The cold heart of primary teaching

TED lectures normally have their desired effect of leaving me feeling inspired, invigorated in thought and galvanised into action. But as well as these effects, one I have seen recently – an excellent presentation by Rita Pierson, a teacher with 40 years experience - left me also with a bubbling queasiness in my stomach. Rita Pierson hits the nail on the head when she speaks of the human connection between teacher and child – with the teacher as advocate, ally and champion – as being at the heart of what children need. As Pierson says, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. It is the key to good teaching and good learning. It is in those interactions that you find the glimmer of magic which allows teaching to become the most rewarding way to spend your working life.

And it is so depressingly low on our schools’ agendas that these relationships barely have time to take root, never mind come to fruition. If the relationship between teachers and their pupils is the heart of education, then it is a neglected heart beating anxiously, becoming colder with time, and it is beginning to affect the organs around it.

This isn't because of teachers’ lack of sensitivity, though it is fair to say that some teachers become so used to the demands of the modern classroom – the assessment, the AfL, the data-tracking, the reading levels, the next step marking, the APP – that the child fades away. It is not completely unheard of to hear teachers talk about the ‘teaching the 3Bs’, as an example phrase. These Level 3Bs are children, with lives and emotions, barriers to learning and hidden gifts, with histories and stories and aspirations... and names! But nonetheless, they are the 3Bs.

The daily lives of many teachers and their relations with pupils are far from the ideals they might have entertained when they became teachers. Nobody excitedly clutches their university graduation certificate thinking ‘Yes! Now I can help 5 year olds to identify split digraphs confidently’. The very appeal of teaching is the connection between teachers and pupils, but the contemporary classroom culture, which has been slowly fermenting for a few decades, has gradually weakened this bond, dehumanising the whole process of educating.

Being the teacher you want to be is not simply an individual task, to be solved by altering your own actions. There are so many obstacles which prevent the empathic bonds from developing – deep marking, for example, although carrying academic benefits for pupils as a type of formative assessment, drains away the teachers free time which might otherwise be spent building and strengthening these relationships. The whole apparatus of primary education could have been designed to prevent teachers from getting to know their pupils. I might know they can decode 79% of a list of ‘high-frequency words’ and might know enough to predict exactly how they might misspell a word, but I don’t know what they did at the weekend, or what they like to do, or how to pronounce their name properly. This is so wrong.

Partly, this is because of the maelstrom of expectations placed on our charges’ young shoulders, which guides every single action we undertake for them. We give the children time to read from the carefully tailored bookshelf in order to foster their love of reading. Great, but this then means the first chunk of the day is spent in silence. Some schools demand silence in corridors and when lining up. 

Every temporal nook and cranny in that timetable is packed full – guided reading, class assembly, current affairs talk, class council, silent reading. Every lesson is spent feeling the sands of time cascade, as content is pumped into their workbooks, in order to conform to illogical and unnecessary curricular expectations. A whole day could go by without ever interacting with the children, outside of lesson talk.

There are probably some who don’t see this as a problem. Maybe this pining for a better human relation with the children would be seen as some sentimentalist reminiscence from the educational backwaters, from the days of low ambition. Are these not just the gushy laments of an enemy of promise?

One week, there was a girl who came into my class every single day, wanting to share something with the class. In response, she received my “We need to do the register now.” or my “Now is our silent reading time, that’s what you need to be doing.” or my “Maybe later, if we get time.” or my “If we get everything done.”

We never get everything done.

Now in the end, all she wanted to do was share the fact that she had bought a new unusual pencil case at the weekend, and she wanted to show it off. She should be able to share these trivialities. All of the kids should. These ‘trivialities’ are their priorities.

One of my other kids came bounding in fifteen minutes early last week, before school had started, with a huge smile on his face. “Good morning Sir!” He jollied over towards me. In reply, I gave him a polite but clear “Out you go please, I’m busy.”

And then I felt like an absolute tosser. Our working culture is making tossers of all of us. Many of our kids have enough people who don’t have time for them at home, for whatever reason.

I want to be the person they run up to with a smile in the morning. I want to be the person they share their stories with. I want them to trust me enough to tell me what’s wrong. I want them to love being in my lessons. I want them to want to come to school. I want them to do well whilst enjoying school, not because I am forcefeeding them knowledge.  

This is what lots of teachers want and we shouldn’t accept anything less. As long as our working culture encourages us to see a room full of assessment data and target grades, rather than funny little critters with hopes and dreams, ripe and ready to share, we’re going to be doing a disservice to them.

We need to be hearing their poems and praising their drawings. We need to be hearing their qualms and calming their nerves. We need to be their reliable champions, not their pallid and data-obsessed jailors. 

Schools as Exam Factories

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) have sagely announced that British schools have become 'exam factories' - conveyor belts endlessly churning out pupil-products ill-equipped for the world of work. The CBI should appreciate better than most organisations that have success in business involves cutting corner - minimum input, maximum output. Is it really surprising that after New Labour and the Conservatives have pounded the education system for 25 years with marketisation policy, is it really that surprising that schools end up behaving like businesses?

Businesses outsource their labour for greater profit - sure, this might not help Gwyn the Welsh production line operator, as he sees his job being produced by a robot or a Chinese worker, but it does cut costs and maximise the company's profit, which ultimately is what matters. Likewise for Gwyn's son at school - sure, being forcefed exam technique at the expense of more well-rounded learning is not overwhelmingly helpful, but it does mean he will pass more exams, which is what matters for schools and league tables.

And what is one teacher able to do? If you have a factory making losses, do you direct your ire at an individual cog in the machine, and suggest it has 'lost its way'? Hmm.

You know what, the CBI's report seems pretty sound-minded - league tables and a restrictive curriculum are bad things, and maybe children are coming out of school not as 'well-rounded' as they should be.

But whose fault is that?

It is because schools have been forced by politicians into a market model that they have been nudged into this situation anyway. It is because they are made accountable in order to become consumer-choices. It is because children's success in life is judged only in a quantitative rather than a qualitative manner. It is because schools that don't comply find themselves in the process of forced academisation and find themselves stripped of their autonomy.

Schools shouldn't be exam factories but the audacity of business to take the moral high-ground is quite sickening. It is because schools have been made into businesses that this has happened in the first place. It is because of the looming influence of market forces that children's exam's 'are' their learning, rather than being mere indicators of it.

Treat schools like schools and they'll behave like them. Treat them like businesses and they'll have no choice but to act like businesses.

Why all teachers agree with David Laws.

Michael Gove and David Laws surprised the teaching profession today with the announcement of, for once, an accurate and sound-minded policy. Teachers refuse to work longer than the 9 - 3, and as we know, those six hours are dedicated to the systematic beheading of every child's hopes for the future. Children's natural buoyancy and resilience makes this an exhausting ordeal, and teachers' reserves of negativity are insufficiently full to finish their task: to drag down GCSE grades and ruin their pupils' lives, because teachers are lazy, vindictive and they hate children.

As such, teachers welcome David Laws' announcement that teachers are to blame for fostering 'depressingly low expectations'. Maybe now this has been recognised, teachers can be permitted to want their pupils to do ok for themselves, thus saving them the effort of whispering demoralising abuse into the ear of every child in their class each day, reminding them to never venture outside of their home towns (unless they want to attend a mediocre higher education institution, for these are permissible).

The Words of the Teacher at 3:10pm

Right then! Ten minutes, what was it - ohyeah - ok!

Hand signal! Hand signal! Look at sir - TABLE POINTS! 

...

Right - you're not looking - ohhhhh kay. PENCILS ... ohhhhh dear. Pencils down, I shouldn't have to say that. Right, now we've been talking today abou-

...

...

Look at sir!! Table points!!!

Thank you - about liquids. We did our experiment and we thought about the particles. Tell your partner everything you know about particles. 

What do you know about particles. Party! Particles particles. What are particles. They're dots. What is particles?

OHHHKAYTHENLETMESEEE ... what do you think?

... Hmm, not happy, you had time for that. I will come back to you. Someone on this table then NOT someone... who has their hand up... ok.

Hmm! Not bad, sort of... How about - actually no, we'll come back to you now you've had a bit of extra time. What do you think then?

No            you can not. Time waits for no man, not least you. 

Very sad.

I want to choose someone else then, maybeeeeeeee - WHAT, is it so urgent you need to - of course it is. What then? 

Honest to God. You are nine you really ought to be able to control your bladder a bit more than this. YES, of course you can go, I don't want - oh forget it, just please go now. Thanks. Be quick! Right, oh. Erm - right so I was sayiiiiing. What you need to do is - PENCIL DOWN - oh ok a new question can you IF YOU DON'T LISTEN                           you won't know the question will you? Exactly, so what do you need to do? Yes.

Right - actually, you know what, I'm good at telling the time, I know what time it is. No help needed thanks.

What was I saying - ah! OK, last one then - show me you learned it - can you name any liquid - any at all - talk to you partner.

Can you name a liquid!!! LIQUID LIQUID!!!! Liquid. Birena and lemon. Coke. Juice. Oil. My wee. No my wee. Rain. What ... what was the question. IS IT HOMETIME YET? Show me.

OH KAY THEN. Right, I'm lookinggggggg for...

Ah, you look like you're listening hard - can you name me any liquid.

No. Are you seri - no, chimney is not a liquid. Right just line up.

Lesson observations are good, in theory.

Lesson observations are good, in theory. The problem is that leadership teams don't necessarily give much thought to theory.

If delivered sensitively and formatively, only the paranoid and the brazenly unprofessional teacher need fear observation. The issue is that all too often, schools do not operate in the 'community of practice' mindset whereby colleagues co-operate and support one another - schools have whispering walls and as the salary gap between classroom teachers and school leaders has expanded, so to has the professional and emotional distance. Rather than being seen as an opportunity to support good practice, 'learning walks' are often perceived as intrusive snooping. Sometimes the suspicions are correct.

There is no wonder that teachers and their unions are touching cloth over the abandonment of the three-hour annual cap on lesson observations - too many schools are run through a culture of fear which is wholly incompatible with the reflective practice that observations should promote. The perfect outcome from a lesson observation could be that a struggling teacher identifies and discusses the areas of weakness in their teaching. From this point, plans can pieced together and constructive targets can be set. It's a shame then that so many teachers work in schools where admission of imperfection is tantamount to putting the noose on yourself to save the executioner's time.

Here's my confession. I love a good observation. I even love a bad one. Maybe it is the luxury of being a trainee, but I feel quite able to highlight my weaknesses and I think my teaching has become stronger as a result. I've known what needs to improve and I've worked on it.

Observations are potentially one of the cheapest and most effective forms of CPD could offer, and all teachers would benefit, but so long as Wilshaw is telling headteachers that good leadership is all about eccentric fear-mongering bastardry, teachers will be understandably and justifiably hostile to observations.

The culture of schools needs to change before any genuine benefits can be experienced by teachers.

Teacher's heartfelt apology to the government

Dear Cameron, Clegg, Gove and ilk

I didn't want to write this letter to you but I've had one too many restless nights and I hope this little letter, sealed with good intentions, will serve both as atonement and catharsis.

Let me contextualise.

I've been in a muddle. I'm not saying life was ever enormously rosy, and I can't isolate one day when things started to change, but all I know is this: I've been riddled by this heavy sense of confusion for the last few months. Like an invisible leaden saddlebag , I felt as though I was carrying something around with me - on the Tube, to the library, to the school - some great unknown was dragging me down.

I agonised.

The children looked at me differently. Was it me, I thought. Was this ethereal shackle that groped at my leg beginning to show its effects on my once youthful face?

And it was then, looking into the sullen eyes of the questioning child that I realised exactly what it was, which demon I had been shouldering as I hobbled to the staffroom for my fifth coffee before the morning bell sounded.

Cameron, Clegg, Gove and ilk, it was guilt.

The newspapers said so forever and all the warning signals were there. I should have read those withering editorials and should have lapped up the sound-minded wisdom seeping out of Wilshaw's every pore.

Let me say it in bold capslock, so nobody can doubt the sincerity of my penance.

I'M SORRY THAT I, AS A STATE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER, AM THE ROOT CAUSE OF EVERY SINGLE SOCIAL PROBLEM.

 It feels good to say it, thanks. Let my remorse gush on.

I'm sorry that my unwaveringly low aspirations for my pupils is putting them on a production line to prison.


I'm sorry that my lax discipline and the fact that I have my top button unbuttoned caused the London riots.

I'm sorry that by virtue of the fact I am employed by you, rather than some fusty old good school that children pay to get into, I am genetically a Marxist terrorist.

I'm sorry that I am a feckless workshy scrounger and, but for my magnetism towards the long holidays that constitute 'teaching', that I would rather find some other non-commital job for lazy feckless moaners, like nursing or social work.

This is really invigorating Cameron, Clegg, Gove and ilk.

Hope you don't mind if I rag out the last dregs of my remorseful pap for you to inspect.

I'm sorry that during that one particular bad day a couple of years ago, I took my eye off of the ball and because of my personal mistake I caused a global economic recession. On behalf of schools up and down the country, let me say that I am pleased - nay, proud! - to take the spending cuts on the chin. I know that it was me, little me getting a bit overzealous with my photocopying and a bit wanton when buying my red pens, who caused this mess and I am honored that you would offer me the chance to venerate myself of this guilt by scalping the aspirations and opportunities of every wide-eyed little child who has the misfortune to be sinking into the intellectual cesspit which is my classroom.

 You can doubt my intelligence. You can doubt my professionalism. You can doubt my commitment.

But please, please, don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise.

Don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise for personally knocking on the front door of every house on every council estate in the UK to remind every parent who opens up that their children are destined to fail. Don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise for those few bad days when I've expressed a wimpering gripe about being a bit stressed out - I was just being weak (not like you real men!). Don't doubt my sincerity when I apologise for leaving my station by the whiteboard to trundle about with a placard once or twice; it was a bad phase in my life but I have clearly - as you can see from this uplifting letter - seen the light.

I can't thank you enough for allowing me, as a teacher, to publicly shoulder the blame for creating the festering sodden blitzkreig which is Britain in 2012

Keep up the good work all of you.

Pedagoggles

When teaching as a 'calling' means 'put up and shut up'

To be an outstanding teacher almost inevitably requires you to spend heaps of your own time, unpaid, putting in the extra hours. Whether it is through meticulous marking, the planning and creation of inspiring lessons and resources, the barrage of constant detailed assessment or even the sleepless nights spent worrying about a child's welfare, being a teacher is anything but the 9-3. As the children and their parents wake up, the teachers are there - in school - laying out resources, organising assessment, beautifying the class. When the children go home, the teachers grab onto their coffee and settle down for another 3 hours of work. There can't be many jobs where unpaid work is expected to quite the same degree: if a teacher worked only the hours they were paid, most would be inadequate.

Yet when teachers complain - either verbally or through union activities - they are castigated with a venom reserved usually only for Tube drivers and rubbish collectors. What links the teachers, the tube drivers and rubbish collectors? They are taken for granted. You dump yourself on a train platform and expect a train to transport you. You dump your rubbish outside the front door and expect it to disappear. And you dump your kids at the school gate and expect them to be occupied for 6 hours.

This phantasmagorical six-week break - ignoring for now that the start is often spent tying up loose ends of one year, and the end is used preparing the next year - serves to shut down any argument a teacher might make.

 I am being asked to work longer hours for, effectively, less pay.
But you get loads of holidays.  

I am being forced to stay in school beyond my working hours.
Yeah, but it's only a few weeks until the next holiday.

In dribs and drabs, teachers' working conditions are being eroded while the pressures, workload and expectations are raised. Teachers already work ridiculously long hours - certainly most that I know. Anyone who lives with a teacher will know that it doesn't 'stop' when you leave the building - your lessons, your children and your classroom come back with you. Why is it like this? Why are teachers working for free so much, and why then, despite this, are they continually being asked to do more and more, without so much as a passive querying peep of dissent?

Because it's a 'calling'. Because it's 'more than just a job'. Because it's about 'making a difference'. Because it's about 'changing lives'. Because it's more a 'vocation' than a job. Because it's more of a 'lifestyle' than a profession. Tied into the cultural idea of the teacher is the idea of selflessness, almost sacrifice. So much of what we do can be justified by the phrase 'I'm doing it for the kids'.

Why are you getting up at half past five to get into work early?
I'm doing it for the kids.  

Why are you sat in on a Saturday night cutting out paper caterpillars with connectives on them, while others in your age bracket are enjoying a weekend of socialising on their juicy pay-packets?
I'm doing it for the kids.

Where is this argument going then? Am I going to argue that teachers shouldn't care about their work once they leave the school building? If I am, I am surely and thoroughly an uncaring selfish braggart who shouldn't work with children, right? Do you see the bind here? Ultimately, teachers are restricted to two choices, they can either continue to carry on taking on more and more of a backbreaking workload (all for the kids, obviously), or they can protest it (not in the benefit of the kids).

There is research behind this. Stephen Brookfield writes that  
Teachers who take the idea of vocation as the organizing concept for their professional lives may start to think of any day on which they don't come home exhausted as a day wasted...Thus what seems on the surface to be a politically neutral idea on which all could agree - that teaching is a vocation calling for dedication and hard work - may be interpreted by teachers as meaning that they should squeeze the work of two or three jobs into the space where one can sit comfortably.

We are in the uniquely restricted position of being expected to do whatever is asked of us, uncritically, or else not only is your work ethic called into question, but you are perceived to be weak (because it's an easy job anyway, right) and - most importantly - you are seen to lack devotion, love and care for the children you teach.

So maybe we should start questioning what it means when the pressure is heaped on, for the good of the kids.

Of course we want the best for the kids - for the kids in our class, we want it more than anyone else. It would just be better if providing a great education didn't mean grinding down the mental health and working rights of teachers.

How is it in the children's interest to have a pallid drained zombie for a teacher day in day out? How is it in the children's interest to have their teachers come into work resenting the place, as staff morale drops? It isn't.

It is in the interest of the cost-cutting government who want to pay the smallest number of staff possible to do the greatest amount of work. Headteachers might be the ones asking you to do it, but they don't have so much choice either. It starts at the top. Brookfield speaks of a 'self-destructive workaholism' which some teachers, proudly devoted to their careers, may wear like a badge of honour. I'm still very happy in my school, although there are constantly increasing but sensible pressures, but I know of many in other schools who are being driven to despair. But still, when they are on their knees, they will defend their school as 'doing it for the kids'. New recruits into the profession have been heard to bicker with braggadocios about how little sleep they have had, as though competing to see who can survive whilst being pushed the furthest. It's absurd.

We need to question these assumptions if we want to do what most of us became teachers to do - to love teaching, to love working with children and to help children to achieve their potential. Otherwise, it will only get worse.

All teachers should have access to academic journals

If I was feeling more artsy I would title this post 'The Frosted Mirror', because it is about teachers being unable to reflect properly. Pedagogical theorists place high esteem on those teachers who can engage with scholarly literature and incorporate research findings into their classroom practice. I agree with them and I think that the ability to draw upon high-quality research would be invaluable when striving to become a good teacher.

The government continually harp on about the low standards of entry into teaching and Gove has sought to professionalise teaching; if it is the teachers' subject knowledge that they wish to improve, then they should provide access to the educationalist journals to all teachers.

The venerable cast of educational theorists will be familiar to any trainee teacher - Bloom and his questions, Maslow and his hierachy, Vygotsky and his zones - but there is no expectation for a continuous engagement with classical and contemporary theory and research throughout one's teaching career. This absence is seen most clearly with the example of the notoriously restricted access to academic knowledge in lay society. Whether the desire is there or not (and it may well be laying dormant from understimulation), the point stands that teachers are unable to access the theory which undergirds good practice.

Those working towards their QTS are expected to synthesise theory and practice in order to demonstrate their competency, and though this is easily manipulated and made artificial by the 'snapshot' observations, the need to use - for example - Bloom's Taxonomy to differentiate questions within a lesson does breed good habits and good practice.

Policymakers who perceive, rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason, an underskilled teaching profession are faced with the decision of whether to focus their attention on attracting highly qualified new recruits to the profession, or embarking on retraining of current teachers. Compromise would always be the best option, but opening up access to academic journals to all teachers is not only a gesture of trust in the commitment and abilities of the profession but it would be an instant and invaluable resource.

For those teachers with the drive, ambition and/or know-how to research independently, they can get started immediately. For those who would benefit from extra help, it should be provided.

Despite the pessimistic zeitgeists which seem constantly to cast teachers in a bad light, across the educational profession you find levels of commitment which go way beyond most other professions. Dedication to pupils and their learning is the motivating force behind nocturnal planning, the spending of weekends trimming caterpillars out of A4 and requesting that everyone you know saves their cereal boxes for you. Good teachers care enough about their work to put in the extra effort. The precedent is there.

Theory and research are too valuable to be available only by those studying at university. If academic knowledge was connected to the classroom, it would facilitate the innovations, drive and deeper commitment that - in a rare triumvirate of agreement - teachers, politicians and inspectors all wish to see.

'The Gayest Kid Ever' - Gender, Sexualities and School

When in primary schools, I've quite often heard it said that a child is really gay. More recently, it was said that one boy is the Gayest Kid in the World. When a teacher says something like this, I usually doubt it carries any malicious intent and it is rarely said in an overtly condemnatory manner, but it remains a fixed character judgement and one which is harmful.

It is a textbook example of the concepts of the heterosexual matrix and normative heterosexuality in action.

The heterosexual matrix is the lens through which individuals in society make sense of the world through presupposing a coherent identity - eg male (sex), masculine (gender) and attracted to women (sexuality). By thinking through the heterosexual matrix, any deviation from the norm is one category affects how people conceive of the others. For example, an individual with an indeterminate biological sex becomes suspected of having a deviant gender, or an abnormal sexuality - see the sexual fetishisation of Thai 'ladyboys'.

Normative heterosexuality works closely with the heterosexual matrix, and provides a hegemonic validation for certain sexual and gender identities - making some identities normal and some abnormal. The processes of normative heterosexuality may be quite difficult to identify; this is exactly why they are so potent. In the establishment of a sense that certain genders are abnormal or unnatural or immoral or ungodly, you see the deployment of different discursive paradigms - in turn psychiatric, biological/eugenicist, ethical or delusional - which seek to present heterosexuality as the norm.

Back to gay kids. The first hurdle is the entrenched presumption, ingrained in Western culture since Rousseau, of childhood innocence. The willful (willed?) ignorance of child sexuality is something which has been problematised by Foucault in theory, and by the research of Emma Renold, among others, in educational research. The lengths to which schools and adults go to prevent displays of child sexuality stand in hypocritical contradiction to the denial of its existence - why strain to prevent the manifestations something which doesn't exist?

Children have sexualities and sexual cultures - most of you need only think back to when you were 9,10,11 to know this - but this isn't the topic here.

When the teachers say that a certain child is - as I have recently heard from a teacher - 'the gayest kid ever', they are quite clearly not talking of sexualities whatsoever. They were not implying anything about the sexual practices of the particular 7 year old boy - instead, the teacher makes the potent conflation of sex/gender/sexuality.

In my time in schools, I have not once heard a teacher refer to any of her young female pupils as a big lesbian, certainly not the biggest lesbian ever. In only a handful of schools can I recall girls policing other girls so explicitly, using terminology of female homosexuality. It appears to be a phenomenon curiously weighted against male children that they must prove their straight sexuality, rather than have it presumed or rendered invisible, as with girls. The Gayest Kid Ever's gendered identity is only problematic because of his biological sex, and because of the 'asymmetry' between the two. Male (sex) children should act like boys (gender); sexuality is called into question for those who don't.

In terms of gender identity, the school and the playground are dangerous places for a boy in the process of constructing his sense of self, his subjectivity, in the situated context of the different masculine identities available to him. Most boys will play the game of masculinity. They will go out into the playground or sports field every lunchtime without fail for an hour of football: they might not be in the mood for it, it might have been played unfairly for years, they might want to do something else, they might (shock horror) dislike football, but most will still play. Not the Gayest Kid in the World though. Having seen the procession of injured peers pass by him, and witnessing the bullying and fights, he decides he'd rather have something else as a hobby. But if football is a site for the construction of masculinity, to be playing outside the touchlines positions the Gayest Kid in the World alongside the other excluded people - the girls, the younger kids, the women, the disabled and the bullied.

When a teacher says that a child is the Gayest Kid in the World, what I think they are trying to do is somehow 'apologize' for the gender of the child - the hushed-tones way in which the 'information' about these children is given to me, as an outsider, almost seems like I am being given a disclaimer. There isn't usually any overt malice, but the child is nonetheless barricaded into this paradoxical master status. The atypical gender performance of a 7 year old boy - be it through something as stereotypical as being 'overdramatic' or things like disliking football or being tactile - calls into question their sexuality (which is thought not to exist).

Nobody benefits from this. From being told about his 'gayness' I know nothing more about the child, other than that the teachers perceive him to be different enough from the rest of the boys that he warrants his own label. As male children (sex) who perform their gender differently by not behaving like the other boys (gender) are gradually pushed to the side and silenced, all that remains to be seen is a narrow vision of boys doing their gender 'properly'. These boys get into fights, argue, don't voice their frustrations except in outburst and the same teacher who would label the Gayest Kid in the World would explain away these conflicts with "Boys will be boys".

So long as teachers are complicit in constructing the one-sided battle between Real Boys and the Gay Kids, boys will be boys, but these boys might not want to be boys in this way. So long as schools perpetuate the heterosexual matrix, gender violence will be inflicted on their children.

TROOPS TO TEACHERS

More than anything else, with this post I want to highlight a strange discrepancy in political rhetoric about people's eligibility to teach. The idea of a 'Troops to Teachers' programme, following the lead of the T3 programme in America has been floated around by the Conservatives for a few years now, and after a report by the Centre for Policy Studies seems to be pushing the idea towards a reality.

I am not against soldiers. What I find unsettling is the idea that the sole fact that they are soldiers, that they have gone through military service, makes them particularly eligible to teach, and particularly so in inner city schools. I'm sure that some ex-servicemen would make great teachers; I'm sure that some would be awful. But likewise for ex-shopworkers, ex-mechanics, ex-doctors, ex-hairdressers, ex-anythings. The Conservatives' unerring love affair with discipline, usually to the detriment of creativity, seems to posit soldiers' militaristic obediance and hierarchical structure as some form of 'ideal type' classroom.

I'm not sure about your experiences in school, but with me, the lessons in which I learnt the most, and in which the pupils most engaged with and liked their teachers, were those lessons which we led by teachers who interacted with us, who 'had a laugh' and who respected our views. Conversely, the worst lessons were those in the chalk and talk mould, which involved the lone pedagogue reading from a textbook to his charges, who had been threatened into stillness and silence. Now obviously, I'm not suggesting that all 'troops to teachers' will necessary fit into the latter teaching style, but from how I am interpreting it, this is what the Conservatives are heralding as the major innovation of such a programme.

One final point, about suitability. If a candidate has a criminal record, although the crimes may not relate to one's suitability to teach, they nonetheless must be declared and the employers make a decision upon that knowledge. You can imagine the uproar if the parents, or - God forbid - the redtop press, discovered that somebody teaching their children had committed a murder. Yet the government, and I would expect they would have the backing of the Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph etc, positively encourage soldiers into their schools; the vocation of a soldier is to 'defend the realm' and this often means killing foreigners. If you are killing in the name of the Queen you are a role model for disaffected youth, if you are killing anybody else you are unsuitable to be in contact with children.

I just wonder whether ex-soldiers are the best solution for 'high-poverty, typically violent inner-city schools'. Maybe I'm overly Gandhi-fying this, but I would rather children and young people were discouraged from guns and violence, rather than having their interest gently assuaged towards a 'legitimate' use of that violence. Should the role model for inner city kids be a soldier? Does this not deepen the stratifications through which pupils in affluent areas go into safe, prestigious, well-paid work and through which pupils in deprived areas go into manual, underpaid, dangerous work.

As I said, some soldiers will be great teachers and some would be awful, just like any profession-switchers. My own view is that military service certainly should not make somebody more suitable as a candidate to teach in modern schools.

HOW X FACTOR CREATES SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Last night, Joe McElderry won X Factor 2009. He’s perfect for it – he can sing, he’s nice, he’s pretty, he’s humble, he’s working-class (I think) and he’ll look good branded over posters, calendars and pencil cases marketed for 10 year old girls. More than that though, he’s now a role model for the teen generation. It isn’t so much the winners as the journey which provides the inspiration to the programme’s devotees; just look at the titles of the songs that become the winners’ first singles - ‘The Climb’, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘When You Believe’, ‘A Moment Like This’… The general theme of this is the triumph over adversity, the virtue of self-belief and the persistence of hope. Despite their shitty normal little towns, despite setbacks, the average normal kid with a great voice has done well in the end.

This is heart-warming and entertaining, but it is also fucking bollocks.

Most aspiring pop stars who have intently watched X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent etc, can’t sing, can’t dance and are wasting their time believing. Better advice would be to buy a lottery ticket – at least with the National Lottery everyone stands an equal chance. It might seem that I’m being the Spirit of Christmas Cock here, but most teenagers would be better off uncrossing their fingers, putting a pen between them, and trying to learn. This might not secure them the instant gratification of a £100,000 pay off and crooning alongside George Michael or a psychologically regressed Robbie Williams, but it will better equip them for what is most likely to happen – normality, mediocrity, reality.

The X Factor is so successful and popular because it leeches onto that age-old sentiment that you can cheat the system, ‘surely there’s an easier way?’. X Factor can be seen as a cheat-code for life. Why take the effort to do GCSEs, to try for A Levels and University when you could, from one audition, secure fame, wealth and esteem from the masses? The system still has its effects though, even if people choose to ignore it – if kids aren’t interested in their education, they will be less likely to succeed and less likely to get a decent job. This is the truth – it doesn’t inspire 16 million people to tune in on a Saturday night, it won’t make you and all your friends change your facebook status, but the fact is, there’s a pretty hefty likelihood that if you devote yourself to the hunt for celebrity, you’ll fail.

Meritocracy is so seductive. Pierre Bourdieu emphasised the necessity for a few, a tiny few, working class pupils to excel and to climb the greasy pole of academic success, in order to present the image of a meritocracy. If one scummy little jack the lad from the estates managed to make good of his situation, the others could have done so too – this is the thinking. By letting a few working-class kids do well, the mass failure of the rest of them to gain success is made legitimate. The X Factor winners are an epitome of this meritorious victory – Leona, Alexandra and now Joe can now provide hope for all of those working class kids turned off by their education, by their lives, and now these kids can devote themselves to fostering their X Factor. And these working class kids, most of them, will NOT have the X Factor.

Credit to Joe McElderry, he’s got talent – he could have got a record contract based on his merits, but the X Factor made it a lot easier. But let’s not peddle the idea that this is attainable for all – it just isn’t. ‘Talent Show’ could become as valid a career path to the psyche of the teens as vocational education or A Levels, and who could blame them. They have the myth of meritocracy slapped in their face throughout the year thanks especially to ITV – it needs to stop because whilst all this goes on, the kids who don’t focus upon these dreams are filling up all the ‘legitimate’ paths to success.

The real winners of X Factor – the middle classes who turn their nose up at it.

EVERY LITTLE HELPS...

Sir Terry Leahy, the Chief Executive of Tesco, has criticised the standards of education in Britain as being "woefully low", and complains that businesses like his are left to pick up the pieces.

The Times writes 'Tesco is unhappy that it spends time training recruits in basic numeracy and “communications” skills, which includes writing, because workers are ill-equipped when they leave school.' Tesco seems distinctly less unhappy to pay their low-skilled workers close very close to the minimum wage. Tesco's complaint isn't about the educational system at all, which, incidentally, he is in no position to comment on - his complaint is that his business is loosing revenue from having to train up some of the 40,000 under-19s it employs. If they are keen to have 'better educated' employees they could maybe try offering a fairer wage. But no, that's the last thing they'll want to do - Leahy needs to take a step back and realise you can't have your cake and eat it. For want of a better metaphor, if you offer to pay people in peanuts, your only applicants are going to be monkeys.

His main gripe is that bureaucracy is stifling the educational process as teachers struggle to find their whiteboard pens amongst the red tape that is draped across their classrooms. How innovative, he's quite the bluesky thinker. Leahy thinks that school standards are too low - too low for whom? He's certainly not commenting here for the benefit of Britain's illiterate yoof - he is looking to gain from the better education of his students. I'd pity the students who manage to put in the extra effort, to grasp the basics of literacy and numeracy that are wanted by Tesco, only to end up employed in Tesco, where they will be underpaid, overworked and where they face little prospect of job mobility. If the children were 'better educated', you'd hope their newfound skills would take them away from the unskilled service sector.

And then we have another prize twat from the supermarket sector who considers himself this generations Giddens in terms of his depth of social knowledge - Andy Clarke, Asda’s chief operating officer, announced "No one can deny that Britain has spawned a generation of young people who struggle to read, write or do simple maths. That’s why we’re finding packs of nappies discarded in the booze aisle, as the last few pounds are spent on alcohol rather than childcare."

You'll have to pardon my partiality on this one, but what the fuck gives the manager of Asda the right to decry the failings of state education? Not least to perpetuate sweeping false generalisations about the inability of the poor in society to look after their children.

Sure, everyone knows that we have an education system which filters out students at various points - those who fail GCSEs end up working at the bottom rung, those who finish A-Levels start a little higher, many graduates can look at managerial salaries from the offset and so on. So yes, maybe Tesco and Asda are likely to end up 'purchasing' the lowest performing students from the state system; however, that gives them no right to oversee, to comment on, and infuriatingly, to have influence over the state system.

In terms of Tesco, I am very likely over the next couple of days to visit one of their stores to buy some apple juice. I, however, have no plans to gather a crowd outside of the store and bemoan the low quality of the apples. If I don't like the shit juice, I either don't buy it, or I offer up some more money to buy something of a higher quality. I don't stand out in the cold shouting off about how my cheap apple juice tastes cheap - you get what you pay for, and Tesco and Asda have absolutely no authority, as businesses, to issue comment on the perceived failings of the state education system.

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.

COURSEWORK AND PATRIARCHY

The media is rejoicing at the news that boys have, for the first time in over a decade, recorded better scores in Maths than girls. Richard Garner, in The Independent, writes - Much research shows that girls do better than boys in coursework. Boys come into their own at the end in the end of year tests. It’s like performing in the Ashes rather than Bangladesh in cricket. Sorry girls! This attitude is skewed, false and, judging from the title of his article 'Onward march of the boys will continue apace', is redolent of jealous sexism. The fact that coursework is submitted before the exam is sat does not mean they have an unequal weighting. Notably, nobody is questioning how the 'bingethinking' culture of exams that encourages cramming might be detrimental to girls' performance...

This nonstory is making the headlines on most of the broadsheets' education sections and the way I would describe the reception of this news is fervour. The Times leads their story with 'Boys have moved ahead of girls in GCSE maths for the first time since Labour came to power, after coursework was abolished in the subject. '. Clearly the view here is that now Labour has ran out of energy and looks set for electoral defeat, the government's sporadic, often fruitless, attempts at creating gender equality can now be scrapped. And finally, as we move into a new Conservative epoch, men will do well at mannish things, and women will return back to doing things fit for a lady.

The success of the boys over the girls this year in GCSE Maths is attributed to the coursework element being scrapped. Mike Cresswell, the head of AQA, asserts that 'It's well established that girls outperform boys at coursework'. Oh! Well, this clearly explains the terrible anomaly of girls getting better grades than boys in most subjects - in getting rid of coursework, the exam boards and the government have found the answer to the pressing issue of male underachievement: female overachievement! It should come as no surprise then, that coursework elements will be dropped from nearly all GCSEs from next year.

The given reason for the curtailing of coursework is plagiarism - this is undoubtedly an issue (my Maths teacher at GCSE helped me to understand the coursework using a show-and-tell technique; he showed me a more competent student's already completed coursework and told me to copy it. I got an A), but it seems as though a certain set of skills are being blacklisted, that happen to be those that are present more often in female students, and which are integral to arts subjects. To be good at coursework, a student needs greater conscientiousness, organisation and planning. How can these skills be denigrated? Maybe because they can't be applied using a calculator or a pipette.

Dylan William, from the Institute of Education, notes that the removal of coursework from GCSEs will disadvantage girls, and reflects an indifference to the skills of planning, organisation and presentation. I would go further, and suggest that the removal of coursework is reaction to the sentiment that males are being left behind, and that the way to prevent this is to put greater hurdles in the tracks of female students. Worryingly, this idea of mine is backed up by the trends in take-up of subjects. There has been an increase in the take-up of maths and the sciences, at the time that the government is effectively malestreaming its course specification. By denigrating the skills that ultimately create skilled arts students - in languages, creative arts, humanities and social sciences - the government and exam bodies are creating a two-tier hierarchy that marks gender as its dividing line. Coursework, if it is as essential to the skillset of the female student as educational experts are saying, will remain in the feminine armoury - hence they will be more inclined to take subjects deemed as 'soft'.

In one sweep, the achievements of female students are being curbed and their skills devalued, and all this with government backing - whilst at the same time, science and mathematics are being prioritised, leading to further sneering at Arts subjects. This affects not only the scapegoat du jour, Media Studies, but English Literature and Language, History, Sociology, and other essay-based disciplines. The motives behind the eradication of coursework are suspect to say the least.

WHAT WILL THE TORIES DO?

Tomorrow is GCSE Results Day and Ed Balls plans to mark this occasion with a 'scathing attack' on the Conservative plans for education under the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove.

The Labour Schools Secretary will attack the Tories plans to create a two-tier system, in which academic qualifications are held in much greater esteem than vocational qualifications - this will effectively force schools to push unsuitable students into academic disciplines in order to keep up in the insane league tables game.

Before looking at the Tory proposals which Balls is attacking, let's make sure we're not making a good guy/ bad guy scenario. The last 12 years of educational policy under Labour have hardly been in the spirit of equality and cohesion. Labour have encouraged private businesses and dubious entrepreneurs to buy failing schools and do as they want with them. Under Labour, the gap between rich and poor has expanded, with obvious repurcussions on education. Although I'm tending towards agreement with what Balls will say tomorrow, it's more out of opposition to the Tories than out of loyalty to NuLab's education ideas.

Balls proposes that Gove's policies will expand and entrench the 'academic'/vocational divide. The fundamental problem with exacerbating this divide is that it inevitably dichotomises into good/bad. Achievements in mathematics, sciences and languages are held in particularly high esteem by the Tories - it may not only be vocational education that is put at risk, but also those A Levels that are often derided - Media Studies, Psychology, Sociology. These A Levels have a higher take-up rate in comprehsive schools, and I see it as no coincidence that it is these subjects that are looked down upon by the Conservatives. In the case of Sociology and Media Studies, maybe the dislike is something to do with the fact that these two subjects open students eyes to the workings of our modern society and our modern political sphere. Sociology equips students with a working knowledge of inequality, so it is no surprise that Gove and co favour 'hard' subjects. Physics won't expose the flaws in their policies.

Gove's recent statement of intention to 'overhaul' the league tables by according different weighting to 'harder' subjects is laying the groundworks for further divisions to be introduced. A better overhaul of league tables would be to scrap them.

What is blazingly apparent is that the Conservatives are offering nothing new - merely their old policies repackaged, with Cameron tying a ribbon of lexical obscurity around it. The Tory's plans to split and divide academic from vocational learning flies in the face of Labour's attempts to bridge the two through the Diploma scheme. The plans also suggest a move towards a tripartite system for the 21st century. I've heard the virtues of grammar schools being expounded with increasing frequency recently. This is all well and good for those 11 year olds who pass the 11+ - less so for the 80% who failed and were effectively abandoned in the underfunded secondary moderns. Think Billy Casper.

Although Balls is by no means the flagbearer for a perfect education system, I am more concerned with the encroaching Jolly Roger of Gove and his retro-conservative band of picaroons.

CULTURAL CODES AND THE CLASSROOM

Schools play a fundamental role as a stepping stone to social mobility - an individual who is successful in education is more likely to secure employment with a higher wage, higher status and higher class position. Educators tend usually to come from the middle classes, so in the majority of state schools, the teachers are from a higher social class background than their pupils. To belong to a social class is not merely a statistical grouping - compare the different language codes, cultural tastes and interests of the working and middle classes for example. The problem of social mobility can be found in the teacher-pupil relationship, and whether the teacher should bring the interaction down to the lower status levels of their pupils or 'maintain standards' by demonstrating their own codes. The former may ensure that more children understand some concepts, whereas the latter is more likely to profoundly assist the most able students to learn to a higher proficiency.

The question of class codes, here meaning both classroom and social class, is one of dominance and subordination. If the middle class educator interacts using his own class-cultural system, this behaviour can be adapted, learned and appropriated by those students from lower background who are able to understand and react to it. In a society that remains as socially divided as ours, an understanding of the workings of middle-class mores is pivotal in the process of social mobility. If a working class pupil develops an interest in Shakespeare, her English teacher will be more inclined to dedicate time to teaching Shakespeare to this individual. By keeping schools as a middle-class, typically authoritative/authoritarian, institution, teachers can provide a route for social mobility for a minority of their pupils.

The key problem with teaching through the cultural and linguistic frameworks of this 'dominant' group, is that students who do not share this culture are unable to grasp it. It presents itself as alien, and far-removed from their daily life.

The alternative is to adapt the curriculum and teaching style to make it more like that of the students' own social group. This will enable more students to learn things that are undoubtedly 'of use' to them, but which stray away from representations of the dominant culture. But students and parents are not cultural dupes: they understand the benefits of learning the dominant culture, and they value the importance of learning the culture of their social superiors. 'Coming down' to the level of their pupils can be conceived of as denying the pupils the required tools for social mobility.

Which cultural code to use when teaching is a difficult choice to make, but either way, those students who are the most distant from the cultures of the dominant classes are likely to fail. If teachers educate at the level of their 'socially inferior' pupils, they are still likely to demand an active interest in education from their pupils, and very often it is amongst the most deprived that anti-school sentiments ferment. And of course, if teachers educate using the cultural codes of their own social class, they will do little but mystify and alienate the students of the lowest status, who haven't the abilty to decipher the teachers message. The two alternatives create different educational successes, but both create the same failures.