Inequalities in our schools - do they exist and if so does it worry you and what best to do?

[JustineMumsnet]

I'm posting this on behalf of the Observer. Think it's quite an interesting discussion

Hi there,

The Observer is carrying a news feature this Sunday looking at inequalities in Britain's schools and I'm keen to generate a discussion among mothers about some of the issues.

In particular, I'm interested in how people feel about the growing gender gap between girls and boys? Do mothers worry about their sons underperforming in school or behaving badly? Why do you think there is a gender gap? The story will also look at special needs and concerns about bullying. Do parents of children with SEN worry about this? What about parents who find out their children have bullied others - how do you tackle that? And what do you think teachers can do to help improve the performance of children from the poorest families? Please do call me if you'd like to speak about this issue or just post your thoughts here.

All the best,

Anushka

Policy editor
The Observer
07786702523

I don't worry about the gender gap. I worry that I know several people who have put their names down to volunteer within the school, and despite the school wailing at us a week ago that they have no volunteers, not ONE person from my area (a council estate) has been contacted and asked to help, yet my friend in a 'nice' area is being mithered nearly every day.

That fucking worries me. The widening class gap being propagated by my school's headteacher.

I work in a large secondary school as a TA. I see just as many disaffected girls as boys, however the boys challenging behaviour tends to stand out more than the girls.

In terms of GSCE choices it seems perfectly acceptable for boys to choose Food Tech & girls to choose Design Tech. But many girls still see Science as being a boys subject, whether this is because of the way that it is portrayed in the media I'm not sure. It certainly doesn't come from within the school.

With the SEN issues, at my school, the TAs closely monitor all pupils on the SEN register & are vigilant for any signs of bullying. Some of the teachers however (in my experience) don't always read all the SEN info that's available and/or don't have the knowledge/experience about specific SEN issues & how best to deal with situations or behaviour

I do worry about the gender gap and I keep a close eye on DS. I expect him to behave well in school and to try hard with his classwork and homework. My expectations are exactly the same as for his older sisters and so far, he's year 9, his achievement level has been broadly similar to DD2 who did particularly well at GCSE. My DH and his brother were hardworking high achievers at school and we seem to have "lost" the idea that this is what boys can be like and instead replaced it with an expectation that boys are a bit rubbish and can't be bothered with school.

Gender inequality worries me; there is a widening gap between the performance of boys and girls in primary. Is this because boys are emotionally, mentally and physically less able than girls. Not in my experience, quite the reverse is true. Girls and boys often require different environments, their approach to learning, their attitudes and expectations are quite different. I run maths clubs and usually it is the boys that shine, they are exuberant and energetic, they are keen to learn, they love competition and games of chance and they excel at problem solving. All of this real learning occurs while the girls are quietly and diligently filling in their worksheets. Bright and able boys are being labelled as having SEN and worse for no other reason than their natural state of being. That state of being is not welcome in a mainstream state school with a curriculum that is gender biased, in schools packed to the rafters with women teachers trained primarily in English and English literature. What boys need is radically different and yes that may also be more discipline, more sport, more science, maths, adventure but most importantly more male teachers.

I worry that no-one worries when boys outperform girls.

That it is a cause for concern, and television documentaries galore when boys fall behind. But when they outperform girls, it's just normal practice. Noone kicks up a stink about boys doing better at university. Because that's the way things are supposed to be

Statistically, one gender will always outperform the other.

My concern centres around the 14-19 provision for lower achieving children, which tends to siphon boys into motor mechanics and girls into hair and beauty, reinforcing both gender stereotypes and a lack of aspiration amongst disaffected students.

My son was until last year, in mainstream education despite having HFA and ADHD.

He was bullied daily. The school new that he was being bullied and would even tell me that he was bullied.
admitedly it was at this stage (yrs 1-4) quite low level and thankfully DS was mostly oblivious to what was happening.

The children new that they could coax a reaction from him so would goad him and call him names, walk up behind him and poke him like a dog and then run off.

He would then chase them upset or angry. they would run around laughing and giggling and if a teacher came over they only saw DS chasing children being angry.
he would then be told off. he would try and explain how unfair this was but due to his communication issues this would usualy involve a violant meltdown.

he would be excluded.

School new that these children were doing it but they ignored this fact. they seemed to believe that as DS didn;t realise they were picking on him it was ok.

Thankfully he is now a very popular boy in a SN school doing amazingly well.

I too worry about class inequality, and believe that in my DS's school it impacts on gender inequality too.

My boys, and their friends, behave very well in school and elsewhere, and are achieving well. Boys from families where boys are expected to be tough, 'behave like boys' not allowed to cry, banned from anything that might seem 'gay' etc, all behave badly and are under-achieving.

Boys need good emotionally literate role models.

It's all very well David Cameron wanting 'winners' in the education system, but education isn't a sport with winners and losers, it's LIFE, and in education no-one should be a loser. There are too many losing out in their families and in education, and it will be bad for all of us to have more disaffected losers, making their own version of success based on gang credentials etc etc. We need to create a society, not winners out front and everyone else lagging behind.

With regard to SEN provision - my experience is that it is woefully inadequate for bright children with SEN eg dyslexia. Schools have finite resources and are reluctant to flag up dyslexia as a diagnosis means they have to make resources available and provide individual plans for that child's education.

So they prefer to gloss over the SEN to keep a child who is likely to get 4s/5s in Year 6 SATS anyway off the SEN register and save their precious resources....this has huge implications for the child who is still massively undr-performing in relating to their IQ but not failing as far as the school is concerned.

It all comes down to league tables, OFSTED reports and, of course, money at the end if the day. And some schools are EXTREMELY good at playing the system, knowing exactly which boxes they need to tick to become an OFSTED "outstanding" school. In my experience that simply means they are outstanding at responding to the OFSTED criteria on the day of the inspection. It certainly does not equal an outstanding standard of teaching or pastoral care.

Totally agree with Pfft.

especially when the girls will still find that there is unequal pay.
Also agree with Thethersand. What will they do if they tinker and skew the system to favour boys and then the see-saw shifts again?

Class inequality is another huge concern but I think most schools are very aware of this and much has been done to try and close the gap. Teachers are not just teachers anymore, they are instruments of a state with a social ideology that says all children are the same, need the same and will there after perform the same. The last government tinkered with every aspect of the system to ensure equality across the class divide. What they failed to grasp is that schools can not be micro managed from Whitehall and equality of outcome is not determined just by equality of opportunity. Like the saying, give two men a million pounds, in a year one will be wealthy and one will be poor. There is only one way left to go, close every private school, make private tuition illegal and insist the kids all have free school meals. Won?t be any sniffing in the dinner cue, and the teachers will be free to teach without worrying about class divisions. Oh and the G&T list, what a burden on the teachers social conscience that is, Oh yes the government even had targets to meet in dictating the percentage of children in the cohort from specific backgrounds on the basis of sex, race and class, fair ? , so I say scrap that as well. Something really radical, would be to take the social work out of teaching, where it doesn't belong and invest in the areas where it does belong. Real inequalities start at home, not inside the schools.

I've thought long and hard about this - obviously with my job you would. I think, and this is just my opinion, that boys take longer to be ready to learn than girls.

What I mean by that is when a boy is under 6 to 7 (sorry I think it is that old) they are still very active and have a short attention span (this obviously varies child to child - I'm talking overall) they also exhibit a lot of toddler like investigative behaviour and a tendency to constantly talk (why? I saw, I think) again just like toddlers.

At the moment we put boys into nursery/school at 3/4/5 and they cannot help but play in an erratic way - or mess around, to give it it's usual name. This sets a pattern - the young males see school as somewhere to mess around with your friends. Then we ask them to 'concentrate' and learn. Sometimes there is a problem.

I am a mother of sons myself and have 'legions' of exciting 'boy friendly' lesson plans which gain the boys attention initially - then I have a constant formative assessment methodology to keep them on track. It is tiring and I sleep soundly at night. I cannot help but notice that I am constantly managing boys expectations of play opportunities.

As I said this is just an idle opinion of my own.

Oh and just one further observation. Sometimes, not always, when the first little surges of testosterone begin to show themselves in Year 6 and sometimes even Year 5 our young males are very sensitive to this new hormone and react to even really small amounts - in schools you can see when it starts by noticing behaviour changes before you see them shooting upwards. Then you get a bit of bravado and risk taking (pushing the boundaries) again it is perfectly natural. This can impede the boys' progress at another key moment which can have negative psychological effects on the children later.

I am not sure that 'tailoring' the curriculum to enable learning and also take account of very young male needs is really possible. In the end you have to learn and this takes application, by which I mean you have to make an effort to learn to read and write neatly and there is no way round this. You can start to learn through play but in the end you will have to work.

One very famous Boys' Grammar School was reputed to say that they provided a curriculum tailored to boys - which meant discipline because boys need to learn to control themselves. I feel we are making it harder by asking them to go into the school environment too early so they develop bad habits which they then have to overcome.

Again as I said, just my idle opinion.

I don't worry about my sons underperforming and in the school I work in boys do very slightly better in the subject I lead (English) than girls. The gender gap is a result of the expectations of all stakeholders in education. And what can teachers do to improve the performance of children from the poorest families?...well I think we need to continue to do what we always do...treat all our charges with equality. The policymakers and politicians need to give schools the funds and the space in the curriculum to allow us the opportunities to give these children the skills to thrive.

tethersend yes you are so right.

I work in a secondary school and was talking to some lads weho were going on motor vehicle courses about why there were no girls. "Girls wouldn't want to do this would they?" (why not?)
"Well, boys wouldn't want to do hair and beauty would they?" (why not? Wasn't Vidal Sassoon a man? Nicky Clarke? many many of the top hairdressers? And why can't a girl who won't do brilliantly in her GCSEs become a mechanic? She'd probably make a better living than as a beauty therapist?)

Made me very sad.

I really don't worry. I am sure that our sons will be earning at least 30% more than our daughters despite their inferior academic records.

It may start in Reception and Year 1. Boys respond incredibly well to focused, logical reading instruction - ie the instruction recommended by the Rose Report. When it's well implemented boys do just as well as girls - there is loads of evidence.

But many education institutes, local authorities, head teachers prefer to ignore the evidence and teachers have very mixed messages.

Some boys, therefore, get off to a very poor, start and are switched off. It needn't be like this. The waste in human terms is horrendous, and so is the waste in financial terms. Millions could be cut from the budget, if training schools trained student teachers how to teach reading.

In my opinion a great deal of the problem relates to the fact that boys like competition and because this has been so diluted in state schools there is nothing for them to aspire to.

I find it interesting that the gender gap only seems to be seriously discussed as an issue in schools now that boys are perceived to be performing worse than girls. I'm not aware of it ever having been taken as seriously when it was girls on the downside.

There was a huge push to change the educational system when girls were behind!

Going back to the gap in educational attainment, this did not affect me growing up because I went to an all-girls school where the expectation was that we would do well in all subjects. It came as a surprise to me after graduation that girls weren't supposed to do well in maths and sciences.

My DS1 is at an all-boys preprep whose teaching is geared to the way boys learn (kinesthesic learning, lots of PE). I remember the first time I visited the school and the shock I felt. I had only seen co-ed institutions prior to that (tidy, calm, organized) and was immediately blown over by the energy and (controlled) chaos at the school. I chose this school because boys are at a different developmental stage than girls at that early age, and the traditional environment of school is more suited to girls than a boisterous boy. DS1 has thrived and literacy levels at his school are probably as high as that at an all-girls school.

Different styles of teaching for the 2 sexes but the same expectation of achievement in both my experience and my sons are the key to have high attainment in all subjects.

If you talk to parents who have larger families they will often tell you that all their children are different, just as all adults are different. I have a son and a daughter and in many ways they are stereotypical. But then I wonder if both they are conditioned that way and also if I'm not conditioned to see the 'expected' behaviour in them. There is plenty of evidence to say that adults treat children of different genders very differently, even from babyhood.

As for the gender gap at schools, I think it is totally over played, better to look at the specific groups of children who don't do well and see how those issues can be overcome. Also lots of the approaches that are said to benefit boys benefit girls too, like opportunities for running around, friendly competition, varied activities and evidence based teaching.

With regard to SEN I think that more education and support should be provided to support staff. When my ds was struggling at school the SENCO was absolutely convinced he was autistic (very much a hot topic when he was five or six) even though all the assessments he had had were clear that that wasn't the case. She suggested to my husband that I was also on the spectrum. At the time I worked quite closely with specialist children's community services and felt that I had a greater awareness of disability issues from the research and conversations I had with colleagues (so not a huge amount, but apparently more than the SENCO). A few years later when he was assessed as dyslexic we got a very curt later from the same SENCO saying that he would get no academic help, but continue to have special behavioural sessions, which was crazy as we were told my the EP that his frustration almost certainly was because of the dyslexia, so surely that ws the greater priority? Different budgets apparently.

So I'd like to see better trained specialists in the early years of school and more tailored help. Oh, and for children services to get more funding and more focus (it's a Cinderella service) because the evidence is that a small amount of help early often means that more intense help later is not required.

I'm a kinasthetic learner (although the evidence behind learning styles is pretty iffy). It's not a 'boy' thing. Oh and girls given the opportunity are usually every bit as boisterous as boys, it's just drummed into them from a very early age that boys run around and girls sit quietly.

Having mixed sex twins, I guess I am perfectly placed to consider the different learning styles of the genders.

At primary level I was very happy for them to attend a co-ed school that adopted a very boy-friendly, active learning style with proper competitive sports played every day come rain or shine.
Both of my children thrived.

This is the complete opposite of the local primary where I volunteer. The classes are large and chaotic. There is very little opportunity for the children to play outside ( the green space was sold off years ago) and many of the boys become stir crazy.
I've also noted that many of the boys spend much of their free time at home playing PC games, which again, I feel, adds to an inability to concentrate and enjoy anything that isn't fast moving.
There is also an issue with unsupported SEN which continually acts as a disruption.

At secondary level I have chosen single sex education for my children. The schools' styles are very different.
My daughter's school can afford to be very relaxed and give the girls a high level of freedom whereas my son's school is very disciplined.
It seems to work.
Both schools are full of very happy children ( the most important factor in doing well in education I feel) and the results speak for themselves.

Just to add, that of course not every girl would thrive in a relaxed atmosphere just as not every boy would thrive in a discilined atmosphere...but schools are institutions. They can't suit everyone in them.