A Liberal Vision for Education: There’s no point reforming our broken system. This is a new education system.

Mark Pack recently looked at the attitudes towards income inequality between ’87 – ’09. The interesting thing in this data is the fact that almost a consistent 80% of people for over 20 years have said that the gap between the rich and poor is too large. While there has been no change in attitudes since the financial crash there has been a decrease in belief that the government should increase tax or benefits to address the concern.

 

Mark Pack makes the case for education as a way to improve incomes for those from lower socio-economic families and states that this needs to be made as it can’t just be assumed by default.  Mark Pack states that

Instead, it is policies such as providing better educational opportunities for the least well off (pupil premium anyone?) which best fit what the public says it wants

But once people have woken up to the idea of the Pupil Premium, and it is no longer something we can use to show what we will do in power, what is the Lib Dem education policy? I think that we can be congratulated for implementing a good policy which will hopefully make a real difference to people’s lives, most notably in the future. However, the problem with any policy based on an existing system is that it very much depends on how good the existing system is in the first place. So how good is the educational system we have in the UK at the moment?

Well Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, condemned it. Anthony Seldon said that it is collapsing into a form of mass indoctrination. While Ofsted shows that nearly one in every seven schools inspected this year have been judged no better than satisfactory twice in succession and have no more than a satisfactory capacity to improve. At the same time, nearly one in every five colleges inspected this year have received only a satisfactory rating for the third time in a row. I could go on but the point it that we have a system that does not serve the people who it is intended to serve. Many people do not come out with as good a grades as they could get and many don’t even get an education. On top of that if anyone went to a state school like mine will know that they are not nice places to be and can in fact, at times, be very dangerous.

To illustrate the point that this is structural, Labour pumped millions in to the system only to find limited improvement, or even worse in some areas. While we may characterise this as Labour incompetence, and in some cases it was, it was also due to the system being inflexible and incapable of improvement. So how much use is improving a system that doesn’t work?

A Liberal education system is one where the pupils learn the best way they learn. Children learn in very different ways and sticking them all in front of a teacher at the same time to do the same thing is an outdated way of teaching. We have put sticking plasters on the system to try and make it more responsive to the children’s needs but the system remains an outdated. Because of this we are producing children who are brilliant at something, but they don’t know it and never find out. We demonise children for being bored despite living in a technological age and instead of looking at the system we look at the children and say it must be something wrong with them.

We need to start looking at new ways of doing education as part of our new vision for the country. This should be personalised learning. We have the technology and understanding to engage children. We have the expertise to deliver teaching tailored to what they are good at. We can reorganise the curriculum so that there isn’t a focus on academia, which seems to be routinely agreed upon that is not the most effective focus for education. We can do better than what we have.

For a much better talk on the current education system and more on personalised learning watch this (it is very good):

 

The Lib Dems need to make themselves relevant again. The only way to do this is if we have a idea of what a Liberal Britain would look like and to be honest I am not too sure of what that is right now. Education is a good place to start and personalised learning is a very liberal idea.

Schools kill creativity: A liberal education should prioritise it

What is the current Lib Dem education policy and how does it differ from the other parties? Is it so distinctive that people would vote for it or is it only slightly different in the eyes of the public that they probably won’t know the difference? There is a saying – the difference that makes no difference, is no difference – which equally applies to politics but in politics it is not whether it makes a difference or not, it is whether people think it will make a difference. So what people think of the Lib Dem policy is important. So what is the message we can give people to show it will make a difference?

No doubt that you have heard the Lib Dems say the Tories and Labour are the same and that we are different but now we are in Coalition, it is even more important to show that we are different as no doubt that you have heard people complaining that the 3 main parties are all the same. There are some fairly simple things the Lib Dems could do which would show what a difference we could make in education which I have written about here and here. But there is another more fundamental one.

For anyone interested in the Lib Dem education policy, you may or may not have come across the most watched talk on TEDtalks which is Ken Robinson, an Englishman, talking about education. It is well worth watching as he is very engaging but his point is simple and effective. Schools kill creativity. A fairly common belief and one which has been often repeated but it is such an important point that it needs changing. We have a system which suits some people and tries to push people in more or less the same direction. This results in a children growing up believing that they are not clever, useful or good enough. This is not a liberal education system.

A liberal education policy should be one in which the system is changed. In which how children are tested is changed. In which what children do in school is changed. For the focus of the education system to change. Creativity should be at the heart of the education system for it is this which produces fulfilled adults and a thriving economy. Put creativity at the heart of a Lib Dem education policy and let teachers teach. Distinctive, different and would make a massive difference to people’s lives and the country. 

Children born in August do worse in school. What is the Lib Dem response?

The Guardian recently reported that children born in August do consistently worse in school than their peers born earlier in the year. That equates to 10,000 children doing worse because of when they were born and nothing to do with their ability. We have created a system that allows 10,000 to do worse in life each year for the sake of simplicity. It maybe that the Department for Education have just released these figures but data such as this has been known about for a very long time. The Guardian reports that Ministers are now considering what to do about it. So what should the Lib Dems propose?

This is something I have written about before, based on the same principle and similar data here. If you base your school system on selection, streaming, and differential experience; if you make a decision about who is good and who is not good at an early age; if you separate the ‘talented’ from the ‘untalented’; and if you provide the ‘talented’ with a superior experience, then you’re going to end up giving a huge advantage to that small group of people born closest to the cut off date. Conversely, those born the other end of the year i.e. August, will be disadvantaged.

So the Lib Dem response should be based on this. There is the possibility of having more than one intake in the year so the disadvantage is lessened. But essentially, as a lot of research and a lot of educational specialists have been saying for a long time – we need a more inclusive education system with less competition, less testing and more learning. But what are we getting? A number of streams of education providers who are now in competition with each other to show they have better results. What does this mean? Probably more testing and competition in the school. The Lib Dems should offer something different.

What if the Lib Dem Party was wrong and Clegg and the Tories were right? Academy schools could be a solution to poor education

The Academy schools programme has been a contentious issue for the Lib Dems. While the idea was introduced by an ex-Lib Dem turned Labour politician and now trumpeted by Tories, it has generally be opposed by most in the Lib Dems. Conference voted against the Academies policy, yet the Coalition Government went ahead with it and Nick Clegg argued for it. But the recent results suggest that maybe those in support of the Academies policy have a very good point?

There are some in the Lib Dems who are extremely opposed to the Academy plans

The coalition government is engaged in nothing less than a war on children, on young people and on education itself.

They suggest that the dismantling of the comprehensive system marks the death of an egalitarian ideal and that the Party has gone against the Lib Dem vision for ‘a good local school in every community’, funded centrally and administered locally.  Yet there are some who are in favour. It has been a battle between those who are supportive of the policy and those who are opposed which culminated in Conference voting against the policy while Clegg argued for it.

The evidence for Academies has always been a bone of contention with caveats and reasons attached to opposing arguments. However, in 2010 there were some good results in Academy schools. Now, in 2011 there have again been some good improvements. In fact we can compare the results against how the schools performed from when they were last under the Local Education Authority:

These results are only for the Harris Academies but it does show that improvements can be made where little improvement had been made previously. In fact there have been reports that Academies don’t just raise standards for the pupils that attend them, but also for surrounding schools, even as they lose pupils to the new academies. So there is an ever increasing body of evidence that perhaps this is a policy which does improve the achievements of the pupils who attend the schools (and potentially, and for some reason, of children in surrounding schools).

There are many things I don’t like about the policy and I have generally been against it. However, when I look at the results it does show a compelling story that change can happen, and happen quickly. If the end result is for children to have better qualifications, which will enable them to have more opportunities later in life, then these are the kind of results I would look for. Yet, the full effect of an ever increasing number of Academy schools will be unknown until it happens and there are some genuine concerns. However, results such as these do provide some promise. There is evidence elsewhere too that in areas of significant deprivation that Academies can significantly improve the children’s life chances.

While the Liberal may argue that this is a policy which is the death of an egalitarian ideal, perhaps we need to think whether we were ever close to that ideal anyway? For many in poorly performing schools, where most are then disadvantaged for the rest of their lives because of it, it seems strange to champion a system that wasn’t working; for them at least. Perhaps we need to drop the ideal and start with practicalities and the evidence? The issue the Lib Dems will find is that distancing themselves from a policy they have introduced, which then goes on to show some good results, will not be credited to the Party come election time. Clegg can say he championed the idea, but there are too many in the country now who don’t see Clegg as a Lib Dem.

So the ‘Lib Dems’ need a credible alternative that convinces people that their policy will improve education. Going back to the old system will no longer seem credible, perhaps we should look at the Academies programme and take the bits that work i.e. drive standards of education up, and address the concerns with it. Then add other bits that work to improve education, particularly in disadvantaged areas, and there are such ideas here or here.

Making a successful education policy: How to get more children to succeed in school

Image via Wikipedia

What makes a person successful? Do the rules by which we live by, and accept often without question, matter in the end to a person’s chances of becoming successful? What if there were some simple things we could do to make the rules fairer so every child has the chance of being as successful as they could be? Malcolm Gladwell believes there are such things we can do as he wrote in Outliers.

Gladwell wonders why

We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don’t matter at all.

He looks at sport and why so many children selected for the best teams were born at a similar time of the year. He concludes that being born near the cut off point for the selection period i.e. born after September generally in the UK, gives a child an advantage due to being more mature than other children who may be born near the end of the cut off period i.e. towards August in the UK. He believes that being more mature means that you look comparatively better than others in your year group and so will be picked for the better teams. Being in the better teams means you get more practice and better coaching and an upward spiral of positive affect occurs.

In the beginning, his advantage isn’t so much that he is inherently better but only that he is a little older. But by the age of 13 or 14, with the benefit of better coaching and all that extra practice under his belt, he really is better, so he’s the one more likely to make it to the Major Junior A league, and from there into the big leagues.

He goes on to conclude that

These kind of skewed age distributions exist wherever three things happen: selection, streaming, and differential experience.  If you make a decision about who is good and who is not good at an early age; if you separate the ‘talented’ from the ‘untalented’; and if you provide the ‘talented’ with a superior experience, then you’re going to end up giving a huge advantage to that small group of people born closest to the cut off date.

Clearly this has a significant impact in schools and for education policy. While I don’t think that his idea is strictly a rule, it does back up the idea more broadly that we should teach children to their developmental age and ability rather than their chronological age. He identifies one solution to his perceived problem

Elementary and middle schools could put the January through April-born students in one class, the May through August in another class, and those born in September through December in the third class. They could let the students learn with and compete against other students of the same maturity level.

He seeks to ‘level the playing field for those who – through no fault of their own – have been dealt a big disadvantage by the educational system’. While his solution may not be what we need, we do have professionals who teach the children and know what level they are at and what the need to succeed. If we moved from school being a conveyor belt based on age to a learning environment, maybe students would have a bigger incentive to learn and more would succeed?

A simple, cost effective, education policy which will significantly reduce social inequality: reduce school holidays

Cover of Outliers: The Story of Success

One of Nick Clegg’s main drives is the reduction of social inequality and the education policy of the Lib Dems has long sought to even the balance of the performance gap between the rich and the poor children. However, there could be some very simple strategies which could make a big difference in this area.

Patterns of social inequality from generation to generation have often left policy makers and researchers looking at the educational system. Children from disadvantaged family circumstances don’t perform as well academically as do those from more advantaged families, and later, when they embark on careers or seek employment, their academic qualifications and credentials carry less value. This helps perpetuate historic patterns of advantage and disadvantage.

The ‘achievement gap’ is a phenomenon that has been observed over and over again, and can produce 2 reactions. One that disadvantaged kids don’t have the same inherent ability to learn as children from more privileged backgrounds i.e. they are not as smart. Or that in some way our schools are failing poor children: we simply aren’t doing a good enough job of teaching them the skills they need. The first produces a system based on selection and streaming the second produces an authoritarian policy to give children the same teaching. Neither work.

In the book ‘Outliers: The Story of Success’ by Malcolm Gladwell he highlights the work of Karl Alexander who has done a lot of research into the educational system what makes some succeed and others not. His work has resulted in some very interesting results.

By testing students he was able to see how quickly more privileged children were able to out perform more disadvantaged children, confirming what has been observed on many occasions. However, by testing at the beginning of the school year and the end he was able to see the improvement of the students on their scores. What he found was that there was no difference in students ability to improve on their score from the beginning of the school year to the end but he found that more privileged children continued to improve over the summer months of school holidays improving their test scores when they returned to school. The disadvantaged children did not improve over the summer months. This led Gladwell to conclude:

poor kids learn nothing when school is not in session… virtually all of the advantage that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of differences in the way privileged kids learn while they are not in school.

Clearly this has some potentially important implications. Gladwell goes on to look at academies in poor areas of America where they work for longer hours and for more weeks of the year and produce children with excellent academic achievement, confirming that schools do in fact work and that given the chance to learn children from more disadvantaged areas can achieve good results.

An enormous amount of time is spent talking about reducing class size, rewriting curricula, buying every student a shiny new laptop, and increasing school funding – all of which assumes that there is something fundamentally wrong with the job schools are doing. Schools work. The only problem with school, for the kids who aren’t achieving, is that there isn’t enough of it.

Maybe we need to start looking at some more simple methods of reducing inequality. Reducing the length of the school holidays.

Solution Focused Education

The application of the solution focused approach has been wide and it is always interesting to see how it is implemented in practice and the results. Some of the techniques and methods are very simple to implement and so have been taken up enthusiastically by those working with people. I have already looked at a SF approach to education but would like to outline some more good practice.

Solution focused work is being used in education to work with some of the most difficult pupils. It provides a positive and pragmatic framework, which offers some fascinating alternatives to conventional teaching methods. This approach is now being used in schools all over the world. To read about this approach to education see here and here.

The people responsible for the practice in this school have written a book for teachers explaining the approach to education and how it differs from conventional teaching.  They also have a website with useful information here.

The Department for Education has also taken an interest in this approach and released a publication called ‘Focusing on Solutions: a positive approach to improving behaviour’ outlining the solution focused approach see here.

The positive approach, the creativity it creates for teachers and students in finding solutions, and the improved behaviour are a sign that the approach works. Dr Greene,  a psychiatrist, has a very similar approach and advocates for the collaboration between teacher and student to seek solutions to problems. His work has shown excellent results.

Ofsted Inspections Failing To Do What They Are Supposed To Do

Having spoken to many teachers about the inspection process I got the firm impression that this was not something that they considered to be a benefit to the school in its drive to improve standards. So it was interesting to come across research which stated that the inspection process did not improve school standards and in some cases actually made it worse.

Some research highlights how the headteachers become more threatened by the inspection the longer they are in post.  While other research identifies that teachers can become ‘inspection fatigued’ or ‘hardened’ to the regime resulting in a loss of effectiveness in the aims of the inspection.

For comprehensive schools the inspection did not improve examination achievement and some research found that there was a negative effect on exam performance due to the inspection.

This very insightful post about being in the process just shows what it is like on the inside:

I recognise the need for accountability in our schools – it’s the price we pay for the autonomy we enjoy, but I’m yet to be convinced there isn’t a better, fairer way to do this. I started writing this post as a real time journal during the inspection – it’s taken me this long to be able to put it together as the experience absolutely floored me. It’s not a helpful place to be. We have reviewed our action plan, taken on board the inspection team’s advice and celebrated their report but would I want to go through the experience again? Has it helped the school recognise anything we weren’t already aware of? Will it ultimately benefit the school community in any way? I have to say my answer is no.

So if the inspection process is indeed looking to make improvements in standards in education, it is not doing a very good job of it. A principle of solution focused work is ‘stop doing what doesn’t work’ and in this case it may be better to look at something else which will help improve standards.

Improving Schools for Pupils and Teachers

Imagine a school where there are drastically fewer discipline referrals, where students develop their own academic strategies for success, where parents welcome the chance to come to school and participate and where teachers and students build a common purpose.

This would contrast significantly to how many schools operate at the moment in the UK. Discipline is a significant problem in schools with many exclusions and suspensions on a daily basis, with 1 in 10 pupils being excluded. Secondary school teachers cite poor pupil discipline and behavioural issues as reasons for job dissatisfaction leaving the profession with concerns about teacher retention.

The application of solution-focused approaches with students and in school settings has grown over the past 10 years and has been applied to a number of behavioral and academic problems. It has shown promise as a useful approach in working with at-risk students in a school setting, specifically helping students reduce the intensity of their negative feelings, manage their conduct problems, and externalizing behavioral problems.

There are many examples of using solution focused techniques in schools and this is an example. A principle of solution finding is the change in the relationship between those who have power and those who do not – in this case the teacher and pupil. By creating a different relationship which can work together on problems it moves the difficulties from conflict to collaboration. An impressive display of this can be seen in the work of Dr Ross Greene who outlines the research and the results on his websites here and here.

While Dr Greene does not call his work solution focused education, this is exactly what it is through his approach in researching and in the practice of changing the relationship and solution finding with the pupils. There are many others who are using solution focused work in schools with some good results showing that there are different approaches which can be taken to get better results for pupils and staff.