To think the issue of poor white boys failing at school is overlooked?

[hibbledibble]

They have the worst outcome of any group.

I highly recommend watching H is for Harry, documentary film which is available currently on Netflix, and highlights this issue.

It's about a boy with SEN, including illiteracy, and his experience in a mainstream school over two years.

It brought tears to my eyes. It was great to see how much progress he made in small group teaching, but sad that his difficulties in class meant him eventually being excluded from the school, and there was not much information given as to what happened to him following this.

It's heartbreaking that this boy could have done really well with ongoing intense intervention, but that the barrier to this is funding. It seemed at the end that the school gave up on him, as he just spent time in the nursery.

I would be curious to hear others views.

There was huge criticism of the select committee (and the racial inequalities committee who ironically swept aside issues about education) who pretty much set up a report to say what they wanted it to say.

Many many educationalists pointed out they were wrong about the lack of focus on this demographic.

If you can't see this fitting a Tory agenda (the ESC is led by Tory Robert Halfon) , I can't help you. The idea that white people are 'forgotten' caused concern at the time in its use of emotive language and definitely stirred a few pots.

Members of the education select committee protested about the minutes, which is featured in an addendum to some minutes. It may even be those ones. Will check.

That is the report that I've repeatedly quoted from.

Working class white boys ( which as I've repeatedly pointed out is an incorrectly applied) are not being failed because they are white, or because they are overlooked in favour of any other group. Which is the implied when it is then used by the government and then the press ( and people online).

Its not a race issue at all, but its used as one, especially as part of the right wing culture war.

This is in the minutes, for example:

In reality, all ‘working class’ groups are being held back, but for some of those groups this is compounded by racism. When we scrutinised the data, it became apparent that there is a different narrative emerging to one about the ‘left-behind White working class’. In fact, the groups that have the lowest outcomes in education, for both FSM-eligible and non-FSM-eligible, are children from Gypsy/Roma and Irish Traveller backgrounds, who have consistently poor outcomes and deserve more targeted support. With reference to academic results, FSM-eligible boys from mixed White and Black Caribbean, and Black Caribbean backgrounds, sometimes achieve similar or lower scores to FSM-eligible boys from White British backgrounds.268 For example, while FSM-eligible White British boys had lower Progress 8 scores in 2019 (an average of -1.02), FSM-eligible boys from a mixed White and Black Caribbean background scored lower in Attainment 8 (28.0, against 29.0 for disadvantaged White boys), and had lower rates of achieving a grade 9–4 (or pass) at English and Maths GCSE (29.7%, against 31.7% for disadvantaged White boys).

5.The challenges facing pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds are not confined to academic outcomes. Written evidence also drew our attention to low teacher expectations for Black Caribbean students, disproportionate rates of exclusion for Black Caribbean and Mixed White/Black Caribbean students,269 and disproportionate rates of children from BAME backgrounds in custody.270 We must acknowledge these additional challenges, which have a significant bearing on life outcomes. For example, we know that young people excluded from school are more likely to be victims of crime, and four times as many young people excluded from school fail to gain any qualifications at age 16 compared to those who are not excluded (source: Crawford, Demack, Gillborn, Gillborn & Warmington, 2020).

6.Only addressing the barriers facing disadvantaged White students would systematically disadvantage other ethnic groups and increase racial educational inequalities. Much of the evidence we heard focused on addressing geographic and place-based inequalities, which can affect children of any ethnicity, and the need for investment to reverse the effects of years of austerity and a policy of managed decline for post-industrial areas that have suffered from systematic under-investment that has left the UK among the most geographically unequal countries in the developed world.271

Sounds pretty sensible...

To work this out logically, the current children failing from black carribbiean background are the grandchildren of the Windrush generation. The children of the Windrush generation were failed in schools in the UK, racially and ecominally. Do the maths.

@debbrianna

The carribean Community are more likely to have been impacted by the loss of manufacturing and industry jobs in London too.

It's about a boy with SEN, including illiteracy, and his experience in a mainstream school over two years.

^^

Children are affected by where they feel they are in the classroom very early on and this can impact self esteem very early on.
Children who cannot read are locked out of education essentially and bored.
It does not matter where they are from, what comunity they need engaged parents who can step in where schools fail in sen. Even educated teacher parents can be slow to pick up on the failings their dc are enduring because they may not understand sen themselves.

PGCE includes sen training, what to spot, the paths to take once spotted. Senco properly trained, with strategies for sen, different reading support for those who are not picking up phonics.

EHCP literate schools and councils.

This would transform education but its not sexy is it.
Much more polically interesting to turn it into an evil Tory debate and class, race war.

It was the tories thar weaponised the "White working class boy" issue.

Not anyone else.

It was the tories that have cut funding for schools,n especially SEN.

Oh lord, how tedious.

SEN training/awareness is not indluded in PGCE. Many SENCos literally ring or email other people but have no knowlegde of sen - or tips of how to help in the classroom.

Its got nothing to do with anything being cut.

SEN training.is included in PGCE, SENCOs have to be trained.

My DDs school has 11 laptops available for those who struggle to hand write- there are 1000+ students in the whole school so there aren’t enough for those who need them. This is due to a lack of funding.

@Sockpile

Yes and one might say that providing more SEN training would take funds too.

Oh and getting pupils a statement/echp costs, so does having SEN support in class.

But no it's the teachers fault

@Sockpile

My DDs school has 11 laptops available for those who struggle to hand write- there are 1000+ students in the whole school so there aren’t enough for those who need them. This is due to a lack of funding.

How many struggle to hand write? 11 out of 1000 is a disproportionate number of students with that specific disability

@JohnHuffam1812

SEN training.is included in PGCE, SENCOs have to be trained.

Sencos can take on the role with no training. They have 3 years in the role before it becomes compulsory to be trained.

[quote JohnHuffam1812]@Sockpile

Yes and one might say that providing more SEN training would take funds too.

Oh and getting pupils a statement/echp costs, so does having SEN support in class.

But no it's the teachers fault[/quote]
The biggest cost of getting an ehcp for a child who needs it is the LA fighting against what they legally should be providing. The amount of appeals that succeed shows much much money is wasted by them trying to get out of providing the support needed

A SENCO with no training isn't much help,m but budget cuts have made it harder to hire pre trained ones.

It's down to budget.

imdreamingofapeacefulxmas where are you getting your information from? I said upthread I thought we had sen training 20 years ago and more training since. Our lessons were dyslexia friendly years ago. Our senco at the time was dyslexic herself.

I remember the first time we heard about ODD and the differences between adhd and add. In my training year, we had a talk by a teacher with adhd.

I distinctly remember when we first started having students who were actually diagnosed with autism and yes, most of us were probably unprepared at the time. But we learned quickly. And that's one thing teachers are good at doing: learning and adapting.

And this means on the job training for many.

I saw this with my own eyes at DD's school (girls weren't much better off too) however most the barriers were at home not at school, attendance was very low, parents never attended meetings even when requested to do so specifically, no response to letters. This was a 10-18 school (weird terms here) prior attendance was better, the teachers think it's because younger children need more looking after so the parents so value in school as childcare - less than 50% of homes had a working parent. She moved schools at 16 to a college with 50% Asian students, their parents were too active demanding to see teachers weekly etc.

I'm not saying schools are blameless but schools only have the kids for 30 hours a week 39 weeks a year, they cannot work miracles

And the stupid thing is getting the right support in place early can make a massive difference and save schools/ the LA in the long run.

When DS was in year 3 he was looking highly likely needing a specialist school. The only specialist school that could have met his needs was an independent one because the others for various reasons didn’t meet his needs.

However I fought to get a decent ehcp in place. He has had 1–1 support in mainstream since and he is now in year 7 of mainstream coping well.

If the LA hadn’t done what they legally had to back in year 3 then he would have ended up costing a lot more to provide him with the education he is entitled to.

His is an extreme example but there are so many examples of needs not being met leading to issues becoming much more of an issue down the line. But like so many things the system is reactive rather than proactive

[quote JohnHuffam1812]@Sockpile

Yes and one might say that providing more SEN training would take funds too.

Oh and getting pupils a statement/echp costs, so does having SEN support in class.

But no it's the teachers fault[/quote]
I don’t think it’s the teachers fault, I was just highlighting that there is a lack of funding.

When my DS was at that school he needed a laptop from yr7 but the older years were prioritised so he didn’t get one - if there was more funding available to the schools he would have. If DSs mainstream was adequately funded he could have stayed there instead he moved to a special independent which is miles away from home and costs the council thousands more.

11 out of 1000 is a disproportionate number of students with that specific disability

It's a smidge over 1%. And there are many things that can cause that specific disability. So no, not a disproportionate number at all.

If my school was in any way representational then the range of job opportunities for less skilled white boys with few qualifications were quite good, I.e in building jobs, plumbing, electrician courses, retail management and salesman jobs.
Some of my peers who went this route out earn me although I’m higher qualified; men’s jobs out earn women’s jobs especially working class men compared with working class women’s jobs which tend to be in caring/retail/cleaning.
I think lots of families follow traditional pathways that do not include a college degree.

^ We keep saying it, but no one’s listening. The real scandal should be that girls outperform boys in education but then go on to have lower economic success.

PGCE includes sen training, what to spot, the paths to take once spotted.

Primary PGCE does not include SEN training. Mostly, it includes doing the job of a teacher for nothing. SEN is not well catered for by schools as anyone with an SEN child can attest - many are being forced into homeschooling.

SEN is not well catered for at primary due to funding cuts.

SENCO used to get training time, and be dedicated members of staff rather than full time teachers with other responsibilities. LeA provision has been slashed.

Girls do outperform boys, but there economic.outckmes aren't as easily weaponised for the right wing culture war like working class white boys ( again incorrectly named).

If I remember correctly, michael Gove as education minster was trying to change the education system back to away where it would benefit more boys becuase girls are out performing. It's also, part of the reason most of the coursework type work was removed and also having one year of exams instead of little chunks. I am not sure if the exam one got put through or not.