Grammar Schools Promote Inequality and Injustice

Post 1945, working class children left school at 14 and went into unskilled jobs and apprenticeships . In the new secondary modern schools working class children were destined for working class jobs. They sat few if any exams and school expectations were low. Grammar schools educated a quarter of our 12 year olds – depending on availability - and these children were destined for jobs in offices. The privately educated were our MPs, doctors, lawyers and senior civil servants. Everyone knew their place.

Unless we reopen the factories, shipyards and mines secondary modern schooling will not provide the skilled workforce we require, unless Sports Direct and McDonalds take over more workplaces.

Apparently (they got consultants in for this) if you select the kids doing best at tests at age 11 and put them in one school, that school will have the highest achievers in GCSE tables five years later. Stunning. Apparently, it is also hotter near the Equator.

All schools should be good schools. We have the best teachers ever and more parents are happy with their child’s school than ever before. Government claim “parent choice” as their goal – well you can’t have selection and parent choice.

Here’s an email I received on Wednesday: ”Do you only accept children who live in your area? I live in X and there is one school I like but both my children are below average and worried they will fail the entry test.”

From the parents of her friends to my Year 6 granddaughter, “You should go to school P rather than the excellent local school S because you’re academic.”

Meanwhile 12 miles away, “We wanted her to go to school H but it is too academic for her,”

Half way between the two, “The Headteacher told me that if my daughter’s reading age was one iota below her chronological age she cannot come here, it is not fair on my staff.”

We have schools, Ofsted “outstanding” schools, which claim they are, “not good with special educational needs.” School M made its TAs redundant and then claimed to be unable to admit kids with SEN due to lack of staff.

In a colleague’s primary school one parent confronted the head with, “I do not want him doing these art things. Just make sure he can pass the entry test to school D.”

Welcome to Hertfordshire, where each year the county proclaims Watford Girls Grammar School as a top comprehensive, alongside Watford Boys Grammar . They must be great schools: the head of one was made a dame and the other is a schools commissioner…..fancy that.

Mrs May is keen for Faith Schools to select all their kids on the basis of religion. Has she tried getting a non-believing family into a Jewish or Catholic school where the admission criteria starts with attendance at a particular place of worship and then to siblings? In encouraging division amongst the population and in promoting isolation amongst our minorities Mrs May is an ideal candidate for a visit from the Prevent people.

She is keen on new parent-sponsored single faith grammar free schools. Well, seeing as parents are not opening free schools but faith organisations predominate, she knows this is not going to happen. Perhaps somewhere like Leeds can have a Muslim Grammar School, a Jewish Grammar School, Hindu, CoE and Catholic grammar schools alongside a non denominational boys grammar, and a girls grammar nearby. Imagine the school run in Leeds.

Mrs May wants all schools to have, “an element of selection.” If grammar schools select the brightest are other schools to select the dimmest?

Her supporters say introducing more selective grammar schools is not going back to the days of selective grammar schools. Oh,my!

They say that the selection of the most academic 11 year olds will not create secondary modern schools and certainly not “sink schools” where expectations of exam success are non existent. Yes it will.

Grammar schools must be good because their students do well in exams, therefore we need loads of grammar schools. In fact, if these are the best schools let’s make all schools grammar schools.

What we could do is select all the academically able kids and put them in schools with thatched roofs. Then, when they achieve their good GCSEs we can call for the impositioin of thatched roofs throughout the country.

May pretends that children will move between the selective schools according to individual student progress, as if there is no limit on how many kids you can fit in a classroom.

Apparently, lots of parents who are in select, expensive catchment areas fear the imposition of grammar schools. But, Mrs May says, new grammar schools will not be forced on areas that don’t want them. Can we do the same with capital punishment ? Maybe impose it in Scotland only?

The chief inspector of schools says the pro grammar school argument is “Tosh and nonsense” and just about all the evidence points to grammar schools increasing social inequality. But what did we expect from a government which has introduced tests at 11, 16 and 18 designed to fail more students. 47% of English 12 year olds are classed as failures by their performance in tests -perhaps we could stamp this on an appropriate part of their anatomy, so they don’t forget their failings.

Each day I watch the girls come off the train from outside the catchment area of the oversubscribed selective/non selective school P and I wonder how they got places.

We don’t have to worry about the 11+, in Bishops Stortford 3 of the 4 secondary schools have Saturday morning entry tests and all claim to be comprehensives. I know of five schools that select up to 10% of their intake on aptitude for music or languages. Howzat!

Theresa May is right about selection by house price – you can get a 3 bedroomed semi for £500,000 in the catchment area of one of our highly praised schools. The children of educated, midlle class parents score highly on their primary school tests, usually with private tutor support. Of course, Ofsted say they are outstanding. Ofsted claimed my nephew’s white, middle class, catholic school with lower than average frees school meals, EAL students and SEN kids was, “highly inclusive,” and “outstanding.”

One of my part time staff coaches 18 boys from one school; money helps.

Of three agreed housing projects: School A is in an area of architectural splendour and the project had “no affordable housing.” School B has 145 houses planned and “no affordable housing.” Hertfordshire – one of the biggest in the country makes sure that its entirely Conservative MPs are not troubled by social integration.

Disgraceful Gove started the drive to put working class kids back in their place. Mindlessly, vacuous Morgan continued the slide and now the unsuspecting puppet Greening will be charged with driving even more teachers into other jobs, more children ringing Helpline in despair over their grades and more families accepting that education and British society is not for the likes of them.

Mrs May says that new grammar schools will have to accept poorer children. Does this mean that the 163 existing grammar schools don’t already pursue this sort of social justice? According to the Sutton Trust, in selective school areas 3% of the children in grammar schools were on free school meals. In the same locality18% of non grammar school children received free school meals.

The education system can encourage social equality. Rather than taking a small proportion of bright poor kids and sticking them in grudgingly benevolent grammar schools lets put massive resourcing into the schools in poorer areas. Get the best teachers with higher salaries and subsidised housing and create the infrastructure and local economy to employ the high achieving youngsters.

Watch them shine.

Whilst politicians cheat and deceive half our kids are failures

Supermum Leadsome and the adulterer Boris decided being ‘leavers’ was advantageous to their ambitions and manipulated the electorate. That the good people of Sunderland and Grimsby weighed up the likelihood of a fall in stock exchange values against the promise of £350 million a week for the NHS is admirable. The immediate 42% increase in race hate crimes is no-one’s fault.(BBC 08-07-16)

The sneaky duplicitous Gove says it is his, “privilege to serve,” but loyalty to Shaggy Boris was a step too far. I hope his love of classical education will comfort him as he descends Dante’s Hell, through those levels reserved for the greedy, the fraudulent and finally settling for eternity with the most treacherous. He may well meet 172 Labour MPs down there.

The politicians’ lack of care, understanding or interest ensures that teachers bore, alienate and fail our kids in homage to a romantic past, an education ideal that never existed. We witnessed dishonest, opportunistic slogan chanting in the referendum where they seduced the electorate they despise, only to reject within moments of victory their own promises on the NHS and immigration.

That hundreds of thousands of children are being falsely labelled failures matters not one jot compared to MP’s thirst for self-promotion.

Dodgy Dave, never tires of telling us about his blessed family, and tearfully used his affection for his dad as the reason he lied to parliament. If your underpants are too tight stop wriggling.

Last week one of Gove’s dwindling underlings, Pointless Morgan, tried desperately to explain that telling 47% of the country’s 11 year olds they had failed the new version of the 3Rs was nothing to worry about.

It is deliberate policy to instil failure into the majority of children and to identify the schools they attend as unworthy. It does take us nearer to the Tory dream of grammar schools – the good old days before working class families got uppity and their kids found ambition in schools that valued their achievements.

The first part of the failure game was to test the children at age 5 so that schools’ performance could be judged by progress at age 7. Incompetent officials discovered that their three measures were incompatible and the tests had to be abandoned. Amusingly, headteachers had been busy finding the hardest tests for 5 year olds, so that the children would score hardly anything and the school could show tremendous progress later on.

How long before teachers have to literally get into bed with pregnant mums to chant subordinate adverbial clauses at embryos?

Now we have tests at age 7, giving children three separate marks out of 100. The DfE has said it’s OK for schools not to pass the results to children or their parents. Well, what are they for, then? Here’s a test question for 7 year olds that some found ambiguous:

“There were some people on atrain.

19 people got off at the 1st stop.

17 people get on the train.

Now there are 63 people on the train.

How many people were on the train to begin with?”

(The answer: comes from x-19+17=63; so X=65.)

Recently Morgan decided there would no longer be parent places on school governing bodies, relegating them to tea making at school bazaars. Did the DfE officials – the experts – advise ministers that this might alienate parents who some of us see as vital to the success of the education process. Or is this a “jobsworth” situation

We do not need a knowledge based curriculum with an exam system designed to fail more kids. We do need a skills based education where children discover, discuss and decide, alone and in groups, in writing and orally, using ICT programs to present their solutions, able to evaluate and target their own success.

Tests at age 7 and 11 are taken by children who have spent months preparing, revising and relearning material solely relevant to the tests. The rest of what should be a creative, stimulating curriculum of discovery and mastery is cast aside because the tests are used to batter the primary schools.

We heard of previously happy children driven to tears of frustration and self-harming fear of failure by the mind numbing repetition of practising for the tests. The schools are blamed and dammed. Morgan told headteachers at a conference in May that she expected many more schools would see fewer pupils hitting expected scores. However she said the results would be “manipulated” to ensure the number of failing schools would be in the hundreds, not thousands.

Publicly' shamelessly and with no sense of irony the Secretary of State for Education announced that she will fiddle the results.

Weary teachers giggled when Gove told the Commons Select Committee that, “all schools must be above average.” Chancellor Osborne could not do a times table sum and Education minister Gibb failed a test question for 11 year olds. Nicky Morgan to refused to answer test questions. “…there will be one where I get it wrong and that's the one that everyone's going to be focused on.” (Daily Mirror 13-1-16) All the ministers were worried they would make mistakes if put under test conditions.

I've written books on English language. I reckon I can write to be understood, or wrap in camouflage and metaphor when the desire for obscurity appeals. Can I do the 11 year olds’ grammar test? How much use have we had for ‘determiners?’ Here’s guidance on how to teach them:

“The class may participate in a discussion about which words are determiners; for example, a child may be given the phrase 'happy girl' and suggest that the word 'happy' is a determiner. Class discussion could then lead to the teacher explaining that 'happy' is in fact an adjective.” (Schoolrun.com.)

Teacher assessments, coursework, resits, oral exams and controlled assessments have been abandoned because some kids in Shanghai take lots of tests. So we will test children against national standards at age 5, 7, 11, 14, 16 and 18 to emulate societies that we do not wish to mirror. Morgan says that the harder the test, the more they have learned. Thus we have GCSE Maths, now with A Level content so that it is inaccessible to around 50% of students. .

Back in 1980, Biology teachers at Little Ilford School set an exam where 3.5% was, “a really good mark.” What was the point? Then Biology, Chemistry and Physics teachers started to compete for kids to choose their subject. 98% became a fairly common score. Where was the learning?

There is a relationship between students, their parents and their teachers which praises effort, encourages progress built on self- belief, great teaching and respect, showing students what they can achieve by working hard. Show them that there’s no point in trying and things are going to get tough in our schools.

It's hard not to feel sorry for the civil servants working in the DfE. Those with principles fled into other jobs. Think for a moment of those who had to remain because of mortgages, access to stationery and their dreams of pensions and possibly a mention in the queen’s honours list for time serving. As they scurry around pleasuring the ministers, carrying out any number of contradictory tasks and producing nonsense like our assessment system remember that the bright ones left. Those with experience and understanding of state education left years ago. Gove told his senior staff I don't want your advice I want you to put in place what I say.

Out of DfE staff bonuses last year, the top civil servants received up to £17,500.((Schools Week 05-07-16) Do they still get luncheon vouchers?

Perhaps the DfE is full of Trotskyist cadres waiting for things to get so bad that they can step forward as the new leadership of an education revolution after which we will be freed to be creative, inspirational and sane.

Or will they mindlessly do exactly as they are told and excuse their compliance with, “I was just following orders?” Where did I hear that before?

Little more than a production line worker alienated from the product of his labour, the DfE officials are plodding along, “Yes Gove, Yes Gibbs, Yes Morgan,” as an alternative to unemployment.

In the last few days we have watched the parliamentary debate on Arts Education, where 12 MPs and Nick Gibb responded to hundreds of thousands of us in petitions. He dismissed the facts and that’s the end of debate. Such is democracy now. I wonder how heavy is the hand of history on Iraq-War Blair’s unaccountable shoulders this week.

Despite appeasing Tory MPs by publicly abandoning forced academisation Morgan was advised that Local Authorities will be forced to academies all schools due to a lack of money to keep open primaries. Dissembling is nothing but lies.

Stupidly, and he must know it, minister Gibb said that market forces will drive up teachers’ pay at a time when schools have deficit budgets .Let’s hope he’s been thoroughly tested; spouting nonsense might be contagious.

And if he or the Morgan-Gove folk think that I am going to make 50% of our kids waste their precious learning time on cramming, again, for the insult that is resit SATs on their first term at secondary school….

Tories advice to teachers: Shut up, shut up, shut up

Hard as it must be to be Michael Gove’s plaything, Nicky Morgan has reached new levels of mediocrity as Secretary of State for Education. Poor Nicky always looks bewildered and a vacuous presence in her occasional pronouncements.

At a time when there is a teacher recruitment crisis, massive spending cuts in schools, government decreed falling GCSE results and school leaders preparing to retire en masse in 2017, Nicky is our education leader. On GCSE results last week she said not a word. Her plan to solve the recruitment problem is to ban evening emails in order to ease teacher workload. On funding: silence. When proclaiming the success of academies she cannot understand that some fail; and she repeated the same rote evasion, over and over. Nicky claimed that Ofsted could inspect academy chains when they can’t. Statistically inept, she went public to chastise all schools with less than 60% GGCSE success as coasting and therefore in her big bad books, ignoring prior attainment, selective schools and normal distribution curves. By definition, no grammar school can be coasting, so that’s a relief.

She tried to appease school leaders, proposing their own policy to them on January 19th, “a school led self- improving system where teachers, school leaders and governors make the decisions about what’s best for their schools,” then added that decisions about the curriculum are best left to politicians.

It is this politician who calls cocked-up exam marking and results ”volatile” and “transitional,” blankly unaware that it is children who are being manipulated, insulted and failed.

Gove destroyed the meritocracy in his DfE, telling senior staff to implement his ideas, not to offer advice. When they suggested decision making based on research he thundered that it would be solely based on ideology.

We have Nick Gibb in a position of power as Minister of State for Education. Proof that hell is full the Gibb colossus of progressive education believes that fancy talk about teaching literacy should be replaced by all secondary school children being made to read the works of Jane Austen. As the remaining blindfolded civil servants praise his naked dogma we have tests for 5 year olds, rushed, unfunded new curricula in every subject in a mess of unproven academy chains and unnecessary free schools put together in a sort of Woolworth’s pick n mix.

So who is running things for Mr Gove and who is going to fulfil his Free School obsession?

The DfE itself has released figures to show that free schools received 60% more funding than state schools in 2014. Academies Minister, that’s another politician in charge of education matters, Lord Nash runs the Future Academy Chain with his wife. One of their schools, Pimlico Primary, was given £17,615 for each of its 26 pupils. Parents didn’t want the school , if they had, they would send their kids there.


Keeping faith schools in business to segregate our children, St Andrew The Apostle Greek Orthodox School has 73 pupils, receiving £18,507 for each of them. Parents didn’t want this school either.

So back to the decision makers. Mr Gove and Mr Gibb set up the Policy Exchange think tank –which is what you do when you want to pretend neutrality, intelligence and wisdom. Current Head of Education is Jonathan Simons, also Chair of Governors at the Greenwich Free School, a position he will be less publicly extolling now that the school has failed its Ofsted inspection,. According to Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) the problems were with the quality of teaching, and learning, and marking, and target setting, and student achievement and management. It does have nice buildings. This school has a no mobile phone policy and students are encouraged to provide “intelligence” on suspects who are then searched. Nicky Morgan says mobile phones should be banned. Wonder where she got the idea.

Deputy Head of Education at Policy Exchange –a £2.5 million a year anonymously funded charity – is Natasha Porter whose claim to fame is August 2015 radio declarations that secondary schools should be fined £500 for each student who fails to achieve GCSE grade C (soon to be 5) in English or Maths. So you can see she’s well up on special needs, value added, levels of progress and all that education-reality sort of thing. Perhaps next time she’s looking for publicity she will demand that primary schools are paid by nurseries if 5 year olds cannot read and write.

Dare poor Nicky announce this fine soon to divert attention from the massive money problems in colleges and to innocently amuse her masters?

Gove’s former assistant, the very bright and ambitious Rachel Wolf, appointed aged 25 to be head of his New Schools Network is now in the Downing Street Policy Unit where she is the much admired driving force on education.

Policy Exchange advise Nicky Morgan, The Policy Unit instruct her. Gove pulls the puppet strings, Gibb stomps around in DMs and Nicky will do as she’s told.

Policy Exchange Head of Education sat three feet from me and explained Tory policy: we got elected, we will ignore headteachers and their ilk , do what’s in the manifesto, regardless of education opinion, and you should shut up . Indeed, stop moaning but if something works in our schools, “give the government credit for it.”

So what do they plan to do?

Watch as schools spend all contingency funds, cant set budgets and have to cut teachers jobs. 5% of teachers will lose their jobs at a conservative (sic) estimate.

Massively fund free schools and open lots more, particularly faith schools.

Close school 6th forms of under 300 and lose minority courses like languages, and expensive ones such as technology and sciences.

Force us all into academy chains.

Reintroduce grammar schools by stealth.

Fail more kids than pass GCSEs and A levels.

Raise university tuition fees.

A proper Tory education system.

So what do we do? Sink into one or more of sadness, madness, melancholy, despair, resignation and retreat?

Or see that what teachers do is about young people learning about the world and their place in it and possibly even changing it; about real children and their families.

See that teachers in their schools are not just the daytime guardians of the young but the only hope for a moral, just and prosperous society?

Remember to shout, loudly at politicians when they take away the opportunities for our children to aspire, achieve and progress to greatness.

But carry on because allowing this lot to win, and to gloat, will not lead to a restful, contented retirement. You will still be bloody angry, but without a voice.

Funny though, if Nicky was in our schools as a student we would look after her, encourage independent thinking and help her to develop the social and personal skills to stand up to bullies and manipulators. That’s what we do.

Pity her plight; she’s just lost in a world beyond her understanding, She has never known the incredible joy of teaching, the rush, the buzz when children “get it.” Watching children grow as young adults and return to thank us years later, whether it is thanks for exam passes or being patient and listening.

When Nicky fades away all that will be left is a thin layer of dust, easily swept away by a whiff of intelligent understanding. However, I think she is well suited to be Minister for the Armed Forces.

Dennis O'Sullivan

Headteacher

Why have I never taught a Jewish child?

Teaching British Values is now compulsory in our schools and we are drawing in on ourselves, into Little Britain, because of a fear of the actions of a tiny, tiny minority of so-called radicalised British Muslim youth.

As we clamour for restrictions on immigration, alongside a liberal’s fear of talking about race, we label some communities as dangerous and not very British. Fear of Islam is irrational but encouraging Muslims to retreat as some sort of alien breed is counter to our democracy and the values we claim as our national identity. And it alienates Muslims.

Faith schools are marching towards segregation and the creation and strengthening of racial barriers between communities. The government adores free schools and plans to open another 500, many of them single faith schools.

In 2014 there were 6,848 state funded faith schools – about a third of the total and around a 3% increase in the last decade. Jewish and Muslim faith schools, a tiny minority of these, increased from 37 to 48 and from 7 to 18 respectively over the last 7 years. 1.8 million students are in faith schools. (House of Commons Library 08-09-2014)Most of these are Catholic or Church of England primary schools.

In 36 years in multi-cultural East London schools and a largely mono-cultural Hertfordshire town I have taught around 7,000 children aged 11-18. I have known many churchgoing Christian children, active Catholics, practising Hindus and Sikhs. Muslims studied alongside other faiths and we had small numbers of Baptists, Buddhists and at least 8 Jehovah Witnesses. But never a Jewish child.

I spoke to a London headteacher about the number of Jewish children in his 1000 strong school. The school had many Jewish children until the opening of a nearby Jewish Free School at which point all Jewish children left. If we segregate children by religion are we surprised they become segregated socially and that elements of separatism will pervade?
As more Jewish kids are taken into faith schools and fewer are taught alongside non Jews should we be surprised that the horror of anti Semitism is prospering in Britain, with more attacks in 2014 than for decades?

There is a video of the Muslim IQRA Primary School in Slough which starts with a boy doing morning prayers in Arabic with the other assembled children. This faith school was created because, “the community wanted it.” The allocation of community status is an interesting one: is there just one Muslim community; just one English community? Despite support for our school’s planning application people living within 100 metres of the school have designated themselves “the community.” And really did expect their views to take prominence. It seems we can all claim community support if we narrow our constituency sufficiently. In theory, non Muslims could attend the IQRA school but they don’t. My understanding is that at least some Muslim schools ban stringed instruments, singing, dancing and figurative art because they conflict with the teachings of the Koran which suggests they can lead to sexual arousal and idolatry.

The Catholic Church has refused to open further academies until the government changes its policy on a 50% cap on the control of admissions. This cap on single faith control of admissions upset Jewish community leaders, too, but the government says that, “new faith schools established with taxpayers money in areas where there is a shortage of good places will be available to all who need them.” (Telegraph 15-11-2013)Why wouldn’t faith schools, all built upon such positive principles want to attract others to their moral outlook?

I worry about the curriculum in all schools, with the drive in reverse gear to the artless, toneless mind-numbing rote learning, speed writing and endless test-practising menu. However, what do faith schools teach? I was taught the Catholic view of many things, which included virgin birth, resurrection and the chastity of priests. I was 18 before I dared tempt hellfire by entering a non Catholic place of worship.

In July 2013, a state-funded orthodox Jewish girls' school in north London was admonished after it was discovered that students had their GCSE exams censored, with questions about evolution deliberately blacked out of science papers. The OCR examinations board found that 52 papers in two GCSE science exams sat by pupils at Yesodey Hatorah Senior girls' school in Hackney had questions on evolution obscured, making them impossible to be answered.

When we separate from others we allow gossip, exaggeration and ignorance to take hold, playing into the hands of those who want to divide people. David Green, chief executive of the think-tank Civitas, said, ‘Some Muslim schools in Britain have become part of a battleground for the heart and soul of Islam. Their aim is to turn children away, not only from Western influence, but also from liberal and secular Muslims.’Mr Green says that children in some of the Islamic schools are not being prepared to live in a free and democratic British society. Indeed, they are being made to despise our culture. (Daily Mail 1-10-2013)

It is wrong to go down the Daily Mail’s one school does it so they all do route in condemning the new government sponsored free school, Islamic Al-Madinah school in Derby. Here, allegedly, girls have to sit at the back of classrooms, boys and girls are segregated at meal times and there is a strict dress code even for non Muslim staff. Sensibly, Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum, declared: ‘We are not living in rural Pakistan or a Taliban-run region of Afghanistan. Such superstitious, divisive nonsense should have no place in a British school.’ Whose voice will be considered typical?

We don’t know what goes on in religiously separated schools so I guess we have to believe the Mail when they add, using anonymous sources, “Growing Government worries over what is being taught in the quickly rising number of private and publicly-funded Islamic schools has led to reports that the home intelligence service, MI5, is to send in undercover agents posing as teachers to check if children are being brainwashed in Islamic radicalism.” By ‘eck.

Might the reality be that some or most faith schools develop thoughtful, tolerant, responsible and caring young citizens as Ofsted reported on the JFS (Jewish Free School). Their, “religious outlook is orthodox, and one of its main aims is “to ensure that Jewish values permeate the school”. Jewish Studies is a core subject for all students all of whom take the GCSE examination in Religious Studies. Ivrit and Israel Studies are included as part of Jewish Education. (http://www.findajewishschool.co.uk/jewish-secondary-schools/jfs-school.php#)

King Solomon High School in Ilford also highlights the importance of Israel, wanting to teach “a positive and proud sense of Jewish identity built upon a sound knowledge of Jewish practice and observance and an appreciation of the centrality of Israel in Jewish life”.
(http://www.findajewishschool.co.uk/jewish-secondary-schools/king-solomon-high-school.php#sthash.ghFJWwDZ.dpuf)

I do worry when I see so many children waving the flag of Israel on a school website; we might all be expected to worry if Muslims were pictured with the Saudi flag enthusiastically paraded. We worry anyway if the English flag is given prominence.

We should live, work and study side by side in mutual respect of different traditions and cultures. We should celebrate and proclaim the characteristics that can bring us together. Let’s promote acceptance of others, both within the school community and in the wider world, incorporating values such as caring, kindness and charity. Study together in secular schools for a better world.

Dennis O'Sullivan

Education, Education, Education? Not this election

With electioneering in the UK hitting some remarkably cynical, free spending lows one searches in vain for the “Education, Education, Education” mantra that helped elect Tony Blair in 1997. Late in the game, as we build to a tumult of voter indecision and disbelief the Lib Dems have decided that “nothing is more important than the education of our young.” Of the 1.3 million of us working in schools how many will welcome Cameron’s promised “major education reform within 50 days.” Every time I hear a politician talking, “passionate” I shudder in anticipation of ill advised, ideologically driven meddling and tinkering from career politicians who show as much passion as a formica table. (“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance”) 

Young teachers are fleeing our exam factories and ten year olds are being turned off by SATs practice after practice to secure schools’ league table status. 2017 marks the exit plans for many school leaders: new memory-testing exams, an ever deepening crisis in teacher recruitment, unmanageable finances and the SEN malaise combine as these Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse drive us to breakdown. 

Here’s an election nutshell: the Conservative Party will open 500+ more Free Schools, whilst Labour will open new schools that are “parent-led academies.” Apart from competing and vague rhetoric on apprenticeships, literacy, vocational routes and regional commissioners that’s it for content. School funding will be cut. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (26-03-15) Conservative, Labour and Liberal pledges, “all suggest a real-terms reduction of 7% per child by 2020.” TheTories claim they are “committed to delivering a good deal for schools.” Labour just say they have, “a better plan” and the Lib Dems say protecting funding in schools is a “red line” issue – a deal beaker in any coalition. The IFS go on to claim that the cut in funding will be nearer 12%. 

National Insurance, pension contributions, a 1% pay rise for teachers, 2% for non teachers and some incremental progression gtotals a 7.26% increase in our staff costs in 2015-16. Staff are 80% of our total costs. Our income per student has already been reduced and will be reduced further. My school budget for 2016-17 shows a deficit of £550,259. And the next year we will be another £900,528 short. By 2018 staff will cost 100.4% of our income so no lights will be turned on. Can someone, please, donate some toilet roll. (This isn’t life in the fast lane. This is life in the oncoming traffic.”) 

Private companies will experience some of these costs and they will put prices, and inflation, up. 

To transcend dread, I imagined that the late Terry Pratchett wrote specifically about the 2015 election. Quotations from his novels are presented in brackets and italics; I hope many of you will know why I couldn’t use capitals. So if you can read on with an open mind…(“the trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”) 

All three of the big parties, and the Lib Dems may not qualify for this status after May 4th, seem to have abandoned any notion of austerity and instead adopted a series of promises to “spend, spend, spend” and to give us all cash. 25 hours (Labour) 30 hours (Conservative) free childcare (£6,000 a year in Ware) tax breaks, savings bonuses and stamp duty exemption for first time buyers by parties pledged to build up to 1,000,000 houses. Conservatives will sell off Housing Association properties to whichever of the 1.3 million tenants is willing to accept a massive bribe. 

The last time we sold off our public housing had some interesting consequences. A GMB investigation into the “right to buy” scheme in Wandsworth found that of the 15,874 dwellings sold under right to buy 6,180 are now owned by private landlords. Tenants took the subsidy, bought their council house and then sold it on at a massive profit as soon as possible. 

The GMB claim that taxpayers, through the government’s housing benefits scheme, paid £9.300,000,000 to private landlords in 2014. We are being asked to put monetary self-interest first and last, a bit like animals putting their need for food as their sole task. Should there be a wider agenda for us? (“Personal’s not the same as important.”) 

During this frenzied period of political cross dressing all parties are promising up to £8 billion for the NHS, which is reeling from the latest £20 billion of cuts and expensive, unnecessary reorganisation. Labour promises minimum wages will rise by a third and Electricity, train fares and rents will be as good as frozen. All parties say that fewer people will pay tax. Some are giving tax breaks to the poor, others to the rich and, regarding inheritance tax, to those approaching death. 

Ken Clarke, the previous Tory Chancellor has warned against “silly” giveaways that will cost £20 billion by 2020. Austerity has faded in return for votes, and there’s still a week to go. How will you decide between parties? (“You think there are the good people and the bad people. You are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.)” 

My union, ASCL, spent a year on “The Great Education Debate” culminating in a splendid, visionary self-improving school–led system for promoting excellence. All sorts of politicians have signed up to the vision. I can imagine our ASCL leader Brian Lightman saying, “I told you they were listening,” until, Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan agreed 100% …and added, “control of the curriculum is best left to politicians.” Oh dear, Brian. (“The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish”) 

Our Prime Minister is so convinced that voters do not believe politicians’ promises that he will pass a law so that his own party cannot raise Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance contributions over the next five years, becoming the first ever government to give up this power. 

A general election that offers us everything if we have money, food banks if we don’t. (“His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools – the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans – and he summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, ‘You can’t trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so let’s have a drink.”) 

Dennis O’Sullivan 

30th April 2015