ParentTaxi

Pups-mum, the way it is taught at the DC's school is as 3 separate sciences, by 3 specialist teachers, but they only get 2 qualifications in the end. I can see your point about weakness in one subject affecting the others. However, as double is usually a timetabling decision, the timetabling of 'all doubles together' is much easier than catering for all possible pairings of 2 Sciences and then a choice of alternatives - so e.g. those who do Biology + Chemistry + History would have History timetabled in the Physics slot, those who did Chemistry + Physics + History would have it in the Biology slot etc etc. i think you can also argue in terms of a child's overall education, a solid grounding in all 3 sciences, sufficient to provide a basis for an A-level in any if the pupil works hard, is better than an early decision to drop one and only do 2 sciences, which would (except in very unusual circumstances) rule out that A-level altogether. It would, actually, probably be fine to drop Biology - I did Biology for O-level but not A-level, and have a biological sciences PhD, but I suspect that the most common one to drop might be Physics, which does close more doors. It would be interesting, actually, to think of which subject choices at this level are 'irrevocable' - ie they definitively close doors. I have known people at very good universities taking Economics degrees who haven't studied Economics before, people doing language degrees including languages they have never studied, biologists who dropped biology at 16, but not physicists who haven't studied Physics continuously, for example.

MLN, I think the point is that quite a lot of schools - including some very good ones - don't offer triple science. So universities etc regard double science from a school-which-only-does-double as perfectly fine, if combined with good A-levels.

Anecdotally - my DC's school only offers double (to maximise the range of choices available), a school with a similar catchment and similar Ofsted etc a town or two over offers triple. Their A-level science results are pretty much identical. As an ex-scientist, i was deeply worried about the lack of triple, and rang my old Oxbridge college. Their science students have a mixture of double and triple. Their advice was that double from a school that only does double is fine - the teachers teaching A-level start from the 'double' starting point and teach from there, and those students go on to do as well as students who have taken triple in schools who offer triple, whose A-level teachers start from the 'triple' starting point. Students who do double where triple is offered - especially if the large majority of A-level scientists have done triple - are marginally less successful, because they have to work hard to bridge the gap at the beginning of Year 12, but if the school is used to having those students in their A-level classes, they go on to do fine.

Alison, DD has studied one language (French) all the way through primary and for the first 3 years of secondary, and a second language for 2 years. I do know that if she does not do a language GCSE that is absolutely not ideal. I would much prefer her to do at least one. However, since about the only options that she would rule out from the selection that the school provides are Drama, Childcare and Computing - leaving her still with multiple options in each block, all of which she has high ability in [polymath child that she is] - it may still come about. Art is the one we are worried about in terms of time, because the studios are open after school (coinciding with dance) and it is expected that students will do a LOT of work outside lesson time, but also the only one that is 'fixed' as a definite option for DD.

(DS does 2 languages, 2 humanities and Music as his options)

Non-DS is doing the EBacc. It is possible - though not likely - that DD might not. She is a very skilled artist, so may well do Art + at least 1, possibly 2 Design subjects (the school has a long history of really excellent Design work, and they win lots of scholarships, awards etc). I hope that she balances that with a language and History or Geography, but she has talemnts across the curriculum so it may well end up being very hard to choose. DS was easier - once we'd removed all the things he is totally unskilled at, he only ended up with 1 real 'option'!

With 'progress 8' being a new league table measure, I suspect doing fewer than 8 will become rarer, but ensuring the 5 EBacc subjects may also become less common, so more children may drop languages or not do History / Geography. My DC's school has historically had slightly lower EBAcc rates than would be expected, because RE and Design have been very well taught so many pupils did RE instead of History / Geography or did 2x Design subjects and dropped either a language or a humanity.

It will depend enormously on the school and how it is timetabled. My DC's school has 5 'option blocks' - so most people do: - 5 core GCSEs (maths, 2x Science, 2x English) - 5 options, which will include e.g. 2 core languages, art, PE, drama, design, childcare, business and thus end up with 10 GCSEs0 A few children will do fewer - so they will do 1x English, maybe just core Science, and have 1 option block taken up with study skills to support all their other subjects, so they may come out with 7-8. A few children will do more, because some subjects - 2 additional languages, Dance - can be studies after school. However, other schools arrange compulsory and option blocks differently - they may require 3x Science, half a GCSE RE and only allow 3 option blocks, for example.

Tbh, I have absolutely no issue with the items expecting students to be well presented and correctly dressed for class. The messages that i feel somewhat less comfortable with, if taken at face value, are the ones that focus on 'doing extra / doing more / always over-delivering e.g. dancing full out rather than marking, doing every exercise with both halves of the class, practising after class or 50 times for a correction. For one thing, a good teacher will tell students to mark when marking is the best way of learning at that point - perhaps judging the overall state of the class at that moment, perhaps to ask students to focus on the order of the choreography at that moment rather than 'step performing technique'. For another, it takes absolutely no account of what a student may actually need to balance their life - time to rest, time to do homework, quite simply time to get home for a family meal, energy (I know many teachers might shudder at this) for the school's crunch netball match after school tomorrow, or alertness for a critical maths test first thing in the morning. I also worry that if a child or group DOES consistently over deliver, the class teacher will begin to see that as 'the norm' and thus the pressure will come to 'over deliver even further', which can be a dangerous spiral unless the dance teacher is very conscious of it.

I worry slightly that - for the already conscientious student in a non-vocational setting, where they are already balancing many hours of dance with academic and other commitment - such ideas may actually leave them open to a certain amount of "exploitation" by teachers. It's a bit like the 'presenteeism' culture in some companies - being there, a competitive 'harder work, longer hours' culture, and manager pleasing behaviour, comes to matter more than the intrinsic quality of the work or of the employee. And in such companies, those with other commitments, those trying to balance different aspects of their lives, those who for whatever reason do not want to be subsumed into that culture, can miss out on the success that they deserve through the quality of their work. I don't mean that teachers set out to 'exploit' their students - but there can be a tendency to blindness about other commitments, a focus on hours and unquestioning 'yes miss' attitudes that can be unhealthy in the wrong hands and with vulnerable younger children / teens in particular.

PJW, our studio sounds very similar to yours, and as I have posted on other threads, her hours sound similar to that. A little more ballet - 2 classes at current grade, 1 at the grade above + pointe, and more team rehearsals (2 hours per age group, 4 in total for her as at the moment she dances in 2 different age groups) - and no classes specifically for contemporary or jazz. A private lesson too, and 30 mins - 1 hour 'exam preparation' lesson in any genre she is taking an exam in that term. So 2-3 hours a day, 5 days a week, often with extras at the weekend - but certainly not 1.5 hours of classical class every day. As aileen says, there simply aren't the classes. Anyone really aiming for a pure ballet career has gone to vocational school at some point between 11 and 13, but the school really aims at 18+, at which point it sends between 2 and 8 pupils per year off the the major dance colleges in our experience..

mnemo, that's interesting. Non-dancing DS is sporting and musical, DD obviously dances - I have noticed no difference in the way that they are treated in terms of the approach to their other commitments by their teachers (DS is treated slightly differently because he chooses to be more open about his 'other life', but whenever I have had to share details of outside school commitments about either of them, the school's approach has been absolutely even-handed). It may just be that, because of the size of the local dance schools and the fact that their main point of transfer to full-time dance is to dance college at 18, the school is used to having quite a number of 'serious but non-vocational dancers' on its books at any one time. DD did point out to me at the time that there probably weren't all that many standard state comprehensives that regularly have 5+ students in the national ballet award finals, for example. I don't feel that I've explained myself well about the concern of school re grades thing. I'm not saying that parents SHOULD care about how their child's grades affect the school as a whole, because of course our focus as parents is on our child. However, in all discussions and negotiations, it is always useful to know and understand the motivations, concerns and values of the person or organisation you are negotiating / discussing with, otherwise it ends up as mutual incomprehension and can end up in unnecessary antagonism.

balletbean, The problem with that can often be standardisation across different examiners. DD has received distinctions for every exam she has taken (ISTD), but the marks have been highly variable, from 81 / 100 to 96 / 100. Looking across the school as a whole (it is a centre by itself, so there are a lot of grades to compare), the proportions of P [very, very rare], M and D remain relatively constant, and the type of grade each individual child gets as they move up through the school remains relatively constant. However, for some examiners, the majority of Distinctions will be around the 82-85 mark range across the board, while for others the majority will be, say, between 87 and 95, and simnilarly for some examiners the majority of merits will be high Merits, for others the marks will be lower. I know that the board works hard to standardise GRADES between examiners. Having to ensure the exact MARKS given to all students will be consistent across all examiners is potentially a much, much harder task and may not be worth it, if that makes sense?

I also think it is difficult to hold to a 'UK norm' of 11/12/13 for pointe (none of the local festivals allow pointe work until the 13 year old classes, and it is not unusual to see demi-pointe - and for dancer on demi-pointe to be placed - up until 15 at least) when the norms overseas are so different. I know of ex-pat families with dancing daughters who have attended and competed as part of dance schools in Eastern European countries where working on pointe at 9 was absolutely the norm, and where there were complaints when taking part in an international competition which followed the 'silly rule' of not allowing pointe below 13. It seems to me obvious that this can lead to ambitious teachers, dancers and parents, seeing the success of overseas pupils in auditions for UK-based schools and companies, wanting to emulate more of their practices, including early pointe work.

Of course looking backwards from the point of view of someone who is now successful in their chosen field it is easy to say 'the school teachers were wrong' - many parents of boys with footballing ambitions will cite examples of successful footballers who have few academic qualifications as the reason why their son does not need to worry about such things. It's just harder to look forwards, to predict who those successful children will be, and who will be those who might in the end need their academic qualifications for a slightly different path. Thus many school teachers will tend to urge balance, to urge the need to be pragmatic, however much with our parental hats on we may want them to understand the primacy of our children's extra-curricular ambitions. It is interesting in football that the good youth academies have a real focus on academics, and strong communications link to schools - to the extent that boys who have not completed homework or who do not have good reports from school are banned from training (DS was a member of one of these for a few years, and the first question of parents and boys on training nights was 'has he done his homework?', even at primary age. If the answer was no, the boy was sent inside to do the homework instead of training). Teachers, in my experience, do absolutely understand that Ofsted grades and results are of no interest whatever to parents at the point when their child is taking GCSEs / A-levels (as even when those grades and reports may have been of relevance when the parents chose the school at 11, once in the school they no longer seem to have an impact on parents or pupils). However, it is all part of wanting each party to understand the other party's point of view, isn't it? As a parent, you want the school to understand that your child's ambition is to be a dancer, and thus an impact on grades is a 'reasonable consequence' of this, which you are entirely prepared for. As a teacher, you might want a parent to understand that as a consequence of the school's failure to get your child to their target grades, the school's Ofsted grading and the teacher's whole experience in that school may suffer (working in a school that requires Improvement or is in special measures is hugely different to one that is safely Good or Outstanding), and thus your child's relatively low grades ARE of importance to the teacher. It is all part of an informed and nuanced discussion.

As someone who sits on both sides of the parents' evening tables, I would emphasise that I agree with this - it is when pupils are NOT doing their homework, grades are slipping, and the general attitude is 'I don't care about this school thing, because I'm going to be a .........' that the conversations become tricky. To be honest, the most common scenario is where grades, attendance, homework, attitude are not QUITE as good as they could be, and there are then the nuanced conversations about whether an improvement is achievable given the student's other commitments and ambitions. I suppose what I'm saying is that it's not always black and white - not all pupils with ambitions in extra-curricular areas (including dance) are always achieving as they might be in school, but nor is it reasonable for school to assume that it is always the academics that must take priority. It's a discussion. My understanding on UCAS points for dance exams is that while the exist, they are not often taken into account when universities make offers for academic courses. So it isn't the case that if a university offers AAB, and a student gets ABB but with UCAS points from dance exams, then the student gets in - nor that offers are lowered for applicants who already have UCAS points from dance exams. So yes, they have a nominal UCAS value, but not one that can be used very widely, IYSWIM?

Dance has a reasonably high profile at the DC's secondary - one of the inter-House competitions is Dance (culminates in an evening show), the main Sports page has a paragraph about Dance, mentioning that quite a lot of pupils compete and perform locally and nationally in Dance (two big ISTD schools locally, both of which send pupils to the ballet Awards, Star Tap and Janet Cram), and it is a big feature of the annual school show (usually a musical-with-dancing, sometimes a play-with-music-and-dancing, but always with a large number of pure dancers taking part). There is also some 'points' system (that I don't understand) in which pupils who compete at local, county, national level in sports get some points towards their award ... there was some discussion about it, and I think in the end DD (and the 3 others from the school who were there) got national points for getting to the finals of the ballet awards....

At the DC's school, after a period at the beginning of y7 when all homework was short but had to be in the next day (supposedly to 'get them into good habits', but a real issue for DD at the time), we never get overnight homework. There is a very strictly-kept homework timetable, so it is also never unexpected. I know we're really lucky.

The 'more nuanced' conversations that I have as i get to know pupils better wlll often be around balancing 'marginal benefit' (marginal benefit of 1 more hour of extra curricular activity vs 1 more hour available for academic work or sleep..) and stripping away any time consuming but ultimately non-valuable activities. Tbh, much school homework, In my experience, is of the time consuming but ultimately non-valuable camp. i have been lucky both where i teach and where my children attend school that homework is pretty much stripped down to the necessary.

Agreed that it is absolutely about work ethic and 'achieving to their individual ability' (or even, in some cases, 'to the best of their ability given the constraints placed on them by working towards their 'primary' goal' - those Olympic athletes who were fitting GCSEs or A levels in around training, for example) rather than being about the absolute level of that ability.

DrDance, that's exactly the kind of thing I mean. In football, dance and music, simply due to my expertise 'as a mum', I can perhaps make some slightly more informed judgements about the likelihood or not of certain career dreams for certain children - but for every pupil who has an ambition related to one of those three, there will be several who have dreams of succeeding in areas where I have no ability to judge the reality or otherwise of their dreams. As a result, my first 'routine' response to a parent who makes that type of comment will be along the lines of needing to maintain academic work as much as possible as a 'back up', though once i know more about the level of their commitment and expertise that message will become more nuanced, if that makes sense?

annaliesey, I absolutely agree that for a child doing well in top sets and delivering homework on time etc there seems absolutely no need to talk about cutting down. My post was much more about the really difficult conversations that I have, more regularly than you might expect, with parents of children who are actively neglecting their academic work and performing very poorly because of an (often, unfortunately, wholly baseless) ambition / dream of a career in an extra-curricular area.

The thing is - and this is where i probably reveal myself as not quite a fully signed up member of the dance tribe - is that on occasion, as an academic teacher, one does want to make sure that a child maintains their academic studies up to a point even if this is as a 'back up plan'. It is far more common than you might think (I'd put it as more than 1 in 10, for the age group teach) for parents to say, for example 'He wants to be a footballer, so it really doesn't matter about his Maths', and it does take some time to sift 'those for whom this is, actually, a completely realistic ambition unless they are injured' from 'those for whom it is a pipe dream'. For a child who has got as far as Y10 in the school, and who is auditioning for vocational schools, then I absolutely agree that the conversation with academic school should be all about balance and compromise and support for the 'primary' goal while ensuring that as far as possible other avenues are not closed, rather than assuming that academics take first place. However - being on both sides of this particular fence, and not being in any position to judge the 'actual likelihood of success' of the pupils I teach in their many and varied extracurricular pursuits - it can be difficult to get that exact balance and tone of conversation right for every child.

balletbean, DD - Year 9 - dances 2-3 hours every night, but very few of her school teachers are aware of this unless I specifically tell them. She's all top sets, plays for school teams, gets her homework in on time, gets very high effort grades - she has just made the decision that it is easier not to tell them because as long as she can juggle both and succeed at both, it's much less hassle not to worry school about her dance commitments and vice versa. She danced her own choreography at a school show last summer (co-opted by a member of staff who does know about her 'secret life') and at the parents' evening the following day, practically every teacher said 'I never knew she danced' (usually followed by a faintly awed 'and I never knew a 13 year old could dance LIKE THAT). I couldn't decide whether to laugh or rage.

Peanut, I would have to be on a similarly eclectic set of forums - Maths, Jazz, football... IME, I have found that it is easier to find 'real life' tribes for 'collective enterprise / team' pursuits - those hanging around on the touchline, those sitting through yet another open-air jazz concert in the rain - but it becomes harder for those where there is an element of competition between the individuals or where your child is an 'outlier', if that makes sense? So I have no difficulty finding the football tribe, though perhaps harder to speak to them through the layers of coats and scarves and wellies - as it is a team sport, they are all 'in it together'. Similarly the Jazz tribe ... though interestingly not the classical music tribe ... are highly 'corporate' and keen to share everything that they know. Classical music and ballet seem to have a greater focus on 'individual excellence', and their fair share of competitiveness between parents (and sometimes performers - one of the oddest conversations I have had as a mum was getting someone to take seriously the fact that my non dancing DS was being badly verbally bullied about, of all things, playing musical scales), which makes the 'shared enterprise' element less noticeable and the existence of on-line support more useful.