"the more middle class the school, the better it does"

[puddle]

A study, reported in the Guardian today has found that regardless of background, children do better the more "middle-class" the school they attend. 50% of a school's performance is accounted for by the social make-up of its pupils.

Here's a quote from the article:

"In affluent areas, such as Dukes Avenue, Muswell Hill, in north London, and Lammas Park Road, Ealing, west London, the study would expect 67% of 11-year-olds to achieve level 5 in the national English tests and 94% of 15-yearolds to get five or more passes at GCSE at grade C and above.

Meanwhile, of the children growing up in more deprived areas, such as Hillside Road, Dudley, or Laurel Road, Tipton (both in the West Midlands), just 13% are likely to get the top level 5 in the national English tests for 11-year-olds, while only 24% of 15-year-olds will be reckoned to achieve the benchmark five-plus GCSEs at grade C and above.

Put simply, the more middle-class the pupils, the better they do. The more middle-class children there are at the school, the better it does. It is proof that class still rules the classroom."

This seems to me to be proof that middle class parents damage all children by taking their kids out of state education and into private schools and gives credence to the arguement that middle class parents should stick with the state sector to improve education for everyone.

Views? I know it's a total parp subject for many.....

And yes, Singersgirl, I suppose my earlier post was about not sacrificing my children to my principles but it was about more than that. The fact that these principles are outdated and naive in the country as it stands. I wonder how these people who wouldn't send their kids to private school on principle will reconcile paying for their kids to go to university (when so and so down the road may not be able to). And also about the inability of one kid or even a handful of kids and their parents to make much of a differnce in a difficult secondary school of 1100+.

I live on one of those areas where owner-occupied housing is very expensive in yet is neighbours with a very large council estate. I live very close to a senior school. It's situated at the doors of affluence in yet the results from that school are dire. My dd's aren't primary school age yet, so it's a long way off, but if the school doesn't change, I won't send dds there because, like others, will selfishly think of what is best for MY children only (Although I'd never use a church school so we'd either move or use the private system)

However, I would like to debate abstractly about the original post. I wish there weren't sink schools. I wish there weren't schools mostly full of children whose parents don't value education. The better educated the population, the better it is for society as a whole.

If, by some miracle, the government could work it so that all schools contained engaged pupils as a majority and disengaged pupils as a small minority, then that would be ideal. No-one would be sacraficing their child to the state system, because all schools would be the same.

But that seems unworkable. Even if parents took their kids out of private schools/church schools/grammar schools and sent them to their nearest comprehensive, most schools in the country would not reach the desirable quota of mc/wc pupils. And I cannot imagine the government being able to orchestrate the desirable ratio without children being bussed around for miles. Also, how would people be measured for their suitability?

So, could we discuss how schools in deprived areas, with a majority intake of disengaged pupils could be better? Without putting more middle class pupils into the school for the knock-on peer pressure effect, how could this effect be emulated ?

How about paying teachers who work in these schools more? Providing they show an apptitutde for dealing with and motivating children who show little interest in education.

Again, I'm just using middle class and working class because the report does.

Beatie, teachers who work in some deprived areas and tough schools are already paid more as are teacher who work in London. In my experience teachers self-select anyway. Some people think that bad schools attract bad teachers and I actually believe it's the other way around. I've seen some truly gifted and amazingly dedicated teachers in difficult schools. They are usually good at their jobs and usually enjoy it. Why else would you work there?I have enormous admiration for these people and would have like to be one. I'm not good enough a teacher or strong enough a person to work in a tough school.

But I agree with you it would be good to discuss how to improve the education system instead of berating parents for leaving it. The 12% of children curently educated returning to state eduction is so obviously not going to make all schools radically better. I think there are things that would: getting rid of faith school and grammar schools, getting rid of the league tables which are largely responsible for creating panic and getting middle-class parents to move away from their local schools, giving teachers and schools more money and support, getting rid of endless and often meaningless paperwork or paying administrative staff to do it so that teachers can get on with teaching etc etc. I also think educating and supporting parents (helping them learn how to be better parents which all of us could be), reducing teenage pregnancies and getting rid of social deprivation. If everyone in the country was middle-class then all the schools would be too wouldn't they and we wouldn't be having this debate.

And tackling behaviour of course. I heard on Radio 4's THe Learning Curve that one difficult student can take up to 20% of a teacher's time and this tallies with my experience. I hated the fact that I spent all my time on the naughty kids and I couldn't give the quiet hard-working ones the attention they deserved (another reason why I can't send my kids to the local school). I know I would have benefited from more training on how to deal with difficult behaviour (PGCE courses offer about 1 afternoon on this which is embarrassingly inadequate) and maybe there should be more schools like the one where my dp works for kids with emotional and behavioural difficulties. More family psychologists too? THere must be loads of ways to improve this situation.

Do you think the government are on the right track or have they totally lost the plot?

Aha - that's killed this thread!

The single biggest improvement that could be made to my experience of teaching, which I feel would have the greatest effect on the kid's learning would be an effective system for dealing with those children who's behaviour is preventing them....and the rest of the class....from learning.

These children may well hace a statement of EBD, emotional behavioural disorder.

If you have one child with EBD in the classromm you can easily spend 20% of your time dealing with their needs. And if they kick off, you can bet your boots that there will be a few other kids in the class who will kick off just for laughs.

The current system of inclusion means that you have children in mainsttream school, with insifficient support who have no real chance of an education themselves and will largly wrech the education of all the other children in the class.

To be blunt, for these children, inclusion is a cynical, money saving stratagy that more often than not benefits no-one, except the treasury.

Properly funded and supported special EBD schools would benefit both the child and the rest of the class.

Totally agree, martian. Social inclusion in it's widest sense was one of the Govt's flagship policies, and it's been far from successful in schools - but to backtrack on this would be both expensive and politically embarrassing, sadly. Definitely think it would solve so many of the problems in schools today, though.

and the 'inclusion' aspect is total bollocks in any meaningful sense for some of these kids because of their behaviour. Some kids have behavioural issues to extreme that they are excluded even when they are in the class IYSWIM.

For example I have taugh kids who will not sit down, will refuse to do any work, will throw things round the room, are verbaly and physically abusive. They do not, in any meaningful way, interact with the learning in the class at all.

What government seems to forget that for these kids, inclusion is not as simple as provifing ramps for wheelchairs, or approprite texts for dyslexics or computers for dyspraxics. Or for that matter like putting in approprite stratgies for children with ADHD (a mate of mine has taught some that needed a run round the building in the middle of the lesson, for exapme). Some of these EBD children are totaly unmanagable. And their situation is desparatly sad. And the government prefers to pretend that these kids don't exsist and so we all suffer

Absolutely, 100% agree with you. I have nothing but admiration for teachers who go into classrooms day after day, and face that kind of behaviour on their own.

I have actually decided to work in city centre 'sink' schools when I qualify as aTeacher (3 years away but i'll get there). Simply because I come from a similar background, ave managed to get this far and I hope I can build empathetic links with the kids as a result. Oh and because I am a scary no nonsense sod when i need to be .

How do you get Teachers into these schools? Difficult. It's all but impossible to get secondary teachers in my subject anyway (RE) and those who do are likely to be able to self select jobs in nice village schools / religious schools. Actively recruiting from mature students with experience in working with disadvantaged groups (as I have) would be sensibleas the NQT's would then be less likely to be scared of the challenging environments.

I'm not sure about extra pay personally (talk about cutting my nose off but anyway), as I think these schools need the sort of people who want to be there, not just need the extra £20.

Maybe career benefits / extra training provided free to these teachers (thereby enabling a skills exchange)- I'd love to do the MA in Autism after my PGCE / NQT yrear (it's a prt timer so alongside work), help with the fees would be appreciated and the school would again benefit in return.

I have chosen to teach in a "sink" school - alhtough I hate the phrase - we are not a substandard school than the more middle class schools int he area - we are providing a very different kind of education but it is of no less value.

As someone said below we are not crap teachers, infact this school contais some of the best most dedicated teachers I have ever met who have chosen to teach the kind of student that mostly comes through our doors.

I also teach RE and RE teachers in tough schools are hard to find as our subject is one of the toughest to teach anyway and thrwo a difficult set of pupils in and that is a big challenge for most teachers.

I have mixed feelings about inclusion as I do about mixed-ability teaching. Actually research suggests that both of these benefit those with learning and behavioural difficulties and possibly 'average' kids as well and this makes sense when you think about it. The kids who are written off and put in the lowest sets at school or taken out of mainstream altogether are classed as failures and live up to the label. They are not given an environment or peers to raise their aspirations, knowledge and understanding, or teach them what good behaviour is (which as reinforced by the original post) is all important. On the other hand I've taught mixed-ability and taught students with severe EBD and emotional and behavioural difficulties and felt that both they and the students who were more able and more stable were losing out. I suppose it's one of those situations where if you were the parent of a student with learning or behavioural difficulties you'd want them in and if you're a parent of a student wihtout or a teacher you'd want them out.

My dp currently works in a special school for students with severe EBD. The students literally climb the walls and are extremely challenging but he actually finds it more rewarding and, amazingly, easier than teaching in many of the mainstream schools he's worked in (and he spent at least 6 months supplying in many of the schools near us including some of the worst). He says this is partly because the kids are acknowledged as EBD when actually some are not worse or significantly worse than some of the kids at mainstream school who haven't necessarily been statemented (and who would be in a classroom with up to 29 other students of varying abilities and behaviour all of whose needs have to be accommodated). They are taught in classes of 8 and usually with a TA as well as a classroom teacher and they are outside the mainstream environment so expectations and rules can be different. The curriculum is more flexible for example.

I'm not sure that I would want a child of mine to be included if they had ebd, to be honest, as I don't think that the system as it stands works for them at all

Wheras I have read the reserch I am not that convinced, if I am honest, since I have seen too many EBD children wreck lessons totaly. What does work is when you place 1 such child in a class of hard workes, but if you have 2-3 kids prepared to 'follow' the pack mentality seems to take over.

Also our EBD kids often abscond and we are not allowed to retrain tem. If it were my child, I would want to know that they were safe

and curriculum felxibility with these kids would be a godsend. We don't have that option in m/s

It's difficult isn't it? Really challenging behaviour and the strains of mixed-ability teaching are the main reason why I left secondary teaching. I now teach at sixth-form level where we have a much lesser degree of both and of course if any student really doesn't want to learn they can walk and if any student is really badly behaved they can be kicked out. They're older anyway. Having said that how would the parents of the EBD kids you teach feel if they were told that their children were going to be taken out of mainstream education and not be able to mix with a range of students and possibly not be pushed towards achieving qualifications? Sadly some of the students my dp teaches will never fully integrate into society but taking them out of mainstream education takes away their only opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge to be able to do this??

I completely relate to your description of the reality of teaching kids with behavioural difficulties or just dealing with bad behaviour in the classroom though Martian. And I agree that 'inclusion' is often a misnomer. Just trying to see it from the other side.

'If necessary, I would sell our house and rent, ie sacrifice the equity we have. I just feel that it's that important. I know some people think it would be mad to do this, but I think it shows how important I think a good school can be to a child's happiness'

Bloss could you elaborate on this? I am really interested in the lengths people will go to where private education is concerned. I do understand Priv Ed for certain circumstances (sn or sink schools) but I honestly cannot understand average parents, on average incomes, with average kids, living near average state schools going to extraordinary lengths to provide private schooling.

Maybe I've answered my own question -getting away from average?

spring, but being in m/s doesn't include them anyway. Since they get insuficient support anyway, few will get qualifications. When they kick off they have to be taken out of classes etc. And many of the parents have so many issues themselves they don't seem to take a lot of notice of the kids....they are dysfuctional families....and I'm not being judgemental here, just accurate, sadly.

If I had my way there would be an EBD unit, properly funded with trained staff, in all ms schools. That way you could integrate them where they could cope, and if their behaviour became more appropriate gradualy reintroduce them into M/s

Back to op, what do you think of mc parents fleeing deprived areas - she says having just fled whitechapel?

The problem is that whilst you might want to help the world, it's quite mucky, has expensive housing (no gardens and burnt out cars on park) and pollutes my babies lungs. Also the parents wouldn't move there and babysit. btw some of the state primaries there have excellent ofsted reports, yet medicin du monde are moving in as has 3rd world poverty.

still in our more suburban abode my children will go to a state school and get an education that may not be as hothouse academic but will enable them to meet people who earn less than £50k - oh that'll be me then...

Yes, Manitz, you also prove the point that middle-class mums who don't choose private school don't choose their local school either (unless it's a middle-class one). They move.

Yes, yes Martian I agree. I've been there. In fact, having been out of secondary schools for over 3 years I had to go into one that was in special measures on Wednesday to teach a couple of GCSE classes. When I tried to get about three of these kids to do some work their usual teacher took me aside and told me not to bother with them. It was obvious they had given up on the system and it had given up on them. So much for inclusion.

I suppose I'm just trying to say when they're driving you mad and hindering other students' education it's hard to remember that for some of these kids just being in a 'normal' environment with 'normal' kids may be educational and important in itself. And just because their parents may be dysfunctional doesn't mean they don't want their kids to achieve they just may not know quite how to go about helping them do this or be able to or even know what kinds of achievement they should be aiming for. Many parents of kids who fail/ are failed by the educational system have also failed/ been failed by it.

Soometimes a so called "sink" is able to parctice more inclusion than your high acheiving "m/c" school.

I used to teach in an oversubscribed faith school that had awful discipline problems beacuse the systems were not there to support the staff and address the behaviour of the children. I think the school felt that to admit to the discipline problems and put strategies in place would perhaps scare of the more m/c parent. Also the teachers employed there had not signed up to teach children who were behaviourially challenged.

The school I work in now faces much more of a challenge, avery high number of our chidren have special educational needs, we have a lot of EBD children and a shockingly high number of our children are conisdered to be at risk. The school has a withdrawal room which is only used after a clear system has been worked through in the classroom. There is also a seclusion unit for our most challenging pupils with staff who want to be in there and for whom dealing with more difficult pupils is there specialism. Although this is a challenging school it is no way out of control and we can offer a combination of specialist teaching and inclusion. For a loy of our children a traditional curriculum is just not relevant so we offer many vovational courses and expereriences as this is what our children and their parents want.

This does work in our school - although in a way it is a throwback to the grammar and the secondary modern. Although admission to our school is not deicided by an exam or educational merit but becuase your post code is one linked to an area of economic and social deprivation and your parents cannot find you a way to get you into the church school or one on the outskirts of town. But if a kid with emotional behaviour problems was to attend our locla church school or somewhere more m/c I don't think they would be as well served as we can manage.

drosophila - thank you for asking! :)

I'm honestly not sure I can answer this without making you think worse of me, so try to be patient with me!

I think it comes down to a very strong belief that striving hard for something develops character. It involves discipline and motivation and hard work and often disappointment. But it also results in true satisfaction. I think it also builds self-esteem. It doesn't matter whether you are naturally really talented at something or not - the very fact that you set yourself a goal that requires hard work and effort and self-doubt etc, but you finally achieve it... that makes for true self-esteem.

I'm a teacher, and I see students of very mediocre talent can really be proud of themselves when they push themselves in a subject in which they've always written themselves off before. Typically I'm not teaching the top classes (although I have one such class this year) but I still see what satisfaction 'ordinary' students can get from setting themselves goals.

I think my aversion to mediocre participation is most strongly based on this. And I think I've been educated, both at home and at school, by people who are seriously cultured. I respect excellence in all endeavours even if - as, say, in dance - I know that I'm completely talentless, to the point that I myself have problems appreciating dance... Truly outstanding achievement in a particular area may not be open to an individual because they're just not gifted. But I value it intrinsically. I guess it's a very old-fashioned belief that real excellence in the arts, literature, sciences etc is part of what makes us civilised. ONLY part (I must stress that). But I really do value it highly.

I genuinely don't give a damn whether my children are talented, or whether they end up (career-wise) in ordinary trades etc. I'd be perfectly happy if either of them decided to become a plumber or whatever. But I also want them to value these things, whether or not they're good at it. And I want them to have an ethos that plodding along being a pretty ordinary plumber is not good enough if they can be a really good one.

When my maths students were complaining about how much they hated poetry, I did a poem a lesson with them for a few weeks because I thought it was awful that they had dismissed a whole genre of literature. Even though I knew they'd never love it, I wanted to make a basic connection with them. And we had a great time doing it. They'll never love poetry, but I really felt I needed to convey to them a sense of its beauty and worth. And I try to do the same with maths...

These are things I'd gladly sacrifice an overseas holiday or mere financial assets for.

excellence in the arts is completely subjective though bloss