Class and Education - Lampl

[Xenia]

In today's FT:

Break down the barriers in English education

By Sir Peter Lampl

English schools are undergoing another major shake-up as Michael Gove removes them from local authority oversight and introduces a broader range of providers. No wonder, then, that the first fortnight of the new school year has been a turbulent one. Many headteachers are angry that Ofqual, the exam regulator, regraded GCSE English papers downwards midyear. Teaching unions are threatening a work-to-rule protest over pay and pensions. And many more schools have become academies, with more control over funding, governance and the curriculum.

This is the battleground of English education. But another piece of news this week was even more significant. On Tuesday the OECD reported that our schools were the most socially segregated among advanced economies. This underlines the biggest problem facing England?s schools: the close relationship between family income and how good a school a child goes to. The result is that children from poorer backgrounds have fewer opportunities to move up the ladder.


English education has improved under successive governments. Standards of teaching, and especially school leadership, are better. There have been significant improvements in London schools, particularly for some ethnic communities. But this is not good enough. We have to outpace other economies, particularly in Asia, that have improved faster. The UK languishes in 25th place in the OECD?s league tables for reading and in 28th place for maths, where Shanghai is now the best in the world. This does not reflect the position of all our young people. Rather it is a stark reminder that levels of social mobility have worsened since the 1960s and remain very low, despite government investment and reform in education.

I believe one reason for this is that governments have focused on structural reform, such as creating academies or free schools, rather than on improving teaching. Yet it is good teaching that really matters. Teachers? salaries account for four-fifths of a school?s costs and this reflects the value they deliver. Research by McKinsey has shown that the world?s best-performing education systems are those with the best teaching. The OECD now rates leadership in English schools highly, but we still have much more to do to improve teaching.

First, we need to attract more of the best graduates to the classroom. Ten years ago I helped establish the Teach First programme in England, modelled on the successful Teach for America programme. Teach First is recruiting almost 1,000 graduates this year from top universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, to teach in inner-city schools for a minimum of two years. Approximately half then leave to pursue other careers.

It has been a great success. But with 36,000 teachers recruited each year, it is only a part of the solution. In Finland and South Korea there are 10 applicants for every teaching place. Here we regard it as a success if every place is filled.

Even more important will be to improve the quality of the existing 440,000-strong workforce. Sutton Trust research shows that English schools could move into the world?s top five education performers within a decade if the performance of the least effective 10th of teachers were brought up to the average.

While improving teaching is crucial, we also have to address inequality in our education system, which has a substantial cost to society and the economy, since it prevents many of the most able children from non-privileged backgrounds from achieving their potential.

The best schools in England are world-class. But they are also socially exclusive. Seven per cent of English pupils go to fee-paying independent schools, which are out of reach for the rest of the population. Another 4 per cent attend the remaining selective grammar schools, which draw just 2 per cent of their pupils from the poorest households. The top-performing comprehensives ? mainly faith schools and comprehensives in well-off areas ? take just 6 per cent of their pupils from the poorest households. This compares with a national average of 16 per cent.

We should address this inequality in three ways. First, we should use random ballots to determine admissions to our urban secondary schools, rather than basing admissions on how close you live to the school or how religious you are. This would ensure a good social mix. Second, grammar schools should select more fairly, attract able students from poorer backgrounds and provide them with the extra help that better-off pupils get in prep schools or from private tutors.

Third, we must open independent day schools to all. Their students are 55 times more likely to win an Oxbridge place and 22 times more likely to go to a top-ranked university than a state school student from a poor household. The absence of poorer students from these universities is a shocking waste of talent.

My independent day school was totally funded by the local authority. Indeed, seven out of 10 independent day schools were principally state funded until 1976 through the direct grant scheme and local schemes.

Between 2000 and 2007, I co-funded a pilot scheme at Belvedere, an independent girls? day school in Liverpool, replacing fees with admission based on academic ability. Parents paid according to means. As a result, a third of pupils paid no fees. Academic standards improved and it was a happy place for pupils of all backgrounds. Moreover, the cost per pupil was less than at the average state school.

More than 80 leading independent day schools would back such a state-funded scheme, which would benefit more than 30,000 able students, whose parents could not afford full fees. It would require selective admissions, which political parties oppose. Yet far from creating new selection, such a scheme would democratise existing selective schools and break down the barriers between the independent and state sectors.

Taken together, I believe that these measures to improve teaching and reduce inequality would transform social mobility and unleash a wealth of talent to fuel our economy. And they would put England in the education premier league.

The writer is chair of the Sutton Trust and of the Education Endowment Foundation "

[TalkinPeace2]

DH deals with lots of HE groups. The parents may think the children have a high IQ, but their learning skills are dire because they are not taught to listen to everybody and everything.

Happy
Research supports the view that schools with a decent percentage of bright kids do better for ALL of their kids
because they attract good teachers
because they have an attitude of aspiration
because they can differentiate and offer options
and remember that not all bright kids have bright parents - see my points above ...

[Xenia]

Talk, I have never sdaid I had no experience outside the M25. I am from the NE and know much more about education than most people and my children's father worked in both sectors.

Nor did I say everyone should do academic subjects. We need more to learn basic reading, writing and adding up though and to have a basic knowledge of history and geography and science as part of a general good education. I have no problems with their being paid apprenticeships from age 14 at all.

I am a huge supporter of work over qualifications. Even in my work in some countries you don't start doing the work until you are about 30! I graduated at 20 and was working at 21 in what I do now. I think it's important to get on with practical experience.Even doctors get on with practical issues fairly soon in their training.

[GnomeDePlume]

happygardening, I do agree that a very small number of children find education in anything other than a home setting impossible to deal with. However, I dont think that having a high IQ automatically means that a child cant deal with a school setting.

I dont think that Xenia's OP was about removing children from Home Ed, I understood it to be about moving a small number of academically able students into a state funded independant scheme.

Home Ed is a whole different thing. It isnt a route I would take but then my DCs have all found their own niche in state school.

[happygardening]

I am no fan of HE but this bloody weird local group (when i say local I mean local to me the children of which there about 15 come from four counties and your average child does not stick it out) that we have has successfully got all their children into RG universities and Oxbridge all had excellent learning skills as their mothers organised things in such a way they were not only listening to everyone and everything they has extraordinary team skills as well. But we are talking about a group that regularly wins international competitions those Olymiad things and top industry awards for innovation etc. they travel all over the world so they maybe the exception that proves the rule. But what I do know is that none would have coped in state ed. Were talking 2 year olds voluntarily reading university standard text books on quantum physics.

[GnomeDePlume]

But were they HE because they had high IQs or because they couldnt handle school? Or were they HE because their mothers couldnt handle school? Just a thought!

Surely though once HE stops being in the home but actually becomes a group couldnt that be a department within a school? Such a high IQ group would probably need to be taught separately for some subjects but not necessarily all.

However if the issue is not really IQ but fitting in to the school environment then the scheme described in Xenia's opening post isnt going to work anyway.

[happygardening]

They are just bloody odd even I was taken aback and I've sent 28 years working with the bloody odd and thought Id seen it all till I met this group! Most had tried state ed and failed but them your not going to integrate if your sitting on the carpet reading a text book on quantum physics and your friend are reading Biff and Chip level 1.
They has at one time tried to affiliate to a local school but they very much have their own agenda most were completing OU modules at 12 and 13 instead of following the national curriculum. Unsurprisingly not big on sport.

[rabbitstew]

happygardening - Are this odd group going to be useful to society, or have they just been given the freedom to be deliciously odd???

[happygardening]

Do we have to be useful to society? As long as they are not a drain on society or mugging old ladies does it matter if they look like they've come out of the local freak show and very firmly walk their own path.
Whether they will ever utilise their talents is another thing bit I suspect plenty or "normal" people never even find their talents let alone utilise them for the good of society as a whole.

[GnomeDePlume]

But it isnt just about being useful is it? Isnt part of education especially in the compulsory years not just about polishing the things people are good at but also helping to prepare people for the next stage not just of education but also in their lives. Does this group pursue a PSHE curriculum? Do they do a financial studies course? All of this is part of helping them to function in the world.

I remember reading in an interview with Ruth Lawrence that she said she wouldnt put her own children through the same sort of hot-housing that she went through. That she wanted her children to have a childhood.

[happygardening]

"Isnt part of education especially in the compulsory years not just about polishing the things people are good at but also helping to prepare people for the next stage not just of education but also in their lives."
I not sure this group were getting this kind of help but I personally don't think state ed does this at all well either.
Sometimes we have to accept that there are a minority people who are just bloody odd and who with all the help in the world will always be bloody odd that is how they are and maybe we just need to accept it and support them appropriately. Perhaps to them we look and behave in a bloody odd way. Unfortunately in our society we like a uniformity or if you are different you are only acceptable if your pursuing things that we can recognise and understand (look at the paraolympics) those who remain on the outside remain a object of ridicule as they have done through out human history.

[rabbitstew]

happygardening - But was Ruth Lawrence bloody odd, or were her parents? How much is it nature and how much nurture? Are you not actually just arguing that we should back off from interfering with a parent's right to decide whether they are accepting and supporting appropriately, or nurturing something slightly unhealthy? that society should not interfere too much with the lives of the individuals making it up? Yet we cannot not interfere at all - as you have said yourself, the truly bloody odd actually need acceptance and support, not to be left entirely alone, outside of society altogether, or bullied and abused by society as a whole. And those who are less odd and can fit in to a reasonable extent without a lifetime of support - should they be exempted from trying, so that they can focus more on other goals to suit their own whims? What is it reasonable to expect and from whom should one expect it?

[pianomama]

Rabbit - we all know that nature always wins. You do worry me when you start talking on behalf of the society. Are you sure you would be qualified to judge how to bring up children who are "bloody odd"? Somebody needs to understand quantum physics for the "good of all" believe it or not.
Normalizing unusually bright children would not benfit anyone.
Why not start from the other end and interfere with parents breeding unruly troglodytes, teach them basic manners and respect and leave the weirdos to their nano particles?

[rabbitstew]

But pianomama - I'm not saying unusually bright people need to be "normalised," I'm just commenting on happygardening's view that some people are bloody odd. You can be bloody odd without being clever, and clever without being bloody odd. My ds1 is bloody odd (and clever). I've never made a habit of trying to fit in - so far as I'm concerned, I either do or I don't - although I know HOW to and know when it is not in my interests not to fit into a situation. I think it is extremely useful to know how to behave as people expect, so that you can have the choice one way or the other and actually have people listen to you in the first place, rather than dismiss you as weird. I don't think it is helpful deliberately to create weirdness, though, or at least, not necessarily fair on the person brought up in that way. And since when do you think I don't think you should start at the other end? But if you are going to do anything at all, why stop at the other end? Why do troglodytes have to be taught manners and respect, but not people with high IQs? Why do you want to normalise manners, with a noble exception of very bright people? Why not just leave everyone to their own devices? Do you think that would create peace and harmony? What would happen to education for those who are not bright enough to educate themselves on quantum physics? Someone has to have an idea of what they ought to know and in what order and how they ought to behave when being taught...

[rabbitstew]

In fact, don't you go out of your way to ensure a very controlled environment for your children, where only children who behave within certain norms and think in certain ways are educated with them? It seems to me you have very strong views on how best to bring children up and, whilst you are happy to leave others to their own devices so long as they don't interfere with you, have opinions on their worth, based on their decisions and behaviours, and have ensured that your children are trained up to fit in with those who wield the power. Hardly the life of someone who revels in all types of weirdness.

[happygardening]

"I don't think it is helpful deliberately to create weirdness,"
There is a difference between creating weirdness and allowing it or tolerating it!
"know when it is not in my interests not to fit into a situation."
This is a very useful life skill but its not an essential life skill, obviously it would be preferable to be a genius with an IQ of 160+ and have perfect social skills as well or for that matter and IQ of 100 and have perfect social skills but as we are not robots which can be programmed at the flick of a switch then don't we as a society need to accept and tolerate difference.

[rabbitstew]

And when, as a society, we can accept and tolerate difference, I will stop trying to help my children develop the skills necessary to fit in...

[QuintessentialShadows]

This Utopia of which you speak, Xenia, where is it, pray tell!

WHERE are the schools better?

We lived in Richmond until August. The local state comprehensive secondary, nestled between homes ranging in price from 900k to 5million is just out of special measures and rated "satisfactory". The local families send their children to independent schools, not their local school. That is how seriously they take education.

We have moved into Wandsworth now, and find similar things around Putney.

If anybody can name an area where people care about education, yet chose to send their child to the local state comprehensive because it is so good (like with the state primaries in Richmond), I will gladly move!

[MoreBeta]

The social divide in education is one of the biggest things holding back the UK. Sir Peter Lampl is one of the 'good guys' of education and he has devoted a lot of his life to addressing the social divide in education. Govts of all colours would do well to listen to him more.

My own DSs go to private school, it is mildly selective. It takes children at or above national average academic ability level, it streams for Maths and English, it has a uniform, it has good but not spectacular facilities. It excludes the most severe SEN children that it just cannot cater for without specialist teachers and it excludes children who are disruptive in the classroom. It funds scholarships and bursaries. It is open to a very wide catchment area and takes children at age 11 from local Prep and state primary schools.

In my view, our DSs school is a model of education that does very well for 50% of the population that could and should go on to do A levels. It is what old fashioned grammar schools delivered. I pay for that because we dont have grammar schools in our area. If the state chipped in some money and widened admissions through assisted places as well as reducing the total cost for those that could afford to pay more like me then of course I would be happy.

I am sure that if the country had a school like my DSs that was full/part state funded in every small town in the UK then there would be a lot less middle class angst and many children from poorer backgrounds would get a much better education than they do now.

The problem is what model you then apply to the other 50% of pupils who are severely SEN, disruptive or not academically gifted. Unfortunately, neither Coalition nor Labour have an answer for that question. Gove appears to be trying to bring back Grammar schools by stealth and Labour insist that every child regardless of ability, SEN or social deprivation or behaviour should be put in a Comprehensive school. Neither approach is a solution because people with money would still put their children in private schools if they failed to get into local 'good' state school and hence we still would have 'sink schools' largely populated by children from socially deprived backgrounds.

That said, I do not think a Lampl lottery is the answer. I do think we need some academic selection, some streaming and then a range of different types of schools for pupils who cannot for whatever reason fit into the 'Grammar' model. Geeting rid of 'one size fits all' Comprehensives that inevitably become sinks in socially deprived areas would be a very good start though.

[happygardening]

Your not wrong in what youre doing rabbit but it's a chicken and egg situation. In many ways our society of course is more tolerant particularly with regard to homosexuality but in many other ways I think we're less intolerant we as a society are more homogeniducationstandard education is more homogenised this is IMO due excessive governor interference when policies whether they are in education health or any other field are being set by faceless beaurocrats in offices and being rolled out. The media also pressurises us all to behave in a certain way and conform to an accepted norm. Many of degrees of intelligence find it hard to break away from this.

[rabbitstew]

I agree, happygardening. I do think, though, that it is virtually impossible to break away without being broken if you don't understand what is going on in the first place... I don't want my children to need my protection all their lives, because I cannot guarantee I will be around that long - I need them to have the ability to protect themselves where possible, without crushing their spirits, or I will die unhappy and worried. If they cannot be brought to a point where they can protect themselves, I will work hard to ensure they are as protected as they can be and as free to be themselves as possible, but not until after I've tried to help them towards genuine independence, because I know society is not going to have the same instinct towards my children that I do. I have no illusions that society will love my children if my children are not of use to society... even if, in a good society, they are tolerated rather than beaten up. In times of recession, we particularly see how little society cares for anything outside the norm, or anything which shows signs of weakness...

[seeker]

Please insert Seeker's arguments 1, 3, 7 and 15 into the discussion as appropriate.

[LimeLeafLizard]

Just marking my place to come back to this later.

[pianomama]

Dear Lord rabbit - I don't go out of my way to create little snobs nor do I suck up to those who "wield power".
I do go out of my way to educate my brood the best I can.
In fact I already have done so with some of them - grown up DC been through selective schools , good unis etc. None of them by the way have chosen money/power over what is really important to them and I see this as my biggest success as a parent.
What I do object to is uninformed "wierdo" bashing. Let them be. They are not the cause of social inequality in education or society in general.
Who are you to judge whats weird or whats not?
I think we have the wrong sort of tolerance - we are tolerant to things we should't be and get really enraged over somebody who is not exactly like we think they should be..

[happygardening]

"we are tolerant to things we should't be and get really enraged over somebody who is not exactly like we think they should be.."
Couldn't agree more the box that we and our children is required to fit is becoming smaller.

[rabbitstew]

Well, the box seems to be becoming smaller and smaller for more and more people, the more inequality increases. And happygardening is happy to define people as deeply odd, so clearly even if you don't believe in bashing weirdos, you are happy to define them, and if you define them then you clearly have your own norms, or recognise what society has set as a norms... And besides, leaving people be can be tantamount to bashing if you are leaving them to be bashed about by everyone else, can it not? So easy to turn a blind eye and say you are leaving them be.