People thought primary education was under pressure in the Thatcher years. But since 1997 government domination of education has accelerated. The drive is to oust the professionals and have every aspect of every lesson taught according to the strictures of ignorant and often unelected ministers...
Primary education – who decides?
WORKERS, MAY 2008 ISSUE
When schools minister Jim Knight told this year's conference of the teaching union ATL that a class size of 70 can work "very well" he was greeted with jeers from the delegates. Maybe because they actually have experience of teaching, and he only has his own public school background to go on – probably with class sizes of a bit less than 70 (the private sector average is 10–15).
The Labour tendency to promote people who are completely ignorant of their area of responsibility as ministers is particularly seen in Andrew Adonis, old chum of Blair given a peerage so he could become an education minister despite never having had to go through the tiresome procedure of getting himself elected. His agenda, directed by both Blair and Brown, has been to implement government policy by telling teachers what to teach and how to teach it, while deliberately ignoring the lessons about educational progress from properly conducted educational research.
History
The national curriculum was introduced 20 years ago, for the first time laying down exactly what should be taught every year group in every subject. National testing at ages 7, 11 and 14 followed – the Standard Assessment Tests or SATs – with results published in league tables of schools and local authorities.
In 1998 the national literacy and numeracy strategies were introduced for primary schools by the new Labour government. The literacy strategy was so prescriptive that one of its features was a clock which told teachers exactly what they should be teaching at every minute of the literacy hour.
In 2006 primary teachers were told they must teach reading with government–approved methods. The required method – synthetic phonics used to the exclusion of other teaching strategies – was decided by Lord Andrew Adonis on the basis of a short piece of very limited research in Scotland that fitted the political agenda of a simple, quick fix which can be easily policed by outsiders.
All this centralised prescription was enforced by the creation in 1992 of the Office for Standards in Education – Ofsted – a nominally "independent" inspection regime which judges schools primarily on SATs results. Ofsted can put schools judged to be failing into Special Measures, which can have the effect of shutting them down. Under Labour Oftsed's powers have been hugely increased as the effect of a "failing" judgement has been used ever more punitively.
These developments have applied to England, while Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland have pretty much gone their own, different, way.
Teachers
So how has all this come about? The state's desire to control education is inevitable, given its importance for society. But until Thatcher the education unions were able to assert the agenda of those who are qualified to decide – education workers and researchers. But the relative weakness of the teacher unions in the 1980s gave ministers the opportunity to direct educational practice from the centre, and they seized it.
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| Northampton NUT members campaigning against SAT testing. |
Those who thought things might be different under Labour after 1997 – even if teachers didn't start to fight for progress – have seen instead an accelerating government domination of education. The teaching unions have proved unwilling to offer serious resistance. The drive towards privatisation of and competition between educational institutions – for example the academies programme, which can vary nationally recognised teachers' pay and conditions – makes collective organisation more difficult.
At the heart of successful education is the relationship between the educator, the teacher, and the educated, the pupil. When a capitalist state by its nature interested primarily in the maximisation of profit is allowed to place itself in the centre of this relationship, things are going to go wrong.
Increasingly, concerns have been raised about the effects of government domination over the curriculum, particularly in British primary schools, which were once highly regarded by education experts nationally and internationally. In spite of an apparently broad primary national curriculum, teachers began to report a significant narrowing in practice to what is tested through the SATs (a narrow, easily testable band of literacy, numeracy and science). The effects of this were being felt in secondary schools, which received pupils often intensively coached to get through the SATs but who had lost their enthusiasm for learning.
In response, the independent Cambridge–based Primary Review, launched in 2006, used 22 eminent researchers in 70 universities to look at childhood and primary education in 21st century Britain. Its final report is due to be published in late 2008, but its 23 interim reports already make interesting reading.
Government became so nervous about the findings emerging from the review that Ed Balls, education secretary, launched his own review, also called confusingly the Primary Review. Balls's review is being led by Jim Rose, author of the Rose Report into the teaching of reading – a report which has already led to a narrowing of the curriculum for 5– and 6–year olds.
Narrowing
The Cambridge review has confirmed what teachers knew already – that the triangulated stranglehold of SATs, league tables and Ofsted has had a disastrous effect. Increasingly teachers are expected to be obsessed with National Curriculum levels.
After the introduction of SATs, "Optional SATs" soon made their appearance – to test how children are progressing between 7and 11 towards the desired Level 4, so that now children in many schools are constantly being tested in between. And teachers are expected to allocate sub–levels to the children in their class to ensure that all children progress by two sub–levels each year. Children falling behind receive booster classes to speed them up, and in the dreaded Year 6 (at age 11) classes are put on during the Easter holidays to coach children "at risk" of failing to reach Level 4.
Experienced Year 6 teachers have become good at this. There is little time in Year 6 for any curriculum other than what will be tested in the SATs, because the teacher and the school will be considered successful or failing based on the results.
We are producing children who know the techniques for getting through the English tests, but who will not choose to read in their spare time, children who can achieve Level 4 in maths tests, but have no idea about why maths matters.
When the children go on to secondary school, many arrive armed with test results that do not reflect their true achievements. This is why, a few years ago, it was discovered that, hey presto, there is a "dip" in progress in the first year of secondary school. Whose fault is this? It's obvious – secondary teachers!
Widening gap
The Primary Review reports that, in spite of all this hothousing of primary children a sticky problem remains: the wide gap in attainment between the average and the lowest, often called the "long tail of underachievement". This is one of the biggest in comparable countries, and reflects the widening gap in family incomes in Britain between the best off and the worst (getting wider under Labour) – one of the highest in developed European countries.
| Up in lights... |
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In the offices of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) there is an area called The Bridge. In this area is a big board with the name of every school in England. The names of those whose SATs results are not up to par are displayed in lights. These are the official Schools Causing Concern. A school whose name stays too long will get a visit from Ofsted, and the head teacher is likely to be pushed out.
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A recent report from the Rowntree Foundation stated that "children from poor homes are nearly a year behind when they start school, and two years behind by age 14. Most never catch up." Children's educational attainment as measured by SATs broadly reflects parental income. Schools in poor areas consistently do worse in SATs than schools in better off areas. Children learn better where they have at least one parent in employment.
Now the catchphrase of government is "narrowing the gap". Resources are being thrown at the problem in poorer local authorities without addressing the real issue. The government's Every Child Matters agenda requires schools to help children and families "achieve economic well–being" – one of the categories they are judged on by Ofsted. And this in areas where often there is little or no decent work to be had and high levels of immigration bring people prepared to take what work there is for below subsistence wages. And there is still evidence that children are imported into Britain to earn benefits for bogus "carers" – the very problem which led to the appalling death of 9–year–old Victoria Climbié at the hands of her so–called aunt and led, too, to the Every Child Matters policy.
The worrying decline in the quality of primary education reported in the Cambridge review results from central government control of the curriculum and its assessment. In response to findings so far, the NUT has called for government to review its whole method of evaluating schools, and to treat falling rolls as an opportunity to reduce class sizes. This will not happen unless teachers in the schools insist it should. The damage can be reversed, but only in the hands of teachers reasserting the pre–eminence of the teacher–pupil relationship.
We have allowed government to take control, now we must wrest it back. Teachers' collective power remains just a potential at present. The teachers' pay strike on 24 April needs to be used by teachers as a start to getting together in the unions to discuss the future of primary education and decide ways forward.