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What would you change about the current education system?

What one thing would you change about the current education system? What benefits do you think this change would have?

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In terms of secondary education, deal with teacher workload. I know this is easier said than done considering it was teachers that created most of the workload for themselves. This would improve teacher recruitment and retention. The more teachers that want to be in the profession the happier they'll be and the easier it'll be to enthuse students. More teachers also equal smaller class sizes, therefore, students get more 1:1 engagement. More responsibility needs to be on the learner to do well and less on the teacher.

Another thing I'd change is do away with all the different exam boards. All students sit the same end exam. A lot of other countries do this and it works rather well. Everyone is taught the same content, everyone knows where everyone stands, and there is no confusion over content and qualifications from different boards. Obviously, I'd still tier this for foundation and higher.
Original post by shadowdweller
What one thing would you change about the current education system? What benefits do you think this change would have?


Languages!!!

Start learning languages at a much earlier age (around 4 or 5!) We start far too late here. My Auntie teaches English to 3 and 4 year olds in Germany.

inb4 someone says 'It doesn't matter, everyone speaks English' <<<< Terrible attitude
More activity. Everyone complains that this generation is the inactive generation, the desk chair generation, the iPhone generation, and then forces the kids to sit down for five hours a day.
Original post by Jack22031994
Languages!!!

Start learning languages at a much earlier age (around 4 or 5!) We start far too late here. My Auntie teaches English to 3 and 4 year olds in Germany.

inb4 someone says 'It doesn't matter, everyone speaks English' <<<< Terrible attitude


Totally agree with this. British students should be at least bilingual by the end of primary school, and fully trilingual by the end of secondary.

English speakers are actually a minority on the world stage, making up no more than 25% of the world's population.
Original post by super_kawaii
Totally agree with this. British students should be at least bilingual by the end of primary school, and fully trilingual by the end of secondary.

English speakers are actually a minority on the world stage, making up no more than 25% of the world's population.


Not only will it provide more opportunity, it may also rid that attitude that English should be expected.

Also people who can speak more than one language, tend to be far less likely to suffer from dementia et al etc
Original post by Jack22031994
Not only will it provide more opportunity, it may also rid that attitude that English should be expected.

Also people who can speak more than one language, tend to be far less likely to suffer from dementia et al etc


I totally agree. I speak 5 languages and I feel like I am offensive and thick as I do not speak more. Babies need to be exposed properly to languages from the moment they are born and taught properly from nursery school. Languages don't even exist in primary schools despite it being compulsory.
- languages being compulsory and starting learning them in year 2/3 instead of year 5/6
- going back to A*-U
- teacher workload and stress being reduced
- comprehensive schools getting more funding (especially more rural ones)
Original post by super_kawaii
I totally agree. I speak 5 languages and I feel like I am offensive and thick as I do not speak more. Babies need to be exposed properly to languages from the moment they are born and taught properly from nursery school. Languages don't even exist in primary schools despite it being compulsory.


Yeah, I can speak some German and currently re-learning it. :smile: Would love to do more but when you're an adult, life can get in the way :frown:

I'm not sure if its just a british thing, or if other countries where the first language is English too. (bar Canada with French at least)
Reply 9
Avatar for yusyus
yusyus
21
Original post by super_kawaii
I totally agree. I speak 5 languages and I feel like I am offensive and thick as I do not speak more. Babies need to be exposed properly to languages from the moment they are born and taught properly from nursery school. Languages don't even exist in primary schools despite it being compulsory.


why though - aren't we all gonna have some earpieces that translates what we say anyway soon enough.
Original post by laurawatt
- languages being compulsory and starting learning them in year 2/3 instead of year 5/6
- going back to A*-U
- teacher workload and stress being reduced
- comprehensive schools getting more funding (especially more rural ones)


- Agreed
-- Not sure what different it makes, what we call grades :dontknow:
-- Yes
-Yes
Original post by yusyus
why though - aren't we all gonna have some earpieces that translates what we say anyway soon enough.


Nope, highly doubt that will ever happen in our generation. Technology and AI just aren't advanced enough to cope with the sociolinguistics and neurolinguistics required to do translation between languages with any accuracy. We will need a fully multilingual society with a full understanding of sociology, anthropology, history, sociolinguistics, and neurolinguistics on a human level, before we can start to think of advancing our technology to the same implicit ability.

It's a very complex situation which we're most likely never going to see
Original post by Jack22031994
- Agreed
-- Not sure what different it makes, what we call grades :dontknow:
-- Yes
-Yes


Yep but they changed the specifications at the same time to make it harder to get good grades :frown:
Reply 13
Avatar for yusyus
yusyus
21
Original post by super_kawaii
Nope, highly doubt that will ever happen in our generation. Technology and AI just aren't advanced enough to cope with the sociolinguistics and neurolinguistics required to do translation between languages with any accuracy. We will need a fully multilingual society with a full understanding of sociology, anthropology, history, sociolinguistics, and neurolinguistics on a human level, before we can start to think of advancing our technology to the same implicit ability.

It's a very complex situation which we're most likely never going to see


doesn't google translate have a feature pretty similar anyway? I guess yeah you're right it's not known for its accuracy and it would only break down more with accents and stuff. I guess I am a result of the schools bad language teaching system - I did French GCSE and could hardly tell you anything tbh.
Original post by yusyus
doesn't google translate have a feature pretty similar anyway? I guess yeah you're right it's not known for its accuracy and it would only break down more with accents and stuff. I guess I am a result of the schools bad language teaching system - I did French GCSE and could hardly tell you anything tbh.


Google translate is infamous for how horrific it is. It really does not work AT ALL. It should NEVER be trusted for translation work, even for single words, as it has no understanding of social norms, sociolinguistics, or even basic context and nuance, which are ESSENTIAL for accurate communication.

I did French and German to A Level, and Mandarin and Japanese at undergrad. Currently doing a PGCE in MFL teaching and we look at a lot of neurolinguistics and sociolinguistics in our theory classes.
Original post by shadowdweller
What one thing would you change about the current education system? What benefits do you think this change would have?


Broaden it out more.. have first year of uni as a generalist year to reduce all the needless dropping out due to wrong course choices.

Introduce genuine careers advice.. not the BS that's on the NCS site or on connexions. make information about competitiveness, salary, ideal candidate profile, career development, etc more transparent than they are now.

Posted from TSR Mobile
stop changing the specifications so dramatically and release all the content book on time (as further maths if u get me)
Original post by Jack22031994
Languages!!!

Start learning languages at a much earlier age (around 4 or 5!) We start far too late here. My Auntie teaches English to 3 and 4 year olds in Germany.

inb4 someone says 'It doesn't matter, everyone speaks English' <<<< Terrible attitude


No point learning languages and then only few students who acc continue learning after achool
Original post by Princepieman
Broaden it out more.. have first year of uni as a generalist year to reduce all the needless dropping out due to wrong course choices.

Introduce genuine careers advice.. not the BS that's on the NCS site or on connexions. make information about competitiveness, salary, ideal candidate profile, career development, etc more transparent than they are now.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Would be good if this was a separate option alongside starting first year in a specialised course. I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I applied and being forced into a general year on top of my 4 compulsory years would have put me off uni, which actually ended up being amazing for me
Original post by Boss987
No point learning languages and then only few students who acc continue learning after achool


Well if that's the case there's no point in learning anything.

The only reason we have so few students studying language is because they're done so horrifically in this country. Only compulsory in the vast majority of schools for 2 years and then are the most horrific way of teaching anything.

If they were done properly from the first day of nursery then maybe we'd have more people doing them. Languages need importance in our curriculum, especially as English is not spoken by everyone.

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