deecie Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 2 hours ago, Caledonian Craig said: Or counter-deflecting from Westminsters troubles with implementing Brexit etc Take your pick. I'll stick with you deflecting away from education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieMoon Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 4 hours ago, Alan said: Declining further. Stats are poor. Postcode and family income big determination on future success.  John Swinney has no answers in interviews today.  At least kids from private school get free uni and don't need to worry about end of grants. What would your answers be Alan?  Not being argumentative  - just wondering.  It is clearly not a great situation to be in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest flumax Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 1 hour ago, Larky Masher said: But we're below Estonia, Vietnam, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovenia to name a few. You Are Forgetting its Based OnN three Subjects. cfe Is To Develop Independent Confident Learners.  (Dunno Why each Word Is Capitilised In Here) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exile Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 It's funny how you almost never hear of Scottish devolved matters on the BBC national news. When Scottish news is featured, it's usually a short item way down the agenda. And you almost never hear of any comparative statistics about how well different nations do relative to each other. So imagine my surprise to hear a BBC national news report featuring comparative stats, with Scotland bafflingly given the lion's share of the coverage, even more than Wales (who apparently did worse). And some say the BBC is impartial? And it's also funny how some people on here repeatedly complain of tribalism, and complain that it's nationalism that makes people tribal, whereas they themselves are not tribal. Yet.... you get threads like this, that are the most tribal of any on here. It's fine being tribal, as most political threads on here are, but why not just admit it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andymac Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 1 hour ago, Lamia said: #don'tfeedthetroll So somebody disagrees with SNP policy/performance and they become a troll? 1 hour ago, aaid said: You could set your watch by him. See above.  57 minutes ago, Stapes said: Never heard of these figures before, which is strange given that when you compare 2000-2006 with 2009-2015, the former is infinitely worse for reading and maths. But then, the media didn't have an agenda before 2007 ...  Paranoia? 45 minutes ago, AlfieMoon said: What would your answers be Alan?  Not being argumentative  - just wondering.  It is clearly not a great situation to be in.  Not sure Alan was elected to improve the situation but I suspect the SG fixation with micromanagement is part of the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieMoon Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 9 minutes ago, andymac said: So somebody disagrees with SNP policy/performance and they become a troll? See above.  Paranoia? Not sure Alan was elected to improve the situation but I suspect the SG fixation with micromanagement is part of the problem. I didn't say he was - but thanks for speaking on his behalf when I'm very reasonably asking a question.   Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave78 Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 1 hour ago, exile said: It's funny how you almost never hear of Scottish devolved matters on the BBC national news. When Scottish news is featured, it's usually a short item way down the agenda. And you almost never hear of any comparative statistics about how well different nations do relative to each other. So imagine my surprise to hear a BBC national news report featuring comparative stats, with Scotland bafflingly given the lion's share of the coverage, even more than Wales (who apparently did worse). And some say the BBC is impartial? And it's also funny how some people on here repeatedly complain of tribalism, and complain that it's nationalism that makes people tribal, whereas they themselves are not tribal. Yet.... you get threads like this, that are the most tribal of any on here. It's fine being tribal, as most political threads on here are, but why not just admit it? Agree completely. As someone who only sees UK 'network' (i.e. London) BBC news coverage it was a shock to see Swinney (who he?) all over the BBC story tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Topcat Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 4 hours ago, killiefaetheferry said: Can anyone point out what the problem is ? Classroom sizes ? Teaching methods ? Discipline in schools ? Lack of parental involvement in their children's education ? The issue to be noted here is that the PISA/OECD tests are a total waste of time. It compares us to countries like China and regions like Shanghai/Hong Kong whose kids go to daytime school number 1, eat, go to evening school number 2, eat, go to a private tutor, sleep for 3/4 hours and repeat - you may very well call it mental abuse and I would agree with you - is a bit like comparing Albion Rovers and Barcelona. Some schools/regions also engineer the 'best' pupils to do the test when they should have been randomly selected - it's completely open to abuse and I'm sure there are quite a few skeletons in the PISA closet. PISA tests also focus on a narrow part of the curriculum that has been effectively smashed to pieces by CFE - I have noticed year on year standards have deteriorated at secondary level although the massaged senior phase exam pass rates from the SQA would have you believe otherwise. Kids usually arrive into S1 from primary school full of CFE inter-disciplinary learning I can make a powerpoint happy-clappy pish that they mostly cannot draw a bar graph, have done no science (ever), cannot make an inference, sit and read, string a sentence together or do basic arithmetic like 27-14 without the help of a calculator. Fast forward these S1 bairns to PISA test in S3 and the majority have retained virtually nothing of any value in their heads as all assessments are bitty and split into bite sized chunks to tick a box. When you add in the kids living in poverty or who have ADHD, Aspergers, dyslexia, dyscalculia &  pupils who do not speak English as a first language (we have 65+ languages spoken in our lower school S1-3 yet the council have closed the bilingual support schools/bases and rattled them all straight into mainstream without adequately staffed EAL support) you start to see that a random selection of 15 year olds in Scottish schools are not going to shine as brightly as rote learned robots in eastern Asia. It's not the bairns fault - they are only jumping through the hoops in front of them - but the main positive is that they are learning something whilst having a decent life unlike the little automatons in Shanghai . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killiefaetheferry Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 6 hours ago, Topcat said: The issue to be noted here is that the PISA/OECD tests are a total waste of time. It compares us to countries like China and regions like Shanghai/Hong Kong whose kids go to daytime school number 1, eat, go to evening school number 2, eat, go to a private tutor, sleep for 3/4 hours and repeat - you may very well call it mental abuse and I would agree with you - is a bit like comparing Albion Rovers and Barcelona. Some schools/regions also engineer the 'best' pupils to do the test when they should have been randomly selected - it's completely open to abuse and I'm sure there are quite a few skeletons in the PISA closet. PISA tests also focus on a narrow part of the curriculum that has been effectively smashed to pieces by CFE - I have noticed year on year standards have deteriorated at secondary level although the massaged senior phase exam pass rates from the SQA would have you believe otherwise. Kids usually arrive into S1 from primary school full of CFE inter-disciplinary learning I can make a powerpoint happy-clappy pish that they mostly cannot draw a bar graph, have done no science (ever), cannot make an inference, sit and read, string a sentence together or do basic arithmetic like 27-14 without the help of a calculator. Fast forward these S1 bairns to PISA test in S3 and the majority have retained virtually nothing of any value in their heads as all assessments are bitty and split into bite sized chunks to tick a box. When you add in the kids living in poverty or who have ADHD, Aspergers, dyslexia, dyscalculia &  pupils who do not speak English as a first language (we have 65+ languages spoken in our lower school S1-3 yet the council have closed the bilingual support schools/bases and rattled them all straight into mainstream without adequately staffed EAL support) you start to see that a random selection of 15 year olds in Scottish schools are not going to shine as brightly as rote learned robots in eastern Asia. It's not the bairns fault - they are only jumping through the hoops in front of them - but the main positive is that they are learning something whilst having a decent life unlike the little automatons in Shanghai . Thanks. I'll use that in my PGDE interview...............can I quote the 'little automatons in Shanghai" line please ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toepoke Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Are we still coming to terms with the changes to an education system which for generations was predicated on the bulk of pupils going straight into the workplace at 15/16 ? Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest flumax Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 7 hours ago, Topcat said: The issue to be noted here is that the PISA/OECD tests are a total waste of time. It compares us to countries like China and regions like Shanghai/Hong Kong whose kids go to daytime school number 1, eat, go to evening school number 2, eat, go to a private tutor, sleep for 3/4 hours and repeat - you may very well call it mental abuse and I would agree with you - is a bit like comparing Albion Rovers and Barcelona. Some schools/regions also engineer the 'best' pupils to do the test when they should have been randomly selected - it's completely open to abuse and I'm sure there are quite a few skeletons in the PISA closet. PISA tests also focus on a narrow part of the curriculum that has been effectively smashed to pieces by CFE - I have noticed year on year standards have deteriorated at secondary level although the massaged senior phase exam pass rates from the SQA would have you believe otherwise. Kids usually arrive into S1 from primary school full of CFE inter-disciplinary learning I can make a powerpoint happy-clappy pish that they mostly cannot draw a bar graph, have done no science (ever), cannot make an inference, sit and read, string a sentence together or do basic arithmetic like 27-14 without the help of a calculator. Fast forward these S1 bairns to PISA test in S3 and the majority have retained virtually nothing of any value in their heads as all assessments are bitty and split into bite sized chunks to tick a box. When you add in the kids living in poverty or who have ADHD, Aspergers, dyslexia, dyscalculia &  pupils who do not speak English as a first language (we have 65+ languages spoken in our lower school S1-3 yet the council have closed the bilingual support schools/bases and rattled them all straight into mainstream without adequately staffed EAL support) you start to see that a random selection of 15 year olds in Scottish schools are not going to shine as brightly as rote learned robots in eastern Asia. It's not the bairns fault - they are only jumping through the hoops in front of them - but the main positive is that they are learning something whilst having a decent life unlike the little automatons in Shanghai . Toppost topcat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest flumax Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Just now, Toepoke said: Are we still coming to terms with the changes to an education system which for generations was predicated on the bulk of pupils going straight into the workplace at 15/16 ?  Perhaps, more importantly  most of the teachers were trained under that system with only 5-6 cohorts of cfe trained staff out there, most at junior level working with colleagues (as humans all are) reluctant to change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamia Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 (edited) 9 hours ago, andymac said: So somebody disagrees with SNP policy/performance and they become a troll?  Eh no. Plenty others have done so including me on many an occasion so I have absolutely no issue with that. Alan however is a troll. Edited December 7, 2016 by Lamia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 3 minutes ago, Lamia said: Eh no. Plenty others have done so including me on many an occasion. Alan however is a troll. Being a troll doesn't mean the issue he's raising here isn't valid. So many folk on this board have a complete blindness to any problems with the SNP's governance of the country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamia Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 1 minute ago, Parklife said: Being a troll doesn't mean the issue he's raising here isn't valid. So many folk on this board have a complete blindness to any problems with the SNP's governance of the country. I know it doesn't but it doesn't help the debate. Blindness on either side is unhelpful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alibi Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 The key to successful education is to have better teachers, and to have them actually teaching.  I doubt the government actually makes any difference, but the CfE seems to be a bit controversial - maybe that Labour-initiated idea should be looked at to see if it is a waste of time.  My wife is a teacher in a promoted post and the time she has to put in on course development in the evenings is significant. If you want to complain abut lack of funding, that is caused by the Westminster government 100%.  The SG can only disburse the fixed pocket money that they receive.  PFI has not helped either as that syphons off money and thus reduces resources. The problem with Scotland is that we are constantly fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ally Bongo Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 http://www.scoop.it/t/politics-scotland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 3 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said: http://www.scoop.it/t/politics-scotland Quote Do I see some cause for concern in the latest PISA findings? Yes! Do I see a 'crisis' in Scottish education? Of course not! Because I'm neither an idiot nor, to the extent that there is a meaningful distinction, a British nationalist. I stopped here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larky Masher Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 14 hours ago, flumax said: You Are Forgetting its Based OnN three Subjects. cfe Is To Develop Independent Confident Learners.  (Dunno Why each Word Is Capitilised In Here) Independent confident learners that can't read, write or do maths apparently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larky Masher Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 11 hours ago, Topcat said: The issue to be noted here is that the PISA/OECD tests are a total waste of time. It compares us to countries like China and regions like Shanghai/Hong Kong whose kids go to daytime school number 1, eat, go to evening school number 2, eat, go to a private tutor, sleep for 3/4 hours and repeat - you may very well call it mental abuse and I would agree with you - is a bit like comparing Albion Rovers and Barcelona. Some schools/regions also engineer the 'best' pupils to do the test when they should have been randomly selected - it's completely open to abuse and I'm sure there are quite a few skeletons in the PISA closet. PISA tests also focus on a narrow part of the curriculum that has been effectively smashed to pieces by CFE - I have noticed year on year standards have deteriorated at secondary level although the massaged senior phase exam pass rates from the SQA would have you believe otherwise. Kids usually arrive into S1 from primary school full of CFE inter-disciplinary learning I can make a powerpoint happy-clappy pish that they mostly cannot draw a bar graph, have done no science (ever), cannot make an inference, sit and read, string a sentence together or do basic arithmetic like 27-14 without the help of a calculator. Fast forward these S1 bairns to PISA test in S3 and the majority have retained virtually nothing of any value in their heads as all assessments are bitty and split into bite sized chunks to tick a box. When you add in the kids living in poverty or who have ADHD, Aspergers, dyslexia, dyscalculia &  pupils who do not speak English as a first language (we have 65+ languages spoken in our lower school S1-3 yet the council have closed the bilingual support schools/bases and rattled them all straight into mainstream without adequately staffed EAL support) you start to see that a random selection of 15 year olds in Scottish schools are not going to shine as brightly as rote learned robots in eastern Asia. It's not the bairns fault - they are only jumping through the hoops in front of them - but the main positive is that they are learning something whilst having a decent life unlike the little automatons in Shanghai . What about having a decent future? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BlueGaz Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 3 hours ago, Alibi said: The problem with Scotland is that we are constantly fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Let the system slip - blame it on London - guaranteed votes in future - achieve only real aim. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest flumax Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Nice general review of PISAÂ http://educationdatalab.org.uk/2016/12/the-10-key-findings-from-pisa-2015/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larky Masher Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 18 minutes ago, flumax said: Nice general review of PISAÂ http://educationdatalab.org.uk/2016/12/the-10-key-findings-from-pisa-2015/ That is interesting and good to see some digging down below the headline data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapofGlencoe Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Heard anecdotally from different people kids' handwriting has definitely gone downhill in recent years due to massive use of computers.  Foreign Language teaching in Scotland is appalling.  Get pupils to memorise sentences to pass exams rather than teach grammar like continental schools do.  Would love the government made this a priority. It's been a long time now, can't blame Westminster for everything. Certainly on my last point nothings changed.  Sadly.  I just don't understand why not?  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thplinth Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Folk were totally dismissive of Antidote I seem to recall when he was posting as he could 'see no (or little) fault with the SNP' etc etc... But now when it comes to Alan who makes Antidote look like Mr Unbiased and who can see only faults with the SNP, and has been like that for a decade 100% consistent now at least that I have witnessed (and it really is 100%, he has never taken a day off, not once ) but now we are being told we should listen to him. Listen to fhucking Alan. Aye right. Total hypocrisy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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