Stories + Views
More futility on mobility
A new day, and another new proposal to improve ‘social mobility’ – this time from Nick Clegg, best known as the back half of the leadership of the Coalition government, whose education policy is making it harder for most poorer children to get a good, rounded education while upholding the privileges of the privately and selectively educated.
Clegg’s latest wheeze is to suggest that schools with large numbers of poorer children, and so in receipt of the pupil premium, should compete – for a cash prize, no less – to come up with good ideas about how to spend the pupil premium. To which, I can only say: oh dear, oh dear. When politics is reduced to a mix of Britain’s Got Talent, and an ersatz lottery style prize, you know that time is running out.
Clegg seems to be unaware of the fact that the reason that most schools have not yet come up exciting new ideas on how to spend their extra pupil premium money has been a) they are too busy using it to fix other holes in their budget and b) the government did not ringfence the pupil premium in the first place – apparently in the name of autonomy. Again, oh dear.
So it is especially cheering to read the strong statement from Stephen Twigg, shadow secretary of state for education,in response to Clegg’s latest weedy offering. As I can’t find a link for it, I will reproduce it in full:
Stephen Twigg MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech, said:
“Nick Clegg has got a nerve talking about social mobility.
“His Government has cut education spending by the biggest amount since the 1950s.
“More than half of headteachers say they will be forced to use the pupil premium to plug holes in their budget.
“Free schools set up by this Government take far fewer pupils from deprived background than average.
“And half of the education capital spend in the Spending Review is being spent on pet projects, rather than real need.
“With a million young people unemployed and families with children paying more than double what the banks are paying to reduce the deficit, the public will not be fooled by Clegg’s desperate attempt to pretend this Government is fair.”
Hurrah to that.
Comments, replies and queries
Reply
As the ASDAN meeting recently some heads were discussing whether their pupil premium money could be spent on CoPE. I think the conclusion was that is could be which they were please about because the effects of CoPE on the academic results of students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds has been demonstrated to be so substantial.
http://www.asdan.org.uk/About_ASDAN/uwe_research_report
There are indeed substantial problems with school funding and the pupil premium is not an answer to it. Neither is it a significant fix for issues associated with social mobility. However heads to seem to be quite positive about there being money for more disadvantaged students which is ring-fenced for those students, especially in these difficult times, and they were very positive about the idea of using part of that money to ensure that students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are identified as being likely to benefit form it have access to the Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE).
They also seemed to be very keen to engage in intelligent discussion about how this money might best be spent and I think there is a genuine and urgent need for them to have access to examples of best practice on this.
When I was chatting to Nick Clegg about this at the Lib Dem Easter Conference he was concerned how we would best assess the impact of the pupil premium on schools and I suggested we needed detailed case studies of situations where schools felt they were able to use the Pupil Premium to achieve significant benefits for the students it is intended for at this stage. It sounds like he was listening which is nice. I hope he will also look carefully at some of the ways in which the Pupil Premium is failing to deliver the degree of preferential funding for students from more disadvantaged backgrounds which was intended and also that he will continue to look at other policies which could enhance social mobility.
Is this the same Stephen Twigg who is off on a no doubt taxpayer funded junket to Japan to learn about ‘jugyou kenkyuu’ (surely illegal in this country) and their education system, about which it has been said:
Unfortunately, this all ends at age 12. Those are the years that exam hell starts and from which students never really recover. The standardized test-based education system of Japan that starts in the junior high school years kills any kind of initiative, creativity and especially thinking outside of the box. Unfortunately, these last three are what Japan especially needs in the 21st century; perhaps Japan`s most challenging 100 years yet.
It is not only the students who are having a difficult time; the teachers are too. Many have to take time off work due to stress, while others create a life of drudgery for their pupils. Many Japanese seem to have lost their love for education and learning once they enroll in junior high school. Indeed, too much test-taking may result in shallow learning and a negative feeling toward school.’
http://www.japantoday.com/category/commentary/view/japan-and-its-standardized-test-based-education-system
Things can only get better…….
Tim – yes it is the same Stephen Twigg but its difficult to know what point you are making because you’ve advanced no argument to support or question Nick Clegg’s latest reminder that he actually exists and is doing something in the coalition.
“The standardized test-based education system of Japan that starts in the junior high school years kills any kind of initiative, creativity and especially thinking outside of the box” and “It is not only the students who are having a difficult time; the teachers are too. Many have to take time off work due to stress, while others create a life of drudgery for their pupils. Many Japanese seem to have lost their love for education and learning once they enroll in junior high school. Indeed, too much test-taking may result in shallow learning and a negative feeling toward school’’ sound exactly like what Gove is imposing on English schools.
DId you do not know that English children are now the most tested children in the industrialised world – the average pupil will be subjected to at least 70 tests during his or her school career and that the punitive and and results driven ideology threatens turn children off learning, possibly for life? Do you know, that for teachers, it is deeply demoralising and demotivating to have to “teach to the test”, as so many of them are forced to do. For many, teaching has become dull, narrow and uninspiring. There is no reward for creativity, only results, results, results. If you did not know, then you must have also ignored Michael Wilshaw’s latest attack on the teaching profession, which will have the effect of discouraging many talented and committed individuals from entering the profession?
I have no idea why Stephen Twigg is going to Japan but I think we can be agreed that he needs only to stay here home to see how depressing the Japanese model is.
On the positive side of what we can learn from Japan he could be going to look at the structural and axiomatic way maths is taught in the Pacific Rim – as identified in Japan by the TIMSS video study and explored in a Chinese context in my blog starting here: http://mathseducationandallthat.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/how-do-chinese-do-it-introduction.html
Or he could be going to look at Japanese practice in Lesson Study:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_study
But of course in either case he’d be better off talking to the professionals who use these practices in UK contexts.
Just so long as he doesn’t come home as ‘inspired’ as Michael Gove did after his trip to China to research education I really don’t care:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/8227535/Michael-Gove-my-revolution-for-culture-in-classroom.html
Well said. Entirely agree.
Your last sentence is exactly the point that I obviously failed to make.
The Japanese education system seems to be much criticised in Japan and appears to have some familiar problems:
‘The inability to deal with the education of non-Japanese kids has been an issue for the last decade or so, with the increase of foreign workers and immigrants. Since their numbers are still rather small compared to other countries, it hasn’t blown up as of yet. A related issue is the difficulty of re-integrating returnee kids, who have spent time overseas. These kids often get bullied and such. Being ‘different’ as a kid is particularly difficult in Japan.’
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-biggest-problem-of-Japanese-education.
I also entirely agree with the sentiments of the above piece regarding the deputy Prime Minister, as, it seems, do many others:
‘Mr Clegg was speaking at a state school in North London. “Our teachers,” he declared, “are the key to an open and fair society; the key to the Opportunity Britain I am determined we build.”
Cynics may say “Opportunity Britain” sounds like a rubbish game show, a cheap knock-off of Britain’s Got Talent. But personally I quite like our Deputy Prime Minister’s mania for sticking seemingly random words and phrases in front of the word “Britain”.
Next week: Determination Britain.
Next month: Make Do and Mend Britain.
Next year: Not Too Proud to Beg Britain.
Do as You’re Told Britain.
Sit Up Straight Britain.
Eat Your Greens Or You’re Going Straight to Bed Without Any Pudding Britain.
The possibilities are endless. In fact, there’s another, right there. Endless Possibility Britain.
I really think he might go for that.
A Britain where possibilities are endless.
Endless Possibility Britain. He’ll love it.
It’s got just the right blend of doglike hopefulness, headline-friendly vacuity and the word “Britain”.
Expect a keynote speech on it before the month is out.’
I am sure Twigg & co can get a few good hits on the coalition, but please let’s hear some Labour reflection on their own contributions.
One fundamental to help social mobility is don’t bankrupt the economy through completely losing control of the banks and public expenditure. It’s the poor that are hit most in austere times. Think carefully about how a large increase in immigration, a benefits and social housing system that is not contributions based but measures need, affects the poorest workers and their children and their schooling. This is not a point about race, it is a point about observable problems coming from how these systems operate which mostly affect the poor.
We need “One” culture for some purposes back in our schools. In particular the right of people to be free from violence, and respect for knowledge and skills. There is a chance of cashing in idle social capital if these are got right.
I’d like to see primary schools being community hubs where people with a bit of time to offer (such as empty-nesters) can volunteer to be linked up with families who are struggling and can do things like going into someone’s hose for a couple of hours a week to play with a child and help them work on their homework.
At a time when our communities often seem to lack cohesion and vibrance, primary schools remain a community centre, but they only connect people with young families to each other.
I meet so many families who are only just getting by. As a single parent or as dual parents with one or more disabled children the challenges of giving each child the kind of proper attention they need are huge. I think we should be deliberately trying to connect people who can and want to help through the community hubs primary schools offer.
You could start by offering very small amounts of funding and some central support to schools who would like to try innovate in this area and then publicise and spread best practice. I know there are issues like child protection and the reality that some matches set up will not work which need to be thought through but they can be planned for and addressed with a combination of coherent central planning, local support and learning from pilot schemes.
When you support a child in a situation where the parent or parents are at breaking point you also support those parents in becoming able to start to see and plan for a better future where they may, for example, be able to become economically active again.
This is a tiny policy which probably doesn’t even need to be a policy – it just needs someone with power and credibility to persuade Oxbridge that it matters and they’d probably adopt it – but it is that there should be a system of communication between schools and Oxbridge when students from backgrounds where no parent has been to university and the family income is low are invited to interview at Oxbridge which seeks to ensure that the first part of their first interview will be a positive experience for them which plays to their strengths.
More on that in this blog and in the discussion which follows it:
http://mathseducationandallthat.blogspot.co.uk/2012_02_01_archive.html
Nick Clegg said there should be career incentives for teachers willing to work in schools with a large number of disadvantaged children. The recent summit on preparing teachers for leadership recommended just such a strategy.
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/05/teaching-in-the-modern-world-%e2%80%93-teachers-need-multiple-approaches-to-improve-learning-in-today%e2%80%99s-classrooms-and-governments-should-nurture-teachers/
However, it is high risk for teachers to work in such schools. If the school’s results don’t reach the benchmark they will be regarded as failing even though the Education Endowment Fund found that many under-performing schools were doing a good job in difficult circumstances. Raw exam results are all that matters in the present climate. Headteacher Stephen Ball told TES that his success in turning round a failing school in the 90s would not be recognized as achievement today because the children didn’t reach the benchmark. His Ofsted-praised success would be deemed failure.
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/03/%e2%80%9cbully-boy%e2%80%9d-tactics-create-a-%e2%80%9cclimate-of-fear%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-dispirited-heads-blame-government-policies-and-carping-by-ministers-media-and-ofsted/
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/07/disadvantaged-pupils-do-worse-in-schools-containing-a-large-number-of-disadvantaged-children-new-research-reveals-mark-2/
“Nick Clegg said there should be career incentives for teachers willing to work in schools with a large number of disadvantaged children.”
Working in schools with a large number of disadvantaged children is an intrinsically motivating thing to do provided
1. the school is sufficiently well funded and organised so that it is not a dangerous or perniciously failing place.
2. teachers have sufficient professional freedom to make a real, positive difference.
Nick Clegg said there should be career incentives for teachers willing to work in schools with a large number of disadvantaged children.
Sadly Michael Gove has decided that teachers in schools with large numbers of disadvantaged schools should be relentlessly punished by having all their professional feedoms removed for failing to reach totally unrealistic targets. Unless we address this situation you can’t fix the problem with career incentives of any kind.
Ooops sorry the Nick Clegg bit has been repeated by accident.
Perhaps it’s only by constant repetition that the message might actually get through. So let’s hear it again, “Nick Clegg said there should be career incentives for teachers willing to work in schools with a large number of disadvantaged children.”
It’s a risk, though. If teachers do their best and the pupils exceed the benchmark then they can expect plaudits (careers saved, for the time being, at least until next year’s results). If teachers do their best but the pupils don’t reach the benchmark then they can expect to villified (careers doomed, no reprise).
When you are lucky enough to work in a position where day in and day out you can make a tremendous difference to children’s life prospects you work in an intrinsically motivating job. We don’t need incentives from outside. We just need enough pay to live decent lives and to be given half a chance to be able to do our jobs properly which involves us having a reasonable degree of professional empowerment.
I want to be able to do the kind of job that the heads of maths who inspired me to enter my profession did and, if I’m lucky, eventually become the kind of quality of person they were. I don’t want to be rated outstanding and I don’t want cash incentives. I’d much rather any spare cash was spent on some of the many things which make a real difference to what I can do with my students. Professional development – wider experience, sabbaticals, teachers TV, opportunities to become a better teacher yes please. I don’t want to be relentlessly told how good or bad I am by some idiot inspector who clearly could not do what I do. Failure, as well as success, is endemic to the reality of working in challenging schools. With many students you have to fail many times before you succeed. With some you completely fail meet their needs because of the realities of limited resources and the challenges of their teenage lives. I know I fail, but I’m sustained through that failure by the real good I manage to do too.