Let’s talk about British education

I have just returned home from a trip to a very socially-depressed part of Wales, where I spent a lot of time thinking about systems that produce such radical deprivation. I concluded (and of course I could be wrong) that at least one major factor is the education system in the UK, and the fact that it appears to fall down in some significant categories. Whether I am right or wrong, though, I thought I would seek discussion here around the question of what constitutes a good education, and see if any of my own assumptions hold up. So…

Principles regarding education on which I operate include:

1. It should be absolutely free to everyone, and that differences in quality of provision must be minimised as much as possible
2. If not identical across institutions, content should at least be equivalent in terms of quality and choice
3. Every child should have access to a real experience of ‘liberal’ education (i.e. one that does not railroad a person into a specific type of work)
4. Where grading needs to happen, it should be transparent and consistent, with every child assumed to be capable of the highest grades and helped to achieve to their full potential (i.e. not limited by ‘ceilings’ imposed by ‘setting’)
5. It should include meaningful access to music and/or art as part of the normal curriculum
6. It should operate on a continuum from age 5 until age 18, with the option for those who feel they need to to leave formal education after age 16 – although leaving should be strongly discouraged
7. Upon completion, every student should receive a diploma showing that they have achieved in every subject they have studied to an agreed minimum level (with only university admissions being privy to grade distinctions), as opposed to individual certificates (like GCSEs and A-Levels or their Scottish equivalents) each with their separate grades

In my mind, an ideal primary curriculum might look like this (with some room for additional material, but NO room for subtraction):

1. English ‘Language Arts’ (a Canadian term for combined Lit & Lang); 2. Maths; 3. Science; 4. MFL; 5. Social Studies (including the study of geography, history, human culture, etc.); 6. PE

Then there would be a ‘middle’ stage where adolescents could mature in safety, where the curriculum might look like this (again, with some room for additional enrichment material, but no room for subtraction):

1. English Language Arts; 2. Maths; 3. Science; 4. MFL; 5. Social Studies; 6. PE (based on ‘life sports’); 7. Orchestra or Art; 8. D&T (including at least cooking, sewing, wood-working, metal-working, and plastics); 9. Computing

And finally, there would be a ‘higher’ stage, where teens and young adults could engage with more seriousness in:

1. English; 2. Maths; 3. Biology and/or Chemistry and/or Physics (at least two); 4. MFL; 5. History; 6. Geography; 7. Orchestra or Art; 8. Computing; 9. PE (based on ‘life sports’)

At all stages, this would represent a minimum, where, if it had the resources – defined as volunteers and/or space for twilight sessions; NOT money), a school could choose to go above and beyond by offering additional STEM classes, or classical languages, or whatever they thought important.

Meanwhile, every school building in the UK should be built and provisioned to the same standards everywhere, and include:

larger, cleaner classrooms; wide corridors with lockers for every student; a full-sized gymnasium (a.k.a. sports hall); an art studio; an orchestra room; properly outfitted science labs; good-quality computer labs; and a fleet of buses shared between schools in an area that can be used free by all students living a certain distance away from their place of learning, as well as being available for field trips at any time, subject to coordination

Finally – and this is a big one for me – if religion is present in schools at all, it should only be there as part of ‘social studies’ (i.e. human geography and history). Otherwise, religion should have no place in schools.

Now… what do you think? Would such a picture improve things? In my mind, such a system could genuinely contribute to aspiration and well-being for a many more people than the current system does. But maybe I’m wrong. Either way, it seems to me that something needs to happen. The British education system is the thing above all that I find most difficult about living here.

Do you want to be education minister? You’ve got my vote.  The education sector, like health, has been cynically run down for generations.

A well educated electorate is not what the system wants…

Ban private schools, let the more privileged help lift all children not just their own.

Cool.

Who’s going to teach all that? And who’s going to teach them how to teach?

It’s a grand aim and I’m 100% for it but it’s all a bit Underpants Gnomes at the moment.

I think you hit many many nails right on the head with your post.

It’s better thought out than any education policy I’ve seen or heard in my entire adult life.

Now, what your policy will need is the education budget doubling or trebling for the next 50 years to implement it. Both capex on facilities that aren’t falling apart with concrete pest and aerocrete, taking back school playing fields sold off for short term £££ generation (now having houses on that green grassy outfield), and Opex to have skilled valued staff paid properly.

(My Mrs re-trained as a teacher in her 30s… eventually left in despair and huge stress after a dozen years because of the shit – not the kids or the actual act of teaching, but all the bollox imposed from all sides, particularly an interfering bunch of condesending **** (e.g. Gove) in Westminster and the endless changes in priorities, +  inspectors with pre-determined agendas on which schools were to be stitched up and shafted from the murderous blood-on-their-hands Ofsted).

Teachers shouldn’t need radically different training to teach ‘all that’ than what they get now, should they? Although I would love to take credit for it, what I have outlined is just a normal Canadian curriculum. So clearly there is scope for doing it!

EDIT: Sorry, this comment was meant as a reply to @squirrelking

I’m sure the majority of the public would be in favour of your policy, but not so much footing the bill for it.

What would we have to give up to afford this? That is, in the period until it pays (specifically financially) for itself.

Has any country had success in unbuggering any public subsector to a comparable extent?

Has any country had success in unbuggering any public subsector to a comparable extent?

Postwar Britain: health, and housing? Probably education too, though I’m not that familiar with what that was like before, comparatively.

I think that all sounds lovely. Regrettably, the current system of academy chains don’t favour a rounded education as expensive, non-mandatory-for-GCSE subjects are cut in favour of cheaper ones. Think music, art, DT, even practical elements of sciences. It’s the equipment/materials but it’s also all the support staff and technicians required for prep, support, maintenance etc. Teachers sure as hell don’t have the time to do that.

Progress 8 also damaged the margins of the curriculum. With Maths and English contributing double, and the 2nd tier (mostly science/ humanities) taking up the slack, the 3rd tier subjects become superfluous in terms of their contribution towards the reported performance of a pupil, and hence a school. Why throw money/timetable slots at a range of subjects that won’t help the data look good? Remember, we need the data to look good to keep OFSTED away.

Running a school as a business feels like an odd model and, in relation to the socialist utopia thread, corrupts and directly impacts the quality of the education received. It encourages academies to exclude problem children, rather than support them, as well of narrowing the curriculum and focussing on exam results (also see 3 year GCSE courses) over preparing kids for the wider world with a broad, rich education.

P.s. in before someone says “they should teach taxes/financial planning”…yeah, they do, it takes a couple of sessions and the kids could not care less. Equip the kids with the skills to understand and work these things out later in life, rather than explicitly listing them off.

If you want high-schools to work properly, you need good primary schools. If you want primary schools to work properly, you need good early childhood education.

Middle-class kids get a huge head-start because their parents are generally more educated and teach their kids the foundational stuff when they are infants – just things like having books in the house and sitting the kid on your knee reading together make a huge difference. Kids who don’t get that fall behind and it’s very hard to catch up (the “Matthew effect”.) So, to fix education, you need good early childhood education (free obviously), and you need to stop thinking of it as baby sitting and pay comparable salaries to what high-school teachers get. That will be extremely expensive and will be difficult to persuade voters to support (because most people think of early childhood educators as babysitters.)

Keep ’em young, dumb and full of cum.

We got wars to fight.

Ooh-rahh!

*not my opinion but (cough) it is the opinion of a lot of people. Mostly religious crazy people but it is what it is.

What i find interesting is you keep referring to canada as as a good example.

I am yet to find a list anywhere that puts canada above The UK for education.

Other than the fact it doesn’t work very well most of that list is in theory what the scottish system does?

The current system is still stuck in the industrial revolution teaching methods, it focuses far too much on academia and not enough on vocational / technical teachings and progress into meaningful employment that the student may actually have a thirst for pursuing.

The school day times need a look at too.

A total shake up and reset of the system is long overdue.

If not identical across institutions, content should at least be equivalent in terms of quality and choice

This is the massive failing of the current Scottish system. There is literally no curriculum or common resource in any subject. When teachers come from elsewhere they are absolutely astonished by this but that’s where we’re at and in my mind it’s the single biggest reason why the Scottish system has gone down the tubes.

I realised the other day that my teaching career has basically coincided with the decline of educational standards in Scotland. It’s a depressing thought, and I’ve tried my best to fight it in my own classroom but individuals can’t reverse the harm of a broken, ill conceived system.

I concluded (and of course I could be wrong) that at least one major factor is the education system in the UK, and the fact that it appears to fall down in some significant categories.

so, not withstanding the fact that you are not originally British and your benchmark seems to be Canada – the first step would be to educate people that there is not a single education system in the U.K.

A total shake up and reset of the system is long overdue.

whilst most people agree on this, including teachers, you can be certain that any proposal for change will be opposed by most people including teachers, almost regardless of the change! (Some of those reasons will be justified and some will be less so)

And finally, there would be a ‘higher’ stage, where teens and young adults could engage with more seriousness in:.

1. English; 2. Maths; 3. Biology and/or Chemistry and/or Physics (at least two); 4. MFL; 5. History; 6. Geography; 7. Orchestra or Art; 8. Computing; 9. PE (based on ‘life sports’)

I agree with a lot of what you say but this is a pretty narrow subject offer that would not be suitable or would disenfranchise a lot of kids.

You mentioned offering more as extra curricular options but that’s not how it should be. If kids want to do it and it has value then it should be offered as standard within staffing constraints.

A total shake up and reset of the system is long overdue

We sort of had this in Scotland starting from 2010 and it’s honestly been a disaster. They’re now consulting on doing another massive shake up and as a result of the last one nobody in the teaching profession has any faith in the process or outcomes of this.

It’s better thought out than any education policy I’ve seen or heard in my entire adult life.

This is because it’s not an educational policy, it’s one person’s aspirational view rather than something that has to accommodate everyone’s views and needs within practical constraints.

Actually setting out a policy is a good bit more complex than bloke on the Internet saying what he’d like to see.

Improving education by ensuring fair access, transparent grading and diverse curriculum seems like a sensible idea worth exploring further.

-It should operate on a continuum from age 5 until age 18, with the option for those who feel they need to to leave formal education after age 16 – although leaving should be strongly discouraged
-Upon completion, every student should receive a diploma showing that they have achieved in every subject they have studied to an agreed minimum level (with only university admissions being privy to grade distinctions), as opposed to individual certificates (like GCSEs and A-Levels or their Scottish equivalents) each with their separate grades

the problem with hypothetical systems is they aren’t necessarily fully thought out not to contradict each other.  I think what you are saying here is that there should be an overall school leavers certificate (my limited knowledge of the Irish education system suggests they have that).  You want to list on that the subjects studied but no indication of the level they were studied to / how well understood?  And only universities (not technical colleges, not employers?) able to see the detail.  Really?  So as an employer I’ve no idea if the candidate is at the level of maths that scrapes a pass at gcse or is smashing a-level further maths; I’ve no idea if their English reading and writing level is that of a 12 yr old (probably can scrape a gcse pass?) or is eloquent; I’ve no idea if they did well in science or not?

now let’s say I have a lab technician job suitable for a school leaver (in todays world we would dress that up as an apprenticeship but usually they are nothing like apprenticeships from the 50/60/70s), if I advertise that today I would get literally hundreds of applications; with a simple pass/fail across all subjects I have no real indication  if this person is likely to have enough interest/aptitude to follow the science of what they are doing, the basic mathematical skills to process the results and the literacy to write those results in a short report that doesn’t embarrass the business.

Giving people the option to leave education at 16 exacerbates this issue.  I may be dealing with a really smart 18 yr old who doesn’t fancy a heap of debt, a mediocre 18 yr old who could probably still go to uni but is keeping their options open, a smart 16 yr old who didn’t engage well with formal education, someone who left school at 16 who had all the potential but who’s parents didn’t believe in education, someone who was dragged through the care system and couldn’t wait to escape education.  I am happy with having options/choices for people to leave – I’m not keen on things which are the norm, and alternatives possible but strongly discouraged.

@joshvegas, in global university rankings, the UK consistently places second only to the US , while Canada places fourth.

In the PISA rankings, which measure school outcomes in reading, maths, and science, Canada has outperformed the UK significantly in all three categories since at least I first became aware of PISA. To the extent where Canada has placed in the top ten, while the UK hasn’t even made the top twenty.

British education is only good for one thing – more education…..

GCSE’s are designed to get you into college….

College education system is designed to get you into university, with clear disappointment and bias if you don’t apply.

& then the universities are essentially an education business.

None of it is designed for the real world of work.

So  being 13th/14th isn’t in the top twenty?

So within five places of a vague at best ranking system.

There are plenty of disagreements with using ranking of this type. Most often directed at the issue you appear to be guilty of it is AN indicator not THE indicator.

Slightly off topic… Why are you so obsessed with comparing the UK disfavourably with Canada? Over the years you’ve posted quite a few year similar threads, you had the patriotic thread and you had the tetrapak thread. You paint broad brush strokes of the whole of the uk based on a small sample of a bit of Wales you live in.

We sort of had this in Scotland starting from 2010 and it’s honestly been a disaster.

some of the implementation has been a mess, I’m sceptical that it’s truely been a disaster – we don’t have the alternative of “the status quo” running in parallel to judge how not shaking it up would have ended up with the same social, financial, covid and other factors…

(I guess you could argue that the do nothing direction of travel might have resulted in a more “English” approach and that’s not a great benchmark for success).  Certainly though teachers didn’t like the changes – and if you want to have painless change you need teachers to support it.  I’ve a lot of time for teachers (my mother was one, my daughter is going to be one) but as a profession they are heavily institutionalised (most have spent their entire life in the somewhat artificial world of school/college/university).

However, I’d suggest the entire premise of the OPs post is based on the same, probably wrong headed, assumption most of us have that the system they thrived/endured/survived is essentially “right” and anything different from that is flawed for being different rather than a cultural issue outside of schools.  Tell an employer or university that they should value some new qualification or certificate and they will inevitably think – what’s wrong with the one I did / way I did it.  Are they dumbing down? Making it too easy? Likewise with schools, “you’ve been doing it wrong for years” is the message many will hear.   The OP furthers the wrong thinking by assuming that it’s possible to have near identical schooling for everyone and get good outcomes for all.  Thats the sort of state sanctioned regime change which fails every time.

Finally, the OPs opening gambit seemed to be that deprived wales was a product of the Education system.  I think that’s misguided too.  Certainly Education plays a key role in helping “level up” areas of deprivation but essentially it teaches people to leave.  And leaves people behind who are disenfranchised and then often become “poorer* parents” and propagate the decay.

*I don’t have a better phrase on the tip of my tongue, but a significant factor in all children’s success is their parents; in Education that matters from a very early stage.

When addressing a problem I often look at it in reverse.  So, rather than starting with pre-schooling (believe me, it is important), we should ask whether we actually need as many graduates when the skills for so many jobs are actually only acquired in employment.  So, we need to ensure apprenticeships and their equivalents (nursing?) are given equal status as degrees and make that a the main objective of our education system.  Incidentally apprenticeships would likely put more money in the pockets of younger people earlier thereby both trimming the student loan bill and possibly help them make progress on the housing ladder sooner, if that is what they want.

I have just returned home from a trip to a very socially-depressed part of Wales, where I spent a lot of time thinking about systems that produce such radical deprivation. I concluded (and of course I could be wrong) that at least one major factor is the education system in the UK, and the fact that it appears to fall down in some significant categories.

I think you’ve misidentified the failings in education that contribute to deprivation and as a result your suggestions for change wouldn’t have the desired effect or would only have an unintentional effect.

I think the biggest issue with education is the multi-generational disengagement from it by many families in deprived areas. If education is going to be one of the tools we use to tackle deprivation, that’s the big problem we need to solve.

In the PISA rankings, which measure school outcomes in reading, maths, and science, Canada has outperformed the UK significantly in all three categories since at least I first became aware of PISA. To the extent where Canada has placed in the top ten, while the UK hasn’t even made the top twenty.

I think you might be in danger of using statistics to back up your bias!  All the countries ranked above Canada on their overall PISA score are essential little Productivity Factories – manufacturing human clones to boost their economy.  My perception is this is achieved through parent/society/government fear which is probably not healthy.  Now that MIGHT be the point you were making about Wales but the subjective metrics you used for “good” education system are notionally more aligned to Scotland than England and Scotland has done worse than England on PISA rankings since the changes Spin referred to (which are pretty much aligned to the sort of points you made in your OP) were introduced.

Switzerland is an interesting example (because I have friends with kids there).  Essentially very young (14 ish?) your children determine their future trajectory – academic, university study or a vocational path.

Get rid of religious education out of schools completely and get rid of faith schools of all flavours.

Get rid of public schools. Mandatory state education for all.

Add personal finance and responsibility to educational curriculum. Understanding tax and why it is a good thing. Understanding credit agreements, cards, loan, etc.

First two points might be a bit shouty but I firmly believe in the third.

I think the biggest issue with education is the multi-generational disengagement from it by many families in deprived areas

This!!  Having previously worked in education for almost 20 years, I’d largely agree with your education manifesto SaxonRider.  However, I really don’t see the education system as the main cause for deprivation in areas such as the one you described.  I grew up in a very deprived area, and on reflection, the lack of engagement/value attached to education by many of my peer groups parents was staggering.  Breaking that cycle is incredibly tough, but for me the problems and systemic failures lie in economic rather than education policies.

When addressing a problem I often look at it in reverse.  So, rather than starting with pre-schooling (believe me, it is important), we should ask whether we actually need as many graduates when the skills for so many jobs are actually only acquired in employment.  So, we need to ensure apprenticeships and their equivalents (nursing?) are given equal status as degrees and make that a the main objective of our education system.

And my first question would be what is the purpose of education, rather than assuming it’s primary role is to get people jobs.

My wife works in a primary school in one of the UK’s most deprived areas.  One big issue there is the quality of the staff. Many of whom (but not all) are well meaning enough but they just don’t have the training, background or even motivation to really do the job as well as it needs to be done. And that is probably down to the fact that most people don’t want to move to a deprived post-industrial town. So how to fix that? Money, of course.  They need really good training, they need to attract good people (after all, what job is more fundamentally important?) and they need top class support. And it’s not just education – the head spends most of her time dealing with welfare issues (because there are no other services to do this) instead of improving teaching at the school.

Teachers and social services should start on £50k a year, and there should be many more of them.

I would put less emphasis on the arts and music but otherwise Im with you.

The best way to improve state education would be to ban private schools. If all the policy makers had to use the state system to educate their children rather than just buy their way out of using it I’m pretty sure standards and funding would improve immeasurably or am I being too cynical?

I’m not sure – state schools in posh areas are already much better than those in deprived areas.

But music is one of the key ingredients in developping intelligence and going on to academic success. Just the first Google result:

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/music-education-is-key-contributor-to-academic-achievement/

Junior got a Telecaster in secondary school and was noodling on my acoustic eating his breakfast this morning. About a third of the money on his tax declaration also comes from music.

Molgrips makes some good points. The French answer is to send teachers to deprived areas when they start their careers. That isn’t ideal either as they often leave for nicer areas/schools when they’ve got enough points so the kids don’t benefit from many experienced teachers.

Well-qualified and dynamic teachers often leave the profession because they can leaving those that can’t. As teachers are put under more pressure the longer holidays don’t make up for working fewer hour from home in a “normal job”. Or doing a more rewarding job with less shit to deal with.

It’s a very nice curricula, but I think you miss the point that the problem with the UK education system countrywide isn’t around twiddling with the curriculum  but rather gross variation in degree of funding provided to apply it.

What you have above is easily written, but doesn’t address the politics of application of said policies

@spin and @molgrips have nailed it. We need a long term solution to support the adults in deprived areas and we need increased funding to encourage good teachers to go to these sorts of areas – probably by paying them. A lot more than they would other get.

 would put less emphasis on the arts and music but otherwise Im with you.

Really?! Education  at the very least should well rounded.

Well-qualified and dynamic teachers often leave the profession because they can leaving those that can’t. As teachers are put under more pressure the longer holidays don’t make up for working fewer hour from home in a “normal job”. Or doing a more rewarding job with less shit to deal with.

Maybe I’m just at the right age for it but I have a good number of friends who have either quit teaching because the life balance is unsustainable, or have moved abroad to better places to teach (… Canada for example). If this is being replicated beyond my sphere, I think we’re in for real problems losing all the ~10 years experience teachers. So, a whole new manifesto might be good but honestly I’d just settle for a realistic plan to train and employ enough teachers that the job isn’t **** awful (perhaps a reduction in the bullshit tasks plays hand in hand with that though).

It seems to me that a large part of the problem with education, like health care, is well meaning but uninformed people thinking that they know better than the professionals.

Teachers shouldn’t need radically different training to teach ‘all that’ than what they get now, should they?

They absolutely do, CPD seems sorely lacking especially in PE and the arts and even when they do it takes years to get best practice established since the people running the institutes tend to be “old school” and aren’t interested in new methods that don’t result in kids setting themselves up for broken bodies in later life.

eg. How many folk know that hypermobility is linked to dyslexia?

The bigger question is, of course, how many teachers have time for CPD beyond the bare minimum in terms of time and effort?

“It seems to me that a large part of the problem with education, like health care, is well meaning but uninformed people thinking that they know better than the professionals.”

I don’t know if this is directed at me, but I was both a teacher and an assistant principal in a sixth form college for 15 years. That definitely doesn’t make me an expert, but it does give me a slightly more informed view of the educational landscape than a simple ‘person with opinions’. And alas, I don’t think that any single professional – or body of professionals, for that matter – can necessarily see the forest for the trees, unless perhaps they were there when the trees were first planted. And as far as the UK is concerned, the trees that were planted were mixed in a less-than-ideal arrangement of private and state schools, ‘faith’ schools, and schools established with a view to instilling just enough education to keep the prolls working in the mills and mines. [Okay, that last point may be a bit harsh… 😉 ]