White disadvantaged pupils failed for decades - a national scandal

[noblegiraffe]

A group of MPs have produced a report detailing how white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds have been neglected for decades leading to poorer educational outcomes than almost any other ethnic group.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57558746

Given that the Tories have been in power for a decade, have they accepted their part in this? Well they seem to have gone with deciding that the phrase ‘White privilege’ is the real issue here.

Yes, white working class pupils have been neglected, but the implication is that is because other groups have been prioritised.

This is a government who:

1. have systematically underfunded education since they got in
2. have cut Pupil premium funding
3. are the sort to express horror at state school kids getting prioritised for Oxbridge places
4. have done fuck all for any other underachieving groups

And they’re only now concerned about white working class kids because

1. they think it might play well to the red wall
2. they can use it to score points in a tedious fucking culture war

Will we see any more money for schools (particularly early years) as a result? I doubt it.

Excellent letters and comments on the Guardian article.

Bythemillpond - we get that your son with SEN was let down by the system, but I am afraid your comments aren't really adding anything to this debate.

Sorry, that sounds more unkind that it was meant to be.

@Bythemillpond

I think the next issue will be colleges and trades.

If you want to do a trade or go down the “non academic” route you now have to be academic in order to proceed

Ds trained at college, the only one in the area that would take him at the time to learn a particular trade.
Despite getting up to Level 2 snd finishing top of the class with an average score on all his assessments and tests of 97.5% he can’t continue to level 3 and qualify because he doesn’t have English Language GCSE.
The only person who did have the relevant GCSEs who passed level 2 decided to go to university so no one made it through to Level 3. But then we are told that the U.K. doesn’t have enough trades people.

I agree. Something needs to be done about learning the trades. We're desperately short of properly trained trades persons which means all the con-merchants and incompetents have a free reign. We need decent/educated people doing the trades. That doesn't mean them having to learn Shakespeare or quadratic equations, it means basic literacy and numeracy skills as standard, with on the job/college training for the specifics to their trade.

I'd call it two totally separate and unrelated issues. The brief intervention to help EAL literate students transition to English is very different to the kind of intervention needed with specific types of SEN - they're just not related and putting an SEN child in an EAL group doesn't make sense.

Aside from which your dc was not diagnosed with anything but you say he couldn't read and write and that the school were unaware of that? That's a whole separate issue which should have had you asking for assessment and intervention specific to his needs once they had been established and it's odd that instead you focussed on wanting him to have what the EAL students were having.

Did you ask for assessment? Did you ask why they were unaware he couldn't read and write? If he genuinely couldn't and the school weren't even aware let alone intervening did you report to Ofsted and your LEA? Did you attempt to secure assessment or support privately? - It's a whole separate and massive issue to be unpacked and latching onto what EAL students were doing instead of addressing that issue and actively trying to get your child assessed and helped is bizarre and futile. How did it take till college for him to be assessed if you knew he couldn't read and write?

Honestly - it's bizarre where your focus point is. Presumably it should have been on finding out why ds was struggling so much and finding out what could be done to address that not feeling pissed off about EAL students and still being pissed off about it over a decade later during which you did nothing to have your child assessed.

But one of the important issues as well bad is that in many many more socially equal countries the trades have high calibre training routes and are well renumerated. I'd include beyond the trades in this to society's growing disdain for any (perceived) low status job : eg nursery nursing/ TA- even higher paid jobs like teaching are less highly regarded than they used to be.

I also absolutley do not think that trying to build or rebuild a tripartite system of vocational/ less acadeic /academi is the wya forward, persoanlly.

I have taught lots of these 'white disadvantaged' students who have loved history/ English Lit/ drama/art /music/ science and so on. It's dangerous to assume all working class students want is a trade. Part of this work, after all, is born out of a concern about progression to H> If we just say, 'well never mind. That's not for them. Let's make more carpenters' we are perpetuating various stereotypes and issues of representation in law/parliament/ education etc etc.

Oh Lordy : I should have checked that for typos!!

I agree with you Piggy. It would exacerbate differences of opportunity that already exist.

Independent schools, especially elite ones, value music, drama, creative arts, sport, debating, public speaking, enrichment opportunities and so on. My local prep school has a fabulous curriculum that I could only dream of sending DC to where they have games daily and forest school built into the timetable. There is an overwhelming value placed on holistic education across a range of subjects. This gives students a level of confidence in my opinion and a belief that the world is their oyster.

Compare that to one school I worked in (pre-Ebacc/P8/GCSE reforms) where music and drama were cut, no creative arts enrichment, humanities was a catch-all subject that most dropped at the end of Year 8, most students would do a suite of minimal value equivalent qualifications over GCSEs. In English the lucky few would do literature GCSE but the rest would be entered into functional skills.
Many of those children had been written off as vocational students by the age of 13, and not because there was a value on learning trades or practical subjects. It was because someone had decided that a broad curriculum and aspirations wasn't for the likes of those children. Unsurprisingly this school was almost exclusively white with high PP numbers.

In another school in an affluent area (post reforms), I've had to explain to parents that their child doing one BTEC in a subject they enjoy alongside GCSEs is not ending their child's life prospects by 16. These parents have decided that vocational options are for other people's children, with the implications that their children are too good to study a BTEC.

In both schools the vocational options were tainted with the attitude that vocational options are for 'children like that'.

TheHoneyBadger

You are coming at this with logic and what your experience has been.

His teachers were well aware that he couldn’t read or write but the work had to be done hence the leave the school and go to one with special needs comment. Ds was probably making their sats rating go down.
You couldn’t get an assessment if English was your first language. By the end of year 3 all the SEN children in ds’s class including Ds had left the school.

I was told by a friend who was a TA in another class that all SEN provisions were being withdrawn as they didn’t plan to have any SEN children in the school.

Maybe that is why the OFSTED report the year after Ds left put the school into special measures instead of the outstanding that was it’s norm and the headmaster and a lot of the teachers (including the one Ds had) left.

A lot of that sounds dubious but ok.

Now, in between taking him out of primary school because you thought they only cared about EAL students and him going to FE college what happened? Did you get him assessed? How did he go from being in early years of primary unable to read and write and it all being the fault of EAL students and being over 16 and only just finding out he has dyslexia?

When you home school you can’t get an assessment. Or that was what I was told by Cahms and private Ed psychs I talked to the referral had to come from a teacher.

It is indeed tough to get assessed in schools nowadays (though presumably your son was at primary school well over a decade ago?) - parents have always had to really push and persist for it to happen and frequently end up seeking help outside of school and getting them assessed privately to see what is going on with the child and find out how to support their progress. Even back when your dc was at school it took a lot of persistence from parents advocating for their child's needs.

How did deciding it was all the fault of them foreigners and pulling him out of state education come to be the route you took? It's a very unusual strategy. Do you think it's possible you might be scapegoating foreigners to avoid dealing with other feelings that might arise if you didn't have them to blame?

I am afraid your EdPsych was wrong there. It is they who do the assessments (perhaps they were trying to shirk!). At my school we didn't do assessments. Parents go via GP referral. The threshold is, sadly, ridiculously high.

What is true is that middle class/affluent/highly educated parents are far more likely to be able to get a diagnosis for their child.

And this is where class and background do really disadvantage some students. Some will have determined parents researching and finding out how to get their child the help they need and pushing for it to happen and not giving up.

Some don't. Some will just put their hands in the air and say what could I possibly do? Then go on to create scapegoats to blame and resent because you assume they were given everything on a plate without having to make any effort - like for example moving to another country to improve their children's lives and better their ability to meet their needs.

@Piggywaspushed

I am afraid your EdPsych was wrong there. It is they who do the assessments (perhaps they were trying to shirk!). At my school we didn't do assessments. Parents go via GP referral. The threshold is, sadly, ridiculously high.

What is true is that middle class/affluent/highly educated parents are far more likely to be able to get a diagnosis for their child.

My son attended a private school for a short time. Referral for asd assesments in my area do not come from the GP. The school nurse told me that she & the GP used to be allowed to refer but no longer was. The only way to get an Ed Psych assesment was to attend a state school or pay privately.

@Piggywaspushed

But one of the important issues as well bad is that in many many more socially equal countries the trades have high calibre training routes and are well renumerated. I'd include beyond the trades in this to society's growing disdain for any (perceived) low status job : eg nursery nursing/ TA- even higher paid jobs like teaching are less highly regarded than they used to be.

Again, I agree, but decent trades earn decent money. I've got clients such as electricians and plumbers working as "one man bands" making profits of £50-£75k p.a. just doing domestic work, such as house rewires, alarm installations, radiator/boiler replacements, all filled in with odd jobs etc. That's just from many years of repeat business/referrals.

In fact, that reminds me of a lad at secondary school who was always pretty near the top of the class. When it came to sixth form, the teachers were aghast that he wasn't applying to Uni (in fact we all were). Instead he left with decent A levels and started working as an apprentice for his Dad who was a plumber. He's now living in a big house in the "posh" area of our town, still as a "one man band" as his father is long retired. He doesn't even have a sign written van as he's got so much repeat business, and is still doing domestic work rather than contracting. Not going to uni seems to have worked out rather well for him!

@Bythemillpond

When you home school you can’t get an assessment. Or that was what I was told by Cahms and private Ed psychs I talked to the referral had to come from a teacher.

IN my area it was the fact that the school had to pay for the assessment. The only way around that was for the parent to pay. We had an initial appointment but ran out of money.

EdPsych are vanishingly rare in my neck of the woods. And then they come along and say 'nothing to see here' ime.

I was meaning that EdPsychs do the actual assessment. Schools (and GPs : your nurse wasn't right there) refer to Ed Psychs but the PP seemed to say that her EdPsych said schools do the actual assessment.

I don't think the report is about those kind of kids though bad who have helpful plumber dads and apprenticeships lined up. That lad is sort of the exception that proves the rule.

Everything has to go via CAMHS in my area Piggy. The GP can ask for referral to CAMHS but CAMHS can refuse. Our GP wrote numerous referral requests to no avail. Even then you don't get to see an Ed Psych, just a Psych nurse. Only the school can bring an Ed Psych in. (we'd put ds into the state system by then). The school he went to told me they opted out of the local authority Ed Psych and used someone on a private basis as they were cheaper.

The previous poster and her child were failed badly by their school. I know what that's like and it does give you a mindset of everything being unfair. I try and see beyond to a wider picture that but I do understand their point of view.

For a while I gave up. My ds is luckier than most, we are a fairly affluent family with a teacher dad and office worker mum. Others have parents who can't even begin to fight for their kids and it is human nature to then start looking for some other group to blame.

It's a ridiculous merry go round.

The government has us fighting over scraps and glaring at anyone whose scrap is slightly bigger, rather than fighting the government to ensure that provision is good for all.

Halfon isn't backing down on this. In response to a question today he just wittered on about how it's not right to call white working class kids white privileged.

Show us the evidence that this is happening in schools, Halfon. Oh, you can't. So why exactly are you going on about it? 🤔

twitter.com/tandhesi/status/1408070596487876613?s=21

I am not sure Halfon is very bright tbh.

I note he keeps saying 'almost'. Black Caribbean and mixed race is a very large group, Robert.