social disadvantage

May 20, 2016 by Sarah Rutty

Joyless, inaccurate, inequitable?

I recently enjoyed the opportunities provided by some longer than average train journeys and the al fresco possibilities of a sunny garden to catch up on my reading. Indeed, I diligently increased my familiarity with a wide range of books; asked questions to improve my understanding of text; summarised the main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph, and worked out the meaning of new words from context. In short, I demonstrated the skills in reading required of upper KS2 readers.

Which has left me with rather a bee in my bonnet about last week’s KS2 SATs reading paper and its usefulness as an assessment of these skills.

My first buzzing bee in response to the paper: the quality and range of the texts provided to assess our children’s abilities as confident readers. Rather than a range of engaging writing, offering opportunities to demonstrate skills as joyful interrogators of literature and authorial craft, the test offered three rather leaden texts: two fictional and one non-fiction. We had Maria and Oliver running off from a garden party at the big house to explore an island, which might hold the clue to the secret of a long-standing upper-class family feud. We had Maxine riding her pet giraffe, Jemmy, in South Africa, having an unfortunate encounter with some warthogs (some ferocious, others bewildered) but fortunately learning a lesson about the consequences of not listening to adults. We finished with the non-fiction text about the demise of the Dodo, a text so oddly structured that it appeared to have, rather like another curious creature, been thrown together by committee. The sun-soaked stillness of our inner-city school hall, last Monday morning, was ruffled by the occasional gentle gusting sighs of 76 children trying hard to engage with such dull texts and do so with purposeful determination ‘because I love books and I love reading and I want to do well, but it wasn’t like proper reading.’

Which brings me on to my second buzzing bee: it was most definitely not, to quote (year 6 standard pupil Shueli), anything like ‘proper reading’ nor, I would suggest, a meaningful way to assess whether our children themselves are ‘proper’ readers, using the DfE’s own interim assessment criteria.

The first four questions of the test focussed solely on vocabulary and words in context. For example, Question 1: ‘Find and copy one word meaning relatives from long ago’. If, like many of our children, you did not know the word ‘ancestor’, the answer for this question was almost impossible to work out from context. A first mark lost and a tiny dent in the self-esteem of pupils who were hoping for a test of their ability to filter and finesse a text for nuance and meaning rather find ‘words I should have in my head, but didn’t’ (Sayma B). More gusty sighing.

Question 2 continued to dig deeper into the realm of internal word-lists: ‘the struggle had been between two rival families… which word most closely matches the meaning of the word rival? Tick one: equal, neighbouring, important, competing. If you were not familiar with the word ‘rival’ then the choice of either ‘important’ or ‘neighbouring’ are plausible choices in context. I give you some higher order reading reasoning: the children were at a party in a big house, clearly from ‘posh’ families – hence ‘important’ was a perfectly sensible choice; rival football teams play in the same league, so are in some way ‘neighbours’. Both demonstrate a key year 6 reading skill: ‘working out the meaning of new words from context’, a skill our children use routinely but, in this case, cost them a mark and one more cross gained on the examiner’s recording sheet.

Bringing me onto bee no. 3: the test appeared to be designed for ease of marking. Only 2/33 questions on the test required extended ‘3 mark’ answers – allowing extended inferential or evaluative thinking – a mere 6 percent of the paper. The rest were questions requiring – much easier to mark – word or fact retrieval answers. Our children’s reading SATs scores will reflect this unbalanced diet of question types; resulting in assessments neither accurate nor equitable. Not accurate, because teachers, using the national curriculum and 2015-16 interim assessment framework, assess year 6 readers using a much wider set of criteria – including, for example reading aloud with intonation, confidence and fluency, as well as contributions to discussions around book-talk, none of which can be assessed by a simple test. And not equitable, because research indicates that the children most likely to under-perform in language/vocabulary biased reading tests are those from the most deprived backgrounds.

The reason for this is that children from lower income, or more socially deprived backgrounds, often come to school with a more limited vocabulary because they begin life being exposed to fewer words than children from more affluent backgrounds. The gap this discrepancy presents is not insurmountable; the CPRT/IEE dialogic teaching project is one clear example of how putting talk at the heart of our children’s learning can help close such gaps. However, a national testing system that skews the reading results by which children and schools are judged – and categorised – in favour of such a vocabulary-heavy bias, is simply not fair. Or purposeful.

I urge you, experienced reader, to stand for a moment in the shoes of Sheuli and Sayma B. I give you a sentence to consider, one which incorporates a word that I learnt from my own recent reading. ‘A gust of wind rippled through the exam hall, it made me pandiculate and look hopefully at the clock. Q1: In this sentence which word most closely matches the meaning of the word pandiculate? Tick one: ponder, panic, stretch, laugh out loud.

All might seem plausible choices. The experience of the reading SATs last week may have caused our children indeed to ponder, to panic or to laugh out loud in test conditions. It might even have made them pandiculate in earnest, for the correct answer is, of course, c) to stretch – and typically to yawn when awakening from a dull or sleepy interlude. But surely you knew that? It must be fair to assume that we all share the same internal word list. And if this is not the case (shame on you) could you not demonstrate your ability to work out the meaning of a word from the context? No? It cannot be that my test is flawed; it must be you who are a poor reader. My internal bee is susurrating indeed about the value of a national test that reinforces gaps, rather than one which assesses how well we are closing them.

Sarah Rutty is Head Teacher of Bankside Primary School in Leeds, part-time Adviser for Leeds City Council Children’s Services, a member of CPRT’s Schools Alliance, and Co-ordinator of CPRT’s Leeds/West Yorkshire network. Read her previous blogs here.

If you work in or near Leeds and wish to become involved in its CPRT network, contact administrator@cprtrust.org.uk.

October 16, 2015 by Sarah Rutty

Load and bless with fruit the vines

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here in pleasantly autumnal Leeds. We are enjoying the familiar tropes of seasonal change: the trips to the local park, avoiding the litter and dog-mess please Year 4, to collect the ‘lovely, lively, golden leaves laughing like a sun’ (thank you Blue 1 for this flourish of figurative language); the celebration of the bounty of our local shops for harvest festival (nothing perishable, as the vermin infestation in church has finally outwitted the best laid plans of the men – and women – of the clergy team, so, this year, the homeless can eat only canned food), and the first explosive outbursts of randomly thrown fireworks, a daily herald of the onslaught of Bonfire Night itself.

And, alongside the expected events that shape the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ here in the inner city, there are some more singular ones to enjoy: the glory of our Year 6 school residential trip; a meeting of headteacher colleagues to discuss how research-based school practice might give our families and children a voice in developing the landscape of learning and opportunity across our highly diverse city; the publication of the latest Cambridge Primary Review Trust research report by Kate Pickett and Laura Vanderbloemen, Mind the Gap – Tackling Social and Educational Inequality. All these have provided occasion to reflect on the importance of creating rich learning experiences, so that all our children achieve their best potential and thrive in their school settings. To indulge in one more Keatsian metaphor (and this the end of them, I promise): to ensure that we ‘load and bless with fruit the vines’ – in this case the rich harvest of our primary-aged children.

It is, as they say, a no-brainer, that we would want the best for all our children and that we would aim for 100 per cent of them to be a blooming top crop. Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, in her speech to the Conservative Party conference earlier this month, clearly shares these principles:

The commitment to meritocracy means nothing if we don’t give every child the chance to succeed … For us social justice and One Nation are not just buzzwords. They explain all we’ve done and all we’re going to do to extend opportunity to every single child.

Hear, hear, I say: a noble ambition and clearly stated; bravo Ms Morgan. But, as I read further through the speech, I begin to feel a little nagging unease, that somehow Nicky and I are not quite on the same page about how we might achieve this. Ms Morgan believes that

(the) belief in equality of opportunity has been our guiding principle for five years …Look at what we have achieved. We’ve raised the bar on standards in schools with a rigour revolution:… a tough new national curriculum that fosters a love for literature, a grasp of arithmetic and an appreciation of our history. 120,000 more six year olds on track to become confident readers thanks to our focus on phonics and record numbers of 11 year olds mastering the 3Rs.

There’s talk of ‘grit and spark’ and ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’ and there is a clarion cry for a new breed of teachers to shape the destiny of the next generation. Ms Morgan even name checks her own encouraging teacher ‘without whom I wouldn’t be standing here today – thank you Mrs Thynne’.

It is heart-warming stuff indeed and I feel even more churlish about my growing sense of misgiving. I want to agree, but I can’t. And not out of some misplaced political ideology, but because of the reality of another inner-city autumn; the return of the year 6 residential trip; the content of the headteacher meeting about creating an equal landscape for children’s voice and choice in Leeds, and the most recent CPRT report. Essentially, I can’t agree, because, as a teacher, I know that good learning and education are not merely about being relentless and focussed; they are about trying to create adaptive and creative outcomes so that each child can flourish in their learning, in spite of some of the daily challenges with which they have to contend beyond the school gate. Sadly, unlike Ms Morgan, I do not believe that what characterises the best schools ‘is that when you walk through the door the first thing that they talk about is where their students are going, not where they have come from’. Experience – and research – tell me that seeing children in their social context is critical if we are to attempt to close the gaps which will otherwise prejudice their future success. We need to realise the enormity of this task if we want our children to achieve their best potential in the warmth and love of a community of learning, in spite of the messiness of their own home backgrounds.

The CPRT report mentioned above – Mind the Gap – makes this point clearly. Among its conclusions it finds that:

The most important influence on educational attainment, on how well a child develops in the early years, performs in school, in later education and in adulthood, is family background.
Average levels of educational attainment and children’s engagement in education are better in more equal societies. [The report shows that the UK is among the most unequal of the OECD countries – p 7, fig 3]
Targeted spending such as the Pupil Premium can certainly make a difference … yet targeted spending is not sufficient on its own to close the attainment gap and reduce educational inequalities.
Reducing educational inequality will ultimately depend on reducing social and economic inequality.

As a headteacher, I can – and relentlessly do – set the aspirational tone for a ‘Bankside Best’ attitude to all that we do and learn at school. We expect the ‘best for and the best from’ every member of our learning community, thank you very much – ask anyone in the school, or indeed who has ever spent more than 10 minutes in conversation with me (one puzzled visitor, after my nth reference to ‘Bankside Best’ enquired if it was a brand of bitter I was about to offer him). As a leadership team, we can insist, as Ms Morgan urges, that we root out poor education ‘wherever it lurks’ and we do. We are proud of our learning community where children make exceptional progress because of this, from very low starting points to attainment in line with – and in many cases above – national average at KS2. A school where we actively create conditions for meta-cognitive understanding so that, once again, from the very beginning of school children understand the importance of being resilient learners (we are ‘have a go hippos’ even in nursery) and value how they learn, as well as what they learn. Holy Moly, we are wonderful here in LS8.

However, what we cannot do, even with the support of our excellent governing body, local authority and other multi-agency partners, is change the demographic we serve. We can spend Pupil Premium on taking our Year 6 children on school residentials (and indeed all our children on trips and outings as a matter of school routine) to enrich their learning experiences and widen their sense of self and ambition. We cannot, however, prevent the personal distress and upset that one of those children experienced on their return, to discover that her older brother’s remand arrangements had changed and that he might be returning to the area imminently. The turmoil and upset this created for this child and her family far outweighed the benefits of a trip away. And, with all deference to Ms Morgan’s faith in the social importance of 11 year olds mastering the 3Rs, appreciating history and grasping arithmetic to ensure a country that is ‘fair… wise… and great’, the older boy in question had flourished at school fuelled by our belief (shared with Ms Morgan) that ‘children only get one shot at education and we owe to them to give them the best one’. From well below age-related starting points he left Bankside with very good KS2 results, appreciating and grasping concepts and knowledge like a good ‘un. This may have been why he was able to shine so brightly within the local crime scene.

My point is this: high academic results alone, in contradiction to current educational ideology, cannot possibly close all the necessary gaps that will ensure the ‘security of our country’, as Ms Morgan’s comments suggested, whilst social inequality is so prevalent.

I will finish with a few thoughts about our headteachers’ meeting, looking at some of the very issues that underpin this blog. ‘Gaps’ to be closed in educational and social outcomes do not begin at the age of 3 or 4, when a child first arrives in school; they begin from the very start of life itself. The first 1001 days of a child’s life, from conception to the age of 2, are the most powerful determiners of a child’s long term success, both socially and in terms of educational outcomes. Our group was reading Building Great Britons, the report, published earlier this year, of the cross-party First 1001 Days All Parliamentary Group, where the first (of nine) recommendations is that

Achieving the very best experience for children in their first 1001 days should be a mainstream undertaking by all political parties … Recognising its influence on the nature of our future society, the priority given to the first 1001 days should be elevated to the same level as Defence of the Realm.

Stirring stuff – and all of it resonates more powerfully with me, as a leader of learning in a very deprived area of the country, than the call to create a ‘supercharged approach’ by Nicky Morgan – which appears to be another means to create a world of stand-alone academies and free schools, rather than address the key social causes of poor academic achievement.

We are very proud of the work that we do so passionately to close the gaps in learning at our school; we recognise that we need to do this as soon as possible. Over the last two years we have developed an extended early years team – to start working with our potential students from the very beginning of their life – in our mission to create learners from ‘Birth to Bankside’ (B2B – we love a good brand here). To this end we work, as the 1001 report recommends, in strong partnership with our local authority partners: public health, NHS, and colleagues in early years and children services. The need for a strong and committed public sector has never been more critical to achieve this (read the 1001 report and see for yourself). It worries me that if we focus solely on raising standards in stand-alone schools we will not be ‘the spark to light a fire’ to paraphrase Ms Morgan’s final thoughts at conference. Rather, without looking at the bigger, more complex and divisive social picture, we could be the fuse that ignites further inequality.

Since I have started typing this blog over 20 fireworks have screamed and blasted their way through the quietness of a post-school evening. I know for certain that these are thrown not by teenagers who have all been failed by education (many of them attended this school and ‘did well’) but by young people who do not have the advantages of coming from a home where, according to the CPRT report, they have a greater chance of life-long success. Homes where ‘parents have higher incomes and higher levels of education and … they have a place to study, where there are reference books and newspapers.’ Are we going to let the future of these children go up in ideological smoke, at the expense of really closing the gap, as we focus on outcomes and not on root causes? I sincerely hope not.

If you work in or near Leeds and wish to become involved in its CPRT network, contact administrator@cprtrust.org.uk.

August 27, 2014 by Robin Alexander

Does education pass the family test?

In 2010, Michael Gove renamed Labour’s Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) the Department for Education (DfE), at a stroke ejecting Ed Balls’s tiresomely winsome munchkins from the Sanctuary Buildings atrium, ending baffled discussion about whether DCSF stood for comedy and science fiction or curtains and soft furnishings, and heralding a gimmick-free return to core business.

Then last week, with the Gove supremacy a receding memory but with Govine policies firmly in place for the duration, the PM announced that from November 2014 every new government policy ‘will be assessed for its impact on the family.’ The PM’s admission that too many existing policies have failed his ‘family test’ must prompt us to ask whether he had in mind the doings of the demoted Gove. After all, who needs munchkins to tell them that children’s needs and family circumstances are as inextricably the business of schools and hence DfE as are curriculum, tests and standards?

Labour appeared to understand this relationship, up to a point. So the Cambridge Primary Review found widespread support for Sure Start, EYFS, Every Child Matters, the Children’s Act, the Childcare Act, Every Parent Matters, the Children’s Plan and Narrowing the Gap, an impressive procession of ‘joined-up’ initiatives through which the Labour government sought to reduce childhood risk, increase childhood protection, support families and maximise educational opportunities. But CPR also reported growing and often intense opposition to the same government’s apparatus of high stakes testing, higher stakes inspection, performance tables, naming, shaming and closely prescribed pedagogy, all of which also impacted on children and families, with outcomes that remain hotly contested.

In any event, this so-called standards agenda was widely thought to exacerbate what, in her important research survey for CPR, Berry Mayall called the ‘scholarisation’ of childhood: the incursion of schooling and its demands ever more deeply into children’s lives at an ever younger age, leaving little room for a childhood unimpeded by pressures which in many other education systems, including some that perform better than the UK in the international PISA tests, start a year or even two years later than in England. When Britain came bottom of a rather different performance table, UNICEF’s comparative rating of childhood well-being in rich countries, opponents of these tendencies drew the obvious conclusion.

Hence the reaction: Sue Palmer’s best-selling ‘Toxic Childhood’, the Children’s Society Good Childhood Enquiry, and latterly the Save Childhood Movement. And hence, true to the laws of policy physics, the ministerial counter-reaction, from Labour’s ‘these people are peddling out-of-date research’ – a lamely unoriginal and transparently defensive response to unpalatable evidence – to the Coalition’s earthier recourse to personal abuse: ‘Marxists intent on destroying our schools … enemies of promise … bleating bogus pop-psychology’.

Meanwhile, the rich became richer and the poor poorer.

In relation to children and families, then, there is all too often a pretty fundamental policy disconnect. Education policy may give with one hand but take with another; and education policy strives to narrow the gap that economic policy no less assiduously maintains and even widens, not pausing to ask why the gap is there in the first place. For surely Treasury ministers know as well as their DfE colleagues how closely the maps of income, health, wellbeing and educational achievement coincide; that unequal societies have unequal education systems and unequal educational outcomes; and that equity is a significant factor in other nations’ PISA success – though in all this we need to avoid facile cause-effect claims and we know that fine schools can and do break the mould. Yet will the ‘family test’ be applied as stringently to the policies of Chancellor Osborne, I wonder, as to those of Education ex-Secretary Gove? Or will the social and educational fallout of austerity be written off as unavoidable collateral damage?

But I suspect that linking the policy dots is not what the new family test is about and each policy will be assessed in isolation. In any case, how many new education policies, if any, will the government introduce in the eight months before the 2015 general election? And at a time when the demography of childhood and parenting is more diverse than ever, how exactly is ‘family’ defined? Isn’t the family test both too muddled and too late?

For its part, CPRT, like CPR before it, is operating more holistically, and we have invited leading researchers to help us. Kate Pickett, co-author of The Spirit Level – that groundbreaking epidemiological study of the causes, manifestations and consequences of inequality – to help us. In one of five new CPRT research surveys, Kate is revisiting her own and CPR’s evidence on equality, equity and disadvantage and examining more recent data in order to re-assess causes, consequences and solutions. Her report will be published early in 2015. In parallel, we have commissioned research updates on children’s voice, development and learning from Carol Robinson and Usha Goswami; and on assessment and teaching from Wynne Harlen and David Hogan. Squaring the schooling/family circle we have embarked, in collaboration with the University of York, on an Educational Endowment Foundation-supported project to develop and test the power of high quality classroom talk to increase engagement and raise learning standards among those of our children who are growing up in the most challenging circumstances.

You’ll find information about all these projects on the CPRT website. We hope and believe they will pass the family test.

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