Is economic growth necessarily the same as "real" growth?

[Lateralthinking1]

I could live with levels of inequality that do not destroy countries, democracy, stability, services, people, logic and morals in just three years.

[MrGongGong]

To pick up on your point about teachers in the private sector, (and I have long direct experience of both sectors), if class size is unimportant, why don't private schools save a bit of money by having bigger class sizes. Seems odd.
.

indeed

more or less everyone i've spoken to involved in education will tell you that class sizes of 30 pupils simply mean that you get 1/2 the attention and often 1/2 the education ............ you could forget all stupid ideas about academies, free schools etc etc and simply deal with this and you would improve education greatly
but , to quote the great Tap

"money talks, bullshit walks"

[ahinton]

In principle, ahinton? Does not one be true to oneself? Isn't that a principle?

One should indeed - but what difference does that make to what I wrote?

[MrGongGong]

I'm all in favour of the NHS, state education (but with a bit more room to sack poor teachers than there is at the moment - this, and not small class sizes, is a big reason why private schools notch up good results).

This is simply WRONG WRONG WRONG

[PhilipT]

This is simply WRONG WRONG WRONG

Would you rather your child were in a small class with a bad teacher or a large class with a good teacher?

There is solid research to back up the claim that the quality of the teacher matters more than the size of the class. If the only thing that mattered was the amount of individual attention a child got then schools wouldn't work, and home-educated children would leave everyone else standing. They don't. (Children who read with their parents at a young age do better, but that's a function of doing the reading at all, not of the size of the class.) The myth of small class sizes has been promulgated by the teaching unions, who are more concerned about job security for mediocre teachers than they are for true high-quality education. Yes, of course there are situations where one-to-one teaching is essential (e.g. learning to drive), but in classroom situations the pupils' difficulties and mistakes tend to be the same difficulties and mistakes, and they can be addressed collectively. If a child raises a hand to ask a question, how often is it that they are the only one to learn from the answer? And what will the effect be if the answer is a poor one as opposed to a good one?

[MrGongGong]

Can I have a reference to the solid research please !
I'm off to a University institute of education today for a meeting about composition in the music curriculum so thought I might ask the educational researcher that i'm meeting what they think !

Class size is one of the main marketing strategies of the independent sector

what you need is a small class with a good teacher
the choice you offer is no choice at all !

[subcontrabass]

When I trained as a teacher (rather a long time ago) the evidence we were shown from research showed that for class sizes between 20 and 40 there was little correlation between class size and children's achievement. When the class size went above 40 there was a marked deterioration. When the class size dropped below 20 there was a marked improvement.

When you look at this sort of research you have to ask exactly what range of class size was considered. Too often it seems to focus on the 20+ to 30+ range, where the previous evidence indicates little effect from class size.

[MrGongGong]

In my experience of working in many schools of all types
I notice a marked difference in students who have been in small groups compared to large
of course demographic things are important , if you grow up in a house with no books you are less likely to be able to read fluently from an early age
but

when I work with A level music students who have spent their GCSE years in a class of 15 they simply have more linguistic ability than those who have spent their time in a group of 30, they also have had more input, more time and are able to place music in a wider context. Good teaching makes a huge difference but some things are learn't better in smaller groups.

sure you can train children to pass exams to "prove" that class size has no effect BUT if you want EDUCATION that's something else !

[greenilex]

One-to-one for practical and basic - then if five thousand can be assembled and fed so they are comfortable and affectionate (fish is miraculous) you can change the world.

[PhilipT]

... some things are learn't better in smaller groups.

MrGG: I'm going to assume that you're a bit worked up and you skipped your morning coffee, but please would you correct your English? I find it painful.

I don't think anyone here said anything about training people to pass exams. That is indeed an issue, and an important one we might profitably discuss probably with more agreement, but it's a different issue.

I'm grateful to subcontrabass, whose exposure to the research has clearly been wider than mine. I would agree that a large reduction in class size might be beneficial, but it simply isn't practical to reduce class size that much in the state system. The expense would be prohibitive, and it's difficult to see how to attract and train the necessary additional staff without seeing a reduction in quality. (One approach would be to admit earlier on that the less talented pupils can no longer benefit from formal education, and let them leave school earlier, but in the current economic climate that isn't terribly attractive given that most would end up on the dole.) Letting go of the very worst teachers, by contrast, would be affordable and would have a beneficial effect.

[teamsaint]

getting rid of (or retraining ) bad teachers might well be a good idea.
I wouldn't trust ofsted to identify those people at all.
There are some very dangerous people out there.

[MrGongGong]

MrGG: I'm going to assume that you're a bit worked up and you skipped your morning coffee, but please would you correct your English? I find it painful.

I don't think anyone here said anything about training people to pass exams. That is indeed an issue, and an important one we might profitably discuss probably with more agreement, but it's a different issue.

I'm grateful to subcontrabass, whose exposure to the research has clearly been wider than mine. I would agree that a large reduction in class size might be beneficial, but it simply isn't practical to reduce class size that much in the state system. The expense would be prohibitive, and it's difficult to see how to attract and train the necessary additional staff without seeing a reduction in quality. (One approach would be to admit earlier on that the less talented pupils can no longer benefit from formal education, and let them leave school earlier, but in the current economic climate that isn't terribly attractive given that most would end up on the dole.) Letting go of the very worst teachers, by contrast, would be affordable and would have a beneficial effect.

apologies for the grammer mishtake

where is the research that backs up this ?
you seem now to be contradicting what you said before

and are your ideas based on experience or simply musings ?

(the researcher I was with today confirmed what I suspected but don't let that get in the way !!!)

[teamsaint]

MrGG: I'm going to assume that you're a bit worked up and you skipped your morning coffee, but please would you correct your English? I find it painful.

I don't think anyone here said anything about training people to pass exams. That is indeed an issue, and an important one we might profitably discuss probably with more agreement, but it's a different issue.

I'm grateful to subcontrabass, whose exposure to the research has clearly been wider than mine. I would agree that a large reduction in class size might be beneficial, but it simply isn't practical to reduce class size that much in the state system. The expense would be prohibitive, and it's difficult to see how to attract and train the necessary additional staff without seeing a reduction in quality. (One approach would be to admit earlier on that the less talented pupils can no longer benefit from formal education, and let them leave school earlier, but in the current economic climate that isn't terribly attractive given that most would end up on the dole.) Letting go of the very worst teachers, by contrast, would be affordable and would have a beneficial effect.

Large reductions in class sizes in the state sector....a question of will. Fewer wars could help fund this.
Quality and number of teaching recruits....easily solved by a 20 % increase in pay.
If its good enough for parents who can afford £12k to £25k a year per child, its good enough for everybody else.This is a matter of principle.

Weeding out the " less talented pupils" earlier. Just another way of easing the path to the top for the private school kids. One of the greatest failings in our systems of education is the assumption that if you are not a high achiever at some arbitrary point,(lets say the 11 +) that you are less talented, or fit only for menial work, or that you will never amount to anything academically. All, of course, frequently proved wrong.

[PhilipT]

MrGG: The key word in my last post is 'large', as in ".. large reductions ..". The research I'm think of is Hattie's, as reported here and elsewhere, but I do recognise that you will be able to find some that backs up your own point of view.

teamsaint: Who is to pay for that extra £12k to £25k per child, for the 93% of children whose parents only pay through their taxes at the moment? Or the extra 20% of salary? If only you could pluck money out of the air as well as you pluck your figures. And as for "weeding out", I well remember my tutor telling me that I wasn't good enough to continue to postgraduate work. I'm sure he was right, at the time. "Weeding out", as you call it, happens at all levels, and so it should.

[Lateralthinking1]

There are quite a lot of us who passed the eleven plus with flying colours and amounted to little. If ever I feel low about that fact, I remind myself that the category I'm in includes people who I tend to like, particularly if they have more merit than me and also seem content with their lot.

I know almost everything has changed but back in 1973-1974, I was in classes of between 31 and 33 at my local junior school. Everyone said that if you got into an independent school the class sizes would be fantastic. 15 to 18 mainly. And because this was the universally unquestioned fact and therefore quite impossible to counter, it was bound to be the case that the reality was totally different. On my arrival, each class there had 27 people.

You might have thought that the one woman teacher out of 65 teachers, incidentally every one of them white, would have been seen as someone wonderful, however ordinary she happened to be. Actually the sheer hatred shown towards her was something even now I find quite unfathomable, particularly of the sixth form. "Calm down dear" and the like - well, I guess you can see the origins in that sense.

I have seen a survey recently that confirms nasty brightish men do best in the workplace earning tens of thousands of pounds more than their nicer counterparts and women. My feeling is that this is an over-simplification. I find that nice people are also nasty but they tend mostly to be nasty towards the nasty. By contrast, nasty people tend to be nasty towards anyone unless they think there's something in being nice for them.

I have in the past three months been "invited" both by my school and my university to offer a donation as economically times are tough. Needless to say, both letters went into the bin. Never expect those rolling in money to feel at all ashamed about walking around with a begging bowl. It makes me laugh. No, actually, it doesn't. And having a good level of education begins at home. It isn't just about passing exams.