Schools

There is a beautiful symmetry to all things, I think, and probably related somehow to the concept of karma. Only two weeks ago, a bunch of researchers at Durham University came up with a report which insisted that dyslexia is a meaningless term. You and I know that, of course, but we dare not say so in public. For decades now dyslexia has been the crutch upon which middle-class parents support themselves when they discover that their children — Oliver, eight, and Poppy, ten — are actually denser than a ton of highly enriched uranium, contrary to their expectations.

Whatever happened to Scotland's upper-middle class? That's one of the questions asked by Hugo Rifkind in his characteristically interesting column this week. Why, more to the point, are they so reluctant to play a part in the independence stushie? When did they become so bashful? It is time, Hugo says, for the timid posh folk to speak out. Perhaps. But the alumni of Scotland's private schools are hugely unrepresentative of Scottish life and, in many cases, far removed from the Scottish mainstream. Privately-educated Scotland is a tiny place. Everyone knows everyone (though the saddest people in Scotland are those who know only privately-schooled people). Even in Edinburgh.

A few weeks ago, I accompanied my daughter to an Open Day at Roehampton College, where she is hoping to start a teacher training course in September. I enjoyed it — and was impressed by the broad mix of motivated young men and women who, if all goes well, will soon be teaching the next generation of primary school children. Towards the end of the afternoon, the co-ordinator said she wanted to offer a few tips about the interview process that would begin once all the applications have been submitted. It turned out she had only one main tip: avoid upspeak. She stressed the point vigorously.

Today’s Times has a lovely example of positive spin.  The headline is: ‘Rise in Muslim birth rate as families ‘feel British’. The story which gives rise to this headline is that: ‘Almost a tenth of babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, a breakdown of census figures shows.  'The percentage of Muslims among the under-fives is almost twice as high as in the general population. In an indication of the extent to which birth rate is changing the UK’s religious demographic, fewer than one in 200 people over 85 is Muslim.  'One expert said it was foreseeable that Muslims who worshipped would outnumber practising Christians.’  Incidentally – I have previously written about this story here and here.

Another month, so it seems, another super-head rolls. Not that many would have noticed the latest. Greg Wallace’s resignation as executive head teacher of five schools in the east London borough of Hackney was drowned out by the hubbub surrounding the Revd Paul Flowers. Yet the departure of Wallace — much lamented by pupils and their parents, according to tributes in the local newspaper — deserves a closer look. For Wallace was not just any top teacher.

Like measuring water by the handful, calculating the success of the education system at a time of rampant grade inflation is an impossible task. If exam results go up every year how can we know if are our children are actually getting a better education or if exams are just getting easier? Part of the answer is international comparisons – which is why the OECD PISA rankings published today do actually matter. The last time they were published, in 2009, they showed that as a country we slipped to 25th in reading, 28th in maths and 16th in science. Yet at the same time domestic UK exam results were getting better. If you think that doesn’t add up, that’s because it doesn’t.

The head-teacher of a primary school in East Sussex has written to parents asking them not to swear in front of their children, although reading between the lines I think swearing at them might be ok. Maybe if your kid is at this particular school you could ring up and clarify the matter. Anyway, according to research children hear their parents use six naughty words over the course of a week. I hope it means six different naughty words over the course of a week, rather than just six occasions in which the parents swore, because otherwise I’m seriously buggered. It’s just lucky that our daughter goes to bed before Channel Four News is on, otherwise she’d hear from me six different naughty words in as many seconds.

Sir John Major is, of course, correct. It is depressing, though perhaps not surprising, that the British upper-middle-classes - that is, those educated privately - still dominate what he termed the "upper echelons" of "every sphere of British influence". Depressing because no serious person can sensibly believe that talent is restricted to the minority of people educated in Britain's excellent private schools. But unsurprising because elites - I use the word dispassionately - have a natural tendency to do whatever it takes to maintain their elite status. Ed West is right about this. Still, Major's remarks were hardly, as has been claimed in some right-of-centre quarters, "an attack" on private education.

These days I find myself so drifting away from the bounds of acceptable opinion that I don’t even shout at Radio 4 for being biased, because I don’t even understand the basis of what the arguments are about. Take this morning’s schools feature (occasioned by Sir John Major's comments about the 'truly shocking' dominance of a privately educated elite in public life), in which Harry Mount argued in favour and Owen Jones against the motion that grammar schools lead to more social mobility than comprehensives.

Should pupils in free schools and academies be taught by teachers without Qualified teacher status? This question has become the latest game political ping-pong involving all three parties. So much has been said it’s difficult to know what everyone believes. Here is a summary of where all the key players stand: Tristram Hunt (and Labour) No, well maybe — the Shadow Education Secretary's position is unclear. In a Daily Mirror interview, Hunt said 'they have to work towards qualified teacher status or they have to go'. But last night, Jeremy Paxman asked Hunt no less than nine times whether he would send his children to a school with teachers who do not have Qualified teachers status.

Like most foreigners who move to Britain, I was struck when I first arrived by how much people worry about which school their children go to. Even couples who don’t have kids seem to fret about where to send them. But now, working in the field of education reform, it makes sense to me. The disparity between a bad state school and a good one is huge, which in turn produces an enormous difference to the life chances of children attending them. It’s linked to money. To get into the good state schools here, you need to afford to live next to them. And if you live in a sink estate, the odds are that your children – no matter how bright – will be going to a sink school.

Every September teachers up and down the land welcome new classes of children. Each child they see in front of them is visibly unique and will present them with different challenges as the year progresses. Some will learn easily and well while others will find learning new skills difficult and need additional support. Some, especially the youngest ones, will need the adults in the classroom to help them with reading and numbers, others with concentrating and sitting still, and still others with making friends. Particularly vulnerable children may need help in all of these areas. Children differ and it is important therefore that schools provide equal but different opportunities for them to learn and develop.