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the government has targets for 5yr olds
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4946880.stm
and they wonder why this country's education system is up the creak with attitudes like this
and they wonder why this country's education system is up the creak with attitudes like this
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exactly you cant measure a 5 year olds developement, unless they are SEVERELY behind or ahead, which is normally due to body conditions more than anything else
I agree... most of geniuses in this world sucked at school when they were young... not talking about autistics... what kids are at 5 is not what they are going to be when they are grow up... maybe if the kids are not at the level they expect at 5 it's because the school suck and not because the kids aint right...
that does it far better by any test or whatever....kids are only just entering school at 5 - so what good is it to assess them before they've even been at school a year?
kids get tested too much as it is
Well, isn't that part of the point of the tests, not just to assess the child's natural aptitude, but to see whether they are/have been recieving appropriate education to best nurture that? And to whoever said you cna't measure a child's development at 5, er, yes you can!
The 11 plus is already too much IMO.
Totalitarianism here we come! Yipee can't wait. :yippe:
Personally I don't disagree with the target, at the end of the day there are a lot of parents from socially deprived backgrounds who just don't know what is best for their child in terms of social development and education. Sure, children should be allowed to be children, but I think most parents would want to take advantage of any opportunities for their children. It doesn't seem fair to me that middle class families who are well-educated with lots of disposable income have better opportunities for their children than those that aren't lucky enough to be in that sort of position.
where did I say you couldn't? where did I say tests were wrong? Was just saying that some results of those kids might not be their faults but schools one and that they are not relevant to what the kids will trun up when grown-up...
Yep, that I agree with...
so say you have a kid from a poor family and a kid from a rich one - do you really think wealth is going to make a significant difference in the intelligence between them at the age of 5? let me tell you something - it won't. I've come from a poor background - we lived outside the system so my parents didn't work, no benefits or help from the state, living in caravans and tents at one point.......it had absolutely no bearing on my intelligence, because i had good parents.........these tests will be completely pointless because all they'll do is instill this fucked up mentality into kids at an even younger age that they are all competing against each other, and on some level that creates a class gap from the beginning, those who do better in tests will think they are better than the other kids, and those who fail some arbitrary measure of intelligence will think they're dumb and doomed to failure in life........it's utter bollocks.
So, do you think that earlier testing leads to earlier dejection with education? I don't think it is testing per se that causes the problems though. I have assesments of pre-school stages and they are simply a checklist of what has been achieved, arranged by expected/usual achievement order and age- what is the harm? There are positives to this though. My bessie mate's daughter was assessed early (on school entry) and has been allocated extra funding for a learning assistant, which means she is able to stay with her peers rather than being held back or repeating a year. For other children, the assessment will place them with others of similar abilities to ensure they are being stretched and stimulated.
Also, it hasn't been highly advertised but you don't actually HAVE to send your kids to school from the age of five in this country either. The truth is, you don't have to send them at all. You can register them from the academic year they turn five, so if you want to wait untill they're seven, do. The LEA has a duty to ensure all the children in its area are educated but this doesn't mean they have to be receiving any formal schooling at all, or any tests, or following the national curriculum.
However, at the age of five I think it has more to do with how much time is spent at the school and there is evidence that sending a child to playgroups helps to nurture intelligence.
As for the tests, I actually am for them (for once) because maybe learning difficulties can be picked up from an earlier age and if a child is not as confident, or appears to be having difficulties they can be looked after better because the teachers will be more aware of it.
It doesn't necessarily make a bigger difference to their intelligence, but what I'm saying is they will have more opportunities to be taken different places, to have more experiences etc. I see plenty of examples everyday of young single mums smacking and screaming at their children in the high street, smoking around their kids and taking them to the pub - this isn't necessarily what everyone who doesn't have much money or is a single parent does, but nonetheless it can't be denied that there are thousands of parents out there who do not really know what is best for the children in terms of social development, diet, everything. I don't think its fair that some kids get to grow up being taken interesting places at weekends, having lots of valuable experiences, while others don't get such opportunities. Programs like Surestart are invaluble as far as I'm concerned.
You are lucky that you have good parents but many children aren't as lucky, not because their parents don't love or care about them but simply because they are in difficult situations and genuinely do not know what to do to help their kids along.
And once again I repeat - nowhere in the article does it say ANYTHING about giving five year olds tests - it distinctly says that is NOT going to happen! Even if they did give the kids tests, so what? At the end of the day I would rather a teacher know exactly where my child is at developmentally, so the they can be taught according to their abilities and not just shoved in a class of 35 children where everyone is taught the same stuff at the same level - everyone is an individual and I don't see a problem with education being tailored to suit that fact.
I know they do that in Sweden, but in France for example, school starts at 3.
and in France they don't finish school round 3pm either...
As a nation we are lucky because a considerable amount of effort is spent on understanding difficulties children might have educationally or behaviourally.
have you noticed the more we test children the less curious and interested in education they become, though it is in the governments interest to produce a large number of idiots as they're easier to manipulate
not particularly. a lot of this 'testing' comes from observation in a school environment so the younger kids, in particular, would have no notion that they were being assessed. I don't think that in itself would cause kids to lose interest in education as such, some are just not that interested in learning full stop and that is their prerogative but the thought of kids leaving school with very little literacy and numeracy skills terrifies me, I mean with just the beaucracy of everyday modern life requires at least a basic level of skills for survival. But, in a large number of cases these problems can be if not solved, eased.
Im not quite sure what you mean by the 'idiots'!
ive seen quite a few people at school who are showing signs of mild learning difficulties, but they just get labelled as not being that bright
my old school labelled my brother as being disruptive and unco-operative until he was diagnosed with aspergers, as soon as he was they were shrowding him with help.
i see where you are coming from, and im glad your brother is receiving support now.
However, it is a very complicated issue as im sure you know. For every child that is correctly diagnosed with a behavioural or educational difficulty you get some where the parent is up-in-arms about the fact their child is not behaving or achieving the way they expect to and they believe the child to have a difficulty which they just don't have . Like if a child maybe has emphatic, social, behavioural, phobia or obsesssion issues, the buzzwords at the moment seem to be "autism" or OCD, rather than focussing on the fact that children are fallible human beings just as adults are and have their strange quirks which amount to individuality or social problems which are not necessarily an educational issue. That is why diagnosis early on is good because it can focus on problems early on before they get too far behind, and to avoid putting labels on some children which are not valid and could ultimtely damage their self esteem and unnecessarily damage their potential achievements.