Educational Failure
"Breakdown Britain: Educational Failure" | Published 12 December 2006
Click here for the "Breakdown Britain: Educational Failure" Report
"Breakthrough Britain: Educational Failure" | Published 10 July 2007
We believe that educational inequality matters and government needs to place far more emphasis on the most underachieving pupils in our education system to improve social justice and social mobility. Children spend just 15% of their time in school, it is family background, cultural factors and material needs which have the most significant impact upon educational outcomes.
Click here for the Educational Failure Report
Click here to read the Executive Summary
The Government has increasingly viewed schools as the prime agents of social cohesion and schools have been forced to become an emergency service for the wider problems of society. The Government’s ‘top down’ approach has compelled schools to be accountable for an increasing range of services to the community. This has undermined parental responsibility and involvement with the education of their children and demotivated aspiring leaders within the teaching profession.
Our policies therefore value the important role of families and communities and give them a stake in the education of children. We aim to help parents to take more responsibility for their children by supporting their involvement in education and empowering them to meet their children’s needs. The recommendations of this report represent a combination of soft and hard measures which stimulate cultural change within the education system and our society to bring long-term benefits to disadvantaged children.
Despite a 50% increase in education expenditure since 1997, Britain has one of the highest levels of educational inequality in the Western world and the attainment of our lowest achievers has not improved significantly since 1998.
It is less likely that a child of parents in a low-income bracket will rise to the top income bracket in 2006 than it was in 1970.
Springboard for Children
This is a charity based in Peckham which works with local volunteers to improve literacy in disadvantaged primary schools through intensive one-on-one teaching. Each child has a 30-40 minute session per week for as long as is needed, sometimes for several weeks or months. Children graduate from Springboard literacy programmes with similar literacy levels to their peers and increased confidence, raised expectations and enthusiasm for learning. The project is hugely successful, with 96% of pupils returning to mainstream lessons with a reading age appropriate for their year group.
"We always make the programme fit the child rather than the child fit the programme."
Janet Bristow, Hub Manager
Phoenix High School
This school was once called a 'Hell School' by the media. Attendance was poor, behaviour appalling and staff morale extremely low.
Over the past 12 years, the Head teacher William Atkinson and his team have raised the self esteem of the whole school community. The atmosphere is calm and focused and pupils are smartly dressed and polite. The walls are covered with photos of pupils with their GCSE results forming a 'Hall of Fame' aimed at raising the aspirations and creating a sense of shared mission. One of the school leadership team’s key areas of focus has been getting parents and the community on board; as William Atkinson himself says, "parental involvement is the most important thing you can do outside teaching and learning."
Since William Atkinson took over the school, the percentage of pupils achieving 5 GCSEs A*-C has risen from 4% to 77%.
"If you don't keep yourself to yourself in my school you get hurt... I didn't get no choice about what school I wanted to go to so I ended up at one of the worstest ones around."
Mary, 15, Peckham
"The Government appears to be in denial about a situation which is clearly evident to all of us at a ground level."
Mick Brooks, General Secretary of the National Association of Head teachers in the context of the excessive workload for head teachers.
"The single biggest block to ending poverty, increasing employment and social integration in our community is widespread illiteracy, closely followed by innumeracy."
Amy, Community Worker, Peckham
1) Parents and third sector groups able to set up new schools known as ‘Pioneer Schools’
Organisations with a sense of mission and commitment could set up new schools in the most deprived areas. Parents of children in schools which are failing to improve over a three year period can move their children to another school in the state system, including pioneer schools, taking with them the allocated £5000 per year pupil funding.
2) Disadvantaged Primary school personnel fund
We propose the creation of a fund for disadvantaged primary schools which
trained school governors will be able to use to reduce the administrative burden on head teachers, attract new heads by increasing base pay rates and reward heads with bonuses.
3) Improve head teacher training to help heads deal with poor pupil behaviour
We propose a new MA qualification specifically equipping teachers with the skills to take on the challenge of running schools in deprived areas.
4) Increased use of the third sector in tackling discipline
Government should use a proportion of funds for excluded pupils to stimulate the expansion of successful independent providers as an alternative to Pupil Referral Units.
5) Rolling out Support Champions in disadvantaged primary schools
Full-Time Home-School Support Champions in disadvantaged primary schools would be able to focus on improving home-school links, behaviour and attendance.
6) Introduce £500 education credits for disadvantaged children
Our proposed £500 per annum Educational Credit would fund supplementary
educational services for disadvantaged children such as a year’s extra maths tuition, six months intensive literacy support and a year’s group music lessons.
7) More effective co-ordination of services for children in care
A fundamental review is needed of the implementation of existing policies for Looked After Children and crucially the creation of better accountability for their education and care.
8) Vocational options to be offered to pupils before the age of 14
Government must ensure that, because every young person has different aptitudes and skills, there are more vocational and practical options available and that academic and vocational options be given parity of esteem of funding.
9) Booster literacy and numeracy support in primary schools
‘Booster’ support should be available for primary school children falling seriously behind in English and Maths. This should be provided by specialised literacy and numeracy teams, making particular use of third sector provision.
10) Building better links between schools, businesses and the community
All our proposals envisage a much greater role for the third sector. Schools could also attract more investment and involvement from local businesses and individuals if there were a wider range of tax reliefs available.
