EDUCATION CUTS DON'T HEAL - £2bn CUTBACKS

In 1996, at the Labour Party Conference, Tony Blair famously stated that his top three priorities on coming to office were 'education, education, education'. In 2009, as the New Labour project drifts inexorably towards its terminus, Ed Balls, now the Minister for Education, has set out to cut £2bn from schools funding, which is 5%.

Throughout the duration of the New Labour administration, there has been tolerance of, followed by flirtation with, followed by an opened armed welcome to, market forces. New Labour continued in much the same vein as Thatcher - favouring deregulation and free trade, neo-liberal policies and privatisation. Despite their spin in the run on to 1997, Labour were evidently not the new modest socialism that the country voted for. In fact, the gap between rich and poor has grown under Labour - as can be seen here.

And now the shit has well and truly hit the fan. Banks are collapsing, big businesses such as Woolworths have disappeared from the highstreet, small vendors are being forced to close their shops, the nation is in huge personal debt, our industry is being outsourced to countries with a less expensive labour force and there are close to 2.5m unemployed. And who is going to foot the bill?

Of course. It is us.

The government plans to make its biggest cuts in public services - in health, education, housing, justice, culture... And the first minister to declare the cuts in his department is Ed Balls (ever willing to please the Prime Minister). The plan is to reduce the number of headteachers and senior management - federations of schools will develop meaning a management team can run numerous schools simultaneously to save money. This comes only months after the very same department welcomed the need for greater personalisation of educational provision, in the form of personal tutors and so on. Balls seems to be of the opinion that headteachers are little other than bureaucrats - commodities - that can be disposed and dispensed at will. Balls, in his wisdom, feels this will not affect the quality of teaching.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Balls said “If we are going to keep teachers and teaching assistants on the front line, that means we are going to have to be disciplined on public sector pay, including in education.” How fucking generous of him. It's nice that he is showing the courtesy to those working in education by not getting rid of their jobs to plug a deficit caused by his party's wanton liberalism, it's nice that he is only going to curb their pay. He is quite the altruist. Similarly, after asserting he hopes that comprehensives may come together into federations with a single headteacher and a number of deputies, he adds "But we are not going to have larger class sizes." Again, very generous, despite the fact that class sizes are already too large, are having a detrimental effect on learning and are affecting those of lowest ability the most.

Schools will also be expected to cut back on their purchasing of books, teaching equipment and computers and individual schools are expected to make 10% spending cuts.

My God. Education is Labour's pride and joy, along with the NHS. If this is what the government is doing to Education, I dread to think what will be cut in other public services. The issue is that school children and teachers should not be punished for the laissez-faire capitalism of City bankers and the governments selective myopia. I don't know how Ed Ball dares state that he is doing something good by the teachers by not kicking them out of their jobs to save money.

If Balls is looking to make some saving cuts for his department, he should look a little closer to home. The DCSF which Balls heads most probably has more than its fair share of policy wonks - certainly enough to be able to churn out contradictory policy findings and agree with both, before deciding they haven't the money for either. Or maybe Labour should cancel its commitment to ID cards, or to Trident, or call back the troops - all which are far less necesssary and financially gumptious.

This does not bode well. Cuts may well be necessary, but certainly not in education.

WHAT MAKES A GREAT HEADTEACHER?

Being a Time Lord is very helpful, or so say the primary school children surveyed by the National College for the Leadership of Schools and Children's Services, as Dr Who came out to be the 'Dream Headteacher'. Leaving Alan Sugar, Jamie Oliver and Lewis Hamilton feeling painfully inferior, the Doctor (in his David Tennant carnation)also managed to pip Barack Obama, JK Rowling and Cheryl Cole into second place. And funnily enough, when the same options were offered to the adult readers of the Education Guardian page, Doctor Who was the adults' Dream Head too, although my choice of Michelle Obama looks set to come in in 2nd place.

Asked why they had chosen their particularly dream teacher, nearly half of the children did so because they were 'fun'. Also important was whether they could look up to this headteacher and their intelligence.

This helps to see what children seek in a headteacher, a role that can be of huge significance to their education and development - fun, intelligent and a good role model. Children themselves clearly place high value on their headteachers too - 75% of children surveyed said that their headteacher made them happy to be in school, and a similar percentage stated that their headteacher was fair and understood right from wrong.

The role of a headteacher then is quite different from that of a teacher. Although the head is not as much of a frontline character in the classroom as the teachers, they nonetheless play a large role for the pupils themselves. In a primary school in which I've volunteered, I overheard Year 6 children talking about the previous headteacher, who had left over 3 years ago. The position itself, ignoring the individual personalities, is something quite mythical in the childhood imagination - 'the Headteacher' is the character children read about in many books, see on children's TV. 'The Head' is where you get sent if you misbehave. 'The Head' is a place as much as a person and is a by-word for authority.

The tricky position of being a good teacher demamds that you are the figurehead of the school, that you command authority, that you are intelligent, that you are fun and that you can discipline. This is quite a difficult combination and one, for those that can master it, warrants a very healthy salary.

THE VIRTUES OF SMALLER CLASS SIZES

An earlier one of my blogposts was on the subject of Teaching Assistants, relating to an Institute of Education study which states that they are detrimental to a child's learning. The given reason for this is that the pupils are not spending enough time with their teacher. A better conclusion than getting rid of Teaching Assistants would be to have smaller classrooms.

Some of Professor Blatchford's previous research would support this. Perhaps the most consistent finding concerning class sizes effects on classroom processes is that reduced class size is related to individualisation of teaching. At a time when the government is promoting individualised learning and personal tutoring, a cut in class sizes would have an instant effect. His 2005 research with Basset and Brown also stated that children in large primary classes were more likely to engage in passive behaviour, listening to the teacher, while in smaller classes pupils were more likely to interact in an active, sustained way with teachers.
These quotations are taken from Blatchford, Basset & Brown 2008

Smaller classes lead to more pupils being 'on task', which is of considerable importance, as this means a greater number of pupils are not having their learning disrupted by other pupils.


Blatchord, Basset & Brown 2008

If the reason for needing teaching assistants is because in large classes there are more disruptions, a reduction in class size would lead, you'd expect, to better behaviour and less need for teaching assistants. Teaching assistants would then be able to have a more focused role; supporting individual pupils with particular difficulties for example. A reduction of class size to 20 children per class in primary schools would need considerably more teachers but the investment would pay dividends. A cut such as this would lead to more individualised learning, reduce the need for personal tutoring which the government has suggested bringing in (at great cost), and is also very well-timed as the government is rebuilding schools at great pace.

THE SEPTEMBER BABY - BIRTHDAYS AND INTELLIGENCE

Today holds a special significance if you were educated in the UK. If today is your birthday, that means you were the certainly oldest pupil in your class, and that you have had this status from when you first entered the nursery school.

The significance of this is huge, and is even greater, the earlier the school year you choose to examine. If you consider Reception-age children, the child born on September 1st (5 years old) has been alive for 20% longer, than her classmate, born on August 31st of the year after. The developmental, cognitive and physical capacities of a 5 year old are far superior to those of a 4 year old. And of a 6 year old compared to a 5 year old. Of a 7 to a 6... The pattern goes on to this day, as a second year undergraduate.

Why should being older have an effect? One would think it beneficial to be born younger in the year, as the pupil will be in school earlier in their life than the older child, thus receiving more education. In fact, there is much to be said for gaining the reputation of being the brightest in the class. Consider once more the Reception class of mixed 4 and 5 year old children. A September born five year old is going to be much better able to retain knowledge, to pay attention for longer time spans and so on. This child be rewarded for these abilities - this reward is likely to reinforce their behavior. Over time, the child comes to internalise the identity of being intelligent, and of doing well in school. And it all goes on from there. What the teacher believes, the pupils achieves.

This may seem a little far-fetched as an idea - surely factors such as type of education, 'natural intelligence', parental support and parental education all influence academic performance. Undoubtedly they do, but I did a little study myself to test it, using everyone favourite timewasting tool, Facebook.

Using only my Facebook friends educated in the UK, who are currently studying with me at University of Cambridge, I can infer that all of my sample attained at least AAA at A Level - this seems a suitable enough measure of academic ability, if not that elusive entity, real intelligence. I have a sample, then, of 111 students. Taking membership at Cambridge as an indicator of academic performance through education, you'd expect more of my friends/fellow students to be born in September than any other month. Then October, then Nov and so on until we reach the youngest in the annual cohort, the August borns. Here is the result.



As is quite clear, the theory holds true. September has the highest number, with 16 or the 111 being born in the first month of the academic year. The lowest number is the group born in July (the sample in which I am one of the 5 members). There are fluctuations, notably in January and June. These can be explained by my small sample.

As for the proliferation of June births specfically, it is worth remembering that this is not a random sample but is a sample made up of my friends. Being a July baby myself, I am statistically more likely to have similar educational experiences to those pupils born in June, July and August. This mutual experience could be a meeting point for friendships - if one's educational identity has, as I suspect, an influence on one's personality, it is perfectly logical that people naturally seek out those similar to themselves. This could explain why I have more friends born in June than would be expected by the theory.

So if you were born in September, congratulations, it will undoubtedly have served you well through your education. And if you were born in the summer holidays, keep up the effort.

ARE CHILDRENS BOOKS TOO REALISTIC?

Anne Fine's view that childrens books today are too pessimistic and realistic hascaused considerable dispute amongst writers and educators. Speaking at Edinburgh Book Festival, Fine asserted that realism 'may have gone too far in children's literature', and worries about the effect that reading so many books without happy endings will have on children. She questions what effect these books will have on their young readers' aspirations.

The Guardian today reports that her remarks have caused 'a rash of sneering from the literati' who have denigrated Fine in the way childrens authors know best - by comparing her to Enid Blyton.

The question then is whether it is idealism and escapism which is best for children, or whether they are better reading books that ground them in reality. My main objection to the escapism/realism opposition is that it is seen as synonymous with creativity/dull. My own view is that the best books for children to read are those that are both creative and realistic - my prime example would be John Boyne's 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'; it is by no means uplifting but there is a lot of positive to be found in it - a lot like life, you could say. Other books that I read in my late childhood that combined the creative with the real is Jostein Gaarder's 'Sophie's World', which dazzling combines a narrative about 14 year old Sophie, and about the history of continental philosophy. It is too easy to connote realism with pessimism and negativity; to do so is misleading, and overlooks a lot of fantastic fiction. Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is another example.

And the same goes for fiction for younger children. Alistair McCall Smith, writer of the No1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, has aired a passionate defence of "nasty" books, like the ones he read in his childhood. "Children like to see gruesome events in stories and some characters come to really nasty ends in Dahl's books. I don't think children should be sheltered from these stories." Roald Dahl is a favourite of mine, and although his stories cannot be called wholly 'realistic' - The Witches, Giant Peaches, Oompa Lumpas - they aren't wholly fantastical either. Their child protagonists often have very real lives, live in very real families and face very real troubles - consider Matilda and the lack of affection her parents have for her, the poverty of Charlie Bucket - and the fantasy is framed within this reality.

Michael Morpurgo makes an important point that it is better for children to be reading any book, rather than none at all.

It says a lot about our society that the terms 'bleak' and 'realistic' are almost interchangeable, but childrens fiction is one of the most acccessible and entertaining ways to explain it all to children. There is something worth preserving in the unwavering optimism of escapist childrens writing - such as Enid Blyton and Beatrix Potter - but the fact remains that children enjoy grim realism - Goosebumps, Horrible Histories, A Series of Unfortunate Events. And as Morpurgo says, whatever gets children reading should be encouraged.