Schools need total re-think

Jun 14 2008 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

AN Examiner Mailbag contributor this week wrote in defence of the schools that Children’s Secretary Ed Balls has said will have to either improve or close.

She pointed out, quite rightly, that schools achieve more than just a set of exam results and teachers do more than just teach.

They provide pastoral care, support and encouragement to pupils from a wide range of backgrounds. In some cases they, quite literally, ensure that children have enough to eat.

I would suggest that most schools are doing their best with the material they have and the national curriculum that they are forced to deliver.

The reality is that comprehensive education, launched back in the 1960s – at the time hailed as a way to give equality of opportunity to all – is an experiment that has failed.

And it is failing the low achievers more than it is failing the high achievers.

Teachers must be heartily sick of being told they must raise standards when they are constantly fighting the apathy of parents and the hostility of children, some of whom clearly do not value having an education at all.

I’d argue that there’s nothing wrong with schools as such but a lot that’s wrong with secondary education in its current form.

Not that I’m advocating a return to secondary modern v grammar schools; that was socially divisive.

But re-branding schools as academies and handing them over to vested interests will do nothing to change attitudes and social disadvantage.

What’s needed is a total re-think.

I can see nothing wrong in rigorously streaming children as early as possible so that they are taught in groups of equal ability and aptitude, with courses and subjects chosen to suit their needs.

And rigorously enforcing school rules and regulations with a zero tolerance of misbehaviour.

There’s nothing elitist in this concept. It simply recognises that all children have different abilities and different needs.

What’s more, I suspect this approach would be welcomed by industry and commerce – the future employers – because they need young people with practical skills and the discipline to hold down a job.

There’s a lot of talk in education about ‘every child matters’.

If this is the case then clearly a ‘one size fits all’ comprehensive approach to education neglects the needs of the individual.