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.

How is it overlooked, op, when it is just about the issue of education mentioned time and time again in the UK???

A bigger issue imo is the point that white working class boys go on to have far greater economic success than white working class girls.

What's the point in education now in Britain?? It's primary purpose seems to be to force kids into debt. Work does not pay, and jobs requiring education particularly pay no more than jobs which don't.

Completely made up by myself, but my guess is that illiteracy is reducing because of social media. In that, so much of our lives, including social lives is online and requires a level of literacy skills to participate in, therefore children have a motivation to learn to read and write that they didn't have before. Perfectly happy to be proven wrong on this though, it is just an assumption based on no evidence. Anyone know either way if research has been done on this?

I have noticed few illiterate children coming from primary to secondary school, I think that the phonics program has made a difference. It is also true that it’s much more difficult to be illiterate now, I have taught a couple of dyslexic boys of traveller heritage to read (I’m a secondary SEN specialist) their mothers insistent that they need to be able to read to a certain standard despite social pressure to pull them out of secondary school. Local travellers support services also think that text messages and social media have reduced illiteracy.

@JourneyToThePlacentaOfTheEarth

African parents - oh you got 90%? What happened to the other 10%? Don't ever argue with the teacher they've got their qualifications, you haven't. Why aren't you reading your book? You can't be a doctor with these grades, do better. If your cousin can get A*, so can you. We didn't come all the way to uk to watch you fail....

I'm sure parents from a variety of countries are the same. Is the parental attitude similar in white working class families? Is school and education made the priority?

My childhood in a nutshell. Weekday evenings were for homework and you read ahead if you caught up. Saturdays were for Arabic school and Sundays we rested.

Building on what @BogRollBOGOF's said, too often education is talked about in isolation. It's a complicated area to discuss as a whole, and no one in power in Britain wants to look into anything complicated.

Pressure on schools and on all kids to perform in schools is immense. Politicians bang on about educational statistics and "education, education, education" forevermore. But as soon as you get out of schools, you find out that school education really isn't very relevant to getting jobs. I would say it is less important now than ever before.

Consider that many areas of work have their own specific trade qualifications now, whether they offer low or high pay. Trades and driving obviously so, but care work, and even retail now has trade qualifications (customer care certificates). No one actually trusts that school or academic qualifications result in skills. There is accordingly only one way of demonstrating skills, which is through personal connection. It's long been known that it's not what you know that matters, it's who you know. Education itself, teaching and academia, works on that premise.

Also, there are far too many barriers to entry into jobs. We are simultaneously moving into a technological future while putting more and more costs on education and training, and people simply cannot keep up.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=yC94IOtTJrc
Our day out, Willey Russell discussed this in in the 70’s. Unfortunately the factories have gone now too.

Look at Japan, thats the future, low intelligence, manual labour is no longer required. Suicide rate is rocketing.

@KenDodd I agree, these are valid and key jobs (especially care), the problem is that society doesn't value work seen as "women's work" and wages are lower. The problem is structural.

I'm finding the immigrant communities discussion interesting. I'm from an immigrant community and it's a self selecting sample. Generally people leave their country for a better life, so are more motivated to achieve, and for their children to achieve. But many of the working class boys back in my parents' country have the same problems as here. There's also an element of being on best behaviour because you're not among "your own" and you're aware that you're a representative for your culture. As a child my mum would have been mortified If I got a bad grade or misbehaved at school. There was a self consciousness of "what will people think", because of people already have a negative prejudice against your culture then you want to prove them wrong.

Actually @KeranaCosmonauts I think that's very true. Whilst my antecedents are white, my great, great grandparents left Ireland for a better life in the mid 1800s and their dc were pushed. My maternal grandfather arrived in the UK from Russia, via India in 1920 Post 1917 when the family fled and my father escaped Germany in 1938. So there was a certain amount of fearless grit to start with.

Also on DH's side there's the French weaver element and the miner who joined up on his 18th birthday for a better life.

What I find hard to understand is the lack of grit and adventure in those in the old pit villages/shipyards. It's that that takes people to where the work is.

I also think we have been sent down the qualification rabbit hole at the expense of ensuring young people are well educated in the basics that are needed for life, the old fashioned reading, writing and arithmetic. There is absolutely no point in having a Masters if the holder cannot construct a grammatically correct sentence or convert a whole number to fraction or percentage. I interview so many young people for entry level jobs to my profession and time and time again they fail the in-tray test. It is heartbreaking. There is a notable difference between those who graduate from post 92s and Russell Group and most of that stems from their earlier education.

What I find hard to understand is the lack of grit and adventure in those in the old pit villages/shipyards. It's that that takes people to where the work is.

“Grit” does not pay travel or living costs. “Adventure” is not a medium of exchange recognised by landlords. As stated upthread, those who come here from foreign lands, even Europe, actually have a lot of economic backing - one pp mentioned having servants fgs. Try being one of those servants, or a descendant of servants. Jobs and opportunities are concentrated in places that people in Britain who do not get state or family support cannot afford to live in, or even give the lack of infrastructure, get to.

@ParsleySageRosemary it doesn't cost anything to join the army. The person I'm thinking of walked 30 miles to the closest big town to sign up in 1927.

Yanbu. But this got coverage months ago. The DfE, the various educational trusts, the NGA etc etc have all pushed it.
I don't think there's a school in the country that hasn't had it brought to their attention and the Governing body reviewing and asking questions.

So the only aspiration for young working class females is to walk 30 miles to join an army, to get paid £20k I think for the opportunity to be blown to bits for someone like the queen, owner of how many castles?

Not buying.

Average house price in Britain is now pushing the quarter million mark, and the army does not employ many older people.

Meanwhile the boys can get involved with gangs right here in our cities if they want that kind of adventure, running knife crime and drugs.

@ParsleySageRosemary

Average house price in Britain is now pushing the quarter million mark, and the army does not employ many older people.

Actually speak to somebody a week ago who is X army, used to work for the recruitment section. The army is currently at capacity anyway, The last thing they want is any more pasty faced weed smoking white boy’s that can’t tie their own shoelaces up

The equivalent for girls of course is prostitution. Both of those two options, drugs and whoredom, being the life that is sold to kids in every film, by the beauty and fashion industry, by marketing and throughout the media.

Where I live (not UK) class sizes are capped at 12 for 5, 6 and 7 year olds in the most deprived areas. It works brilliantly, my son's class was working 18 months ahead of where they should have veen on the national curriculum. Vote for a party that will do that, not the fucking Tories.

@ParsleySageRosemary

The equivalent for girls of course is prostitution. Both of those two options, drugs and whoredom, being the life that is sold to kids in every film, by the beauty and fashion industry, by marketing and throughout the media.

Or get pregnant by any random bloke and live on benefits

@ParsleySageRosemary Not necessarily...My parents had no money at all, they had to borrow the few hundred quid needed for the plane ticket here. They lived in one rented room for the first year, while getting money together for a proper home (and paying off the money for the plane tickets).
In their country they were extremely poor. I was very little at the time and was left to live with family friends while my parents got established in the UK.
The town they emigrated to is cheap to live in and economically depressed, but there's always a need for people like teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, local government employees etc in every area.
They started out on something like £20k, and 20 years later were on over £50k each, which goes a long way in these parts.They did have qualifications though.
Lots of people back in their home country (and some of the locals here) are resentful and make snide comments about their "nice life" but the fact is none of these people took the risks or made the sacrifices my parents did. They wouldn't even try unfamiliar food or any experience outside of their comfort zone.

Teachers and nurses now require a huge debt!! That’s the point, it’s not worth fighting for!

@KeflavikAirport

Where I live (not UK) class sizes are capped at 12 for 5, 6 and 7 year olds in the most deprived areas. It works brilliantly, my son's class was working 18 months ahead of where they should have veen on the national curriculum. Vote for a party that will do that, not the fucking Tories.

I’ve not noticed any U.K. political party offering that. Not even the much-maligned lefty ‘communist’ out-of-date Corbyn.

Or get pregnant by any random bloke and live on benefits

^And be better off thereby than the next descendant of servants who goes through education and ‘gets on their bike’ and moves areas only to watch wages being eroded in figures and inverse-decimated by living costs increase, while carrying the debt of education.

It’s not working. Times have changed. The economy was broken, to the extent that industrial economies worked, the minute markets were globalised and buy to let landlords were unleashed. Add in the push for technology with its reliance on ecology-destroying power, and the influence of private companies, and I’m starting to look up prepper groups without smiling. Societies that offer more support to people doing the wrong thing than the right and placing no reward on knowledge and education for nearly half a century now, are heading straight for a new dark age.

@Iamnotthe1

The attainment gap here is well-known and there are a huge number of factors which feed into it.

It isn't something that will garner political interest because there's no outrage about it and it's not an easy fix. Equally, the Government requires a not-insignificant number of adults being generated each year who haven't performed well academically and can go on to full the roles required in order to keep the economy running. Fixing the attainment gap would then give them a larger problem to fix.

There is a also limit to what a school can do. In my experience, the biggest issue contributing to the lower attainment in white working class boys is apathy in the home. I used to work in a large primary in an area of high deprivation which was also majority white. Parents could be grouped into three broad categories (each making up roughly a third of parents):

• those who recognised the importance of education and pushed their children (even going as far as to sign up to the parent English/Maths classes we ran if their own knowledge wasn't there),
• those who recognised school as something the child "had to" do but weren't overly bothered about attainment,
• those who genuinely didn't care how their child did, often stating things like: "I did crap at school and I'm fine so he doesn't need it."

We had huge problems with boys who openly, from a young age, would say: "I want to do what my dad does." when dad was long-term unemployed with no intention of getting a job. Academics didn't matter when a life on benefits was presented as a valid and simple option.

This.

There is also a cycle of mental health difficulties, substance misuse and domestic abuse I have witnessed in some communities which means quite often these boys have no real chance at school all.

School attendance is also an issue for our white working class boys due to the apathy of parents. They don't value education so simply don't send their child to school.

@KeranaCosmonauts I am glad your parents did well. I lived in a rented one room for more than one year with DP. It really wasn't that unusual.

Thinking about it, most of what we do is geared towards engaging boys. But even then, the girls do better.

SleevedOff
Iamnotthe1
The attainment gap here is well-known and there are a huge number of factors which feed into it.

It isn't something that will garner political interest because there's no outrage about it and it's not an easy fix. Equally, the Government requires a not-insignificant number of adults being generated each year who haven't performed well academically and can go on to full the roles required in order to keep the economy running. Fixing the attainment gap would then give them a larger problem to fix.

There is a also limit to what a school can do. In my experience, the biggest issue contributing to the lower attainment in white working class boys is apathy in the home. I used to work in a large primary in an area of high deprivation which was also majority white. Parents could be grouped into three broad categories (each making up roughly a third of parents):
- those who recognised the importance of education and pushed their children (even going as far as to sign up to the parent English/Maths classes we ran if their own knowledge wasn't there),
- those who recognised school as something the child "had to" do but weren't overly bothered about attainment,
- those who genuinely didn't care how their child did, often stating things like: "I did crap at school and I'm fine so he doesn't need it."

We had huge problems with boys who openly, from a young age, would say: "I want to do what my dad does." when dad was long-term unemployed with no intention of getting a job. Academics didn't matter when a life on benefits was presented as a valid and simple option.

This.

There is also a cycle of mental health difficulties, substance misuse and domestic abuse I have witnessed in some communities which means quite often these boys have no real chance at school all.

School attendance is also an issue for our white working class boys due to the apathy of parents. They don't value education so simply don't send their child to school.

None of this is exclusive to the boys in the family, though. If these are the causes then the impact should be as big on poor white girls, shouldn’t they?

I’m not saying none of this exists or is a problem, just that it doesn’t explain why it’s boys that are at struggling so badly.