To think this is an elite school system via the back door.

[1DAD2KIDS]

There is a very good state school in my city. It has great facilities, staff and excellent (plus ever improving) results. It is a school that would give any private sector school a run for its money.

As a result a strange thing has happened over the last 10 years. It was once in a pretty average area with house prices reflecting the rest of the city. But now it is within in a bubble of masivly inflated house prices and rents within its catchment area. The difference in prices between a house that is in the catchment area and one just outside it is staggering. When a house in the catchment area is on the market it's always advertised in BOLD print in the catchment area of said school. These houses fly off the market.

It's clear what is going on here. As the middle classes have been priced out of the private sector they have found a new more affordable way to set up an elite school system. Afterall when you think about it in the long run its a far more ecconomical way to get your kids in a great school without paying private sector prices and once the kids have grown up you could sell the house on again and get the money back (or more). The demographic in the school has masivly changed over the last 10 years. Now the kids are pretty much all from well off, well educated backgrounds. It is no secret that part of the schools improving high achievement is due to change in student demographic. Also the school is not short of generous parents who donate or raise extra funds for the school. The only way to get into the school as it's soon popular is to live in the catchment area. The only way you can afford to live in that area and thus attend the school is by being well off. Even pretty much all the council housing in the area has gone through right to buy and now sells/rents at ridiculous prices.

What has happened in this case is clear. It is an elite school were you can only go to if you can afford the very expensive catchment area. A school for the well off funded by the state. There is nothing technically wrong but is there something morally wrong? Is it in the spirit of the state school system to have an excellent state school were only those wealthy enough can attend due to catchment area? Or is it just another obstical to social mobility?

[Lurkedforever1]

Oh and bollocks to all schools using fixed lessons. It's hard enough keeping good teachers as it is. And the last thing education needs is any more rot about all kids all learning everything at the same time and age.

[Lurkedforever1]

Agree with unlimiteds posts.

Schools will never be equal until we acknowledge that to be so they need mixed intakes.

Ignoring the local shithole, our second furthest isn't a bad school. Apart from it's complete lack of anything available for higher achievers. It has good, experienced, qualified staff, and pastorally I can't fault it. But someone has decided that because the vast majority are from low income homes, they can't possibly need triple science, or further maths, or two mfl. Or any support to get anything beyond a b/c. And yet I know from open evening several staff I spoke to want to offer more, and try when they get the opportunity. And lets not start on the crap all round school!

Open evenings were an eye opener for me. The different assumptions made about what exactly you would likely be most interested in and what your priorities are.

We can offer all the early years support in the world, and all the school funding, but if we still have schools assuming kids are academically average at best, before they even start secondary, based on economic status then it won't make any difference.

jojo in relation to the funding, how is that morally different to parents that educate privately paying for schools their dc don't attend? Why is it ok for them to pay taxes towards your dc's education and then pay again for their dc? But not ok for you to pay taxes towards low income dc and then contribute towards resources for your own?

Especially when you consider that in the country as a whole, some parents paying fees will have smaller incomes than many state parents.

And back to pp, how far do you think that goes for kids with quite complex problems? Many kids on pp who just happen to be poor, but from supportive, caring, informed homes don't get to see much, if any of their pp if they are hitting average benchmarks. Let alone any benefit for the average or high achieving kid from a low income but above fsm home.

[Andrewofgg]

We lacked the political will to change society.

Or: no party promoting levelling down and imposing the same life-style on everyone - as a PP seemed to want - has a chance in this particular universal suffrage democracy. We are the society which rejects that change.

[unlimiteddilutingjuice]

JoJoSM2

Yes. The book is written in the UK and the giant cohorts were a UK project. Its a fascinating story and I'd recommend anyone to read it.

[magpiemischeif]

In the UK it seems that the expectation is on the school instead.

Oh, hardly! Why is this trotted out when people are looking to the direction of schools when discussing educational success? It's not rocket science that what goes on in schools will have something to do with varying degrees of educational success. If schools are so unable to make a difference, what is the point of them?

The truth is that schools can make a difference and some really do. Education is successful when it is fully comprehensive and actual adds value and supports the whole community, instead of being at war with it and in the process alienating, stigmatising and disillusioning whole social sectors.

[Maireadplastic]

Karriecreamer- I worry that 'standardised worksheets' would have good teachers running to the hills.

I'm not sure many teachers would read past your use of the word 'blob'.

[JoJoSM2]

@unlimiteddilutingjuice

Is that book about the UK? I think it’s a massive cultural difference between here and a lot of countries. In a lot of countries, it’s very obviously the parents responsibility to bring up their own child. In the UK it seems that the expectation is on the school instead.

[karriecreamer]

the problem is caused by the disparity of quality between different schools.

I've been saying the same for decades. All the educational changes since the 1960's are missing the elephant in the room. We need consistency between teachers and between schools. The teaching quality is the lowest common denominator here and it's the one thing that the "blob" doesn't seem to recognise. Changing intakes, changing teaching methods, academisation, setting, streaming, etc doesn't actually address the problem of crap teachers and crap leadership. We need to work towards a "mcdonald's" approach of standardisation and systemisation where all schools provide the "same product" in the "same way". It's ridiculous to have individual teachers writing their own teaching materials - the good ones will do it well, the crap ones won't - why not have a central database of worksheets etc that teachers can just pick and choose? Why not have a central database of lesson plans? At least, then, the poorer teachers will be using quality materials/plans and are more likely to give a quality lesson.

I've been looking on DS's school homework system, and it's just a joke that different teachers have put different worksheets on it for their classes - some are clearly photocopies from books, others are handwritten "scrappy" worksheets, others are word-processed by the teacher - but all are remarkably similar. Eg, for the start of year 9, the Maths teachers all started with introduction to trigonometry. 7 different classes, 7 different teachers, 7 different worksheets all covering the basics. That's 7 teachers who've spent time writing 7 different worksheets. The school should have a standardised worksheet that all the teachers can use. In fact, the country should have a standardised worksheet for the basic/preliminary.

[magpiemischeif]

There needs to be more emphasis on bringing the lesser-quality schools (and teachers) up to scratch and on ensuring that children's background has less of an impact on their educational success.

Agree there too.

[magpiemischeif]

We lacked the political will to change society so we tried to change working class mothers instead.

Exactly that!

[LonginesPrime]

The root of the issue isn't with housing or financial equality - the problem is caused by the disparity of quality between different schools.

If all schools provided the same quality of education to pupils, there wouldn't be so much emphasis on getting into one of the 'better' schools. And I don't believe people would be so worried about sending their child to a school with a less well-off demographic if the educational outcomes for pupils were the same.

There needs to be more emphasis on bringing the lesser-quality schools (and teachers) up to scratch and on ensuring that children's background has less of an impact on their educational success. I know this has definitely been happening in London in the most deprived areas over the past few years and I believe it's possible, but the government is too under-resourced to do this across the board.

[unlimiteddilutingjuice]

Has anyone read the recent book: "The Life Project" about the large scale cohort studies. Its really interesting. Especially on the way that different uses have been found for the information at different points. And how prevailing politics has influenced those uses.

So in the 1970's you had the "wasted potential" study that looked at high achieving working class kids and tracked how they were overtaken by middle class kids over the course of their school career. And the focus was very much on what the school system might be doing that was letting down those kids.

Then much later on you get a study that's looking at kids from poor backgrounds and how they perform on entry to primary school. They find a general trend for poor kids to be behind their middle class peers and they study those poor kids that buck the trend and look in detail at what their parents were doing.

That study is the originator of the very popular idea that parents behaviour in the first 5 years is so crucial to later academic success.

What I find interesting is the total change in focus: From trying to improve schools to trying to improve (and intervene with) parents. And on the ground I think it often translates into blaming parents or pressurising parents. And when people are "not engaging" its often because they experience it as blaming and pressurising.

magpiemischief is completely correct. You can't put the responsibility for change on people suffering form poverty, health problems, social difficulties. That's the wrong was around.

But that's exactly what was done. We lacked the political will to change society so we tried to change working class mothers instead.

[unlimiteddilutingjuice]

Honestly- a lot of the things I suggested, we have on our estate and people find them useful.
Reading Gerda's post I'm now thinking the guys that put them on are sitting around thinking how disappointing it is that the wrong people are coming who are already engaged and don't really need it. But whatever- people are facing structural disadvantage, they find this stuff useful. I think its good to have it.

[magpiemischeif]

You will never get those children to fully engage with education until they see that the people they love and trust also value it.

Then you become those people those children 'love and trust'. Really, what is the purpose of education if it cannot tackle disadvantage?

People can and do succeed from 'disadvantaged' backgrounds. Not to recognise this, at all, is extremely defeatist. If this is the attitude of educators, those who come from 'disadvantaged' backgrounds are being failed from every angle. No one would expect or plan for them to succeed.

Thankfully there are plenty of more positive people involved in education about.

[unlimiteddilutingjuice]

"a small but resilient parent group that either don't care or actively believe that education is not for them or their children."

Maybe we're talking at cross purposes then. You are referring to a small group of parents. I was talking about general strategies to mitigate structural disadvantage effecting a lot of people.

If your benchmark is whether you can engage the most resistant people then you will be disappointed. Ultimately you can't make people do things they don't want to.

[GerdaLovesLili]

Magpie
You will never get those children to fully engage with education until they see that the people they love and trust also value it.

If children are going to be mocked by their parents and role models for reading or wanting to do their homework then they will not do it and they will not value the very thing that will rescue them. The cycle will continue generation after generation.

Unless you can get parents and role models on board somehow, then children will continue to be failed by the system however much money and cunning ploys you throw at it. We have to somehow convince parents that education is a valuable thing.

[magpiemischeif]

The main determinant of educational success is the parents.

So why are you determining this as educational success rather than parental success?

If ones of the main aims of free education is to reduce social inequality (as per the initial aim when it was introduced), then if parental success is still the main determiner of success, education is not really achieving this aim, is it? It is not really narrowing the gap between those who are classed as socially disadvantaged and those who are classed as socially advantaged.

[JoJoSM2]

@magpiemischeif

The main determinant of educational success is the parents.

[magpiemischeif]

Gerda, I think the focus really needs to be on engaging the children and not the parents. It is the children's education and their own future. The assumption that the parents need to be very actively supporting schools is problematic since a lot really do not have the time and resources for this. Many are dealing with dire poverty and long term health conditions themselves. Schools really need 'to hold their own' in education for education to truly address social and educational disadvantage. It is nonsensical to look for solutions amongst those already severely disadvantaged to tackle the problem of the inequalities that are disadvantaging them, themselves. These people need to be supported instead of being expected to provide support, themselves, to schools.

[GerdaLovesLili]

unlimiteddilutingjuice
You're right it's negative but it is unfortunately truthful. It's the community I worked with for ten years and believe me, we tried all of those suggestions. Over and over and over.

It's depressing and frustrating, and believe me you start believing that the challenges can and should be fixed, and that the children deserve much much better, and then when you've tried all those ideas and more, and you've begged and pleaded for the parents you're working with to tell you how they think things should be done, and they don't, won't and can't tell you, and you begin to realise that however hard you and the system try their are a small but resilient parent group that either don't care or actively believe that education is not for them or their children.

Of course we supplied literacy, EFL, cookery, homework and other engagement courses for parents and they were well attended, but generally not by the demographic they were aimed at. And however much money that was thrown at these challenges the same things happened over and over.

It is depressing, it is grindingly depressing, and we are failing so many of our children. Biut making the right noises and ticking boxes isn't going to fix it.

[unlimiteddilutingjuice]

Is it only valuable if you can save us from ourselves?

[unlimiteddilutingjuice]

Wow GerdalovesLili that is incredibly negative.
I think the problem with this discourse is that a lot of people conflate poverty and disadvantage with being a bit personally inadequate, chaotic or "not giving a shit"
And then when suggestions are made about practical measures you can take to tackle the effect of structural inequality on educational outcome you get a lot of comments like you just made about how the really chaotic people or the people who really don't give a shit won't take them up.
Really chaotic people are a minority. I can think of one or two really chaotic families on my entire estate. And no, they don't volunteer themselves for services.
But we have a cooking and homework club (cooking for the mums homework support for the kids) that's really well attended.
By people who are engaged, want to learn new stuff and are self aware enough to recognise when they need something. Why on earth they would be illegitimate service users because they are "already aware they need support" is beyond me.

[magpiemischeif]

There must be other ways of getting the children of the sort of parents who quite frankly don't give a shit, more engaged with an education system that just doesn't work for them

How about offering them some hope instead of being completely negative about their potential success considering their supposedly 'shit' parents and 'shit' home lives?

[GerdaLovesLili]

How about: Set homework that kids can do with minimal parental input if necessary?

In chaotic homes the homework won't get done even with no parental input.

Set homework that doesn't require access to computers or other expensive resources?
Ditto. And a child with books on the shelf, access to the internet and engaged parents will have better role models to start with.

Provide after school homework clubs where kids can get assistance from teachers?
Many already do thank God. I hope they are attended by the kids that really need them and not just those who go along because they are already aware that they need extra support.

Provide homework drop ins for parents to help them understand and
assist with homework?
These are almost always only attended by already engaged parents however well advertised they are and however much tea and biscuits are provided. Crab bucket parents won't come, because they feel out of place or they just don't care.

Introduce children to the library as a school trip and get them signed up for library cards?

I was paid to do this by the library service. I actually went to targeted schools and children's centres and got kids to sign up for library cards with special family sessions and all sorts of incentives to get families who wouldn't normally come to the library into them. Guess what? They didn't want to come. More often than you'd believe, outraged fathers came into our small school-based public library and yelled at me for having provided their daughter (it was always daughters) with a library card so that she could read the sort of books that would put the wrong kind of ideas into her head. I worked with all sorts of schemes and children from the very young "babies and books" "teen mums and tots" to the last year in primary (various reading, craft, song and story things) fathers' and kids Saturday groups... real, enthusiastic library outreach... Sometimes we had the odd miraculous break-through, but more often than not, it was the already engaged parents who made the most of these things, and then the money ran out.

There must be other ways of getting the children of the sort of parents who quite frankly don't give a shit, more engaged with an education system that just doesn't work for them.

[Strongmummy]

slow hand clap