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.

The Spirit Level would argue that people look too much to cultural differences to explain away differences between, say , countries, rather than looking at the basic : social inequality (which isn't related to cultural values the study argues). Countries with large equality gaps fare worse on very measure - glares hard at the UK-.

Sorry to keep banging on about this study : but it is an eye opener.

@Bythemillpond your actual issue is a SEN one not a race or ethnicity one.

We don't know how many children regardless of ethnicity have a SEN so need extra help in school because many schools make parents jump through hoops to get one for their child if the parent notices there is something wrong.

Well I keep banging on about the group of white men who are privileged like Boris Johnson and his Etonian and Oxford cohorts. When Eton is full of bright working class boys and Oxford ditto with bright working class boys and girls, we will know that there is no such thing as white privilege. This is the elephant in the room.

@noblegiraffe

schoolsweek.co.uk/data-reveals-scale-of-national-tutoring-programmes-northern-challenge/

This isn't good. The regions that most need covid catch-up due to being disproportionately hit with absences are the ones least likely to be accessing it.

What's going on?

I think it's really hard to organise NTP tutoring.

You need tutors - and it's not well paid in practice.

And schools somehow manage to organise groups of children coming and going in and out of classes. And space for the tutoring to take place. And it's a big upheaval - for a limited period.

That's a lot to manage when you are probably still dealing with bubbles bursting and the ongoing effects of the last year's chaos.

I like the idea of catch-up tutoring. But I think it needs to be re-thought in a way that makes schools and pupils the drivers, iyswim. They need to be the ones saying what they need, how it needs to work, how it needs to be 'shaped' so that it fits with them. Or they just can't do it. 🤷‍♀️

And then there is this whole issue about funding. Which I don't exactly understand - but it seems to be linked to PPE. Which isn't the best way of allocating catch-up tutoring. It's too much of a rough guide.

We used to have ‘catch up’ sessions in all schools when volunteers used to be encouraged to read or review homework with kids. I know so many people, me included, who ended up teaching 8-9 year olds to read or do basic arithmetic in those sessions.

Piggywaspushed

Come and meet the four Syrian asylum seekers at my school and tell me they are somehow advantaged just because they get a few remedial reading lessons

SEN funding is a separate debate

But it isn’t just the few remedial reading lessons. They are tested and taught differently to British born pupils.

Ds would have stood a better chance if he had been in that group rather than the attitude you are British so you can read.

Even going back to when my cousin was at school his mother asked if he could join the English as a foreign language group in his class as he was struggling and needed to go at a slower pace but that was refused.

Sometimes going back to basics and have things explained in a different way would do more good.

Also being in that group in ds’s class meant pupils were tested for dyslexia amd not just left like Ds

Campaign for better funding.

Many SEN pupils would not want to be , or benefit from, being in a class with EAL students. The skills are different in the teaching.

Nut - yet again- that is not about race. Soem SEN pupils excluded form what you are talking about will not be White British!

to be honest, I'd throw 10 times as much money at EAL students if I could. I'd also fund SEN far better. It is definitely a separate debate.

SEN is a separate issue, and one also very sorely neglected. Don't hold your breathe for the Tories to put any money into it at any time soon.

I see this report as a cynical excercise. The Tories have woken up to the fact that mainly white working class boys who used to rely on unskilled jobs in heavy industry, so didn't need a lot of formal education, and used to go on to be Labour voters, no longer necessarily do so.

Piggy got there before me.

They have achieved what they want - set groups against each other. Remember that educational funding comes out of our taxes. I for one am more than happy to see my tax fund education - a well educated population benefits the whole society. Instead we have Johnson and his expensive vanity projects or throwing money at his chums.

Piggywaspushed

to be honest, I'd throw 10 times as much money at EAL students if I could. I'd also fund SEN far better. It is definitely a separate debate

So not only content with having a far better provision for SEN than the British pupils you want to pour more money into EAL students.

I know I would have benefited from being taught in that group as I understood the work they were doing and saw them streak ahead when things clicked.

Fwiw Ds was in school under the last Labour government but this has been going on for years

Yes, you are correct. I do. I can't think if a more disadvantaged group. I don't know where on earth you got the idea money is poured into them.

I am not comfortable with the implications of your repeated posting pitting groups against each other to be honest.

Class sizes and discipline across the board don't help

I have so much respect for teachers attempting to teach in what is a very very difficult environment

I once saw an article about how difficult it is to learn English compared to eg Scandi languages - just down to the inherent complexity of the language. It's very hard to acquire high accuracy in spelling and grammar - I need to google it and try to post it, it was fascinating.

So not only content with having a far better provision for SEN than the British pupils you want to pour more money into EAL students.

Sorry are you trying to argue that only foreign born students have SEN? If so you are badly mistaken. The underfunding of SEN, the constant battle for parents to get half way decent provision for their children with SEN is a scandal in itself.

The conservatives have cut funding for SEN pupils, made it harder to get EHCPs, underfunded the NHS and support services so that referrals can take years and when they cut education funding to the bone, the first redundancies were in teaching assistants who often support SEN pupils in class.

No group is rolling in clover here, except for mates of the government.

Sorry are you trying to argue that only foreign born students have SEN

They did have in the schools Ds went to. Ds wasn’t tested for dyslexia till he was at college after failing all bar 1 GCSE.
Only those that were not born in this country were tested if an SEN was suspected.

What you're saying bears no relation to anything I've seen in education in the last 20 years Bythemill.

I teach a chinese student who barely speaks English and the way he is catered for is he is allowed to use his phone in lessons to access google translate I had a polish boy who couldn't understand a word and the kids sitting near him would try and help him understand what was going on. No TAs allocated or English lessons etc. EAL students have an incredibly hard time at my school and at every school I've ever worked at.

The idea of a system where they get help at the expense of native English speakers with SEN is completely alien to my experience and seemingly that of other teachers on here. For sure SEN needs better funding, faster and more accessible screening (as opposed to relying on who has the most persistent, articulate parent) etc but there is no way that that has any relation to pupils with EAL and you appear to have heavily bought into scapegoating them for everything you feel was wrong with your son's education.

Can anyone explain why the Chinese also BAME are mostly over achieving regardless of social status & earnings both in the UK & the U.S?

@Homeontherangeuk

Can anyone explain why the Chinese also BAME are mostly over achieving regardless of social status & earnings both in the UK & the U.S?

I'm not sure about 'over-achieving'.

As previous posters have said, 'BAME' is a really blunt instrument when it comes to examining educational achievement. The category breaks down as a descriptor of educational achievement.

Lots of discussion on here as to whether and why certain groups achieve.

The short answer, with particular reference to Chinese, is 'No'.

Also, could you link to your research as to your statement re. earnings and achievement for Chinese in particular? I'm actually not sure I believe that re. U.K.

I do know there has been research on academic achievement in the US., and that it has focussed on children of Asian identity/descent* - but I'm not sure that has been done in the U.K.

[asterisk] And it has been multi-generational and across different geographical areas.

(And I have to admit, I often wonder why such research has been done.)

I guess the Tiger Mum book by Amy Chau sparked alot of discussion when it came out... I remember watching a TV interview with her in London & the presenter saying that Chinese immigrant kids are over achieving & are really over represented in us ivy league colleges... She stated that regardless of background Chinese kids overactive... There was a whole nature vs nurture debate at the time her book came out...

@thecatfromjapan, here's a link.. Loads of similar articles came up when I googled..
amp.theguardian.com/education/2011/feb/07/chinese-children-school-do-well

OK.

Bizarrely, this has been the subject of quite a bit of research.

Cards on table, I'm a bit about it - can't help wondering if most the research is US based and founded in present-day US anxieties ...

But anyway ...

The hypothesis which has (currently) gained traction is that it's culture. There are features of Asian (&, yes, there is a focus on Chinese culture in particular) that lends itself well to achieving academically within education systems as they are currently modelled.

(There's a hell of a lot to be unpacked in that ...)

Hence why a lot of studies look at children of Asian/Chinese heritage and across different geographical locations.

What they are looking for is evidence of that 'culture' diminishing over time and, if that culture diminishes, then looking for a correlating dip in educational achievement, and then an impact of the different geographical culture.

I hope that makes sense!

That article seems to be based on British Chinese kids...

Personally, I'm not convinced. I think the drivers (and I use the plural there) will be multi-determined.

You claimed that Chinese people in the U.K. were in the highest-earning group as part of your first post.

I thought that was unlikely to be the case in the U.K.

And it isn't (read the article you've linked to).

The PISA figures aren't a surprise. Or the fact that certain BAME groups perform well in the U.K. (children of Chinese heritage being one such group).

In fact, the main body of this thread has contained a long, detailed discussion of how the BAME category isn't particularly useful in discussions of educational achievement.

And a long, long discussion of the multiple factors that go into that.

I know reading a long thread is boring but various posters on this thread have gone into it at some length.