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Dispatches

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:09 pm
by Kirk Bevins
Monday's Dispatches on Channel 4 was about the shocking standard of maths teaching at primary school. They gave a year 6 test to their teachers to see how they did and their results are pretty shocking. You can watch the programme here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od

Next Monday is the second part of this programme and involves Rachel Riley.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 12:15 am
by Alec Rivers
Unbelievable. I suppose we can now add "lowest educational standard" to "highest teenage pregnancy rate" and "highest childhood asthma rate" in Europe. Go England.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 12:19 am
by David Roe
These were the teachers who agreed to take part, presumably. How bad were the ones who refused?

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:26 pm
by Gavin Chipper
Is the test available online?

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:26 pm
by Gavin Chipper
David Roe wrote:These were the teachers who agreed to take part, presumably. How bad were the ones who refused?
They might have been the better ones.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:28 pm
by Charlie Reams
Gavin Chipper wrote:Is the test available online?
This could be the beginning of a C4C mission to get Kirk his job back.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 7:19 pm
by Matthew Tassier
Gavin Chipper wrote:Is the test available online?
Worryingly easy

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 7:34 pm
by Kirk Bevins
Charlie Reams wrote: This could be the beginning of a C4C mission to get Kirk his job back.
I don't teach primary kids and as long as kids don't give a shit about learning, I won't be teaching them.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:22 pm
by Ben Wilson
Kirk Bevins wrote:as long as kids don't give a shit about learning, I won't be teaching them.
i.e. 'never'.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:27 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Ben Wilson wrote:
Kirk Bevins wrote:as long as kids don't give a shit about learning, I won't be teaching them.
i.e. 'never'.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Mensa.html

This kid wants to learn.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:37 pm
by Kirk Bevins
Ryan Taylor wrote: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Mensa.html

This kid wants to learn.
That's ace. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed teaching top sets, but that's a small proportion of the school.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:38 pm
by Charlie Reams
Kirk Bevins wrote: That's ace. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed teaching top sets, but that's a small proportion of the school.
Private schools.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:22 pm
by Oliver Garner
Charlie Reams wrote: Private schools.
Grammar schools.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:29 pm
by Oliver Garner
Ryan Taylor wrote: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Mensa.html

This kid wants to learn.
Only top 0.4% - that's only 1 in 250 people. Not particularly remarkable since if he goes to a 1000-person school, you would expect there to be at least three other people as intelligent as him. Well done to him, but not exactly newsworthy IMHO.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:33 pm
by Jon Corby
lol@the comments on that link

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:41 pm
by Michael Wallace
Weird, I could've sworn that article had an amusing bit where they said "top 0.4% (99.6 percentile)" last time I read it. I was about to quote it for the "thanks for that" lolz, but now it's gone :(

Also yes, those comments are great.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:20 pm
by Charlie Reams
I'm surprised there aren't any comments warning about the dangers publicising photos of your child, now we live in the Paedoph Isles and all.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:55 am
by Lesley Hines
Oliver Garner wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote: Private schools.
Grammar schools.
Grammar schools are private by us :(

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:44 pm
by Ian Volante
Lesley Hines wrote:
Oliver Garner wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote: Private schools.
Grammar schools.
Grammar schools are private by us :(
There's a mixture. Mine is, but the one up the road where Patrick Stewart went (incidentally) isn't.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:18 pm
by Gavin Chipper
Matthew Tassier wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:Is the test available online?
Worryingly easy
Well, sort of. I mean I got them all right (of course!) without any problem, but no-one in real life ever divides by 0.1, for example, and it's just a way of getting people to give the wrong answer to a simple-looking question.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:29 pm
by Ian Volante
Gavin Chipper wrote:
Matthew Tassier wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:Is the test available online?
Worryingly easy
Well, sort of. I mean I got them all right (of course!) without any problem, but no-one in real life ever divides by 0.1, for example, and it's just a way of getting people to give the wrong answer to a simple-looking question.
But anyone that can do maths at a higher-than-basic level surely understands reciprocals, and the commutativity of multiplication and division? Or should I say, surely should be able to understand such things? If that's going to trip them up, then they really are going to struggle to to help brighter youngsters.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:16 am
by Lisa Hermann
The depressing thing is that my son (now in Year 7 at one of the country's few remaining state grammar schools, and who got practically full marks in the year 6 SATS for Maths) included the following startling facts in his maths homework....
1. 2.3x1.2 =(2x1) + (0.3x0.2) =2.06
2. 1/2 divided by 1/4 = 1/4
3. an approximation to (5.1x1.9)/0.1 is (5 x 2)/0 = 10/0 = 10
So I'm not convinced SATS results tell you that much.............. sure standards have gone down since I was at school - but of course there wasn't as much history to learn then so I could concentrate more on Maths......

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:30 am
by Kirk Bevins
Lisa Hermann wrote: 1. 2.3x1.2 =(2x1) + (0.3x0.2) =2.06
Who the hell teaches like this!? This is where the problem lies. I found in primary school they confused them further with decimals as they had to work out things like 0.3 x 0.2 as part working out to do a sum and they'd write 0.6 and get it wrong and lose confidence. If they just did the 2.3 x 1.2 sum like a traditional 23x12 sum and keeping the decimal point in place, the algorithm works nicely and there's very little to go wrong.

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:15 pm
by Gavin Chipper
I watched the second part of this programme. I found it really annoying that they had all these numbers games but didn't bother to show them to us. I know you might say "but that's not the point of it" - well they didn't need to spend so much fucking time on these games we couldn't see then, did they?!

Re: Dispatches

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:40 pm
by Alec Rivers
Gavin Chipper wrote:I watched the second part of this programme. I found it really annoying that they had all these numbers games but didn't bother to show them to us. I know you might say "but that's not the point of it" - well they didn't need to spend so much fucking time on these games we couldn't see then, did they?!
This.