Polls Apart

The BBC recently published an article which happily repeated without question, various claims of an online poll (ie one where you have no idea who is answering the questions)

This article claimed that that 80% of boys knew that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and that more children want to win a Nobel Prize for Science than win the 'X Factor'.

They may well be disappointed however if it is true that a third of them thought that Isaac Newton discovered fire...

Anyway, the important point is that Primary school kids seem excited by Science whereas Secondary school pupils are not. The reasons for this are simple.

Science in Primary Schools is new and interesting, whereas in Secondary Schools it has become extremely boring, due to a dull syllabus and over zealous Health and Safety rules which put teachers off attempting the more interesting (ie loud) practicals. Combine this with endless preparation for tests and a serious lack of new teachers with an in depth knowledge of their subject and you have a recipe for disaster.

Read More

Langlauf

Sorry I haven't posted for a bit, I've been learning to Cross Country Ski in Seefeld, Austria; the land of Lederhosen. If you have no interest in skiing then look away now.

Like most Brits, I'd never even tried Cross Country; (or 'langlauf' as they call it) always believing the rumours that it was just 'plodding about for old people'.

Now I know differently. It's like your first week of skiing all over again; with all the bruises, falls and sheer fun that this involved. It's like skiing on a clothes prop in a pair of wellington boots.

There's two styles- classic which we tried first, where you shuffle along ready made tracks and skating, which is what you see in the Olympics, where you glide gracefully along outside the tracks, like an ice skater. (Or in my case, you glide along in a stuttering fashion, frantically jabbing both poles into the snow, completely out of sync with your legs until spots start to appear before your eyes). Being British, we obviously didn't even consider taking lessons; with the result that by the first afternoon those who had gone to the Schischule were still walking up and down the beginners field, whereas we were miles away, covered in bruises, upside down with our heads sticking out of a snowdrift.

The two mistakes I made where to assume that the tracks were flat and that controlling the skis would be easy. The reality is very different. The tracks lead you up and up, puffing and panting, before the inevitable descent where you step out of the tracks and try to turn just as if you were on normal skis, before discovering that langlauf skis have no metal edges. As your speed increases, you start frantically snowploughing, which doesn't slow you down that much; then go into full scale panic, stepping about trying to do a Stem Christie turn before accepting the inevitable and desperately hoping to land in a bank of soft snow.

Whilst I admit that it is possible Johann the instructor tells you the secret of how to control the skis in his lessons; as far as I am concerned, you might as well go skiing on two giant sticks of chewing gum.

After a while you do start to get the hang of it though and trekking through the beautiful Alpine scenery on a sunny morning to your planned lunchtime destination is an experience which is hard to beat (You get a map and follow the signs- it's like going out for a walk but with a lot more screaming)

Despite currently walking with a limp as well as being black and blue, I'd heartily recommend it. Oh and try Bratwurst and Germknodel in the Gasthof (but not together)

Read More

Election 2010

It looks like there's going to be lots of arguments about Education in the run up to the election and no doubt both the main parties will be asking for my opinion of their proposals.

David Cameron doesn't want teachers with Thirds, but hasn't realised that you can get a 2:1 'Teaching in Primary schools' Degree without being able to add up, spell or string a sentence together. Labour on the other hand want to assess teachers' empathy, understanding and passion' (by asking them questions on a computer)

The Conservatives say that they want to provide more choice for parents when there are nearly 800 000 spare school places already; Labour are building ever bigger schools, where children can simply get lost in the system.

Neither party has so far come up with any simple, clear proposals on how to improve the thousands of sink schools and the quality of the Edutainment on offer in these places.

At least in Australia, the school battlefields are properly organised.

Read More

Set up your own School

At the moment you can educate your child at home with only the odd visit from the Council to check up on what you are up to, but you can't get together with a group of like minded people, set up your own school and expect the Government to pay for it.

Lots of groups in little villages and inner cities where there are no decent schools, want to create their own school and over the next few months, I reckon that we will hear a lot more about it.

There are a few questions to be answered though; what happens when a group of nutters want to set up their own school, preaching the joys of Religious Fundamentalism, Crystal Healing or Flat Earthism? How do we decide who is 'suitable' and what happens when the founding group lose interest and don't want to run the school any more?

Mind you; in many areas, whatever is set up could hardly be any worse than what we have already, so maybe it is an idea worth considering.

Read More

Maths Test

There is a link to a shortened version of the Maths test given to 155 Primary School Teachers by the Dispatch Programme here The questions are all reasonably straightforward and are similar to old 11+ ones.

Have a go; you can use pen and paper but not a calculator. The 15 minutes allowed is plenty so take your time, read the questions carefully and watch you don't hit the wrong key by mistake like I did.

It's actually just 14 of the 27 questions they were given, but if the following statistics are correct and you have young children, then it's probably time to panic.

Only 20% could convert a temperature in Centigrade to Fahrenheit, despite being given the formula that links them.

Less than 40% could work out what 2.1% of 400 was

One in three could correctly divide 1.4 by 0.1

If it is true that the kids are getting steadily better at Maths each year as the Government claims, then maybe they need to start helping their teachers a bit.

ps A recently qualified Primary school teacher has just emailed me to say that the average score on the test at her school was 226%

Read More

Six and Two Fours

Oh I also watched some of the Dispatches programme last week which basically said that your child has no chance of learning to do sums because their teacher probably can't even add up. The latest official Guru (why do these people always look a bit odd?) was on hand to wave his arms around and make learning fun.

What scared me was the attitude of the young Primary school teachers. They all shrugged their shoulders and came out with something along the lines of:

"I struggled with Maths at school because it wasn't taught very well and the teacher wasn't very nice to me etc..." Rather than:

"Yes I really must make an effort to learn how to do basic maths because err... I'm being paid to teach it"

It's always easier to be a victim than sit down with a book. I'm not saying that you need to be Isaac Newton to teach Primary school maths, but the results of the simple test at the end of this article are very worrying. No wonder ever increasing numbers of children start Secondary school without any grounding in the basics. I'd like to see what the results of a similar English test would be.

Still, I always feel that we concentrate too much on the negatives: rather than worrying about the 64% of teachers who can't do sums, let's celebrate the 46% who can.

Read More

Half Term

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, Mrs C and I have just come back from the Yorkshire Dales where we spent our days walking the hills and our evenings drinking Black Sheep Bitter plus watching some of the Winter Olympics.

The thing I like about them is that they stick to the basics. Most of the events are truly terrifying and they haven't adopted all the silly ones that plague the Summer Games. (Curling is a notable exception and we should hang our heads in shame for even sending a team)

Congratulations to Amy Williams for her Gold Medal in tray sliding and to Chemmy Alcott for 13th in the Downhill, on a course no sane person would attempt. Finally, here's American Bode Miller demonstrating what to do if your ski falls off

Read More