Fed up with the education divide ?

[johnbunyan]

As a former Head of an independent school, I am fed up with the ideological divide in education, and want to start a national discussion on constructive ways to help the state and independent systems grow naturally together. I am secretary of a national group of independent day schools ( mostly the old direct grant schools ) and we look back to a time when there was much greater co-operation and a real sense of social mobility. Can we return to such a consensus ? I would love to hear ideas and start building towards such a consensus, since, as we approach the 2015 General Election, it will seem a long way away! I sense that many parents would like government and schools to work something out -and quickly -since the educational divide is simply not helpful to anybody - least of all the present generation. How many out there agree?

Just reading what the OP was actually wishing to air, which is how independent schools and comps can work together to address social mobility. I am sure what is going through his mind are the direct grant scholarships to private schools that existed in the early 70's that I believe Hattersley phased out. I must say that did improve social mobility because half my school were scholarship kids. Whenever a deal like that is on the table, you will get sharp elbowed middle class parents who drill their kids for the scholarship (never more so than today), but a naturally gifted ones will hopefully get the scholarships too.

Could we ever go back to a direct grant system? I actually doubt it. I think in those days the government was happy to buy great schooling from the private sector. Today, the teachers in the state system know how to provide great schooling, but as you can see from this thread the job of running a comp has gazillions of competing pressures:- phoney targets, significant section of pupils disengaged, budgetary constraints.

Every time I contemplate this I find that, even though I am myself privately schooled, I actually think a totally comprehensive system is the right one.

Ihatewinter. "Bring back grammars"

And do what with the other 77% of children?

Martorana, since your DC is in what you call secondary modern, you know what will happen to 77%. You seem satisfied with education. What is wrong?

Returning briefly to the OP... New Statesman has been running an interesting debate on private education for the last few weeks. Most of it can be found on their website I think, even Gove's contribution. 'S all a bit long-winded, but some interesting history/facts/figures batted around.

(Also, I agree with wot looplab just said)

You notice that I have been arguing for comprehensive schools, not secondary moderns. I am satisfied with the education my son is getting. However, I am less satisfied with the education many other children in the school are getting, and with the ongoing ramifications of the selection process that put them there.

Ok then martorana- you seem to be the only person who has not laid out clearly what you would do to improve the situation, you have just batted away at others standpoints. I am interested in why you are so anti private schools, what does it matter how others choose to spend their money when it is a relatively small section of society whose children would otherwise take up more school places.

So if we do look at the Asian success model in core subjects the biggest difference is that GSCE's are not compulsory and in fact not offered at every school. A government certificate of education is issued at Form 5( can't think if that's Y11ie age 15/16) in which a level of attainment across core subjects has to be achieved and internal school examinations are taken twice a year. This certificate enables entry to vocational colleges at 16 and employers will accept this. The certificate does not show scores across individual subjects.

Only those planning to go onto higher education will take GSCE's in their chosen subjects.

I personally disagree that at 14 students should be doing vocational courses. It's too young to start specialising and I can't see schools being able to provide such a vast choice of vocational subjects which further leads to schools being graded by the vocational courses they can offer. Surely that is tertiary education & best left to vocational colleges.

The problem with poor education and bad schools is not the choice available to the bright students, but the poor standard of education available for the less bright.

To tackle the problem, you need to improve education and teaching methods from pre-school, and in primary schools and do something with the bottom 20%.

Pulling grammar students into mediocre comprehensives will do nothing to improve achievement and learning of the non-grammar students. It might improve school's position in league tables.
Who will benefit?

I believe in 3 types of secondary schools Grammars for 25-30% 50-55% High schools/ U.TC . The remaining 15% or so need to go to specialist training schools teaching them a trade.

( I could say Holding pens with bars on the windows , we could save millions of pounds each year if just one teacher taught 10 schools via a video link) . The money saved could go to either the Grammar/High schools or to paying them some of the benefits costs that those 15 % will cost us in one form or another.

I don't really believe that ,but food for thought as teaching the bottom 15% or so is throwing good money after bad.

VC - I don't see much if any difference in the curriculum of Asian schools. In Hong Kong and Singapore and Shanghai they are following the UK curriculum. The attainment levels are graded similarly - the difference I can see the numbers of achievers close to 100% at every level.
You can't separate the impact of the Asian family structure from the educational success.
Although there are different nationalities within these countries there is a majority singular culture catering for their own nationals ie little diversity amongst the schooling.
The family structure is similar to the uk of the 50's with extended relatives living with or close by. Children are supported by grandparents while parents are at work. There is a strong sense of formality within the family where children have to respect elders. There is very little if non at all disruption in the classroom.
Teachers are respected by parents and teachers.
Therefore I can't see how the UK can even begin to look at teaching methods and compare achievement results in such an isolated manner.
We can't turn back the clock to 1950!

Stressed - most of those countries also have, or have a recent past which involved a large number of children that don't receive an education at all. This puts them in our post-war situation as someone described earlier. This is why Gove has had his ebacc uturn. He has just worked out, after ranting on about how Asian countries do so much better than us, that it is because they have a sausage factory mentality and we are way ahead down the line from that.

In the UK we pride ourselves on having an ethos where we believe that all children deserve an equal chance but this ethos is simultaneously and paradoxically undermined by the private system.

The private school system puts everyone else on the scrapheap. You will never be as successful, as intelligent, as accepted, as respectable as a private school educated person. It has to go or it has to be integrated.

Stressed, I agree schools should be in 3 tiers to best serve each ability range.

However, you put a finger on something that really made me to think [yeh, uncharacteristically].

The 'progress' from the 1950' to our days, is that we can't educate the bottom 15% to the same standard that Asia can, or to the same standards we could in UK in 1950 with today's resources and set up (i.e. if we could replicate Asian model). We should resign ourselves to not throwing good money after bad and abandon the effort to educate them. They should learn a trade without attaining a basic benchmark of secondary education.

I can totally recognise this as an observation.

It looks like for the bottom 15%, the liberalisation , the introduction of 'progressive' methods resulted in their marginalization, trapped them as uneducatable beyond KS3... trapped them on benefits?

Passing exams is evidence of the ability to manage oneself to achieve a result. Can the bottom 15% do a good job in employment?

Yes, I can hear the voices that GCSEs are not the right goal for everyone. But I don't know what it means in terms of jobs. I 'd like to come back to the PISA study which shows that poor students from Asia achieve better that students from UK public schools. Will this edge in attainment translate into shifts in the economy and jobs? The jury is out on this.

Passing exams has got nothing to do with whether you can work and hold down a job Vanilla.

Why do you keep referring to the 'bottom' 15%? Bottom of what - the hierarchy of genius? Human beings can and should not be measured a completely unnatural un intuitive, impersonal, abstract grading system developed by the ruling classes.

Does nobody here understand the concept of progress? It's not about the 'top' and the 'bottom', that's how it used to be in the 1950s. In 2014 it should be about aptitude, potential, learning style, skill, gift, pleasure in learning.

VC- yes they can fair better than many in exams compared with UK public schools but the very big issue is that the culture of Asian teaching is to teach to the exam. Teachers will issue model answers and these are fastidiously memorised and tested.the students will study and study that perfect answer.
The exam results on paper look amazing BUT do they understand and have an opinion, can they problem solve and work independently and the answer is an overwhelming no.
Why do you think you are seeing more and more affluent Chinese taking up places in the UK or USA!( definitely not for the weather ). It is because many of the Asian businesses all have overseas educated people at the top. The UK and USA approach to liberal, individual learning, critical thinking, risk is the antithesis of Asian teaching.

Many of my friends are Uni lecturers in China and Hong Kong and they say the hardest think is to foster debate as many have been told just to accept what the textbook or teacher says without question.
Is this what we want ? Can this type of teaching take society forward?

VC- I vehemently do not believe any child should be left behind.
I still believe they should leave school having attained a level of Math and English whether that be a school cert or GCSE at least at a standard to support meaningful vocational training.
I'm thinking of my own improvished family background ( parents left school at 15 without qualifications, functioning alcoholic father who was physically abusive , low income) & brother who left the local comp with zero qualifications and was given vocational training in dry stone walling! Great if we lived in the countryside but we didn't. Couldn't get a job and as time went on was unemployable. He became alcoholic committed suicide at 30. I honestly think had he had fallen so far behind academically by Y6 that he had given up at secondary and became disinterested as it was already beyond his capability and with no support at home had no way of bridging the gap.

I honestly believe mentors in primary school would help this spectrum of children from difficult backgrounds and they should not be written off.
My sister and I went on to gain degrees at Russel group Unis. We could have very easily been consigned to the scrap heap but going to the local Grammar school provided aspiration and purpose and dare I say social mobility as my life today is a million miles from the one I was raised in.

I am not supporting the reintroduction of Grammar schools but highlighting that with the right support, moral guidance and encouragement a child can surpass expectations.

Horsetowater- I can agree to an extent that there is a traditional class divide based on education.
However to bring a more level playing field adopt the policies from private and overseas state schools . Insist on graduates from math English and Science teaching those subjects from Primary school and pay them in line with what they can receive in the private sector.
Allow teachers to inspire in their teaching and not insist they tick boxes. It appears they are shackled to teaching methods which is unlike that in private schools.
I don't think scrapping private schools will improve education or social mobility.

I am kind of taken aback by the OP's post. Certainly as a child of the 70's I was totally unaware of this golden age of private schools and state schools working together that he talks about. My memory of growing up in a very poor area is that private schools and their pupils kept to themselves. Yes there were bursaries, but you still needed some money to pay for school uniforms, etc.

My own experience is that there is far more joint projects between state and private schools than there ever was in the past. Mainly as a result of the charity commission's stance on private schools proving their worth to the wider community.

Stressed I'm sorry about your brother, that must be hard to live with. It's shocking that others like him with a difficult home background do not get the support they need, even now. At primary school the expectation, still, to this day is that parents teach, times tables.

Many parents just can't do this for many sometimes valid reasons. I really don't understand where schools get their principles from but I can't fathom them. Full of contradictions and hypocrisy.

Stressed - It is a myth that teaching standards are higher in the private sector. State schools could learn more effectively from the best state schools

Horse - That didn't used to be the expectation. I went to a school in a very poor area with a high number of recent migrant families with poor English. Within 6 months of starting primary school, all of the children in my class could read. The teacher taught them without the help of any TA.

Greenie - I agree totally that some state schools are better than private and that instead of Gove searching worldwide into education systems within economies that have no bearing on the current socio-economic status of the UK for solutions, he should look into the better performing schools in the UK whether they be private or state schools.
Private schools when I was at school had no interaction other than lacrosse tournaments. I thought OP was referring to the social mobility aspect of the 60/70's not cooperation between schools.

Horse - yes tragic, really, sadly we were only 18 months apart so at the time I couldn't see the bigger picture but it drives home to me the message that education is the way out of poverty and that in every child there is potential.

Stressed- since you addressed me directly, I will reply.

For the record, I haven't even mentioned private schools. I'm not entirely sure they are particularly relevant to this debate- except that, because of them, and of grammar schools, most of the people who have most to say about the education of the majority of children have no experience of the sort of schools most children go to. Or if they have, it is at least 20/30 years old. Which is as good as not having any experience.

And as for being "the only person who has not laid out clearly what I would do to improve the situation"- really? I haven't seen workable plans on this thread , just a lot of "Something Must Be Done" rhetoric.

We can't even agree on what the problem is. Comparing the UK to the Asian model is useless- apart from anything else, there are loads of no/low skill jobs in for, example, manufacturing and agriculture in those countries so there are actually jobs available for people with little or no formal education. That is no longer the case in this country. And I would be interested in knowing how many children don't go to school at all- what happens to them? The publicity pictures of eager children on their way to school in African villages are just that- publicity pictures. Fantastic for those children, and they mean a school full of eager, motivated, driven children who want to succeed. But a 10 mile walk is extreme "back door selection"!

What do I think should happen in this country? I don't know. What I do know is that for most of the 40% of low achievers in my ds's school, 5 GCSEs at A*-C is completely out of reach. And asking them to get that is setting them up to fail. What they do now is a mixture of GCSEs and BTecs- very few leave school with nothing. I predict that more will leave school with nothing under Gove's new regime. I will be delighted if I am proved wrong.

It's also important to remember that having a significant number of people who find academic work difficult is not new. What is new is an employment market with no place for them. The sort of jobs they used to do are now being done by a similar demographic in the Far East.

Martorana I think a lot of people agree but some are trying to derail this into becoming a private/state bunfight debate although I believe private schools are the thing that holds back the English education system.

Gove feels a duty to emulate the private school system because he feels uncomfortable with the injustice that only the moneyed or knowing can get in there. However he is using academic qualifications as the determining measure for the state system.

There are plenty of jobs and skills needed and available but the education system's focus on academics so far has mean millions of people with great talents skills and passions who are being told every day that they are not good enough.

'You have to get Chaucer and if you don't, you are the problem.'

How would academic children like being told 'If you can't weld that piece of metal you are not good enough'.

I think true progress would come about if there was only one type of school primarily for basic core subjects and pastoral care which then allowed children to follow the path that suits them but within the same school.

The trouble is people love a competition and parents gladly go along with the fight for high academic grades. And governments like an easily measurable target which makes comparisons easy.

I believe private schools are the thing that holds back the English education system.
How?
Private schools are an utter irrelevance to the bulk of the population.
Mumsnet is deeply unrepresentative in that respect.

The proportion of pupils at private schools in the UK is similar to or less than that in other OECD countries
(except those that ban private schools ; whose "elite" send their kids to UK, US and Swiss schools creating a nice foreign earnings stream).

If UK GCSEs and A levels are so pants, why are wealthy forriners sending their kids to the UK where even private schools do A levels being taught by teachers trained in the UK system by the "blob" that Gove so despises?

How?

It's fairly obvious isn't it? I have explained that below - they create an elite which other ordinary people and educationalists think they must follow. An elite created by wealth.

Private schools are an utter irrelevance to the bulk of the population.

I can't believe you are saying that. They create the ruling class which keeps everyone else down that doesn't fit into their mould.

I'm not going to join your bunfight Talkin.

Just look at our current Government and how many in the Cabinet went to private school. Of course it affects us all