The schools issue
Disclaimer: From the outset, this post is likely to be plagued with my own opinions on the state of the public education system in the UK and the things that plague it. Where I may have done research and found something to corroborate or refute the idea, I will create a link so you can see that for yourself. That said, most of this is a reflection of my own experiences.
This is the question being asked subtly since the whole furore of increasing provision in schools was mooted in the prime minister's pre-recorded address on 10th May. Overtly, the teacher bashing that has been taking place in the media, on social media and by the government is utterly horrific and incredibly ill-informed.
There is a (rather frustrating) misconception amongst a rather vociferous section of the population that since schools closed their gates to all but the children of key workers and vulnerable children, teachers have been spending their time sat on their backsides, twiddling their thumbs and enjoying this extra holiday time they've been gifted. Oh, if only that were the truth. Anyone who works in education or knows someone who works in education knows the enormous workload teachers have to cope with all year round, even during the six weeks in the summer in some cases. This workload hasn't magically disappeared since lessons as we know them were halted on 20th May. Instead, in less than 48 hours, schools and teachers had to quickly come up with a plan to try to provide some sort of normality, continuity of routine for pupils once the gates were closed to the majority on 23rd March. The sudden surge in online learning was frantic and did not work well to begin for many schools. Depending on the profile of any individual school, accessibility to online resources was not as easy as assumed for so many. In fact, access to simpler resources such as paper are in even shorter supply in some homes. Schools had to take a two-pronged approach, trying to make expectations and workload manageable for staff whilst also trying not to disadvantage the disadvantaged further.
Perhaps the biggest travesty is that we have such a gulf of disadvantage amongst the children in our country in the first place. A part of me is enraged by this; a child's life prospects is the product of chance. Yet, at the same time, another part of me can accept that this is "just how it is", to the extent that this disparity is down to class. Then I get angry again that more hasn't been done to make the controllable elements fairer more quickly.
If deprivation is a key factor to educational success, then all moves should be taken to eliminate anything that creates a divide between one child and the next. Schools may have done this is several ways, one of which could be whether there is a homework policy at the school. It is far too easy to take for granted that a child will have a workspace at home that is conducive to them being able to learn and demonstrate their learning productively. Some schools over the years have introduced an obligatory homework club, where homework is completed in an allocated time each day after school, and no work is then taken home. This is just one example of how privilege can be mitigated. But this doesn't eliminate the gulf between one school and another; if anything it exacerbates it. A school that attracts the children from the more affluent area of town is likely to have less to contend with in terms of whether children are able and encouraged to work at home than the school a mile down the road whose pupils hail from the notorious areas. No child (or family, for that matter) is to blame for the circumstances they find themselves in. What schools do, and what they are facilitated to do, to narrow the difference in opportunities afforded to children is key to how disadvantaged those children remain as they grow.
Yet, the disadvantage remains amongst our young people. To the point that the role models those living in deprived areas desperately need are in extremely short supply. Meaning the adults that these particular children come into contact with are people that they cannot identify with. Not every child who grows up in a challenging circumstance will remain in the same circumstances for their lifetime. We are all aware of the rags to riches stories than can inspire, but again they are too few and far between to grasp the attention of the school-age generation. When those few do break free of their stereotypical circumstance, is there enough motivation for them to go back to where they grew up and show the next generation what is out there for them? There's not much point demonstrating high expectations alone if there is no common ground between a teacher and their pupils. Pupils need something to emulate and if they don't see a glimmer of themselves in their teachers, from where are their aspirations borne? Do they have role models elsewhere in the community? Allegedly not. Do they simply have dreams that they will stop at nothing to achieve? Not in my experience.
Still, disadvantage is about more than money. It's emotional too. I've worked in schools in areas where children struggle to dream big because their parents don't have aspirations for them. If a child goes home from school having been inspired to work hard to become an astronaut, by the next morning their parents will have dampened the flames of that burning desire because they'll "never be able to do that". This is the biggest, most harmful disadvantage of all. It is this emotional disadvantage that limited school contact will be having on so many living in these circumstances. Without that daily reminder from teachers that they can aspire to anything, these children will be thinking that they are limited in what they can achieve. I personally believe this is, rather than economic deprivation, the main cause of the gulf of disadvantage that we see between children in our schools.
Another controllable element that I think has a very large bearing on the prospects of children is the school application system. It is no longer a case of enrolling automatically at the nearest school unless you have personal reasons to go further afield. Secondary schools no longer have feeder schools that they can work with closely to make the transition process so much smoother for children between years 6 and 7. I've worked in schools where they have had up to 30 feeder primary schools in a year - not because they have worked with each of those schools, but because they have been allocated at least one pupil from those schools. I've worked in a school that doesn't serve the community around it, where the majority of pupils were catching multiple buses to get to and from school because the schools closer to them were fully subscribed (and not necessarily by children who live locally either). The fact that schools have to compete to attract pupils defeats the object of what is supposed to be an all-round equal school system. Yes, there is always going to be differences in exam results - that's the nature of the beast. Yet if my experiences of growing up in a fairly deprived area and working in schools whose children are starting out in the same way, it's that those who are able and motivated will learn and thrive. It's those who are able and easily distracted that the school application fails.
I once did crude research of what our intake would look like if we had a traditional catchment area and took in 30 students from five or six different schools (for the purposes of the study I used KS2 data published for the schools that we received most students from that particular year). This was at a time where I was going for an additional responsibility for attainment and progress and I had to present on what the challenges to us as a school were. (Complete tangent: I didn't get the role as I was deemed too inexperienced at the time but I was encouraged to shadow the person in the role and contribute to their work voluntarily based on the strength of my research. Needless to say, I found a way to move on to a role where I was credited for my work.) The average level of achievement at KS2 was one level higher if we assumed that all students from that primary class came to our school as opposed to the vast array of schools sending us distinctively smaller numbers of students. That ignored the fact that some pupils will have gone to a selective grammar school or into private education. Afterwards, to feed my own curiosity, I worked out that even if we allowed for the top 5% of pupils from each feeder school, the average prior attainment of those children was higher.
So the conclusion from this research? Schools competing was having an impact on the average ability of children in a cohort. If parents had to actively change the school they wish their child to go to, the intake in a school would be more fairly balanced in comparison to the intake in a school a mile or two away. There may be a wider range of abilities as a result, but I'd argue that schools would be on a more level playing field from the off when outcomes at KS4 are measured. As an aside, the move to the Progress 8 measure at KS4 has addressed this balance somewhat, but it has a long way to go before it effects real change in the levels of disadvantage seen between schools.
Disadvantage is a rather subjective notion in respect of education. Schools have reputations for being good or bad, and by association pupils will have an understanding of whether they are disadvantaged or not. And even if the school application system were overhauled, the idea of good and bad schools would still be there, particularly to start with. I honestly believe that schools could be judged more fairly if they were having to contend with a more balanced intake in terms of economic deprivation and the number of pupils in receipt of the pupil premium as a result. Some schools have less than 15% of pupils in receipt of this funding while other schools nearby will have upwards of 75% pupil premium students. Where is the fairness in that?
We can't just eradicate this disadvantage from our schools - it is too deep rooted for that. The government and any successive governments need to work to redress this balance, identify how to make any child on a par with another regardless of family income or postcode. I'm not talking about buying them a laptop and providing an internet router here. I'm talking about making it so that it doesn't matter what a child has access to at home. What a child can access at school is paramount and should be sufficient to allow a child to thrive, aspire and achieve.
Be kind. Stay safe.
Why are our schools in such a state?
This is the question being asked subtly since the whole furore of increasing provision in schools was mooted in the prime minister's pre-recorded address on 10th May. Overtly, the teacher bashing that has been taking place in the media, on social media and by the government is utterly horrific and incredibly ill-informed.
There is a (rather frustrating) misconception amongst a rather vociferous section of the population that since schools closed their gates to all but the children of key workers and vulnerable children, teachers have been spending their time sat on their backsides, twiddling their thumbs and enjoying this extra holiday time they've been gifted. Oh, if only that were the truth. Anyone who works in education or knows someone who works in education knows the enormous workload teachers have to cope with all year round, even during the six weeks in the summer in some cases. This workload hasn't magically disappeared since lessons as we know them were halted on 20th May. Instead, in less than 48 hours, schools and teachers had to quickly come up with a plan to try to provide some sort of normality, continuity of routine for pupils once the gates were closed to the majority on 23rd March. The sudden surge in online learning was frantic and did not work well to begin for many schools. Depending on the profile of any individual school, accessibility to online resources was not as easy as assumed for so many. In fact, access to simpler resources such as paper are in even shorter supply in some homes. Schools had to take a two-pronged approach, trying to make expectations and workload manageable for staff whilst also trying not to disadvantage the disadvantaged further.
Perhaps the biggest travesty is that we have such a gulf of disadvantage amongst the children in our country in the first place. A part of me is enraged by this; a child's life prospects is the product of chance. Yet, at the same time, another part of me can accept that this is "just how it is", to the extent that this disparity is down to class. Then I get angry again that more hasn't been done to make the controllable elements fairer more quickly.
If deprivation is a key factor to educational success, then all moves should be taken to eliminate anything that creates a divide between one child and the next. Schools may have done this is several ways, one of which could be whether there is a homework policy at the school. It is far too easy to take for granted that a child will have a workspace at home that is conducive to them being able to learn and demonstrate their learning productively. Some schools over the years have introduced an obligatory homework club, where homework is completed in an allocated time each day after school, and no work is then taken home. This is just one example of how privilege can be mitigated. But this doesn't eliminate the gulf between one school and another; if anything it exacerbates it. A school that attracts the children from the more affluent area of town is likely to have less to contend with in terms of whether children are able and encouraged to work at home than the school a mile down the road whose pupils hail from the notorious areas. No child (or family, for that matter) is to blame for the circumstances they find themselves in. What schools do, and what they are facilitated to do, to narrow the difference in opportunities afforded to children is key to how disadvantaged those children remain as they grow.
Yet, the disadvantage remains amongst our young people. To the point that the role models those living in deprived areas desperately need are in extremely short supply. Meaning the adults that these particular children come into contact with are people that they cannot identify with. Not every child who grows up in a challenging circumstance will remain in the same circumstances for their lifetime. We are all aware of the rags to riches stories than can inspire, but again they are too few and far between to grasp the attention of the school-age generation. When those few do break free of their stereotypical circumstance, is there enough motivation for them to go back to where they grew up and show the next generation what is out there for them? There's not much point demonstrating high expectations alone if there is no common ground between a teacher and their pupils. Pupils need something to emulate and if they don't see a glimmer of themselves in their teachers, from where are their aspirations borne? Do they have role models elsewhere in the community? Allegedly not. Do they simply have dreams that they will stop at nothing to achieve? Not in my experience.
Still, disadvantage is about more than money. It's emotional too. I've worked in schools in areas where children struggle to dream big because their parents don't have aspirations for them. If a child goes home from school having been inspired to work hard to become an astronaut, by the next morning their parents will have dampened the flames of that burning desire because they'll "never be able to do that". This is the biggest, most harmful disadvantage of all. It is this emotional disadvantage that limited school contact will be having on so many living in these circumstances. Without that daily reminder from teachers that they can aspire to anything, these children will be thinking that they are limited in what they can achieve. I personally believe this is, rather than economic deprivation, the main cause of the gulf of disadvantage that we see between children in our schools.
Another controllable element that I think has a very large bearing on the prospects of children is the school application system. It is no longer a case of enrolling automatically at the nearest school unless you have personal reasons to go further afield. Secondary schools no longer have feeder schools that they can work with closely to make the transition process so much smoother for children between years 6 and 7. I've worked in schools where they have had up to 30 feeder primary schools in a year - not because they have worked with each of those schools, but because they have been allocated at least one pupil from those schools. I've worked in a school that doesn't serve the community around it, where the majority of pupils were catching multiple buses to get to and from school because the schools closer to them were fully subscribed (and not necessarily by children who live locally either). The fact that schools have to compete to attract pupils defeats the object of what is supposed to be an all-round equal school system. Yes, there is always going to be differences in exam results - that's the nature of the beast. Yet if my experiences of growing up in a fairly deprived area and working in schools whose children are starting out in the same way, it's that those who are able and motivated will learn and thrive. It's those who are able and easily distracted that the school application fails.
I once did crude research of what our intake would look like if we had a traditional catchment area and took in 30 students from five or six different schools (for the purposes of the study I used KS2 data published for the schools that we received most students from that particular year). This was at a time where I was going for an additional responsibility for attainment and progress and I had to present on what the challenges to us as a school were. (Complete tangent: I didn't get the role as I was deemed too inexperienced at the time but I was encouraged to shadow the person in the role and contribute to their work voluntarily based on the strength of my research. Needless to say, I found a way to move on to a role where I was credited for my work.) The average level of achievement at KS2 was one level higher if we assumed that all students from that primary class came to our school as opposed to the vast array of schools sending us distinctively smaller numbers of students. That ignored the fact that some pupils will have gone to a selective grammar school or into private education. Afterwards, to feed my own curiosity, I worked out that even if we allowed for the top 5% of pupils from each feeder school, the average prior attainment of those children was higher.
So the conclusion from this research? Schools competing was having an impact on the average ability of children in a cohort. If parents had to actively change the school they wish their child to go to, the intake in a school would be more fairly balanced in comparison to the intake in a school a mile or two away. There may be a wider range of abilities as a result, but I'd argue that schools would be on a more level playing field from the off when outcomes at KS4 are measured. As an aside, the move to the Progress 8 measure at KS4 has addressed this balance somewhat, but it has a long way to go before it effects real change in the levels of disadvantage seen between schools.
Disadvantage is a rather subjective notion in respect of education. Schools have reputations for being good or bad, and by association pupils will have an understanding of whether they are disadvantaged or not. And even if the school application system were overhauled, the idea of good and bad schools would still be there, particularly to start with. I honestly believe that schools could be judged more fairly if they were having to contend with a more balanced intake in terms of economic deprivation and the number of pupils in receipt of the pupil premium as a result. Some schools have less than 15% of pupils in receipt of this funding while other schools nearby will have upwards of 75% pupil premium students. Where is the fairness in that?
We can't just eradicate this disadvantage from our schools - it is too deep rooted for that. The government and any successive governments need to work to redress this balance, identify how to make any child on a par with another regardless of family income or postcode. I'm not talking about buying them a laptop and providing an internet router here. I'm talking about making it so that it doesn't matter what a child has access to at home. What a child can access at school is paramount and should be sufficient to allow a child to thrive, aspire and achieve.
Be kind. Stay safe.
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