What do you think of Katharine Burbalsingh's opinions on education today

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It's a bit "old" news now...well a week or two anyway! But I just wondered what other MNrs thought? She's really ripped into things hasn't she?

Whoops...should have been Birbalsingh

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8052932/Teacher-Katharine-Birbalsingh-recounted-pupils-violence-in-a-blog.html

If the school has been labelled inadequate by Ofsted, she is hardly "putting her head above the parapet" by revealing the shocking news that it is substandard. This is why Ofsted inspections are made: to show up awful schools like this one and force them to do something about it. This is hardly being complacent about the problem.

What it does not prove is that all the hundreds of schools which are not labelled inadequate by Ofsted are also bad. And they are in the majority.

She's not talkin about just the one school though is she? She's speaking in general too.

Exactly. But she is not providing any proof that this is what most schools are actually like. She is extrapolating from her own experience.

Seems like she's saying very little imho.

This Article contains more.

What she says on racism is worrying:

"Yes there is racism in the system, but it usually comes from guilt-ridden white liberals who allow young blacks to remain trapped in the downward cycle of failure."

Her critisms of mixed ability teaching and (low) target driven teaching are not exactly unheard of.

Yesjackstar...I was wary of posting that one because the Mail gets shot down on here...it was the rasism thing that got to me really. That and the low levels of achievment which are set apparently on purpose...

Actually, in that one she is talking lots of rubbish.

The thing about coursework is nonsense, as coursework is practically non-existent now.

Any school with a half-decent behaviour policy will apply it fairly - ridiculous and insulting to both schools and parents to suggest that black pupils are treated differently because white teachers are scared of black parents.

Absolutely stupid.

I think she's speaking in terms of some London schools...

More information in the second article, certainly. And no doubt she has valuable things to say.

But she does herself a disfavour by talking about "the system" and "British education" without making it clear whether she is referring to British schools in general or a few London schools in particular.

Also, she spends most of the articles going on about how brave and unusual she is in seeing something nobody has seen before- which is clearly not true: the Ofsted inspectors have seen something and tbh anyone interested in education has known for many years that London has some problem schools.

The problem is the logic of her argument. She is insistent that the problems are not due to the parents or the children. It then follows that they must be due either to the state of British education in general or to the management of these schools in particular. If it was a question of British education in general, then you would expect to see the same problems proliferating all over the country. What you would not expect to see, if this is the prevalent state of affairs, is that Ofsted had singled out the particular school she works at as being quite unusually bad. You can't have it both ways: "unusually bad" and "inherent in the system".

What she says about racism and low expectations may well be true to some extent. But I believe there are schools with a predominantly black intake which are well managed and get good results: it would be more interesting if she had made a comparison with one of those, to see where hers is going wrong. Since she must know that what she is seeing is going badly, why doesn't she look at what is going well to learn something, rather than yell "it's all going to pot!".

It is not all going to pot: I visisted a school last week in a traditionally low performing area, where a dynamic headteacher and a number of dedicated staff have worked their butts off to turn expectations round: not only have they gone shooting up the league tables, but pupils we spoke to testified about the change in attitude, the clampdown on bullying, how they had been terrified to start at a school with this reputation and how they had seen it all changed. And I really don't think they had been primed by the head either: parents who have lived through the changes say the same.

If black pupils are being steered towards easy GCSEs, then that is the fault of the head and management: she needs to start there, not at the Tory conference.

Yes Cory....very good points. So true about how she should have compared the school to a similar one in terms of demographic but which was doing better.

Easy for her to blame the state when things are so bad...it's not all going to pot at all.

I have worked in a London school and what she says sounds very familiar, I went public to the Telegraph but it was hushed up but importantly to me changes were made in the school. I also was not after publicity or a future book deal, I made it clear I did not want to be identified and paraded about as the grand martyr of state education.

This does not apply to all schools in London and certainly not most schools nationally.

There are schools who encourage students to take B techs just to improve their results rather than considering the childs needs. I am proud that my own department has chosen not to do a modular exam because we want to preserve the demands of the subject. Controlled assessment has removed many of the concerns about coursework.

I do think dumbing down is the fault of individual teachers and departments. I teach to my pupil's ability - not to the exam. There is no excuse for doing otherwise.

Self-publicist. Showed disdain for her pupils and colleagues and in my opinion more interested in denigrating them on a political platform than tackling school's problems. Know school and it has had a very difficult history which it is now turning round. Wouldnt want her near any of my kids. Calling your school Alcatraz for a political stunt...

I think she had some valid things to say. Even outside London in two schools in Devon and Cornwall I got accused of racism by black students. I was cross with them because they were bright and underachieving, their colour was irrelevant. If you can't chivvy a student without getting racist hurled in your face, then yuo stop chivvying because you don't want your career tainted.

I also really dislike mixed ability teaching as I personally think setting works far better because the mix of abilities you are teaching within that set is very small, so the teaching can be better targeted.

But in your case, that presumably was the attitude of the students, scaryteacher? Which is precisely what she doesn't say. She is adamant that the racism lies in the education system and with the schools, not with the parents and students. She may have a point, I suppose, but she doesn't explain it very well.

Yes it was their attitude Cory. One lad who accused me of being racist because I picked his coat off the floor and put it on the back of his chair. He told me to get my 'whitey hands off his gear', He knocked it on the floor. I picked it up again, mildly observing that coats cost money and I would imagine that his mum didn't want it damaged and got the same response. When I taught him later I asked him to stop talking and listen and corrected his work a couple of times, as I did for every other student, and got hauled in by my TP supervisor and was asked about my 'racist' attitude towards this child as they had complained.

The other one was a Year 10 (mixed parentage) who was wasting her brains - there were a group of about three, and I got cross with them all, as they were all bright girls, so I monitored all three for a month (4 lessons). I got hauled in by my HoD and HoY and had to sit there very uncomfortably while the student accused me of racism. My HoD and HoY knew what was going on, but still had to go through the procedure. I told the lass I couldn't give a damn if she was sky blue pink with spots, but that I did give a damn about her wasting my time in lessons and that I loathe watching potential A* students chuck it all away (it wasn't just in my subject), and that I was trying to get her to focus and achieve her potential.

It makes you think twice about bothering though.

I can fully understand that, scaryteacher, and it must be totally disheartening. But it's hard to imagine that some of the blame does not lie with these students and their parents. And to some extent with the greater society. Which are the three factors that Birbalshingh leaves out of the equation.

Yes, some of the blame does lie with them, but also with SMTs who will put teachers in the firing line because they won't stand up to parents.

I am surprised by the negative comments that she has received, and can only wonder if this is because she is a conservative (I'm not).

There are schools in London, and other big cities, that most most MNers would sell a kidney to avoid sending their dc to. That is a fact, and when she says that state education is failing, these are the schools she is referring to. Not the high or even middle performing schools that most MNers send their children to (myself included).

Race is only a small part of the story of failure. Most of the children are black in the school that my dc attend, and yet it gets excellent results. This is because the parents and teachers aspire for the same goal. It is a faith school, which may be why there is more cohesion. In fact, many inner city catholic schools are mostly black, but are high achieving because discipline and parental cooperation are good.

I do not think that she has said anything new, but that politicians are listening has to be a good thing.

So she is not saying that all state schools are poor, but that the fact that some are, is unacceptable. The children being educated in these schools are being failed, and I cannot see how anyone can believe that it is otherwise! The fact that most of the children in these schools are poor or black or disadvantaged does not mean that they are incapable of succeeding, and there are examples of good practice that prove this to be the case. It's just that every school should be a place where every child fulfils their potential, and we all know that this is not the case.

Except, nationally, the largest under-achieving group now are actually white 'working class' pupils - (I say 'working class' but actually it's probably the group below that, white children who have parents or even several generations back, who have never worked.)

Agree totally with mixed ability teaching failing a large number of pupils though - at both ends of the spectrum. And I am also convinced that the national obsession with Grade C is causing bright pupils in inner-city schools to really miss out on getting the curriculum they deserve and are capable of.

Madsometimes, the negative comments are not about whether there are bad schools or not- we all agree that there are. It's about the fact that she is wasting these interviews without making constructive suggestions. If she used those examples of good practice to suggest what these failing schools should be doing, we would all be behind her. Instead she generalises about the system.

(And fwiw there are no schools in my own town which would be regarded as high performing by MN standards. But plenty of schools that work hard to ensure good behaviour)