Cameron: Schools should increase focus on sport...

In the school that I went to (and it was the same for my family as well who went to different schools) the emphasis was on competing and winning. When someone didn't show athletic prowess they were known to be weak and attempts were made to ensure that they didn't do PE or were asked to oversee the games equipment. The teachers did nothing to encourage pupils to participate in physical exercise when they showed little athletic prowess. This was especially so in the later school years. There was an air of elitism at my school with regards sport. There was more emphasis on trying to score a goal and being the best team player and very little emphasis on getting fit and healthy.

Those that wanted to get fit and healthy but showed little athletic prowess were discouraged. Those pupils would either watch the sport, oversee the games equipment or end up sitting in a class room for the remainder of the hour.

Feck away off David Cameron you overpaid idiot, teachers do not enough as it is. It seems everyday they take on more and more responsibities that take away from actual teaching time.

Exercise should be taught either in P.E. class, or at home. It's like getting teachers to teach table manners etc, It shouldn't be teachers' job to make up for bad parents...

That's so backwards. It's never been like that anywhere I went to, instead everybody had to participate whether they hated the sport/competing or not. And if you didn't show enthusiasm then you were looked down on by the teachers/forced to run an inhumane amount of laps. Maybe this was a twisted attempt to motivate, not sure. When I moved to Spain I found exactly the same thing, my P.E grade (it's still an obligatory subject in the first year of Bachiller) drags down my average by a ton, hurrah

Edit: so yeah. P.E classes were the bane of my life, as was Sports Day (so, so glad that didn't exist in Spain). It shouldn't be that way.

You would tell them, in one sentence, that negative and positive charges attract. That is just a fundamental truth, with no hidden simplifications. Energy is just something we define a globally conserved quantity, and then we define it's various forms. If something moves, we define it's kinetic energy. We define potential energy, too, using calculus. Of course this is a simplification because we'd be ignoring special relativity, and general relativity, and probably some other advanced principles, but the point is it's far more advanced than it is currently.

It wouldn't be though. You could easily teach what an atom is in one lesson, including what all the bits of an atom are. Then you could move on next lesson, and so on. Like university - a new topic every lesson. You should be able to cover a topic in an hour of writing on the whiteboard, and students can copy this down or get it printed off or whatever.

I personally think many of the strugglers struggle because it's presented badly, and because, let's face it, year 1 to 9 maths is boring, doing the same thing over and over, and nobody pays attention after a while. Like I said, I think a topic a lesson, then a lesson of questions, then a new topic, and so on, is the best way to do it. It keeps everyone interested, and maybe some people will struggle, but the majority of people will benefit hugely, and that is who needs to be focused on - the majority.

Squashing into 4 years, not 2. And it's not really squashing it, because you wouldn't be covering most of the things you'd have done in say year 7 chemistry. You'd start off at a higher difficulty, and given you'd chosen to do it by that stage, you'd have at least some interest in it and want to learn more about it, so this wouldn't be a problem. Ah, gosh, making maths harder won't solve the world's problems. What it will do, however, is mean that everyone leaves school better at maths, that people are better prepared for any science course at university, which is what school is preparation for, and mean that much of the overly simplified science you'd have done in earlier years can be forgotten, as the students are capable of dealing with less simplified versions due their mathematical skills (including thinking logically). Likewise improving everyones English will enable people to write better essays, analyse more critically, and so on, allowing those people to do better at their university courses too, and the A-levels that get them there.

About the selling of school fields: 'The DfE later added that of the 21 approved for disposal, 14 were of schools that had closed, four were sites that became surplus when existing schools amalgamated, one was surplus marginal grassland on the school site and the proceeds were invested in the school library and better sports changing facilities.

The sports facilities on two more of the playing fields were improved by developers and then leased back for use by the schools and local communities.'

Also, I personally am the type who would have hated extra time spent doing sports in PE lessons back at school. Our PE lessons weren't that bad to be honest, but I would have preferred to be learning Maths or something.

you'll have no idea about any sort of scientific reasoning, creativity or general knowledge about the world. You'd essentially be a robot with the ability to speak, talk and do calculations but unable to understand basic day to day concepts. Nice.

Yes. Everyobody was made to do PE, but the rules often lapsed once you got into the later school years. Some pupils lost interest altogther, probably because of the masochistic attitude of the PE teachers. I mean, I hated my PE teachers. They were brutal.

School isn't about what you feel like doing. It's about what's good for you. Sport is good for you so therefore kids should be forced to do it.

The problem is, you associate "teaching" with "telling". Just because you have "told" someone what something is doesn't mean they know what it means, can apply it to a situation, or can remember it the next lesson.

You're right, you might be able to work your way through all of this by writing on the whiteboard, but your assumption that this equals students learning and understanding the topics shows a lack of any understanding about how "learning" takes place.

To work at the pace you are describing will leave the vast majority of students falling behind, feeling inadequate, out of their depth and incompetent.

Face it, the "majority" of people do not go on to do A-level, or degree level, sciences and maths. As such these are the "minority" although an important one that need to be catered for. I'm not quite sure what sample you are using to make your assumptions about the wider abilities of students at school.

And they are, the question is how much sport.

Perhaps a solution is to have mandatory sport, which already exists, perhaps with an extra lesson a week, but greater opportunity for students to opt for extra sport if they have the aptitude, again as there is already but with students able to give multiple option blocks towards sporting activities.

I would also say that encouraging a wider range of sports at a young age is key.

You can't FORCE kids to like sport, you can however encourage it.

I didn't mean just standing at the front writing on the board, obviously. My point was if you have enough time to write it all, then, as writing takes longer than speaking, you have enough time to say and explain, writing only the key points down. Lecturers basically do this, why shouldn't teachers? It works.

Unless you have a statistic to show that a majority of people do arts degrees, I would expect the opposite is true, or that it's about equal with no majority.

Well we basically already do force them unless they have some sort of medical condition which means they can't do it. Hang on, PE is still mandatory these days isn't it? Even if it's just like an hour a week or whatever?

Assuming so, we do force them in as much as it is compulsory. They should be increasing it dramatically, however.

I agree with your extra sport point too.

Proportion of graduates in STEM subjects

From the House of Lords Select Committee report into STEM subjects at Higher Education
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldselect/ldsctech/37/37.pdf

Works out as about 7% of graduates, give or take. I'd call that a vast minority.

At A-level, using http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/education/11/exam_results/a_levels/html/all_subjects.stm
it's 7.2% Biology, 5.5% Chemistry, 3.8% Physics, 9.6% Maths. I'm not going to add those together as it's evident that many of those students will be taking multiple subjects out of the 4. I would say that around 75% of science A-level students take Maths, so the total i would assume would be around 15-18% total.

Obviously you then have to consider the fact that whilst (pretty much) everyone takes GCSEs, many people do not take A-levels, and a further proportion do not continue to degree. Can't find the exact stats on that one.




"Lecturing" is not teaching. It only works with highly able students who have an aptitude for the subject and are prepared to do the self-study to stay up with the work. Good for Degree, less effective at A-level and pretty useless for the majority of GCSE teaching.

The main problem i have with your arguments is that firstly they lack any proof, you make assertions without any basis other than "logic" and your own opinion and secondly you are taking your ability level and assuming that all people are capable of performing at that level in every stage of their career as a student. Have you actually worked with any kids? Taught maths or science?

the point still stands that every single student would be better off by putting far more emphasis on maths and English, and making these subjects harder at an earlier age.

It would probably inspire more people to take up STEM subjects as well, actually, as I know many people who are put off sciences because, at school, where they've seen it, it's been vague, wishy washy, and taught in a very ad hoc manner without any clear deductions, which is what science and maths is all about.

The people who stay on to do A-levels are likely the more intelligent anyway, so I don't see how it's relevant that many people quit after GCSEs.

All my favourite teachers at school practically did lecture us, so perhaps that's why I prefer that style. I do think it's more effective though, if you have a good lecturer, but maybe that is just me.

I don't have any evidence, I'm just hypothesising. That said, I can't think of any reason why it's better to keep feeding people oversimplified models year after year, instead of waiting a couple of years and telling them the final model they'd have seen. Equally throwing somebody into subjects like history that require good analytical skills, before said skills have been developed properly, seems absurd to me. But, like I said, maybe it is just me who thinks this.

I've only ever helped my sister with her maths as she struggles with it; she is doing GCSE maths, and it never fails to amaze me how she just lacks any intuition, but yet it sadly doesn't surprise me, because I know how badly maths is taught at school.

I was being hyperbolic, but my point still stands. I do think kids should be forced to exercise at least a little, too many of them look like little fleshy snowmen nowadays. But if they don't like football and people don't want to make them do football, then I'm willing to accept that they do starjumps for an hour/until they pass out (whichever comes first) instead.

School isn't about what you feel like doing. It's about what's good for you. Sport is good for you so therefore kids should be forced to do it.