The inequalities are more to do with the quality of parenting. When parents cannot be bothered to listen to their child read even three times a week, and place no value on them achieving academically, schools have little chance no matter much money is thrown at them.
Maybe incentivising the parents by offering them 500 quid if their child achieve the expected standard at the end of year 6 might inspire a few to get off their arses and support their child’s education.
The problem is that it’s impossible for a school to catch these kids up and the majority of the damage is done before kids even attend school.
There’s research that suggests the disadvantages pupils arrive at school knowing so much less vocabulary than non-disadvantages pupils and there’s not enough schooling that can ever close that gap.
Even when they’re at an age they can attend school statistically their attendance is down, and a school cannot physically go out and drag a pupil into school.
This has been a problem for decades and if anyone has a magic solution to fixing it within schools it would have been done and someone would have made a lot of money off selling books all about it. The reality is that the past 10 years of having Tory governments has made this so much worse and increased childhood poverty to the point where it pretty much guarantees that the gap will get worse – it’s almost by design.
Here’s a comment from the FT article on this story:
>Having taught in both sectors the biggest difference I noticed between State and Independent schools is culture. It just wasn’t seen as “cool” to be towards the bottom of the class in the leading Independent school I taught at. Whereas in the State schools I taught in it was too often the opposite. Bright pupils were branded “geeks” and bullying was always an issue. Despite teachers best efforts, too often these bright year 7s failed to maximise their early potential come exam time in year 11 due to this “anti learning” culture.
>
>The other big difference I noticed between the State and Independent sectors was in the approaches they took to behaviour management. Yes the kids in the private school I taught in were better behaved in general, mainly because they all came from professional households. But everything is not perfect in the private sector and there were still a few very difficult pupils. The difference was that when they stepped out of line and seriously disrupted classes the SLT backed up the teacher. Also issues never stretched on for months but were dealt with swiftly, often by calling the parents in and suggesting their child may be better suited to another school. Those students that did behave and wanted to learn were valued more than those that didn’t and the disruptive pupils quickly removed so that they couldn’t ruin the education of others. So the teaching is not always better in Independent schools but the environment allows you to teach with fewer behavioural management issues occupying your time.
“lack of progress”
Under this government that could be sold as a positive headline as it’s not got drastically worse.
4 comments
The inequalities are more to do with the quality of parenting. When parents cannot be bothered to listen to their child read even three times a week, and place no value on them achieving academically, schools have little chance no matter much money is thrown at them.
Maybe incentivising the parents by offering them 500 quid if their child achieve the expected standard at the end of year 6 might inspire a few to get off their arses and support their child’s education.
The problem is that it’s impossible for a school to catch these kids up and the majority of the damage is done before kids even attend school.
There’s research that suggests the disadvantages pupils arrive at school knowing so much less vocabulary than non-disadvantages pupils and there’s not enough schooling that can ever close that gap.
Even when they’re at an age they can attend school statistically their attendance is down, and a school cannot physically go out and drag a pupil into school.
This has been a problem for decades and if anyone has a magic solution to fixing it within schools it would have been done and someone would have made a lot of money off selling books all about it. The reality is that the past 10 years of having Tory governments has made this so much worse and increased childhood poverty to the point where it pretty much guarantees that the gap will get worse – it’s almost by design.
Here’s a comment from the FT article on this story:
>Having taught in both sectors the biggest difference I noticed between State and Independent schools is culture. It just wasn’t seen as “cool” to be towards the bottom of the class in the leading Independent school I taught at. Whereas in the State schools I taught in it was too often the opposite. Bright pupils were branded “geeks” and bullying was always an issue. Despite teachers best efforts, too often these bright year 7s failed to maximise their early potential come exam time in year 11 due to this “anti learning” culture.
>
>The other big difference I noticed between the State and Independent sectors was in the approaches they took to behaviour management. Yes the kids in the private school I taught in were better behaved in general, mainly because they all came from professional households. But everything is not perfect in the private sector and there were still a few very difficult pupils. The difference was that when they stepped out of line and seriously disrupted classes the SLT backed up the teacher. Also issues never stretched on for months but were dealt with swiftly, often by calling the parents in and suggesting their child may be better suited to another school. Those students that did behave and wanted to learn were valued more than those that didn’t and the disruptive pupils quickly removed so that they couldn’t ruin the education of others. So the teaching is not always better in Independent schools but the environment allows you to teach with fewer behavioural management issues occupying your time.
“lack of progress”
Under this government that could be sold as a positive headline as it’s not got drastically worse.