Schools That Work For Everyone – Government Consultation
The need for more school places
It is true to suggest that within the education system today there is already selection by house price in the UK. It is also true that where grammar schools exist parents who can afford private tutoring are better placed to get their child into the school of their choice. We need radically to expand the number of good school places available to all families and not just those who can pay for tuition to pass selective tests, but I do not see any realistic way to prevent the self-inflicted inequality of school places between children whose parents can afford to pay for private tuition and those whose cannot.
It is for this reason that I believe the Government should rule out new grammar schools based on selection and instead invest in better setting and streaming for brighter pupils within mainstream education.
This would truly create a single education system that works for everyone, not just the privileged few.
The Department of Education published data identifying 65 local authority districts where fewer than 50% of secondary school applicants have a good, or outstanding school place available to them within 5km. This means that in 20% of districts fewer than half of secondary school pupils have access to a good school within a reasonable distance of their home.
This highlights why a new approach is needed, but it must be an approach that can be delivered without installing stigma which clearly does exist today where those pupils who aren’t bright enough to get into a grammar school fall into the comprehensive system, thereby creating a two-tier state education system.
Families who are just about managing
The best way to understand the impact of policies on a wider cohort of pupils is to have better streaming and setting within comprehensive schools. In a comprehensive school environment equality of opportunity for all is an achievable outcome, it allows pupils to be placed into sets based on their talent and ability. Within these sets pupils who are struggling academically will be identifiable whereas those who are progressing speedily through the curriculum will also be identified as brighter pupils.
Independent Schools
The reintroduction of the assisted places scheme would see Government working in partnership with the private sector, in return for them working in partnership with the state primary schools. However, the Government must look closely at the issue of stigma within education and the risks are much greater when presenting situations in which disadvantaged pupils are sent to private schools where pupils are typically from better off backgrounds. Any new assisted places scheme should go beyond payment of school fees and provide support for extra-curricular activities offered to all pupils in the school. There would however be a decreased need for an assisted places scheme in private schools if the same standard of education was delivered in all comprehensive schools, regardless of the collective intelligence of any one cohort.
Many private schools enjoy charitable status and the associated advantages including relief from business rates. Independent Schools should do more as a condition of these benefits and their privileged position, for example, doing more to increase the number of good and outstanding school places in the state system and sharing access to better education to all pupils. In this scenario, the priority must be for private schools to partner with the schools that require improvement in deprived areas so to raise attainment from the bottom up.
This can be best achieved by applying a best to worst formula, so that the best independent schools are positioned to support state schools with the worst results, and then the second best with the second worst etc.
Universities
Many universities in the UK have partnership arrangements with academies or free schools already. A much smaller number have set up free schools or sponsored existing academies. The Government would like to see all universities match these examples, and sponsor existing schools or set up new schools in exchange for the ability to charge higher fees and this should be the preferred option as it directs a focus on skills, especially STEM subjects, at an early age.
The academic expertise of universities can be brought to bear on our schools system by focussing on specific subjects that are showing as a weakness in uptake of university courses, such as STEM subjects as mentioned above. Universities will have real data as to the difficulties in filling available places and can therefore focus education at an early age on subjects for which there is a demand in the workplace but a deficit of adequately trained pupils within the current system.
The question as to whether the DfE’s guidance is the most effective way to achieve university support to the state system must be balanced in monetary terms. It will be of little relevance to a university if they can only raise their fees by supporting the state school system if, by having to do this, they end up spending more money than they can raise in fee increases.
The best way to warrant universities sponsoring schools is to ensure that there is a cost benefit for them, so they can invest in schools at early key stages and inform the curriculum throughout the state sector so pupils who then go on to study university courses have the foundation knowledge that is required.
Universities should be able to take specific factors into account when deciding how and where to support schools, so that the focus is on subjects at an early age, thereby helping the long-term objectives of the academic institutions undertaking the sponsoring.
Selective Schools
The Department for Education suggests that 5% of secondary school pupils attending grammar schools nationally rises to more than 25% in fully selective local authority areas. In Leeds, where there are no state-funded selective schools, this would require the creation of approximately 22,500 new school places in the local authority area.
The Government must look carefully at why grammar schools are popular with parents. If it is because parents believe the quality of education is better then this should be seen not as a reason to create more grammar schools but to fix the cause of the lack of confidence in mainstream schools. Policy must be focussed on evidence-based attainment and not opinion. It is my belief that support for grammar schools is more likely due to a misplaced snobbery – a snobbery that takes effect from the underlying belief that pupils get better grades than other pupils, but hides the fact that those results are engineered. Selective education allows schools to draw resources away from the main system to a selective few and not have to think about educational provision for those who might now achieve A-Levels after GCSEs.
If you get down to the basics, what a parent really wants for their child is for them to achieve the best results they can. This does not necessarily have to be at the expense of the majority of the population, who despite the best intentions, will see the best teachers in the state sector sucked into the grammar school system.
It also important to assess evidence-based data when suggestion that grammar schools provide a stretching education of the most able pupils, regardless of their background. It remains the case in Kent today that parents with the financial means to pay for expensive tutoring get their children through the 11-plus and this only works to reduce social mobility, not increase it as is the want of the Government’s agenda.
Far from praising statistics that show those pupils who go to grammar schools do better at university, we should be ashamed of it. Government has a responsibility to ensure that any child can reach their potential though any school in the state system. This should go to highlight a further reason why we need setting by ability within our schools with more resources to achieve it. The answer isn’t to take bright pupils out of mainstream schools it is to ensure mainstream schools strengthen brighter pupils further. The Government should use the £50 million earmarked for new grammar schools to invest in better setting and streaming within existing schools, a sort of virtual grammar schools in the mainstream system.
Hard working taxpayers’ whose children don’t go to grammar school will effectively be paying for someone else’s child to have a built in advantage, via social engineering, over their child. Instead, Government should take responsibility to ensure that all children are given equal opportunity at school.
Whilst we mandate by law that a child has to be in school we have a moral duty to ensure that we provide the best possible education for every child in the system. A parent’s income should not determine their child’s ability to learn.
The Department for Education states that there is some evidence that children who attend non-selective schools in selective areas may not fare as well academically, both compared to local selective schools and comprehensives in non-selective areas. This one statement should be the reason we look towards a comprehensive system and not a return to grammar schools. The reality of the situation is that the resources will be sucked into the grammar system, at a time when we already have a shortage of STEM teachers. Teachers will go to the grammar schools so as to teach their chosen subject and to do so with pupils who attain higher academic results. This is human nature and whilst some may resist and opt to stay in comprehensive schools, the reality is that this will lead to a further shortage of teachers in STEM subjects and will leave only non-subject qualified teaches teaching basics in the comprehensive system. Results are therefore certain to fall.
Overall, unless the Department of Education can guarantee a grammar school place for every child across the UK with the academic ability to pass the 11-plus, then a lack of supply will always mean that some children will miss out on gaining access. Therefore the statistical analysis will remain skewed and largely irrelevant. Results analysis in section 8 (page 22) of the Department’s consultation, it is clear that the answer as to why similar results are not reflected in all schools is obviously one of targeted investment. To that end, this consultation paper makes a very convincing argument for an overall increase in investment within the existing system.
New funds made available for the development of new selective schools should instead be targeted at within the existing comprehensive system, thereby allowing schools to better set and stream pupils in smaller classes and with more teachers.
Faith Schools
The Department for Education is asking for comments on the idea of replacing the cap for faith free schools – including for existing schools – with a series of strengthened safeguards to promote inclusivity, thereby allowing free schools with up to 100% faith-based admissions. If this were to happen then there would need to be greater checks and balances in place to safeguard against political or religious extremism and segregation based on gender or sexuality. A very strict set of standards would need to be in place to prevent another “Trojan Horse” situation.
It must be borne in mind that a policy such as this must be fair and equal to all faiths and not simply aimed at satisfying one faith at the expense of strategies to reduce extremism in Islamic schools.