To expect my grandchildren to be given a good education?

I truly envy you harrigran I would give anything to be in the position to afford a decent education for my grandchildren . Chatting to my 2 granddaughters on the telephone tonight ( they would normally be here but I have to go to an emergency hospital appointment with my mum early in the morning) made me feel quite tearful. The oldest (7) confirmed that she was definitely going to be a vet. Her daddy has just had an operation on his hand and she is fascinated by the stitches, but admitted that she likes animals more than humans. Her little sister (5) butting in said " yes grandma but I will be a nurse and I will look after daddy's hand even better, and I can already do bandages really good".

.....and they say money can't buy happiness.

But when looking at Finland people forget to mention one key fact that I think is every bit as important as good teaching - small schools. the average secondary school has fewer than 200 pupils. Primary schools are smaller.

Finnish children attend schools where all the teachers know who they are and they know who most of their fellow pupils are and all of their teachers. They are part of a small community and can be seen and appreciated as individuals and the security and confidence that gives must enhance learning

We warehouse children of all ages into enormous schools where children cannot even know every child in their year group let alone in the school. In those circumstances teachers can only know those they teach or tutor but very few beyond that. British Schools are like towns, you may know your neighbours but not people living three streets away. In Finland, schools are like villages, where you know everybody.

Where we are, describing a school as crap is almost a compliment. I was lucky I was able to remove my children to private schools in the next city.

If you are going to improve something you need to know what good practice and good results look like, hence the need for a framework.
School improvement involves finding the right school leaders from an ever diminishing pool (recruitment and retention is a huge problem especially in challenging catchment areas) improving the quality of teaching and governance and having good structures in place for assessment, behaviour management etc etc
Finland comes out top of the national tables over and over again. They have set out what they wanted to achieve, recruited the top 10% of graduates as teachers and have had an uninterrupted policy for school improvement for forty years. I don't think I need to spell out how this is different from England.
I am trying to help Gillybob by getting a clear picture of the issues in the school and suggesting what she can actually do to try and improve things. I would gently suggest that is more helpful than describing the school as crap.

"part of a complex regulated framework of accountability"

and

"but school improvement is complex and a long hard road"

How does this help "gillybob" and her grandchildren ... how long must they wait?

I'm not naive and have would never advocate fairy dust.

Yes, to improve the school, you have to improve the quality of teaching which either means lots of coaching etc for existing staff or replacing them. You cannot just sack em if they are doing "satisfactory" lessons however much you want them to do good or better ones. And even if they go, you may struggle to find someone better to replace them.

Yes it does matter, Riverwalk, because it decides what measures are put in place. It is part of a complex, regulated framework of accountability; if you are interested, you will find details on the Ofsted site.
I cannot see how setting up a Free school which may have unqualified and untrained teachers will help. I think we have all seen the consequences of that in Derby this week.
If you look at the Ofsted bulletin that I posted up thread, you will see that a minority of schools fall into the group that is not "outstanding" or "good". Obviously one failing school is one too many, there is no place for complacency, but school improvement is complex and a long hard road.
Thinking that someone can sprinkle fairy dust and improve a school overnight is naive and not very helpful.

Crap is a generalisation, Riverwalk. The labels indicate the depth of the doo-doo, and how much help the inspector thinks the staff will need to shovel it up.

Mamie does it really matter if the school is classified as "requires improvement" rather than "special measures"?

(From where do they create these obscure phrases? )

Surely both indicate that the school is crap!

Thanks Gillybob, so it is a school that "requires improvement" rather than special measures.
It sounds as if staffing may be a major problem. It is quite usual to have split classes (my own GD's outstanding school has them), but if you have high turnover of staff and supply teachers then it obviously doesn't make it any easier for them. I think as the support team has been in and has now left, then it is really important to put your concerns in writing, factually and unemotionally, and with lots of evidence, such as the homework story. If it is a Local Authority school, copy the letter to them.
If you can't move her then I think that is the most you can do for now, apart from continuing to support her reading, taking her on educational visits etc
Very hard, I know.

Sad state of affairs gillybob - no wonder parents want to set up Free Schools.

It might be as well to register with the over-subscribed school - it does no harm to be on the waiting list.

Your granddaughter has as much right to attend that school as anyone else, it's publicly-funded.

Hi Riverwalk Their school is quite new (2011) and is the result of the amalgamation of the three primary schools that were within reasonable distance. There is one other school which is an over subscribed Catholic school for which I understand (having spoke to their secretary) there is a very large waiting list. So no chance to change schools.

gillybob I hate to be obvious and apologise if you've already given a reason but why can't you change schools?

I appreciate that that is not an easy thing to do because of availability, journey time, etc. but your grandchild's school does sounds appalling.

Thanks again everyone, your support and advice is (as usual) priceless.

Mishap Full time home schooling not appropriate. Both my son and DIL work full time (my DIL does shiftwork too). Likewise grandparents on both sides. Even if things were different I am not sure whether this would be appropriate for them as I think it is important for children to be taught alongside other children as it helps them to become more social.

Mamie After a poor Ofsted report the school was appointed with a small team who worked alongside the existing head. The report was as follows;

Acheivement of Pupils- 3 - Requires improvement
Quality of Teaching - 3 - Requires improvement
Leadership and Management - 3 - Requires improvement
Behaviour and Safety of pupils - 2 - Good

The school is a larger than average sized primary school.
The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium is well above average.
The proportion of pupils with special needs is above average.
The inspectors note that staff changes and absences are well above average.

I am told that the "team" have now left.

As I mentioned in an earlier post several of their most long standing teachers left during the 6 weeks holiday meaning that half the staff are now supply teachers. My 5 year old grandaughter has had 2 since September. I don't mean to sound awful but just talking to her current teacher makes me wonder if they are now trawling the bottom of the barrel. By the way still no reading book vampirequeen despite me asking for one on Tuesday and my grandaughters little note.

Lastly (for now) because of the lack of teachers and high proportion of children in given age groups. There are many children in split classes. I wonder how a good teacher could teach 24 year 2's and 7 year 1's as in my grandaughters class (she is year 1 in a year 2 class) never mind one who isn't so good.

Yes, pre-inspection stress is and always has been a problem. I remember one teacher who said that when Ofsted arrived they had been expecting monsters and had been amazed by the informed, courteous people who came in, knew what they were doing and told it how it was. I have had teachers who have told me that nobody had ever told them how well they were doing until Ofsted came. You don't tend to read those stories. Equally, some people have had a very bruising experience and that is hard. I think an aura has built up around Ofsted which has partly come from schools, governors, the government of the day, the press and some of the inspectors, especially the pronouncements of certain chief inspectors.
It is interesting to view the Ofsted bulletin above in the light of the "everything is getting worse and Ofsted is getting harder" stories.
In my experience good schools manage the experience well and minimise the stress, but it is still a difficult and exhausting experience for everybody. Nobody likes criticism.
Deserving, it is a little hard to unpick what you mean, but if you are talking about a child with special needs getting one to one support from a teaching assistant, then I think most parents would think that is a good thing.

Wonderful l, I didn't realise how well we were doing,I was blinded by the complaints from people that are not aware of the statistics, and confused by the stories of children leaving school unable to read.
Forget the cant, what's wrong with rote? As has been said, stream by ability,(and that includes the teachers) not by age. Something I heard, a child was having slight problems and was "awarded" a helper in class. All very well father said but why is the , supposedly trained qualified teacher, teaching the more able, getting them farther ahead, when an untrained person was teaching his child.

That's a very informative post. Mamie. As a governor, I saw the stress that staff underwent in the run-up to an Ofsted inspection; I also saw the relief when a favourable report was received. Teachers very rarely felt aggrieved at their judgements and constructive advice was generally acted upon successfully - I am thinking of a maths department that was 'letting the side down' and which, within a few years, was one of the most outstanding in the school. However, the matter of pre-inspection stress is hard to overlook.

These are the quarterly statistics from Ofsted.
"Key findings for the latest official statistics: April to June 2013
Of the inspected open schools over three quarters (78%, 16,652) are currently judged to be good or outstanding.
There has been a nine percentage point increase since August 2012 in the percentage of schools judged at their most recent inspection to be good or outstanding. This means over 5.6 million pupils are receiving a good or outstanding standard of education, over 600,000 more than in August 2012.
The increase of nine percentage points in the proportion of schools judged to be good or outstanding at their most recent inspection represents a much more rapid improvement than that seen in previous years.
The East of England has improved the least since August 2012 (six percentage points) and now has the lowest percentage of schools judged as good or outstanding of all the regions (72%). The West Midlands showed the highest increase (11%) alongside the North East.
A third (7,179) of all open schools have been inspected under section 5 of the Education Act 2005 and their reports published since the introduction of the revised school inspection framework at the beginning of the academic year (September 2012).
In total, 7,226 section 5 inspections were conducted in the 2012/13 academic year to June 2013 and published by August 2013. Of these, 39% improved (2,789) since their last inspection, 41% remained the same (2,945) and 18% declined (1,314). In the 2011/12 academic year 32% of schools inspected improved.
During the latest quarter, the overall number of schools in a category of concern has decreased by 60.
The number of monitoring inspections (927) has increased by 16% compared to the previous quarter (798). This is largely due to an increase in the number of requires improvement monitoring inspections."

Absolutely not hijacking your thread though Gillybob. This doesn't make what is happening to your grandchildren right. It is just intended to give a bit of perspective.

I think people need to think a bit before making too many sweeping judgements. This is clearly a school with problems, given what Gillybob says about staff turnover and split classes. I assume that it has had an Ofsted report that has identified these problems and required an action plan. If it is an LA school then advisers will be involved, although staff in LAs have suffered huge cutbacks and many skilled and experienced people have gone because of funding cuts.
I do find it a touch ironic that people on other threads pile in to criticise Ofsted, local advisers and the publication of progress data and then fail to recognise that it is these structures for accountability that bring things to light.
This is clearly an unsatisfactory situation for Gillybob's grandchildren and a clear and factual letter, setting out evidence of the impact on the children will help those working to put things right.

My grandson was getting very bored last year and kept complaining that he already knew everything they were doing (possible exaggeration on his part!" His teacher complained that he always seemed to be the centre of attention in the class and my daughter was tempted to say "Perhaps he's just more interesting than you!"
Fortunately he seems to be finding this year more interesting.

Just a quick reply (for now) as have a very busy day ahead. Thank you all so much for your very interesting and helpful replies. I will be looking at things in more detail tonight/tomorrow. Have a lovely day everyone and thanks again.

and people are surprised that education levels in the UK are so low!

If she's not doing guided reading go into the school and raise holy hell because that's the only time formal reading teaching takes place.

Find out if guided reading is taking place every day and what her reading level is. If she is doing guided reading join the local library if you haven't already and take books from there. Speak to the librarian as she/he will be able to help you choose.

I know the teacher should be sending books home but if she's not you can bypass that bit and do it yourself.

Gillybob

You are in a similar situation to my family.

Prior to starting school we spent a lot of time with our GD, who is 7 years old by coincidence. She was no genius by any stretch of the imagination, don't get me wrong, simply able to read quite well, her vocabulary is brilliant and she could do simple sums. She is funny and has a kind nature.

We had taught her through play and written sums to add using the conventional method of say 10+
4
14
The school told us to stop immediately as they will not use that method of adding until she is 8!. She is 7 and her maths is still similar to 6 + 4= 10. She has moved class again this September and is not at all happy. She is loosing a spark and says her teacher is boring and shouts a lot. She brings home reading books similar to the ones she had when she started school.

Perhaps we have been wrong, I don't know? It is very difficult to strike the right balance isn't it. You don't want to upset the school but you equally don't want to see your children getting poor teaching.