Providing Equal Opportunities in Education

Some children start with a range of disadvantages for which they are not themselves responsible.

One of the generally accepted aims of education has been to enable any student to achieve his maximum potential. The obvious justification for this is one of simple justice. In addition any society has a long term interest in ensuring that no minority group feels frustrated and cut off by the rest of the population.

Present concerns focus on the extremes. At the bottom of society are those with minimum communication skills. The illiterate cannot participate effectively in modern society. At the top end are potentially highly intelligent individuals who cannot access the best institutions or jobs because they have not been given the necessary tools or guidance.

The main task is to remove the barriers to performance. Basic communication skills are essential and need to be learned as early as possible and then continually honed. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic are no longer enough. Those three exclude the most widely used communication medium of all - speech - and the most recently developed - IT.

Too often we ignore the need for active improvement in the use of English. Even those born into an English-speaking family need to learn how to communicate in formal and group environments. A teenager who cannot explain a complex idea verbally will not be offered the best jobs and will be unable to participate in a democratic society. Street slang and dense dialects may be fine with friends but are a barrier to communication with wider society.

Discipline in schools is essential to prevent a minority hindering the learning of their classmates. That in turn requires better provision of support units for the disruptive child so that their problems can be assessed and rectified until they are ready to reintegrate with the standard class.

Our education system assumes that each year children progress to a new level of learning. However, there is no point in sending a child to a secondary school without the basic literacy skills to cope with the curriculum. That will be bad for the child and is likely to lead to disruption for the class. Instead, such a child should either repeat a year in primary school or, better, be given individual support to catch up.

The main risk for the gifted child is that he loses motivation. The problems may come from a variety of causes: peer pressure, standard curriculum, inadequate teaching etc. Again, these problems need identifying and solving as young as possible. So long as the motivation is there, such a child can cope with most of the other barriers to learning.

Nuffield Review 14 - 19 Education & Training

The Nuffield Review, whilst recognising these achievements, has also highlighted the
persistence of deep-seated problems concerning the structure of the system, its performance and the conduct of the policy process.

The specific problems mentioned are typical of those to be expected from a large top-down organisation trying to manage a diverse service at all levels. If the government wants to decide the details and methodology to be applied, there will always be problems of forecasting the changing needs of pupils, society, educational institutions and employers.

The solution must be found in a more student-centred, devolved approach that gives each child and its parents more real choice and control. Providers then can adapt to progressive change.

The Children Left Behind

Last night's Channel 4 documentary suggests answers for several issues of class size and motivation.

Research carried out in Bristol by Wetz uncovered the fact that many of the children who left school with no qualifications were doing well in their education at the age of 10 or 11 - the turning point came as they joined their secondary schools. He asks if the giant new schools now being built all over Britain, in the biggest school building programme since Victorian times, are the best way to engage these disaffected pupils, to improve standards and reduce truancy and exclusion rates.

So if a 2000 pupil school were split into 4 smaller ones, the choice for parents would be greater, the schools more personal, and the resulting motivation for teachers, children and parents significantly higher.

Why then does the government seem so intent on building big schools? Presumably they think the cost per pupil comes down and the justification for extra facilities is easier. It is time these assumptions were seriously questioned. No supposed economic analysis should ignore completely factors such as the power of motivation which are potentially critical in achieving a quality result.

Measurements, statistics, testing

Graham has commented:

The measurement system should:
1)monitor the proper and efficient running of the system
2)identify weaknesses for improvement
3)indicate to all the achievement of those within it against defined and accepted national and international standards
4)balance demand with supply
5)be as limited as possible and the only source of information and measurement.

I would agree - but the first problem is to find the "defined and accepted" standards.
Also, does point 5 really mean we should hide data that might confuse?

Primary Curricculum and Assessment

In summary, formal assessment in England, compared to our review countries, is pervasive, highly consequential, and taken by officialdom to portray objectively the actual quality of primary education in schools. Wales and Northern Ireland have significantly tempered their emphasis on testing in recent reforms such that they are now (along with Scotland) as different from England as are other European countries. What distinguishes assessment policy in England then is the degree to which it is used as a tool a) to control what is taught, b) to police how well it is taught, and c) to encourage parents to use assessment information to select schools for their children.

Such is a conclusion from the Academic primary review.

With that degree of control, the government must accept direct and virtually total responsibility for results. They cannot blame teachers or parents for any failing because they have not allowed them room to decide and apply their own solutions.

Values, aims and purposes of the National Curriculum

The National Curriculum increases public understanding of, and confidence in, the work of schools and in the learning and achievements resulting from compulsory education. It provides a common basis for discussion of educational issues among lay and professional groups, including pupils, parents, teachers, governors and employers.

This quote comes at the end of page setting out the values, aims and purposes. It would be just what we need as a starting point for planning - if it had not been devised by bureaucrats and politicians. I bet it was never approved by the Plain English Campaign.

The aims have been so widely drawn that they avoid controversy by including every conceivable value and subject. Unfortunately the result is that there is no specific advice on the choices that must be faced, the order of priorities and an objective scale of measurement.

Choice in Education (3)

Grammar schools should be abolished and a lottery admissions system introduced to make education in England fairer for all, says a government-funded report.

Basically this seems to say that because selection encourages differences, it should be abolished. That's a classic Stalinist approach. How about the alternative of providing extra support to those suffering from disadvantage?

Then you might level up instead of just levelling down.