3/4s even without understanding the maths involved. If you have kids ask them the above question and please post the results and your kids age.

What was worse, the teachers were given the same test and they were generally not fit to teach maths to anyone!

What chance do children have in school if the teachers don’t understand basic maths? The 1/2 + 1/4 question stumped many teachers!!!

I could not agree more with you on the point new concepts need to be practiced. As home educators we’ve struggled for years trying to find educational resources that provide lots of practice questions. You’d think maths would be the easiest one to find such material, but the vast majority of school type books are no more than revision aids with a few example questions.

For the brain to learn new things the pathways in the brain need to be reinforced with lots of practice. The old saying practice makes perfect is true. You can teach a child a new maths concept every day, but if they don’t practice the concepts there’s no reinforcement of those new pathways and the learnt concept can be easily lost.

I was good at maths at school up until things went wrong (I was 14 when things went wrong). Third year exams I had the highest maths exam results in the school, 2 years later (at another school after missing over a year and spending 2 months in a young offenders institute) I only managed a CSE grade 2 in Maths (barely went to school after 14). Interestingly at 15 in a detention centre I knew more maths than the teacher in the kids prison!

When I went to school I remember getting reams of practice questions to do in maths (I enjoyed it as well). The maths teacher (I had a really good one when I was 13-14) would give loads of practice questions.

Does anyone else around 40 years old remember the practice booklets we used to get? They were large A4 booklets (must have been 30+ pages each) filled with loads of question on all sorts of stuff, I remember them from when I was under 10 years old. Do kids today still get that sort of practice booklets?

Now as you say the emphasis is on cramming in as much as possible, not making sure the kids actually understand and retain the skills covered. From my perspective a young child is better off understanding how to do basic arithmetic (+, -, x and /) extremely well than covering lots of maths concepts, but never practicing them so never fully understanding them and not being good at basic arithmetic.

Also looking at the current maths syllabus I’ve noticed a tendency to use jargon to describe maths concepts instead of what we called them when I was young. A simple one would be asking for the product or sum of a number instead of asking the student to add or multiply the numbers. Might sound good when a school says the children have learnt to sum integers today to a parent, but it’s got to be more confusing to the kids using this type of jargon.

I’m good at maths and when I look through maths books today I’m constantly asking what’s that word mean again to my 13 year old son!

David