The reasons for the rise in youth unemployment lies back in time. In the late 1940s and through the 1950s and 1960s and up to mid 1970s, youth unemployment was low averaging around 2 to 3 %. Most youngsters were in secondary modern schools and left at 15. In grammar schools only a third went on to do A levels. There were jobs aplenty for school leavers in these decades whether you had paper qualifications or not. Plus there were good apprenticeships to be had. These were recruited from school leavers possibly with O levels but you could get an apprenticeship in construction for example without any school qualifications. I left school in 1970 after A levels. Many of my peers had left after O levels and ended up in apprenticeships or in office/ admin work. H.E. wasn't viewed as a must have unless you were planning a career that required a degree. I had friends who went to art school and drama school. No paper qualifications required. I had a friend who'd done A level French with me and got a post at Crédit Lyonnais in London. The start of a great career for her. In the mid 1970s Britain's manufacturing industries began to decline. And have steadily continued so to do. Even if everyone in the UK had a degree there wouldn't be the jobs for them. The areas in which there are a shortage of workers are those that most UK citizens seem not to want to do such as social and health care. Construction needs more skilled workers but that's Catch 22 because it's practically impossible to get the training unless you have the proverbial 5 good passes at GCSE. I think part of the problem is that those in the government making policy have too little experience outside of school, university and politics.
Well said, and convincingly so! I think it’s telling that the enormous achievements of primary schools have been brushed aside as it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge them. And shifting the blame onto schools provides a rationale for education ministers to push notions of ‘vocational’ courses without setting up the necessary infrastructure to make sure that can work without undermining the progress that has been made.
Another societal problem that is easy to throw back at schools as they can solve it, NEET, read obesity, AI, etc etc. I met a teacher from Switzerland last week, and she spoke about their system, dominated by students gaining apprenticeships as their success measure. Lots go on to university later, but the drive is into meaningful work for the majority. I obviously summarise here, and their system is far from perfect. What struck me was the commitment from employers in this system, and it feels that is what is missing from ours. Returning to a theme, there seem to be better systems out there, almost none with a cliff edge at 16. This enables them to be much more focused on relevant outcomes for students...or so it seems to me
I agree, employer involvement is a problem. I thought the apprenticeship levy would help solve the problem but it doesn’t really seem to have done so - not sure why that is.
There’s no one straightforward answer, of course, but it’s worth pointing out that disadvantaged children and children with SEND (which are heavily overlapping categories) are still performing way behind their peers; and that the jobs are there - in construction, in healthcare, in child development. There is definitely a mismatch between the young people emerging from education and the available employment opportunities. There is also a strong link between underperformance as early as Reception and later failure to attain 4 in English and Maths. Disadvantaged children are quickly told they’re failing, opening a vicious circle of challenging behaviour, poor attendance, SEND intervention, disaffection, disengagement - resulting for a significsnt number at 16 or 18 in a mental health diagnosis which keeps them out of the workplace.
I have to agree with you that the current system leads to disadvantaged students switching off (especially white British ex working class). The definition of what is a high expectations curriculum boils down to "academic good, vocational bad". This Orwellian mantra leads schools into forcing children to persist with academic subjects where they have little cultural background to build schemas when learning said subjects. Unsurprisingly, there are huge numbers of these children voting with their feet and truanting both internally and externally. They naturally feel stupid and walk away from the source.
I am fortunate to serve a school in the bottom decile of deprivation. We have over 65 percent pp and 30 percent SEND. The local area has an economic inactivity of 35 percent! The academic route is so far removed from most of my schools children's experience of everyday life any learning of academic information is generally built upon no prior knowledge and no cultural capital.
I can predict that some amongst the readers will say that this is exactly why we must give children a high expectations academic diet. How are they going to get said cultural capital?
My lived experience of teaching these wonderful students this academic cultural capital is it is always secondary knowledge removed from their experience. It is through the eyes of others. Furthermore, even if they have success with the acquisition of cultural capital brought by an academic curriculum there is then the crushing reality that there is just not enough 'academic' employment available in the local area for all to get a job. This is a known cultural reality in my area and parents are highly skeptical of the benefits of this academic route because of this.
If you are thinking that it isn't just about the local area as there are jobs out there beyond the local area I do not think you understand the trap these children are in.
A large proportion of my students by the time they leave school do not travel more than 5 miles from home regularly (if at all). Some have never used a train, been on a plane or even seen the sea. Many parents are third generation unemployed. A large number of parents have no academic background and these parents have a reading age that is not in the adult range. If you genuinely believe that we as a school can break down those barriers, without societal change I say you are a fool.
I myself am from a single parent background. I was a 'free school meals' kid. I was highly determined that I would leave my local area and not be poor. The furthest I got was about 60 miles away. Why? Because the social and financial support network wasn't there to fall back on. If you are from a deprived background like I was the escape route of high ambitions is an all or nothing gamble. You do not have as much cultural capital or financial backing as others. You do not instantly understand the ways of working outside of the area you grew up. Everything is a learning curve and you are consciously aware that often behind others. Quite frankly, you feel stupid. This was my lived experience from when I went to university and tried to get away from my local area.
Going back to the original point the academic route for large numbers of students in deprivation pockets has no connection beyond the walls of the classroom. They simply do not encounter that knowledge in day to day life. Vocational knowledge on the other hand would connect as my students do have some lived experience of vocational success, even if their family is not successful. Even my area, where there are huge numbers of unemployed adults have interactions with trades peope. Many a street has a white van on the drive. These tradesmen are the role models of our community as they provide a better standard of life for their family (they often own their own house and the house normally has a new door, nice windows and a new car on the drive). These community role models almost always have little to no academic qualifications (for me it was Ricky who I went to school with. No GCSEs but went into the doors and windows trade. He is now a millionaire and works alot less than me.) They are also highly visible and vocal about not having academic qualifications. They are seen in the pubs, at the football, in the bars, at the gym etc. They create the dissonance in our students regarding the academic route as they see and hear success without the academic beyond school.
I honestly believe those pushing the 'academic is best' route do not see real Britain for a large proportion of our society. I would argue it is especially true for White British who are from low income backgrounds.
The whole debate makes me angry as it should not be a one or the other approach; it should be both are taught at the same time following excellent programmes of study. The sooner we allow a student to master knowledge and skills of the trades in their surroundings area, whilst also teaching them the academic subjects that build greater cultural capital the better.
It is not low expectations when expectations work within the reality of our students backgrounds and support systems.
The comparison to the US is severely lacking, I find. You can't just look at income levels without also considering that if those students had gotten a green card, they would also have to pay for quite expensive health insurance in the US (whereas they have no or little private healthcare expenditures in the UK). This focus on simply income and wages seems to be lacking a lot of the socio-economic context that is important in different countries.
Agree, there is a lot more to life than hourly earnings! (Although I think the earnings in John’s analysis were pre tax - presumably the gap would be even bigger post tax given US is generally lower tax than UK given absence of an NHS etc).
Great post! Thank you Daisy. I read Murdoch's article (always enjoy his data) but reading the comments section was unbelievable. Education is frequently used as a scapegoat - I rather think successive govs have passed the buck in terms of investment since the crash of 2007/08.
This is exactly the kind of question curriculum analytics should be asking before intervention rather than after it, whether the metric moving is actually caused by the system being blamed for it. Attaching a RONI tool and a mentoring scheme to primary schools without first establishing the cause risks treating a national economic symptom as a school design fault, and primary schools already carrying a heavy accountability burden do not need another one built on the wrong diagnosis. What would it take for policy to ask the causal question before assigning the response?
Thanks for the article. I have heard that Alan Milburn has devised a revolutionary new strategy which involves primary schools identifying those youngsters who are vulnerable. Gosh I wish I'd thought of doing that during my 40 years in the game.
Primary schools to be told to identify children at risk of future unemployment | Youth unemployment | The Guardian https://share.google/YloRZ76ugr8oO4LC8
A great post. Made me question my thoughts on this.
I think the answer has to be in schools though, but not about better grades. Where else are we going to give young people to additional support they need? I'm not saying schools are doing a bad job, but maybe they are the right place to provide additional support for children who are not getting an advantageous upbringing at home. Majority of children are going on to have great lives, it's the minority that's the problem!
Lots of the qualitative evidence suggests it's not really the grades that are the problem, it's how a lot of young people lack engagement and have a poor work attitude (and also a lack of aspirations). That has become a self-fulfilling prophecy I think, where employers don't bother hiring young people as they think they are too expensive for the work they achieve. Several family friends in building trades have taken on an apprentice only to describe it as a cost for their business that doesn't pay off. And that's at apprenticeship wages!
Changing this requires systems thinking: look at upbringing, attitudes of young people, benefits system, attitudes of employers, and deep thinking on how to change this.
If what you say is true, what will you prune from the overwhelming different roles schools already provide? Additionally if you chose no pruning what will you defund from public spending to increase the resources and pay for increasing staff workload?
End the triple lock for pensions, reduce the amount of support for some mental health disability benefits, raise more tax revenue through higher (and reformed) property taxes. I'm not an expert on SEND, but perhaps spend more of SEND budget on support in schools, and less on taxis and adminstration (i.e. limit appeals).
It's an interesting approach and I do agree that the pension triple lock is in need of revision. I simply wonder if it would be enough to provide enough funding to create an excellent package.
Good article. More thinking needs to be shared on this but I think some answers are obvious. One thing about schools, in my experience, is that a growing minority are struggling in the regimented approach and the alternative routes are very poor. I think youth services have a role in this area of work.
As someone who works in the civil service, whenever I suggest we should solve specific issues with by fixing the broader root causes (eg instead of a SEND strategy tackling child poverty) the proposal itself is often treated as hopelessly naive or unrealistic.
My overwhelming sense is that the civil service has far too low expectations of itself and what is possible.
Though I agree that schools could do much much better at careers advice (the careers education at the schools I have worked in has bordered on negligence) it doesn't surprise me that schools are being wacked again for something we aren't doing.
The school as an institution is now the one stop shop for all of societal ills. Children have no food at home? School food bank. No clothes? School Clothes bank. Clothes dirty and need washing? School washing machines. Parents cannot/will not get students to wake up and go to school? School mini buses who pick them up. Parent issues with other Parents? School, not police. Parents have no money for presents at Christmas. School. Family issues with the police? School. Being homeless? School. Mental health referrals? School. Never been on train, bus or seen the sea? School. That is on top of the extremely difficult job of getting students to pay attention long enough to learn new knowledge.
(Btw, for anyone thinking that list is ridiculous I have personally observed or been a part of actioning this issues in the last 5 years with my school.)
So why has this happened? It's relatively cheap to put everything in a school and then blame school leaders for the failure of government. Any funding increase we have seen has not kept up with the growing list of demands, but anyone seeing the increases of educational spending will be fooled into thinking the greedy teachers are feigning poverty again. If you simply consider schools as only child care for older children we are incredibly cheap child care. Government has realised it is much more cost efficient and politically safe to hand it over to schools and say job done. Imagine if they had to genuinely solve these problems in the community or to get parents to parent better (never a vote winner to tell parents they aren't doing their job).
What with the governments rush to put children with send into mainstream schools that are quite frankly not appropriate places for the care of such students (the extra funding is just not enough to do even a half way decent job), the new Ofsted framework creating even more anxiety and terror, schools to now run after-school clubs on Friday (again no mention of 1265 or additional funding) and this monstrosity it is no wonder the government fails to entice new teachers.
20 years in as a teacher and I sometimes wonder if the main reason I stay in education is I'm institutionalised like Brooks Hatien from the Shawshank redemption.
Agree, I think we need to be clearer about what the main function of a school is. No-one complains that a dentist only deals with your teeth and doesn’t cure poverty / youth unemployment / hunger.
I have been reading a book by Dr Simon Breakspear called the pruning principle. In it he states that school leadership has an additive problem. I think you can apply that to political leadership of education too.
I simply wonder who will grasp the nettle and inform the government to prune their expectations, or dramatically increase the resources and pay in the sector?
I'm aware I've made this comment before but not attaining 5 GCSEs including English and maths at L4 or above doesn't equate to being Illiterate or innumerate. For some youngsters it will mean that they are underachieving but for many the problem lies with the format of the assessment. This is particularly pertinent for English and maths, as currently, without a 'good' pass, youngsters have little chance of even passing go. Functional Skills Level 2 are a far better assessment for many than GCSE but are rarely offered in schools and some F.E. colleges still make those who didn't attain the golden ticket slog through endless GCSE resits in English and maths.
I am a maths teacher and I can categorically tell you that level 2 functional skills is not for those who cannot grasp foundation GCSE maths. The assessments reduce mathematical computation complexity, but require them to read well enough to decide what maths to apply. Almost all children who fail maths cannot functionally read for comprehension. Level 1 functional skills is more accessible for those who fail foundation maths, but it is not an equivalent to GCSEs.
In 20 years at the chalkface I am of the opinion that GCSE foundation maths is as easy an assessment that 16 year olds can have for it to qualify students ready for work. If you analyse the foundation GCSE paper at least 70 percent of the papers are year 9 maths and below. The first page is at a level an average 9/10 year old can attempt. Some of the content is below sats level. Yes there is mathematics that is not strictly "functional" for menial jobs (e.g. trigonometry), but you do not need to learn them to pass. The average pass grade is 60 percent of the 240 marks. That essentially means 20 to 30 percent of content can be untaught or not understood and students still pass! That means the pass mark for GCSE maths is the mathematical equivalent of understanding and being able to recall up to KS3 only. To get a grade 1 (a certificate) you need the mathematical knowledge of a 10 year old).
Though I wish to see all students get a qualification if you dumb the content down any further you may as well remove fail grades and give all students a pass.
There is always splitting the qualification in 2 GCSE (like English). We could have concrete/functional mathematics and abstract mathematics. It would actually make the school qualifications tables fairer. English get 2 bites of the cherry in progress 8 (best of 2 is double weighted) where maths only gets 1.
The problem is the purist mathematicians that write the curricula. They are elitist and cannot comprehend the third of people who find maths torture rather than beautiful.
Those writing the curricula for English, history and every other domain of knowledge will see what is important through the prism of their acquired mastery.o
I understand that the mathematician will fight for everyone to learn abstract maths a right. It is in your nature to defend that which you love.
However, the reality is 1/3 or more of people find maths anxiety inducing and/or take a large amount of time to understand foundational concepts, facts and computational algorithms.
The modern society is not geared towards labours of love, more instant gratification.
Those are the realities that the curriculum setters do not comprehend. As they are at the extreme end of domain mastery they find it hard to comprehend those at the other end of the spectrum. Much as an elephant does not comprehend the mouse.
Many outstanding mathematicians I have met or talked cannot grasp that some people do not learn mathematics easily. They just inform me that all students need to do is work harder, pay more attention. All teachers just need to teach it better. This is where the elitism comes in. It does not comprehend the cognitive load of mathematics, especially when a student has little to no crystallised foundational knowledge in long term memory.
I wish that there was a reality check in the construction of specifications. A voice of the unmastered so to speak.
Where is the section in GCSE specifications that addresses if a student arrives in KS4 with a maths knowledge of an 8 year old?
Where in the specification is the acknowledgement of the student with dyscalculia, dyslexia or other SEND?
Where is the honest to god attempt in the specifications to build a hierarchy of knowledge rather than a simple list that is broken into foundation and higher?
I want all students to become excellent mathematicians, but there has to be a realistic acknowledgement of time in this process. Functionally all students can master higher GCSE to a grade 5 level, but there is never any acknowledgement that some children will take their natural lives to get there.
It is easy for the academic sitting in their tower made of crystallised engrained knowledge to rally against the call for a more vocational approach to qualifications. But I'm my experience these individuals need to spend more time in the third person and try to comprehend those who are always behind the curve.
Hi Daisy for me personally knowledge meant gaining a better life. I know schools aren’t to blame but they can provide a pathway out of poverty and this I know because I’ve lived it.
The latest ONS breakdown sharpens this argument. Of the 981,000 young people counted as NEET, 588,000 were economically inactive and 393,000 were unemployed. That makes NEET a combined education, health and labour-market problem—not simply a measure of school performance.
The reasons for the rise in youth unemployment lies back in time. In the late 1940s and through the 1950s and 1960s and up to mid 1970s, youth unemployment was low averaging around 2 to 3 %. Most youngsters were in secondary modern schools and left at 15. In grammar schools only a third went on to do A levels. There were jobs aplenty for school leavers in these decades whether you had paper qualifications or not. Plus there were good apprenticeships to be had. These were recruited from school leavers possibly with O levels but you could get an apprenticeship in construction for example without any school qualifications. I left school in 1970 after A levels. Many of my peers had left after O levels and ended up in apprenticeships or in office/ admin work. H.E. wasn't viewed as a must have unless you were planning a career that required a degree. I had friends who went to art school and drama school. No paper qualifications required. I had a friend who'd done A level French with me and got a post at Crédit Lyonnais in London. The start of a great career for her. In the mid 1970s Britain's manufacturing industries began to decline. And have steadily continued so to do. Even if everyone in the UK had a degree there wouldn't be the jobs for them. The areas in which there are a shortage of workers are those that most UK citizens seem not to want to do such as social and health care. Construction needs more skilled workers but that's Catch 22 because it's practically impossible to get the training unless you have the proverbial 5 good passes at GCSE. I think part of the problem is that those in the government making policy have too little experience outside of school, university and politics.
Well said, and convincingly so! I think it’s telling that the enormous achievements of primary schools have been brushed aside as it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge them. And shifting the blame onto schools provides a rationale for education ministers to push notions of ‘vocational’ courses without setting up the necessary infrastructure to make sure that can work without undermining the progress that has been made.
Yes, it would be a real shame if failures in economic governance were used to reverse a genuine public policy success!!
Another societal problem that is easy to throw back at schools as they can solve it, NEET, read obesity, AI, etc etc. I met a teacher from Switzerland last week, and she spoke about their system, dominated by students gaining apprenticeships as their success measure. Lots go on to university later, but the drive is into meaningful work for the majority. I obviously summarise here, and their system is far from perfect. What struck me was the commitment from employers in this system, and it feels that is what is missing from ours. Returning to a theme, there seem to be better systems out there, almost none with a cliff edge at 16. This enables them to be much more focused on relevant outcomes for students...or so it seems to me
I agree, employer involvement is a problem. I thought the apprenticeship levy would help solve the problem but it doesn’t really seem to have done so - not sure why that is.
There’s no one straightforward answer, of course, but it’s worth pointing out that disadvantaged children and children with SEND (which are heavily overlapping categories) are still performing way behind their peers; and that the jobs are there - in construction, in healthcare, in child development. There is definitely a mismatch between the young people emerging from education and the available employment opportunities. There is also a strong link between underperformance as early as Reception and later failure to attain 4 in English and Maths. Disadvantaged children are quickly told they’re failing, opening a vicious circle of challenging behaviour, poor attendance, SEND intervention, disaffection, disengagement - resulting for a significsnt number at 16 or 18 in a mental health diagnosis which keeps them out of the workplace.
I have to agree with you that the current system leads to disadvantaged students switching off (especially white British ex working class). The definition of what is a high expectations curriculum boils down to "academic good, vocational bad". This Orwellian mantra leads schools into forcing children to persist with academic subjects where they have little cultural background to build schemas when learning said subjects. Unsurprisingly, there are huge numbers of these children voting with their feet and truanting both internally and externally. They naturally feel stupid and walk away from the source.
I am fortunate to serve a school in the bottom decile of deprivation. We have over 65 percent pp and 30 percent SEND. The local area has an economic inactivity of 35 percent! The academic route is so far removed from most of my schools children's experience of everyday life any learning of academic information is generally built upon no prior knowledge and no cultural capital.
I can predict that some amongst the readers will say that this is exactly why we must give children a high expectations academic diet. How are they going to get said cultural capital?
My lived experience of teaching these wonderful students this academic cultural capital is it is always secondary knowledge removed from their experience. It is through the eyes of others. Furthermore, even if they have success with the acquisition of cultural capital brought by an academic curriculum there is then the crushing reality that there is just not enough 'academic' employment available in the local area for all to get a job. This is a known cultural reality in my area and parents are highly skeptical of the benefits of this academic route because of this.
If you are thinking that it isn't just about the local area as there are jobs out there beyond the local area I do not think you understand the trap these children are in.
A large proportion of my students by the time they leave school do not travel more than 5 miles from home regularly (if at all). Some have never used a train, been on a plane or even seen the sea. Many parents are third generation unemployed. A large number of parents have no academic background and these parents have a reading age that is not in the adult range. If you genuinely believe that we as a school can break down those barriers, without societal change I say you are a fool.
I myself am from a single parent background. I was a 'free school meals' kid. I was highly determined that I would leave my local area and not be poor. The furthest I got was about 60 miles away. Why? Because the social and financial support network wasn't there to fall back on. If you are from a deprived background like I was the escape route of high ambitions is an all or nothing gamble. You do not have as much cultural capital or financial backing as others. You do not instantly understand the ways of working outside of the area you grew up. Everything is a learning curve and you are consciously aware that often behind others. Quite frankly, you feel stupid. This was my lived experience from when I went to university and tried to get away from my local area.
Going back to the original point the academic route for large numbers of students in deprivation pockets has no connection beyond the walls of the classroom. They simply do not encounter that knowledge in day to day life. Vocational knowledge on the other hand would connect as my students do have some lived experience of vocational success, even if their family is not successful. Even my area, where there are huge numbers of unemployed adults have interactions with trades peope. Many a street has a white van on the drive. These tradesmen are the role models of our community as they provide a better standard of life for their family (they often own their own house and the house normally has a new door, nice windows and a new car on the drive). These community role models almost always have little to no academic qualifications (for me it was Ricky who I went to school with. No GCSEs but went into the doors and windows trade. He is now a millionaire and works alot less than me.) They are also highly visible and vocal about not having academic qualifications. They are seen in the pubs, at the football, in the bars, at the gym etc. They create the dissonance in our students regarding the academic route as they see and hear success without the academic beyond school.
I honestly believe those pushing the 'academic is best' route do not see real Britain for a large proportion of our society. I would argue it is especially true for White British who are from low income backgrounds.
The whole debate makes me angry as it should not be a one or the other approach; it should be both are taught at the same time following excellent programmes of study. The sooner we allow a student to master knowledge and skills of the trades in their surroundings area, whilst also teaching them the academic subjects that build greater cultural capital the better.
It is not low expectations when expectations work within the reality of our students backgrounds and support systems.
The comparison to the US is severely lacking, I find. You can't just look at income levels without also considering that if those students had gotten a green card, they would also have to pay for quite expensive health insurance in the US (whereas they have no or little private healthcare expenditures in the UK). This focus on simply income and wages seems to be lacking a lot of the socio-economic context that is important in different countries.
Agree, there is a lot more to life than hourly earnings! (Although I think the earnings in John’s analysis were pre tax - presumably the gap would be even bigger post tax given US is generally lower tax than UK given absence of an NHS etc).
Great post! Thank you Daisy. I read Murdoch's article (always enjoy his data) but reading the comments section was unbelievable. Education is frequently used as a scapegoat - I rather think successive govs have passed the buck in terms of investment since the crash of 2007/08.
I agree, wrong to scapegoat education here!
This is exactly the kind of question curriculum analytics should be asking before intervention rather than after it, whether the metric moving is actually caused by the system being blamed for it. Attaching a RONI tool and a mentoring scheme to primary schools without first establishing the cause risks treating a national economic symptom as a school design fault, and primary schools already carrying a heavy accountability burden do not need another one built on the wrong diagnosis. What would it take for policy to ask the causal question before assigning the response?
Yes, would be good to see more analysis like this before policies are designed!
Thanks for the article. I have heard that Alan Milburn has devised a revolutionary new strategy which involves primary schools identifying those youngsters who are vulnerable. Gosh I wish I'd thought of doing that during my 40 years in the game.
Primary schools to be told to identify children at risk of future unemployment | Youth unemployment | The Guardian https://share.google/YloRZ76ugr8oO4LC8
Yes, it just seems so unfair to blame schools when so many other areas of the state are failing!
A great post. Made me question my thoughts on this.
I think the answer has to be in schools though, but not about better grades. Where else are we going to give young people to additional support they need? I'm not saying schools are doing a bad job, but maybe they are the right place to provide additional support for children who are not getting an advantageous upbringing at home. Majority of children are going on to have great lives, it's the minority that's the problem!
Lots of the qualitative evidence suggests it's not really the grades that are the problem, it's how a lot of young people lack engagement and have a poor work attitude (and also a lack of aspirations). That has become a self-fulfilling prophecy I think, where employers don't bother hiring young people as they think they are too expensive for the work they achieve. Several family friends in building trades have taken on an apprentice only to describe it as a cost for their business that doesn't pay off. And that's at apprenticeship wages!
Changing this requires systems thinking: look at upbringing, attitudes of young people, benefits system, attitudes of employers, and deep thinking on how to change this.
If what you say is true, what will you prune from the overwhelming different roles schools already provide? Additionally if you chose no pruning what will you defund from public spending to increase the resources and pay for increasing staff workload?
End the triple lock for pensions, reduce the amount of support for some mental health disability benefits, raise more tax revenue through higher (and reformed) property taxes. I'm not an expert on SEND, but perhaps spend more of SEND budget on support in schools, and less on taxis and adminstration (i.e. limit appeals).
It's an interesting approach and I do agree that the pension triple lock is in need of revision. I simply wonder if it would be enough to provide enough funding to create an excellent package.
Good article. More thinking needs to be shared on this but I think some answers are obvious. One thing about schools, in my experience, is that a growing minority are struggling in the regimented approach and the alternative routes are very poor. I think youth services have a role in this area of work.
As someone who works in the civil service, whenever I suggest we should solve specific issues with by fixing the broader root causes (eg instead of a SEND strategy tackling child poverty) the proposal itself is often treated as hopelessly naive or unrealistic.
My overwhelming sense is that the civil service has far too low expectations of itself and what is possible.
Though I agree that schools could do much much better at careers advice (the careers education at the schools I have worked in has bordered on negligence) it doesn't surprise me that schools are being wacked again for something we aren't doing.
The school as an institution is now the one stop shop for all of societal ills. Children have no food at home? School food bank. No clothes? School Clothes bank. Clothes dirty and need washing? School washing machines. Parents cannot/will not get students to wake up and go to school? School mini buses who pick them up. Parent issues with other Parents? School, not police. Parents have no money for presents at Christmas. School. Family issues with the police? School. Being homeless? School. Mental health referrals? School. Never been on train, bus or seen the sea? School. That is on top of the extremely difficult job of getting students to pay attention long enough to learn new knowledge.
(Btw, for anyone thinking that list is ridiculous I have personally observed or been a part of actioning this issues in the last 5 years with my school.)
So why has this happened? It's relatively cheap to put everything in a school and then blame school leaders for the failure of government. Any funding increase we have seen has not kept up with the growing list of demands, but anyone seeing the increases of educational spending will be fooled into thinking the greedy teachers are feigning poverty again. If you simply consider schools as only child care for older children we are incredibly cheap child care. Government has realised it is much more cost efficient and politically safe to hand it over to schools and say job done. Imagine if they had to genuinely solve these problems in the community or to get parents to parent better (never a vote winner to tell parents they aren't doing their job).
What with the governments rush to put children with send into mainstream schools that are quite frankly not appropriate places for the care of such students (the extra funding is just not enough to do even a half way decent job), the new Ofsted framework creating even more anxiety and terror, schools to now run after-school clubs on Friday (again no mention of 1265 or additional funding) and this monstrosity it is no wonder the government fails to entice new teachers.
20 years in as a teacher and I sometimes wonder if the main reason I stay in education is I'm institutionalised like Brooks Hatien from the Shawshank redemption.
Agree, I think we need to be clearer about what the main function of a school is. No-one complains that a dentist only deals with your teeth and doesn’t cure poverty / youth unemployment / hunger.
I have been reading a book by Dr Simon Breakspear called the pruning principle. In it he states that school leadership has an additive problem. I think you can apply that to political leadership of education too.
I simply wonder who will grasp the nettle and inform the government to prune their expectations, or dramatically increase the resources and pay in the sector?
I'm aware I've made this comment before but not attaining 5 GCSEs including English and maths at L4 or above doesn't equate to being Illiterate or innumerate. For some youngsters it will mean that they are underachieving but for many the problem lies with the format of the assessment. This is particularly pertinent for English and maths, as currently, without a 'good' pass, youngsters have little chance of even passing go. Functional Skills Level 2 are a far better assessment for many than GCSE but are rarely offered in schools and some F.E. colleges still make those who didn't attain the golden ticket slog through endless GCSE resits in English and maths.
I am a maths teacher and I can categorically tell you that level 2 functional skills is not for those who cannot grasp foundation GCSE maths. The assessments reduce mathematical computation complexity, but require them to read well enough to decide what maths to apply. Almost all children who fail maths cannot functionally read for comprehension. Level 1 functional skills is more accessible for those who fail foundation maths, but it is not an equivalent to GCSEs.
In 20 years at the chalkface I am of the opinion that GCSE foundation maths is as easy an assessment that 16 year olds can have for it to qualify students ready for work. If you analyse the foundation GCSE paper at least 70 percent of the papers are year 9 maths and below. The first page is at a level an average 9/10 year old can attempt. Some of the content is below sats level. Yes there is mathematics that is not strictly "functional" for menial jobs (e.g. trigonometry), but you do not need to learn them to pass. The average pass grade is 60 percent of the 240 marks. That essentially means 20 to 30 percent of content can be untaught or not understood and students still pass! That means the pass mark for GCSE maths is the mathematical equivalent of understanding and being able to recall up to KS3 only. To get a grade 1 (a certificate) you need the mathematical knowledge of a 10 year old).
Though I wish to see all students get a qualification if you dumb the content down any further you may as well remove fail grades and give all students a pass.
There is always splitting the qualification in 2 GCSE (like English). We could have concrete/functional mathematics and abstract mathematics. It would actually make the school qualifications tables fairer. English get 2 bites of the cherry in progress 8 (best of 2 is double weighted) where maths only gets 1.
The problem is the purist mathematicians that write the curricula. They are elitist and cannot comprehend the third of people who find maths torture rather than beautiful.
"Elitist" is of course an issue well beyond the maths crowd.
You are indeed right.
Those writing the curricula for English, history and every other domain of knowledge will see what is important through the prism of their acquired mastery.o
I understand that the mathematician will fight for everyone to learn abstract maths a right. It is in your nature to defend that which you love.
However, the reality is 1/3 or more of people find maths anxiety inducing and/or take a large amount of time to understand foundational concepts, facts and computational algorithms.
The modern society is not geared towards labours of love, more instant gratification.
Those are the realities that the curriculum setters do not comprehend. As they are at the extreme end of domain mastery they find it hard to comprehend those at the other end of the spectrum. Much as an elephant does not comprehend the mouse.
Many outstanding mathematicians I have met or talked cannot grasp that some people do not learn mathematics easily. They just inform me that all students need to do is work harder, pay more attention. All teachers just need to teach it better. This is where the elitism comes in. It does not comprehend the cognitive load of mathematics, especially when a student has little to no crystallised foundational knowledge in long term memory.
I wish that there was a reality check in the construction of specifications. A voice of the unmastered so to speak.
Where is the section in GCSE specifications that addresses if a student arrives in KS4 with a maths knowledge of an 8 year old?
Where in the specification is the acknowledgement of the student with dyscalculia, dyslexia or other SEND?
Where is the honest to god attempt in the specifications to build a hierarchy of knowledge rather than a simple list that is broken into foundation and higher?
I want all students to become excellent mathematicians, but there has to be a realistic acknowledgement of time in this process. Functionally all students can master higher GCSE to a grade 5 level, but there is never any acknowledgement that some children will take their natural lives to get there.
It is easy for the academic sitting in their tower made of crystallised engrained knowledge to rally against the call for a more vocational approach to qualifications. But I'm my experience these individuals need to spend more time in the third person and try to comprehend those who are always behind the curve.
commented on LinkedIn, though I couldn’t find the post there.
Hi Daisy for me personally knowledge meant gaining a better life. I know schools aren’t to blame but they can provide a pathway out of poverty and this I know because I’ve lived it.
The latest ONS breakdown sharpens this argument. Of the 981,000 young people counted as NEET, 588,000 were economically inactive and 393,000 were unemployed. That makes NEET a combined education, health and labour-market problem—not simply a measure of school performance.