White British pupils underperforming because of parents

It's a very simple screening check designed to check basic skills. It doesn't check all the phonic skills children will need, or even all the knowledge in the curriculum to year 1. Every now and then some one mentions adding a second, more difficult check, but I don't see that idea going down well. The current one is passable by about 90-95%+ of children without too much if any teaching to the test.

I see what you are saying. Having looked, I'm not quite sure where he's got that figure from. What I'm wondering is if there is a genetic link, but good teaching is capable of overcoming that anyway, does the genetic element matter much? I'm not sure the 20% increase in pass rate over 3 years nationally can be down to genetics alone, or at all.

Rafal - just wanted to respond to your post. (I hope I'm not going too off-topic in doing so!)

Professor Plomin (King’s College London) carried out the scientific work mentioned in the earlier links. He seems to be a well-regarded researcher. I have not read his original articles so cannot comment on his methodology.

I agree that the heritability percentage given for the phonics test seems high.

My take on why a school might experience a sudden jump in pass rate for the test would be either that the cohort of children tested were more able or, if a lasting significant effect was seen, that teachers were more efficiently maximising on innate potential, so that the entire distribution curve of achievement in a class would be displaced upwards. There would then still be a spread of abilities, probably a wider spread, with at least some dependency on genetic factors, but some improvement for all children.

Actually, I’m not sure why anyone would want a 100% pass rate for the phonics test if its real purpose is to identify students who are struggling or may struggle in the future with literacy. A fraction of the population have difficulties with literacy/phonics due to their brains being wired up differently so perhaps a more stringent test would be better even if it makes schools look less good.

iggle I think you have hit the nail on the head with your comments. It is very gratifying to know that whatever else the education system does or does not do it does try to install an ethos of thinking for one self.

From your spectator link out

(For those who care, the results for Michael Gove’s phonics tests are even starker: performance is about 70 per cent -heritable.)

I might just have bought the idea that GCSE results were heritable. But this is utter bollocks. How exactly is he explaining the results of the schools that make have increased their results from 40/50% to 100% over the space of a year. Or the hundreds of schools that get 100% every year. Particularly in the light of the next paragraph that says that good teaching just increases the spread of results. Which I presume would be the Matthew effect.

I wonder whether there's a fault in his methodology or reasoning somewhere. Either that or it is heritable but the epigenetics has come into play and the genes can essentially be switched on or off.

I live abroad and my DS attends the Asian school here. One thing I've seen first hand (he's one of only two non-Asian children in the school) is that there is very much a "rote" learning mentality. For example for a writing exam they had to learn, word for word, the sample letter in the book and then regurgitate it for the exam. If asked to write a letter from scratch they would really struggle.

I found a similar mentality when I was teaching piano. I was teaching them how to read music so they could help to teach themselves; but they were simply memorizing the piece and then playing it back with no emotion or feeling.

We also see this mentality in our some of colleagues. When things follow the usual pattern they're brilliant but when something new or unusual occurs they are often very uncomfortable moving away from standard procedures.

"children who have English as a second language are the children of people who have decided to move to another country in search of a better life."

This cannot always be true. I was a ESL pupil when I was a child, but my life was better at my country. Now, still a lot of companies in my native country sent families all over the world.
My parents were very concerned, they made sure I wasn't behind when I go back, and not falling behind at local school because of English ability.

We have terrible discipline probs around here.

There was an interview with a head of an academy on the radio, he had come from a bad homelife himself. He said that he spoke to the children and told them that if they make excuses as to why they don't perform well - lack of space, nowhere quiet to study, then each time they don't hand in the assignment they are that much further behind the ones who do have supportive homes. It's up to them to find a way round the problems if they want to succeed.
And it works - plus strict rules enforced in the school regarding uniform, phones, behavior etc
It makes it sound so easy!

Also remember that children who have English as a second language are the children of people who have decided to move to another country in search of a better life. They have moved to another country to give their children better opportunities. They are motivated and will push their children to make the most of this opportunity.

And the ones who have not come from choice but because they had to leave another country as it descended in to hell have even more reason to push education.

I worked with someone married to a Palestinian man, she said that one thing Jews and Palestinians have in common is the value of education because it can't be taken away.

You may have your home and possessions and even your family taken from you, but not your education.

I would imagine that applies to anyone else who has been forced out of Syria or Afghanistan or anywhere else.

According to Shakespeare, comparisons are odorous. I tend to agree – but curiosity got the better of me and I tracked down some more information on educational performance as a function of ethnic group.

These are some recent results from CAT tests given to children at the beginning of secondary school:

Ethnic Group ( Verbal Reasoning Mean, Quantitative Reasoning Mean, Non Verbal Reasoning Mean):

White British ( 101, 100, 101)
Indian ( 97, 102, 100)
Chinese (101, 110, 112)

akarlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/pupil-background-cat-scores.jpg

On the face of it, there does not seem to be much difference between the scores of white British and Indian children upon entering secondary school - and Chinese and white British children are level pegging in verbal reasoning.

However, the quantitative and non-verbal reasoning data make me wonder if it might already be too late at this early stage for white British children as a group to ‘compete’ with Chinese children in maths and other STEM subjects.

In addition, the verbal reasoning results might be misleadingly low for the Indian and Chinese groups since English may not be the main language spoken at home, as other posters have noted.

Just to muddy the waters further, and perhaps depress a few people, some recent research appears to indicate that GCSE results are determined more by genetics than environment. It has been estimated that around 60% of the differences in GCSE results can be attributed to genetic factors and around 17% to environmental factors like family and school.

www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/23/genes-influence-academic-ability-across-all-subjects-latest-study-shows

www.spectator.co.uk/2013/07/sorry-but-intelligence-really-is-in-the-genes/

(I don’t really want to believe/endorse this - but thought it was worth including the links!)

I used to work in a school with some Asian girls. Some of them were under a lot of pressure to study sciences and do well and have a career in medicine, dentistry etc. Art subjects were not valued.some of them really struggled and Didn't seem to have any time to stop and stare and were not happy.

True tiggy. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of hot housing in some of the ethnic groups doing particularly well. I wonder what happens to these children in terms of rebellion or anxiety issues later on. We hear a lot about anorexia etc in white middle class kids but I wonder how much exists in some Asian kids. Or whether it manifests in a different way.

Looking at that list my random thoughts: the top half are more likely to be in traditional 2 parent homes, so 2 wages or more parental support at home. Immigrants more likely to have drive to succeed and second generation onwards are often to be found in professional jobs. People with East Asian heritage in particular don't seem to be as constrained by our class structure as the indigenous white British. So expectations for social mobility are higher. There is also white flight. I live between 2 boroughs where only 2 superselective grammars remain. One of these sits in a largely white residential area. These schools contain 4 and 6% white British children. From our state primary school approx 20 children are going to academically highly selective independent schools, some of these are further away from the grammars and achieve similar results. Only 1 of these children applied to one of the grammars and he is Asian. People don't even discuss the grammars as an option so I think there is a perception that they don't want to be in a tiny ethnic minority that shrinks year on year.

Great post Guerre & Hazy, agree.

I hope my own dc see parents that do work and try to encourage them but ds is lazy.

Noble giraffe said : ^Looking at the report more closely, white British kids are doing well compared to other backgrounds at age 5, are slipping down by the end of KS2 and are doing poorly at the end of KS4.

So they're fine when they start school. Parents are doing the right things with their kids up till then^.

I may be wrong, but I think it may only be that way because those children already spoke English. Some of the others in the survey had to pick up on English once they were at school.

Well done Guerre for summarising British underclass mindset so well. Depressing yes but hasn't that always been the case. The statistics say nothing new. There are parents who care about the dc education and their are parents ( regardless of class or ethnic origin) who have absolved themselves from their responsibility , choosing instead to leave it up to the teachers and then blame them when things go wrong.

Good lord, that was depressing.

Fabulous though!

Round yes it is teaching to the test - it is a combination (not blaming primary here as they are under immense pressure)
I have no idea how we are going to accommodate redoing the tests! Poor children.
I do find that PP white children have less support at home. I teach children from all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and it is one particular group that have the worst work ethic. There is an attitude that comes
from parents that they have been let down by the world. Parents live off benefits, blame society and immigrants. Children follow that - I hear comments like 'my dad can't get a job because of all the Polish' etc. This seems to manifest in to 'there's no point working in my exams because I won't get a job'

I think we can miss the point that not having aspirations or an interesting well paid job doesn't destine you to an unhappy life.
If you have aspiration which you failed to attain you might be unhappy.
But if you are happy with a life of boring prob temporary work, in and out of work, or on benefits, have family friends neighbours. Can afford a car but don't need much more it isn't necessarily a sad life. Possibly much happier than the couple who don't see each other due to their 60 hour a week work life.

Jeremy- I think you're wrong about tax credits causing this. (Though I admit it may have amplified an already existing issue). I went to school before tax credits. There was family allowance, and there were FSM also, but that was it. I went to a (really quite poor) state school that was ex-secondary modern, but grammars had been axed in our LEA. It was approx 50% white British, and 50% British Asian (the majority of whom were second or third generation immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh).
In school 95% of the Asian origin children worked hard. Many of them were v low achievers, possibly due to language issues, (all but two of my friends spoke a community language at home, not English) or undiagnosed additional needs, but they worked hard, did their homework, tried in all assignments etc. They were destined for factory jobs, a few for construction, and the girls for marriage/children. They knew that in Y7, and they used school to gain as much knowledge and understanding of the world before going on to what had been determined for them by their parents. They had respect for the staff, in the main.
Of the white children (99% of whom were traditional working class), probably 40% of them worked hard, tried their best, some did well in their new fangled GCSEs, most did not. After school some went to college (mainly day releases, doing hair and beauty or car mechanics), some went into retail, or into family businesses such as carpentry and painting & decorating. Of the other 60%, most were aiming for a life on unemployment benefit, several girls were already up-duffed on leaving, so they could get a flat 'like my sister has' when the baby arrived. Many were from workless families, they were the third generation that were going to be workless, and they weren't worried about that, nor ashamed, it was simply a fact of life. Some were from single-parent families, but in truth most of the children from single-parent families worked their socks off because they saw how hard their mums had it.
This was long before tax credits, and when Gordon Brown had only just entered parliament, let alone the shadow cabinet.

I think the clearances of the slums after the second world war (a good thing, surely!) and the building of new council homes destroyed the old WC communities. That coupled with the decline and loss of their industries, and the introduction of the welfare state have meant that as a whole they have given up on life, given up toiling (I mean, where did it get them? Look what happened to their industries, manufacturing was no longer respected as a good honest living, trade and artisanship no longer valued because modern things were desirable, all made in a factory in China.)
The white children in this study aren't WC, because there isn't a WC really any more. They're seen as underclass, they're certainly the class 'at the bottom', and they're not respected, nor valued, or given any meaningful purpose or role in society. So why would they bother? And why would their parents value education, or push them to do well at it? It doesn't get you anywhere.
In 21st century Britain, you need a worthless degree to do a job 14/15 yo school leavers would have done forty years ago, or jobs that hadn't been invented then, purely in existence to service a society that produces nothing, yet needs to occupy all.

Good lord, that was depressing.

I found the growth mindset concept quite interesting. I'm from an immigrant family and my parents, as well as the other parents from the same community always drummed in to their children that you can achieve whatever you want as long as you work hard.
Although the community was from the same Asian country, there were various 'class' backgrounds so even the ones from an equivalent working class background had children that did well.
I have the same attitude with my children. They're still at primary school but I expect them to do some extra work regularly, even in the holidays. Not a ridiculous amount but probably about 30- 45mins a day (not every day as we spend a lot of time out and about) excluding reading.
I explain to them that doing well in school gives you choices and opportunities in life.

Bombadier, it's not just about bad behaviour, though, it's about aspirations.

I think, sadly, that it is the case that if you come from a high-aspiring background you are far more likely to live down a bit of trout pouts, drugs and sexualised behaviour at 15 and go on to a comfortable life-style. A few will fall by the wayside but the majority will survive and most likely slide into the parental slot. Developing aspirations that are not shared by anyone around you takes real strength of character (and kudos to those MNers who have achieved it).

jeremycorbyn that has nothing to do with which school the kids go to. Some of the worst for sexualised behaviour/trout pouts/drugs are the high achieving or private schools. A kid with potential can achieve that potential in most schools. We avoided the local high achieving schools partly because i dont want my kids in that kind of environment. They will get the same grades at the school we chose, even though it is not 'high achieving'

Don't you mean teaching to the test, pieceofpurplesky? I tend to think of grade inflation as teachers being over generous in their opinions, and teaching to the test as cramming children for exam-type questions for external tests taken at a specific time, rather than spending years bringing them to a point where a certain quality of work comes naturally to them. Anyway, secondary schools will now have the joy of teaching children who are "not secondary school ready" how to get through the primary school tests themselves... as they are scrapping levels in favour of secondary ready or not secondary ready, whilst strangely still sending the children who are not ready on to secondary school.