The Virtual Pub
Come Inside... => The Commons => Topic started by: Nick on August 26, 2010, 06:30:45 PM
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My local rag, and doubtless yours too, contains details this week of the fantastic success rates of A level students at your local schools. Near 100% in most cases I am sure.
I learnt yesterday that a government report into this phenomenon is being suppressed. FoI requests are in eveilgrin:
The crux is in the difference between success rates and achievement rates!!
Success rates relate to those who took the exams and passed. Achievement rates relate to those who embarked on the 2 year course but dropped out, failed at AS, were advised to leave or just got booted.
It seems that 100% success rates frequently translate (especially in small school SIxth Forms) into 25% achievement rates whistle:
A question worth asking of skools by those of you with children of the appropriate age, I think.........
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rubschin:
Isn't that figure already calculable from the number of pupils in the year and the number who took the exam and passed?
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1. Two year courses
2. Schools don't release figures of those who started and those who finished
3. And certainly not in self-important press releases
One local school reports 46 successful A level pupils in about 14 subjects!! Very small (and expensive groups methinks)
Best results are from large SIxth Form COlleges (but they won't tell you that, it's a secret)
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I bow to your superior knowledge.
I never doubted the figure are massaged. As soon as targets are set that's what happens.
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Schools enjoy a massive premium in cash terms on 6th form students which they then use to cross subsidise the lower school. Now thay also have an incentive to get success rates. Get them in for one year, get the cash and then shed those who won't "succeed". Simples.
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We realised that was going on as the numbers in the THW's various classes fell as the year progressed.
And yes the published results show only the numbers who sat the exams and the % of As,Bs,Cs etc gained in each subject. Nowhere do they say how many started the course. Only how many reached the end of it.
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You see Uncle? BASTARDS cussing:
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It always seemed obvious to me that schools don't enter pupils in exams that they are certain to fail. It would ruin their scores. I'll be interested in finding the dropout rate at the sprogs school but I do believe (without boasting) that my two will do well and the smaller the class the better for them. Selfish maybe but that's how you have to be.
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Optimum number for an A level group is 12-15. As they get smaller results decline
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THW's Geology result is testament to that. Sept 2009 there were 20 of them in it. By the time of the exam the class was down to 5 and field trips were cancelled as "uneconomic". Of the 5 1 got a B, 1 got a C and 2 got U ..... 1 failed to show up as he was in hosp recovering from an ecstasy od.
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Still, the bastard school will enter 3 and get 100% success. Or 15% achievement whistle:
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How can you teach Geology without field trips? I would have been kicking up a fuss and a half.
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You spend the whole term teaching the Volcano Module and use You Tube a lot.
And you can kick up all the stink you like but (1) Your child will not thank you for it (2) The School will simply cancel the course as "not viable" and (3) You will not win as once they are past 16 the school will point out that the your child is "post compulsory" and is there at the School's whim so they can say "Sorry but the student is not matching the required standard" and there is fvck all you can do about it as they have no legal responsibility to teach them anymore.
(3) is the usual way they get rid of students they don't want. Once the pupil has started the course the school/college gets the money for the year. IF THEY THEN DUMP THE KID THEY DO NOT HAVE TO PAY IT BACK.
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Snoopy is correct, regrettably.
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I called my local lyeing bastards just now and asked about their "Achievement rates". SHe gave me success rates. I explained the difference.
SHe hung up!
eveilgrin:
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Well ring her back!
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Yesterday a friend of Minor's came for the day. He attends the same High School as the THW and where Minor would have gone had we not decided to home educate.
The lad was telling me that last term, as he was leaving a classroom to go to his next lesson, the teacher called him back and praised him for a piece of work he had handed in. "The best piece of work you have done" she said. This delay meant that he was a couple of minutes catching up with his classmates and he was therefore the last to enter the next class where upon the Teacher promptly awarded him a lunchtime detention for being late in class. He explained where he had been and was given another detention to be served the following day for answering back. The detention issuing tyrant also told him he should have asked the previous teacher who had caused the delay for an "Excuse Note".
This lad, a most likeable and very polite, quiet boy, is now so disillusioned with the whole place he says he is just not going to try any more. In his words "There is no pleasing them so I'll just serve out my time until I can leave".
What an indictment of that school.
When SWWLTBO took him home last night she discussed this and home education with the lad's mother (who, like SWWLTBO, is a college lecturer) and discovered that the mother has had several blazing rows with the school over various matters and they all turn out to be over the same issues and the same members of staff that we have been fighting the school about for 6 years. They (the two wimmin) are thinking about joining forces to home educate all children belonging to both families. I am charged with looking into the legal aspects of this plan.
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Bastards!
YOu are no doubt familiar with this site
http://www.education-otherwise.org.uk/legal.htm (http://www.education-otherwise.org.uk/legal.htm)
Incredibly the Welsh Guidelines page is fooking password protected!! Why?
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Thanks Nick ~ yes we are aware of the rules on Home Educating our own kids. The issue that needs to be resolved is whether by joining forces and delivering lessons to all kids in each other's homes (The other mum is a science/maths specialist whereas SWWLTBO is English/History etc) we will be deemed to have a "school" or be "child minding" with all that demands in terms of H&S and the like. Fortunately we are all CRB checked anyway ~ tho' I may need to update mine as I think it has lapsed ~ but both mums need it for their jobs anyway.
You will recall the problems that two Police wimmin had with their local authority when they swapped child care as they worked on opposing shifts. Therein may lie a problem for us in educating other people's children along with our own. No money was involved with the copperettes but the Social Services started screaming about them not being registered as child minders, failing to observe H&S rools (like not being allowed to have a washing machine in your kitchen if you are preparing other people's childrens meals there ~ which is one of the daftest pieces of legislation ever) etc.
We shall see how it pans out.
PS As for the pass-wording of parts of the Welsh Assembly web-site. They do this a lot.
Same as they don't have numbers or names on many of their houses in this area. I once asked a local why this was .... I had experienced a lot of trouble locating his house .... In a broad Welsh accent he said "Well boy ~ if I wanted you to know where I lived I'd bloody tell you but since I don't give a fvck why should I advertise it? The Postman knows where it is and so do my friends"
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(like not being allowed to have a washing machine in your kitchen if you are preparing other people's childrens meals there
whacky115