Keep politicians out of education.

I don't think it is broke. I think steady sustained pressure on schools to improve key outcomes is a better way for politicians to hold them to account than tinkering with details like should they learn poems or not. Education has improved a lot in this country in the last 10 years. It is difficult to make fair comparisons when the goal posts are continually moved. Sometimes it feels like you are busy trying to play soccer successfully and the minister suddenly announces that you are playing rugby.
The statistical measures that schools are judged by seem to change nearly every year and that has many knock on effects I can assure you. Not to mention clouding the issue of how well schools are doing.
The general public would be amazed to see the mountains of statistics that the dept of education produce for every school. Trouble is they take about 6 months to do them, so you get them half way through the next school year, by which time the goalposts have usually been adjusted.

Jess and Mamie, I'm glad to see you setting the record straight and I would like to suggest that any of you who take such a bleak view of education as does Poggs, should volunteer to become school governors. It should be possible to be accepted as a community governor. I was a governor for more than twenty years and saw nothing but improvements in standards under several very competent and hard-working head teachers.

The majority of schools deliver good education to children! But that does not make a good headline or political soundbite!

I have said before: all teachers want the children in their school to do well! They work hard to do this. My own children& their pals (and now grandchildren) attended ordinary state schools in a mixed socio-economic area, attained good exam results and had a good time too. Many , inc my two, went on to university and gained good degrees. As a teacher in some very 'poor' areas of London I with my colleagues worked very hard to make sure children learned to read , write and become numerate. However teachers can only do part of the education job and some 'failures' are not the result of poor teaching /schools.. sometimes it is all the other influences on a child /young person.

Annobel Jess Mamie and nanaej thanks, just thanks!

In my time as a school governor - just over 20 years - there were eleven secretaries of state for education. Each attempted to put his (or her) own stamp on the system for good (?) or ill, with the possible exception of Estelle Morris. Such ego-tripping can't be good for children or teachers.

My G.D. is six this week. She does not do any languages, she does not do times tables and I am worried her reading and writing skills are not as good as her mothers were at the same age. Now I know that those of you on gransnet will be thinking, perhaps she is a little slow, have dislexia or something wrong with her. That has been a concern so I asked her classmates parents and they say their children are in the same position. So basically if you are in a school of the quality all of your children are in, well done and lucky for you. Not all children are getting the same chances, hence the lowering of our place in the world ranking and report after report that is proving there is something going wrong and needs looking at. Not for you obviously but don't deprive my G.D. of getting a better education than she is.

I think there should be some acceptance that there are good and bad schools and I can only speak the truth as I find it.

Fascinating to read all your responses and to see what a lot of good sense there is among us grans. But j04 made me giggle. I certainly don't live in a cosy middle class world, j04. I grew up in Tooting in the thirties and forties and taught English and Drama from 1952 to 1985 mostly in London comprehensives, some of them pretty tough, and my husband taught in a London primary, which certainly wasn't middle class. But my circle also included people like Leila Berg, Mike Duane, A S Neill, Sheila Kitzinger and others in the NCT as well as people with experience of the Peckham Health Experiment, all of whom were knowledgeable about the natural process by which we all learn and the factors that were either helpful to it or so adverse that they could stop it from functioning at all.

POGS as your GD has a summer birthday she will have been at a disadvantage, starting school when only just four. Two of my GSs were in the same position, July and August babies respectively. The first had already a big sister in the same infant school which I think was an advantage to him. He is also big for his age so had no problem fitting in size-wise. Several of his pre-school mates were also in the same year group. Now in year 3, he is well ahead of the expected levels in every subject - well, maybe not PE - and a very confident and opinionated young man with an extraordinary vocabulary, gleaned from the immortal Lisa Simpson!
The other GS had few of these advantages, except height. He is also deaf in one ear and the local authority had to make the teacher take note of this disability. Once he got a hearing aid he made much better progress. His reading has come on by leaps and bounds since he turned six and he can now tackle almost anything; his number work is good and he is having a story included in a booklet of the children's stories. He is very good at drawing and makes fabulous designs using Lego and other media. I hope his progress continues in Y3. Younger brother, an assertive character, will enter the infant school this September, but he is far more ready for it than his brother was, having a December birthday. Just a few months makes a big difference at this stage.
So POGS, I wouldn't worry about your GD's progress yet. It's not yet common for children at her stage to have modern language lessons and what they do in Y1 tends to be pre-reading phonics exercises. What is consoling is that 'summer babies' can and do catch up, especially with good home encouragement. If parents are concerned about a child's progress, they can always go and talk to the teacher at parents' evening.

First POGS, I would say that I would not expect a six year old to learn times tables. She will be counting in twos and fives I expect, but the learning of tables by chanting started in Y3 for my eldest GD. Again, I wouldn't expect her to learn a foreign language; it is great when they can, my six-year-old grandaughter does it at a lunchtime club and it is very expensive, but she loves it so much my daughter is finding the money. It is hard to judge the progress in reading and maths against our own children, my feeling is that my elder grandaughter is a bit slower than her Mum was and the younger is much further on, but six is very early to make judgements.
As a former inspector of schools, I am well aware that some schools are better than others and some need to improve (I worked for many years at the sharp end of that), but I simply don't recognise the picture painted by the present government. I have seen the improvement in primary schools with my own eyes and I think the statistics are used negatively and are frequently misleading. The data from international comparisons is, frankly, not very robust and as we have said many times on here, employers have been complaining about school leavers for at least a hundred years. I have absolutely no confidence in the knowledge and judgements of the current crop of ministers, I am afraid. I honestly don't know if they understand that 95% of what they are proposing is or was already in place when they came to power.

Annobel and Mamie - thanks, that information is a relief to me as well, as my GDs are also 6 this summer, and I'd forgotten about the disadvantage school-year-wise.

Think I have spotted who bear is. No prizes for guessing.
I liked your tally of secs of state Annobel - under new labour they were about a year in office each, until Balls arrived and stayed until the election.
They did drive me mad, but they did put a lot more money into education than the previous administration. I fear though we will have one-foot-in-the-fifties Gove for the duration.
POGS the others are right. They do maths a bit differently now and start tables later.

Cari, love them all but the Michael Gove picture is priceless and I can't get it out of my head. Help!

My little grandsons, who will be 4 at the end of August, start school in September. They have been having 15 hours a week 'education' with their qualified childminder, and have been to a few events at their new school. On Sunday they went to a jubilee party there, and lots of 7 and 8 year olds descended on them and their mum, got them to join in games, and generally played with them for the whole afternoon, telling them 'we can't wait till you come to our school - we'll look after you and you'll be our friends.' What a fantastic welcome, initiated by the children. They can't wait to get there now. They have two afternoons there next month, then start 1/2 days for the first fortnight in September. They already have their school bags which they use to go to their childminder, with their lunch and library reading book in there.

I thought I'd prepared my children well for school, but my grandchildren are even better prepared. They can read and write their own names and a few short words, can count up to 12, know what 2 x 2, 3 and 4 make, dress themselves and do their shoes, and are soaking up learning like crazy. They know a few Spanish and French words and can sing all of Frere Jacques. They are becoming more skilled in socialising with children of their age. For the youngest children in the class, we have no concerns - they'll be fine.

Thanx for the link Cari ...it was the captions that often 'made' the image!!

when, your GSs are very fortunate in being so well prepared for school. Others may not have their advantages. I do feel that schools need to take more note of the difference in maturity between only-just-fours and 'rising fives'.

You're right Annobel. Because they were also premature at birth, we have been thinking about closing that gap in maturity for the last few years. Their little cousins, who were also premature, won't have this issue as they were born in October.

At least Gordon down on the floor, even if he was in a suit.
Wasn't' Bush reading a story to school kids when he heard about the twin towers? Or am I confused.

Yes ..I think he was infront of students ...but not sure of the age group?

George W was looking at a story book about a goat (I forget the title) which the teacher was reading to a group of tinies. He went on looking at the book for some minutes after being informed that the US was under attack.

Well spotted absent

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14662728

I note that one of Gove's proposals is for children to learn science by observing nature and for them not to be taught the scientific method.

I wonder what you all think of that? I also wonder: where the climate change deniers among us taught the scientific method when they were at school?

The scientific method starts with observations of nature. As for whether people who deny climate change were taught the scientific method at school, you'd better ask them, if you can find any. I haven't come across any on gransnet, only some who are sceptical of climate alarmism.

Calling people names does not help any cause.

O for goodness sake Bags I have not called anyone names. If you wish to think of the word denier as a rude name that is your problem.