Teacher’s attitudes must change if we want to boost GCSE results in UK schools. Here’s why…

I watched an interesting program last night on BBC Two. It was called ‘Are Our Kids Tough Enough?’ and it was an experiment to see if China’s rigorous teaching methods would drive up standards in a UK school.

Five Chinese teachers took over at Bohunt School in Liphook, Hampshire for four weeks. They taught a class of 50 year 9 students. The school day started at 7:00 am and lasted for 12 hours, with two meal breaks in between. A lot of emphasis was placed on note-taking and repetition during lessons.

What struck me first was the size of the classroom. The class size in China is 50 students – almost 30 more than a traditional UK school. This immediately throws the ‘large class size leads to lower results’ myth out of the window.

The next thing that struck me was the headteacher’s (Neil Strowger) views. He felt the Chinese way of teaching was flawed and it didn’t ‘enthuse’ pupils. I agree with Mr Strowger’s view to some degree. Copying notes and repetition is not the best way to learn a subject but they are key ingredients for exam success. A large part of an exam is down to memory retention and there is no better way to boost memory retention than repetition. If students don’t develop these habits early on, revision (and results) will decline.

I don’t think it’s wise for teachers to stress the need for engagement in lessons. What happens is students gravitate towards this belief. They feel that lessons have to be fun and enjoyable. If not, then they don’t have to pay attention. At the end of the day, revision and passing exams are far from fun and students have to put in the ‘nitty gritty’ to get top grades. I feel UK schools need a fine balance between subject matter and exam technique to get the best of both worlds.