Smaller class sizes do not help pupils perform better in school.
A recent report with comments by the deputy director of the Institute of Education, Professor Dylan William said that cutting class sizes was not a cost effective way of boosting grades.
Classes needed to be reduced to 15 or less to have a significant impact, he said. - This is impractical in most schools.
Apparently – continuous monitoring of pupils’ assessment is a better way of teaching. – Some schools now do this by offering a ‘traffic light’ system – where pupils hold up coloured cards to indicate whether they have understood what the teacher has said.
Smaller classes help if children are unruly and hard to manage.
But William has called for a complete over-haul of teaching methods – if we are to really get to the nitty gritty of the problem – and tackle it head on.
Tecahers need to allow more time for pupils to respond to questions, and take more trouble to check that they have fully understood what has been said.
So why are we still trying to reduce class sizes?
And why aren’t teachers taking more note of these and similar recommendations?
Perhaps the problem – relating to the latter point particularly – is one of ‘ego-teaching’. Teachers think they know best. Period. Even if the way in which they are teaching is actually detrimental to students’ progress. And pupils are really at their mercy.
Teachers need to listen to education chiefs when they say something isn’t working. Because – chances are – they’re probably right.
Tags: class size, education, education reform, pupils, pupils performance, smaller class sizes, teaching, teaching reform
May 14, 2008 at 7:35 pm
My mum is a teaching assisstant at the local school. She works with the behavioural children – the ones that don’t want to learn, would rather throw things and swear and disrupt all those who actually would rather learn.
The school’s answer was to remove them from the mainstream schools, sit them all together in a crampt room and let my mother handle their mood swings and try to get them to learn enough to pass their GCSEs.
You would think that the well-being and the education of the students would be the priority of the school. You’d be wrong.
The school has a N.C to stick to, targets to reach, grades to hit. And all with not enough staff because they are too tight-fisted to get help.
My mum has been left to fend for herself, trying to teach these students, even though she isn’t a teacher because they don’t want to find someone who will (who’d they’d have to pay more for).
If the teachers took the time to talk to these children, they would find that the children mess around because they do not know the subjects they are being taught. The teacher doesn’t have the time or doesn’t want to help, preferring to teach those who do know it so as to get better results for the school.
I totally agree with your statement. Teachers should listen to students – the very people they are meant to be there for – to see if they understand. Not chasing targets and grading tables. It is the children who will ultimately loose out, our future generations.