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Uk School Performace In Worlds Top 10

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jake-the-peg | 09:54 Fri 22nd Feb 2013 | News
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So if we are suffering from falling standards in schools why have English schools come out in the world top 10 for Maths

Literacy standards were also high at 11th place

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20664752

Won't you join me in congratulating teachers and pupils over the country in this great achievement?
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Yes. Happy to do that.
Why do some right-wing rags continue to try and run down our achievements? What spin will the Mail put on this good news story, I wonder.
\\Asian countries have taken top places in global school rankings for maths, science and reading, with England and Northern Ireland among high performers.\\

Yes! yes! Jake........well done England and congrats to all our teachers and lecturers..........statistics never lie........

My daughter in law interviewed applicants for a a fairly junior post and was amazed at the qualifications each candidate had achieved, however during the interview she was appalled at the standard of grammar, communication skills, that she couldn't believe that the CV belonged to the applicant sitting opposite.

Yes......anecdotal i know.
It's almost as if the stories we've been fed about literacy standards being held back by students who have English as a second language are...nonsense!

How bizarre.
Sandy - It's easy cheap news, is why.
The two systems, western europe especially the UK, and far east eg China, Japan, Korea, are based on entirely different premises.
Chief difference being that out east education is still visualised as kids being empty vessels into which you pour ever increasing quantities of facts, then you measure them against which of these facts they can recall the quickest/most.
There is little attempt to develop problem-solving or social / emotional learning. These last three have been the at roots of the best of UK learning for decades.
Out east if you don't go to school nobody cares or chases your family. Children who can't keep up sit at the back and fall asleep then stop coming to school.
If you don't pass your end of year tests you don't go into the next year.
Thus, statistically, the class performs better because no test results are affected by kids with very low scores.
The schools collude in this process because they are private businesses, not state facilities.
In the UK our remit has been to ensure all children attend state-provided education ful time for a substantial part of their lives, no exceptions, and that huge efforts are made to ensure everyone is valued equally and nobody gets left behind.
T'aint perfect but i know which system I have been happier to have my kids grow up in.
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These aren't Government statistics Sqad

They're compiled by US academics

Are you so desperate to do down our kids that you think that American Academics are painting an unfairly rosy picture of British Schools?


If you want to pick on something here that is cause for concern - look at the bullying item:

//There was also a ranking of bullying for the primary maths study - with England having one of the worst records in Europe, in 30th place in terms of students' views of the levels of bullying.//

Perhaps Mr Gove might like to turn his attention to that rather than fannying around with exam formats!
Personally I'd not be satisfied with that result. Only in the top ten (just) in one subject and slipping downwards there ? Looks like the system needs looking at, seeing if there are things to be learnt/incorporated, or not, from elsewhere, where the standards achieved are higher.
Jake, //These aren't Government statistics Sqad

They're compiled by US academics//


Based on government statistics I presume - and if not, then what?

I agree with Sqad. My husband says the same about the people he interviews for jobs. Practically everyone has a 'degree' these days, regardless of real ability it seems.

(By the way, thanks). :o)

Singapore
South Korea
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Japan
Northern Ireland
Belgium (Flemish)
Finland
England (6th in 2007)
Russian Federation

Jake......I don't want to do ANY hard working child down, but i do want to try and understand why there is criticism of modern educational standards (although i do not understand them)

From the link that you have given, it would seem that we have gone from 6th in the league table in 2007 to 9th in the latest figures.
To a nonacademic like me....that means we have dropped 3 places in the last six years.

Is that a reason for congratulations, or have i missed the point?
doesn't surprise me when they keep accepting students with crap degrees to become teachers.....there was a time when they actually had standards. also....who would want to teach todays children? spoilt, with a sense of innate entitlement and appalling manners, personally, i'd kill the little buggers. that about sums it up for me, i'm afraid.
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HTH Naomi ;c)

Pearson is a pretty recognised research organisation their methodology is defined here:

http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/the-report/appendix-1

It's certainly more rigorous than looking at personal experience from one or two schools and rumour.

Remember too this is over the whole country so the private sector ios included in these figures (If that makes anybody feel more politically comfortable).

And No OG - I don't think we should be satisfied either there's plenty of scope for improvement.

We may be beating France and Germany and Australia and the US but we've a long way to catch up with the Asian countries.



Personally I think the big differentiator there is the value that education is given - particularly in maths.

I'm constantly shocked by people who openly admit to being bad at maths often people who are very quick to criticise the grammar or spelling of others!

People who think of others as Boffins or Nerds

These are attitudes that I suspect would be totally amazing in places like South Korea
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That's true sqad you'll always get a bit of shuffling - on the other hand

//In the literacy tests, taken by a sample of 325,000 primary school pupils, there was progress for England - up from 15th to 11th.//

The point is if you were to ask people how the UK educational system was doing I doubt 1 in 100 would place us in the top ten in these areas.

The point is the data flatly contradicts the urban myth of the UK having a poor educational system.
\\\\\Won't you join me in congratulating teachers and pupils over the country in this great achievement? \\\

Jake.....a simple answer to my simple question.

Do you think that falling from 6th to 9th in 6 years in your league table is cause for congratulations?

Yes or No?
Having worked as a teacher in China, I completely agree with Mosaic.

Asian countries may be statistically better, but that's because they frequently cut out weaker kids. Or, in the case of China, sometimes they'll even just give everyone a pass regardless of ability because it looks better for them, or because the government doesn't like the idea that their *amazing* schools aren't doing perfectly. One college hired a friend of mine as an examiner, and effectively disallowed anyone receiving a mark that wasn't a pass. Plenty of kids with really substandard English thus walked out of that course with a passing grade in it, and it's my understanding that that's fairly common.
Admirable as these results are, in their context they are utterly meaningless.

England has a higher literacy rate than (insert any country here) - and?

That only means anything if a parent has a choice to send their child to another country with a higher scoring education system. If not, and it is 'not', then the measurement is irrelavent.

i recall years ago when the police came to interview us about our house burglary (we live in Staffordshire) - I asked the officer if our burglary could be investigated by the Decon and Cornwall police, because their clear-up rate for burglaires is statistically higher. The officer smiled, as did I - and we got on with the situation is it is presented to us.

D & C may clear up burglaries more successfully, but what use is that information to me? Is it supposed to inspire our police to 'do better'?

Nonsense, and shame on any government for wasiting money in this futile exercise.

There is only one place for 'targets' and that's on a rifle range!
New Zealand, andy, for one.

My conclusion is "could do better" - and my question is what are we doing to identify best practice as well as the development and sourcing of the best teachers we can secure.

One aspect that they do not measure is "intellect" in terms of developing thought and idea development. This the Far East would not score well at. I may have recounted before that I was privileged to sit on one of the Hong's scholarship panels as an independent judge, an equivalent of a Fulbright or Rhodes scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge and an incredibly generous support given.

25 prospectives were interviewed initially, all with perfect A grades, and we struggled to find three or four for final interviews - crammed with knowledge, yes, could they use it, a resounding no. And when you award such a scholarship you are looking for independence of thinking and outstanding leadership potential on idea development, not some run-of-the-mill candidate...... This is often a common complaint of schools in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc and I hope that we do not go that way.

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