So I’ve already had a go at Lord Snooty for his “brazenly elitist” ambition for our education system, but I’ve come round to a slightly different way of thinking about this. Forget the teachers – let’s think about the children.
Let’s just imagine that my wildest dream comes true: the English education system actually does adopt a differentiated meritocratic approach to schools.
Kids who have that magical combination of ability and application will be placed in an environment that allows them to thrive – that challenges them with the highest level of intellectual stimulation, while reducing to an absolute minimum the external enforcement of standards, rules and expectations. These children will develop stronger “moral muscles,” have a self-motivated work ethic that they formed within themselves, rather than imposed on them from above by others.
Less able, but still hard working children can be spoon fed, just as they currently are in our over-regulated, micromanaged system. It serves them well, and can continue to do so.
And the disaffected ones, those who can’t see the point of learning about Medieval history, algebra, Shakespeare and Boyles’ Law? Any teacher with half a brain can design a practical, physical curriculum (hell, we’ve all suffered those DCSF Inset sessions on “Kinaesthetic Learning Styles” often enough) just as long as we are allowed to ditch the bullshit that the New Labour Thought Police think is so essential.
The real difference is that by separating these groups, teachers can concentrate on a single task rather than three at the same time. Only a half-wit would imagine that a teacher can meet the needs of all three groups at the same time just as well as they can meet the needs of one group at a time.
Is that so dangerous? Only if you really believe that all children are the same. Only if you believe that “equality” means that everyone should be treated the same regardless of whether it is appropriate.
“I’d win,” she said.
“No you wouldn’t. You would have a lovely happy time building a peaceful civilisation until suddenly, and without warning, I attacked it from four directions at once and destroyed you. Then you’d cry and refuse to have sex with me ever again.”
“I’d win,” she said.
Lord Snooty has waded in with his Bright Idea.
Apparently, setting the entrance requirement for a teacher training course to a 2:2 or better will raise standards in education.
Would that be a 2:2 from a Russell Group University, or a 2:2 from a Million+ University?
And yes, there is a difference. A hell of a big difference.
Anyway, that prompts me to suggest my own three simple steps to raising standards in education:
- Sack every single consultant, adviser and other daydreamer who produces “initiatives;”
- Abolish the ridiculous system of measuring schools by the number of students who get a grade C or better at GCSE – because this creates a system where the brighter students are not pushed, and only the tiny fraction students who are on the C/D borderline actually get the full attention of all their teachers.
- Take a proper, serious approach to classroom discipline. Stop passing the buck and blaming weak teaching. We need an infrastructure of behaviour support that, first and foremost, protects the vast majority of students from the disruptions that wreck their education.
There is only one universal rule in education: one size does not fit all.
Today, a colleague and I found a box of ancient lesson plans – and we were delighted to pick over them. Oh, how standards have improved since Tony Bliar won an election by declaring his three top priorities to be, “Education, education, education,” and explained, “Our children will learn more and they will earn more.”
These plans were truly appalling. One page covered an entire day; no curriculum cross referencing; no three-level differentiation; no specified learning outcomes; no activity objectives; no starter or plenary; no key vocabulary; no facility for evaluating or recording how well the lesson went. Under current guidelines, Ofsted would have marked those lessons as “fails” before the lesson had started.
It’s amazing how far we have progressed from those Dark Ages of education to the new enlightened era of New Labour education policy. Thanks to their continued vigilance and the hard work of Ofsted, all lessons are now extensively documented to prove that teachers are doing everything in their power to deliver Tony Bliar’s 1997 election promise.
Meanwhile, according to 2007 figures published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, primary school literacy has fallen under New Labour; numeracy has failed to improve despite massive investment and interference new initiatives by the Government; most damning of all, after more than a century of stable but steady growth in social mobility, the ability of children from lower-income families to achieve higher-income jobs is now in decline for the first time since the peak of the Industrial Revolution.
And people ask me why I pay school fees…
