Celebrating success or manipulating data?

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

The Department for Education’s public relations machine seems very keen on London Academy of Excellence (LAE), the 16-19 free school established in Newham 2 years ago  by a group of fee-charging schools. They routinely re-tweet complimentary media coverage of LAE and this was how I came across a piece from this Wednesday’s Times newspaper which suggested that the 100 LAE students who had Russell group offers this year represent a 3-fold increase in Newham students progressing to these universities.

This interpretation of the facts requires several levels of twisting the data and avoiding comparing like with like. I have written to the Times about this and I hope the letter is published. Just in case it isn’t, I attach it here in the interests of accuracy.

I am very much in favour of celebrating the achievements of all young people, wherever they study and LAE can be rightly pleased with the 100 students who have Russell group offers, just as we were pleased with the 137 NewVIc students who had Russell group offers. However, celebrating their success should not require selective misrepresentation.

I am now looking forward to the balancing article headed: “Comprehensive sixth form college offered 137 places at top universities” and I welcome calls from journalists who might write it.

Letter to the Times (14th March)

Sir,

You recently ran a story about the 100 students from London Academy of Excellence who are holding offers from Russell Group universities (“New academy offered 100 places at top universities” – March 12th).

The claim was made that this represents a 3-fold increase in the number progressing to these universities from Newham institutions. This claim was based on data from 2010 when the Russell group was a smaller group and, as pointed out at the end of the piece, offers are not the same as places.

The equivalent data for Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) which is Newham’s largest sixth form is that 137 of our students had offers from Russell group universities in 2013 and in the event 60 students progressed to these universities – out of a total of 767 progressing to university overall.

This year so far, 60 NewVIc students are holding Russell Group offers, with a further 79 awaiting decisions.

When I last checked, 137 is more than 100 so I am eagerly anticipating  the article about “success of comprehensive sixth form college in getting disadvantaged students to top universities”

LAE and their students are of course to be congratulated on their achievements but it is not an excuse for misrepresentation or exaggeration.

Sincerely,

Eddie Playfair

Principal – Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc)

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Don’t be young!

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

It’s a tough time to be young. Since 2010, young people have taken quite a battering from policies and cuts which have narrowed their opportunities and limited their prospects of becoming active, fulfilled members of society.

All this in a context of continuing high youth unemployment with even graduates facing difficulty finding work. This is perhaps the best educated and most skilled generation ever but many politicians persist in blaming their lack of work on their lack of skills; blaming the victims of the recession for its consequences, as if better “skills” in themselves are enough to create jobs. The fact is the economy is not currently providing enough employment for new entrants. Even the much vaunted apprenticeship programme relies on jobs being available.

Young people are running up an accelerating down escalator. Everything they achieve seems to be devalued almost as soon as they’ve achieved it and they feel they have to run faster and faster to keep up. They see the value of the qualifications they take shrink before their very eyes: 5 good GCSE’s? Not enough. Going to college? Not enough. 3 A levels? Not enough. Going to university? Not enough. Only a full English Bacc, getting into a selective sixth form, achieving A and A* grades in facilitating subjects and a place at a Russell group university really cuts it these days.

Financial support has been withdrawn from this whole generation on a massive scale:

  • The abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which was such a lifeline for many 16-18 year olds in education.
  • The prospect of future debt and lower disposable income just when it is most needed as a result of increased university tuition fees.
  • The massive cut in tutorial and enrichment funding for all 16-18 year olds in education and the proposed 17.5% cut in funding for full time18 year olds in education targeting the most aspirational and hard working students.

The funding of 16-18 year olds is stuck between the ring fencing of funding for 5-16 education at one end and the move towards more reliance on loans post-18 at the other. These young people are caught in the middle; vulnerable to cuts with no alternative sources of funding.

Wherever they look, young people are reminded of competition, selection, new institutional and qualification hierarchies and narrow definitions of excellence and quality. These factors tend to legitimise greater inequalities and far from spurring more young people to greater success they are more likely to depress aspiration.

We should avoid buying into this logic of despair. There are alternatives, but are they being articulated? The draft education manifesto of our major opposition party currently opens with the following: “For Britain to succeed in the 21st Century we must earn our way in the world and win the race to the top with a high skill, high wage economy.” Is this limited economic definition the best expression we can come up with of the purpose and value of education in our society? I do hope not – for everyone’s sake.

We need a plan to restore young people’s role in society and we need policies to inspire them to play their part in helping us to get out of the mess we’re in. We need to show confidence in all young people and invest in a new deal for the young based on a broad vision of the possibilities of education, training and work.

This is a great generation we should be looking to for hope and change, but it is at risk of becoming a disillusioned demographic. Any party which claims to be thinking of our future and investing in our people needs to offer young people a serious stake in our economy, our politics and our culture.

 

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The National Bacc: a “one nation” curriculum

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

The curriculum we offer young people aged 14-18 in England is a divided patchwork of qualifications which is increasingly seen in hierarchical terms: “facilitating” A levels worth the most, non “facilitating” A-levels worth less and vocational qualifications least valued of all.

This hierarchy of qualifications is reflected in a hierarchy of institutions, with the most selective providers offering mainly “facilitating” A-levels and aiming to prepare young people for “top” ie: selective universities and most providers fighting over the rest.

Such a system can only lead to social immobility and division when what we want is social mobility and cohesion. We have no shared national aims or unifying principles for this phase of education. For young people who are entering adulthood and need a rich and stimulating induction to the best that human culture has to offer, our system tends to  narrow opportunities rather than broaden them. 16 year olds, let alone 14 year olds, are too young to be labelled as either “vocational” or “academic” but instead of being encouraged to help them flourish as fully as possible, England’s schools and colleges often feel they are engaged in a rush to sort them into categories as early as possible.

It doesn’t need to be like this.

This week saw the publication of the third report of the Independent Skills Taskforce commissioned by the Labour Party and chaired by Professor Chris Husbands, Director of the Institute for Education. The report, called “Qualifications matter: improving the curriculum and assessment for all”,  has at its centre the proposal to create a common overarching National Baccalaureate framework available as either a “technical” or “general” baccalaureate. This is a very significant contribution to the debate about 14-19 education and offers young people in England the prospect of a genuine “one-nation” curriculum which could provide challenge to everyone and value everyone’s achievements.

The proposed National Bacc. is designed to offer young people a far broader curriculum entitlement than most students have at the moment. It has four domains:

  1. Core learning: GCSEs, A levels and/or vocational qualifications
  2. Mathematics and English
  3. Personal Skills Development
  4. An extended study or project

Each of these elements would be profiled separately but a young person’s achievements would also be combined into a single overarching grade. The National Bacc. would be pitched at different levels with the aspiration that most young people would aim to achieve it at advanced level by the age of 18.

The personal skills development domain needs more work and the proposed skills should be more rigorously defined. The report suggests that this should include workplace learning, community service and physical activity; all very welcome. On the other hand “digital literacy” and “thinking skills” sound nebulous and decontextualised. The absence of any mention of education for democratic citizenship or cultural experiences is also regrettable. For this domain the report suggests that how it is offered should be a matter for each provider and this could be a really exciting area for collaborative curriculum development in schools and colleges.

The requirement for students to undertake extended study or produce a research project in an area of their choice is also very positive. It puts research and deep learning on the agenda for all students and gives them the opportunity to produce a substantial and useful piece of work as the culmination of their education by 18. Just imagine the impact on a local community of unleashing the creativity and practical ideas of all its young people through producing, presenting and implementing the best research projects, performances or artifacts they are capable of.

Overall, the proposal is a pragmatic response to where we are but is also more ambitious than the government’s own “Tech Bacc” and “A Bacc” although they’re not a million miles apart. Its greatest strength is its inclusivity in bringing general and vocational learning into the same framework. The structure of the National Bacc would allow students to follow both general and vocational elements and above all would include all learners; stretching them and valuing all their achievements.

This National Bacc proposal should be welcomed as a very significant step towards a “one-nation” curriculum for 14-18 year olds. Once the politicians can agree overall aims and design principles it will be up to the educators to consider how we might make this work for the next generation of young people. If done well, the National Bacc. could be part of the solution to England’s divided system and become the envy of many other countries.

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London’s colleges promoting social mobility

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Inner London’s colleges are helping more disadvantaged students get to university than all its school sixth forms.

In 2010, Inner London’s 19 colleges and 16-19 schools helped more disadvantaged students to progress to university than all 81 of the area’s school sixth forms. The most recent national data on young people’s progression to university for 2010 show that of the 1,906 young people eligible for free school meals (FSM) who progressed to university from Inner London, over half came from sixth form colleges, further education or 16-19 schools. Inner London’s 5 sixth form colleges contributed 20% of the overall total.

 FSM students progressing to HE from inner London colleges in 2010

  FSM students progressing to HE % of inner London total
City & Islington college

168

Newham sixth form college (NewVIc)

156

St. Francis Xavier sixth form college

95

Tower Hamlets college

90

Christ the King sixth form college

77

Ealing Hammersmith & West London college

70

William Morris sixth form*

69

Westminster Kingsway college

57

St. Charles sixth form college

43

City of Westminster college

42

Crossways academy*

25

Haringey sixth form centre*

22

South Thames college

18

Shooters Hill post-16 campus*

16

Lambeth college

13

BSix Brooke House sixth form college

10

Hackney community college

9

Newham college of further education

7

Lewisham college

6

19 inner London colleges

993

52%
81 inner London school sixth forms

913

48%
Inner London as a whole

1,906

 

* 16-19 schools.

Some colleges not included due to small numbers.

Data in a previous post also showed that:

  • Just 10 London sixth forms accounted for over 10% of all young people eligible for free school meals in England progressing to university and 25% of the total in London. 5 of these 10 are sixth form colleges.
  • Just 5 inner London sixth forms accounted for over 30% of all young people eligible for free school meals in inner London progressing to university. 3 of these 5 are sixth form colleges.
  • A higher proportion of young people eligible for free school meals progressed to university from these sixth forms than across London which itself had a progression rate well above that for England as a whole.
  • These sixth forms are getting students into selective universities at a higher rate than across England as a whole.

Disadvantaged students are still under-represented in Higher Education and the evidence from inner London is that colleges or 16-19 schools have been the most effective at promoting social mobility. Any further drive to increase the progression of these students to university should therefore be based on learning from the good practice in these colleges rather than establishing more new school sixth forms.

Note: The data are drawn from gov.uk “Destinations of key stage 4 and key stage 5 pupils by characteristics: academic year 2010 to 2011. Students are those who entered advanced qualifications drawn from the National Pupil Database and matched to HESA higher education data.

 

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16 year olds need a universal “sixth form UCAS”

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Nick Clegg’s announcement that the government wants to introduce a “UCAS-style one-stop on-line shop for 16 year olds who do not want to go to university” (BBC 27/02/14) is an interesting idea, even with all those hyphens. However, as presented in the media so far, it is also seriously flawed.

The proposed service was described as a purely “vocational website” offering searches for “college courses”, apprenticeships and traineeships in contrast to all the A-level and university guidance which is already available online.

16 year olds would certainly benefit from a sixth form UCAS (or “FECAS”) but only if it is a universal system covering all qualifications. The approach as described so far seems to be based on several misconceptions about what colleges do and what “college courses” lead to:

1. “College courses” actually include the full spectrum of education and training opportunities including A-levels, GCSEs, vocational courses, traineeships and apprenticeships. These are available in a range of different types of institution including general FE colleges, sixth form colleges, specialist colleges and training providers.

2. Vocational pathways often lead to university and choosing a vocational route at college is not synonymous with “not wanting to go to university” – quite the opposite. Post-16 vocational courses are an excellent preparation for vocational degrees and the students who choose them are making a commitment to a particular sector, often with a view to pursuing their studies at degree level.

3. At the end of year 11, students are free to apply wherever they want. The problem is that they are not guaranteed high quality information, advice and guidance about the full range of post-16 options; whether about the courses available or the type of institutions available. This is particularly true in schools with sixth forms which are keen to retain high achieving students. We have a highly marketised post-16 system where “consumers” often don’t have the information to make decisions which are in their interest. Too many young people are making important life choices based on flimsy, partial or downright biased information.

4. We should not be expecting any 16 year old to have decided they “don’t want to go to university” It’s far too early to have made such a decision and even for those who don’t go at 18 or 19, Higher Education offers many part-time and mature study routes. If we want lifelong learning and an open system of higher training and professional development, it does nothing but harm to make a rigid distinction between those who do or don’t want to go to university.

There is therefore a strong case for a national UCAS-style information and application process. To be effective such a service would need to include all post-16 options and all post-16 providers and every year 11 student should be able to use it to apply, receive offers and manage their choices, as with UCAS.  I think it should be a single national service. Handing this function to local authorities, as suggested in the media report, makes little sense when students take no account of local authority boundaries when applying. Having hundreds of overlapping mini-UCAS systems would simply lead to duplication, inconsistency and waste. There are some excellent examples of locally developed systems built on years of trust and painstaking partnership work (in Leicester and Cambridge for example) but most areas of the country haven’t been able to develop this on their own.

A single national service has the added advantage of being able to produce comprehensive data about what is happening; analysing trends and providing the market intelligence which is so essential to students, policy-makers, and educational providers.

Luckily, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel. UCAS is an excellent model for such a service; independent, national and virtually universal. It is highly responsive to the needs of all its stakeholders and has turned what used to be a rather cumbersome process into a transparent and streamlined one.

Such a national “FECAS” system, if combined with good, independent advice and guidance for all secondary school students, could really transform the way young people make the decisions which will will change their lives.

So, two cheers for this proposal and we look forward to being consulted on the detail very soon. A truly universal “FECAS” for 16 year olds is long overdue and any government which makes this happen would be doing something really positive to improve young people’s educational opportunities.

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The comprehensive college

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Why do we persist in describing our sixth form college as comprehensive when the term has been unfashionable for some time and there is no requirement to have an inclusive admissions policy?

We’re proud to be comprehensive and, for us, using the “c-word” is the clearest way of defining one of our core values; the fact that we aim to provide for the educational needs of all young people in the age group we cater for, ie: 16-19 year olds.

Perhaps those schools and colleges which aren’t trying to be comprehensive should be asked: Why segregate? What is the case for exclusion? After all, a comprehensive intake is the norm for primary schools, why should things change at age 16 – or even age 11?

The idea of a comprehensive college does need more justification given that (a) there is such a wide range of potential courses available at different levels for this age group and (b) that 16 year olds have complete freedom of choice about where they study.

The range of courses and specialisation available post-16 do require a larger institution to provide them cost-effectively but there is no reason why all these courses can’t be offered within a single institution or even under one roof. And just because they operate in a market where students choose where to study this doesn’t mean that the available providers need to be “niche” or selective.

The comprehensive college improves social mobility by keeping students’ options open, allowing movement between different pathways and at different rates while also promoting social cohesion by creating a single community where everyone’s aspiration is nurtured and everyone’s contribution is valued.

When the headmaster of a fee-paying selective school, said a few years ago: “we must get away from the idea that we can successfully deliver both vocational and academic courses in the same school” he offered no evidence for this assertion. The achievements of thousands of students every year in the many successful colleges which offer both types of course make the eloquent case to the contrary.

When a new selective college was created in our area, it was described as a “lifeboat”, presumably because it was going to “save” poor bright students from drowning in mediocrity. Sticking with the analogy; by setting high entry requirements and offering a narrow curriculum the “lifeboat” in question was cherry-picking who to “save” very carefully, pushing most back into the water. Surely, a genuine “lifeboat” would aim to “save” everyone by providing appropriate routes for all students, including those who have achieved less well at school.

It’s time we saw our successful comprehensive schools and colleges as the benchmark even if they don’t top the performance tables for raw exam scores. By doing a great job for all students, they pose a daily challenge to more selective providers to justify themselves. It is the advocates of more selection at 16 who need to explain what their proposals are to educate all those students they keep out. Surely they should be aiming higher and raising their game?

We believe that a college for everyone is better placed to promote excellence for everyone. Students can and do achieve outstanding results in comprehensive settings and there is no evidence that institutional selection increases individual students’ chances of success or improves the performance of the system as a whole. When we show parents and potential students what being comprehensive means, in all its diversity and ambition, they respond very positively and enthusiastically support our aspiration to be a comprehensive college.

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Unashamedly egalitarian

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

If you had the choice before birth of the type of society to be born into but didn’t know your status in advance, what type of society would you choose? No doubt most of us would choose a more egalitarian society if only to minimise the risk that we might face insurmountable odds against living a good life. The American philosopher John Rawls in his Theory of Justice invites us to adopt this “original position” and imagine ourselves behind a “veil of ignorance” about the personal, social and historical circumstances we might find ourselves in. He argues that the most rational choice of society for any of us in the original position includes the basic rights and liberties needed to secure our interests as free and equal citizens, equality of educational and employment opportunities and a guaranteed minimum income to pursue our interests and maintain our self-respect.

To many of us already born, the moral and political case for a more equal society is very strong, even without considering Rawls’ thought experiment. A large and enduring majority of people (73 per cent in 2004) agree that the gap between rich and poor is too large (Public Attitudes to Economic Inequality – Joseph Rowntree Foundation, July 2007). If we need convincing evidence that more equal societies are better for everyone, this can be found in Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level (Penguin 2010).  Nevertheless, New Labour in power was particularly squeamish about the “e-word” preferring to substitute “fairness” or “equity”; perfectly good concepts in themselves but the change of language seemed to signal a dilution of the party’s commitment to actually challenging inequalities even of the grossest kind.

So what would a genuinely egalitarian approach look like, particularly in relation to education?

First, it means rediscovering and proudly championing the virtues and achievements of universal public services. The comprehensive school or college is a place where citizens experience equality. People are treated with equal respect, meet and work with others on equal terms and have their individual needs met regardless of their ability to pay. Like other public services at their best, state-funded education providers model the social relationships of a more equal society. As Basil Bernstein rather depressingly reminded us: “education cannot compensate for society”, nevertheless the fact that people’s experience of equality in one sphere is not mirrored in every other aspect of their day to day experience should be a source of anger and action rather than a reason for giving up on the egalitarian ideal. People clearly do not all engage with education from the same starting point and many face enormous barriers. However, the right kind of public education can challenge injustice and give people a lived experience of more equal social relations and practices.

Second, it requires a reversal of the marketisation and commodification of social goods such as educational opportunities. Egalitarian values are undermined when public services are treated more and more as commodities with a commercial value and in some cases subject to outright market forces and privatisation. For instance, young people are encouraged to value educational qualifications in terms of the alleged additional earning power they attract and to equate higher level skills to labour market advantage. They are also encouraged to rank educational opportunities and aspire to “top” or “elite” providers which are generally the most exclusive. The individual student is increasingly regarded as a consumer making individual choices based on calculations of personal advantage and in effect competing against fellow students for the limited opportunities which education and labour markets have to offer.

Third, we need an egalitarian vision of the content of education. In the same way as the Nuffield 14-19 Review set out to define the educated 19 year old we need to ask as a society what we expect from an educated member of this society. Our egalitarianism should not restrict choices or promote uniformity of ambition or talent but should aim to offer the best to everyone. We might even take a tip from the private sector. If a broad and enriched liberal education is good enough for those privileged young people whose parents pay for their education – surely it’s good enough for everyone. A popular version of that curriculum could be a good starting point for what we should offer all young people. Shorn of the trappings of snobbery and exclusivity it could be described as elite culture without the elitism. Our version of egalitarian education should not be based on “dumbing down”, but on “wising up”.

Fourth, it means avoiding the distortions of the egalitarian impulse such as the limited promise of greater social mobility within a meritocracy. This essentially offers some the opportunity to get on within a stratified and unequal society while failing to challenge existing profound inequalities. While “getting on” is a valid aspiration such approaches can actually function as palliatives; justifying inequalities by providing the high achievers with the sense that they deserve their place at the top of what remains a grotesquely unequal society.

The dominant consensus among politicians from the major parties seems to be that more market choice and diversity of educational provision can support egalitarian policy aims. However, the evidence is that markets tend to promote inequality. Unless purchasing power is heavily weighted towards the poorest, the better off will always have a head start in any market system. Do these politicians have the bottle to regulate the market they create to prevent it from widening the educational opportunity gap between rich and poor or will they continue to tolerate a divided system with unequal outcomes?

We need to judge political parties by their deeds and faced with competing visions of the better society in the run up to the next election we could perhaps apply an “equality litmus test” to all policy proposals. This would mean asking: how does this proposal promote equality of opportunity, of access, of resourcing or of outcome? Any party claiming to be serious about this issue should apply this discipline to every aspect of their legislative and spending programme.

I believe that genuine egalitarianism can be a real vote-winner for any party which finds attractive and practical ways to define and promote a better and more equal society. In education this means arguing for the highest possible standards in the best possible publicly funded comprehensive schools, colleges and universities for all. In other words our response to those who are “unashamedly elitist” should be to be unashamedly egalitarian.

An earlier version of this article appeared in “Education Politics” in  2010.

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College sport matters: the legacy of an incredible summer

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

College sport does matter but there is no universal entitlement and the opportunities available to students often depend on where they happen to study. It’s time for the commitment shown by colleges to be matched by a joined-up strategy from the government. Thank you Steve, AoC and British Colleges Sport colleagues for all the work you are doing in this area. For more on the importance of sport at NewVIc see also:

http://www.newvic.ac.uk/news/articles/whySportMatters.pdf

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Targeted by the “aspiration tax”

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

The government’s proposed 17.5% cut to funding for 18 year olds in full-time education has caused outrage across the sixth form and college sector. In a previous post I describe this as an “aspiration tax” which will target those very students who have worked the hardest to realise their ambitions, often from a low starting point at 16.

At Newham sixth form college (NewVIc) in East London, we decided to investigate which of our university progressors from 2013 would have been targeted by the aspiration tax. We found a large group of successful students, most of whom had progressed from level 2 vocational or GCSE courses at NewVIc on to advanced courses, spending three years in post-16 education and hitting their 18th birthday before their third year in college.

Out of our 767 university progressors at least 130 came into this category. These young people are now first year undergraduates at British universities. The vast majority are from deprived backgrounds and of black and ethnic minority heritage. Under the new system these students in their final year would have only attracted 82.5% of the funding available to their younger classmates studying exactly the same courses and requiring the same number of taught hours.

These 130 got good results, including one who achieved 2 A’s and 2 B’s at A-level, 2 who achieved grade B in their childcare diploma and 36 who obtained at least a triple distinction in their BTEC extended diploma. 3 of these students are now studying at Russell group universities; 2 at Queen Mary University of London and 1 at University College London. The others progressed to a wide range of universities including 33 to the University of East London, 18 to London South Bank University, 14 to Middlesex University, 13 to the University of Greenwich, 11 to the University of Westminster, 6 to London Metropolitan University, 4 to City University, 4 to Ravensbourne, 2 each to the University of the Arts London, Sheffield Hallam and Anglia Ruskin and 1 each to Kingston, Canterbury, Dundee and Nottingham Trent.

These 130 undergraduates include:

  • 32 studying business, accountancy or economics
  • 18 studying nursing or early childhood studies
  • 15 studying art, graphics, fashion, textiles, media or photography
  • 15 studying tourism, sport, fitness or event management
  • 14 studying engineering
  • 11 studying law or criminology
  • 9 studying computing or information technology
  • 3 studying architecture
  • 3 studying biomedical or forensic science
  • 3 studying performing arts, music or dance
  • 3 studying psychology, sociology or English literature

So these are the sort of students who would be targeted by the “aspiration tax”; successful and hard working young people who have committed to at least 3 years of full-time study in order to progress to university and pursue a variety of degree courses and start making their way in a wide range of useful and important . Their only offence is to have celebrated their 18th birthday.

We have over 500 students aged 18 or over which means the college could lose over £400,000 of funding next year. This loss is well above the often-quoted basic £700 per student as our students also attract disadvantage funding and inner London weighting.

The Education Funding Agency, which funds post-16 education along with academies and free schools, neglected to consult colleges and sixth forms about this cut but is now proposing to consult us about possible ways to mitigate its impact. All we can say in response is: There is no possible rationale for such a harsh measure. Please withdraw this tax on aspiration and hard work before it damages the very students we want to keep in learning as well as those colleges most committed to their success. Reconsider the distribution of resources for 2014/15 and review your expenditure on new sixth forms.

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Colleges are real engines of social mobility

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Just 10 London colleges account for 10% of the most disadvantaged students who progress to university from the whole of England. These are among the greatest engines of social mobility for young people. National data on progression to higher education in 2010 show that :

  • Just 10 London sixth forms accounted for over 10% of all young people eligible for free school meals in England progressing to university and 25% of the total in London. 5 of these 10 are sixth form colleges. See table 1.
  • Just 5 inner London sixth forms accounted for over 30% of all young people eligible for free school meals in inner London progressing to university. 3 of these 5 are sixth form colleges. See table 2.
  • A higher proportion of young people eligible for free school meals progressed to university from these sixth forms than across London which itself had a FSM progression rate well above that for England as a whole. See tables 1 and 2.
  • These sixth forms are getting disadvantaged students into selective universities at a higher rate than across England as a whole. See table 3.

Table 1. Top 10 London sixth forms for FSM students progression to HE

FSM students progressing to HE Proportion progressing
City & Islington college

168

60%
Newham sixth form college (NewVIc)

156

65%
Richmond upon Thames college

116

58%
Leyton sixth form college

105

62%
St. Francis Xavier sixth form college

95

73%
Tower Hamlets college

90

60%
Sir George Monoux sixth form college

88

68%
Christ the King sixth form college

77

70%
Ealing Hammersmith & West London college

70

64%
William Morris sixth form

69

69%
Top 10 sixth forms

1,034

64%
London as a whole

4,040

57%
England as a whole

10,079

46%

 

Table 2. Top 5 inner London sixth forms for FSM students progression to HE

FSM students progressing to HE Proportion progressing
City & Islington college

168

60%
Newham sixth form college (NewVIc)

156

65%
St. Francis Xavier sixth form college

95

73%
Tower Hamlets college

90

60%
Christ the King sixth form college

77

70%
Top 5 sixth forms

586

64%
Inner London as a whole

1,923

59%
England as a whole

10,079

46%

Table 3. Proportion of FSM students progressing to “top third” universities

FSM students progressing to top third HEIs Proportion progressing
City & Islington college

45

16%
Newham sixth form college (NewVIc)

19

8%
Richmond upon Thames college

18

9%
Leyton sixth form college

15

9%
St. Francis Xavier sixth form college

25

19%
Tower Hamlets college

26

17%
Sir George Monoux sixth form college

31

24%
Christ the King sixth form college

14

13%
Ealing Hammersmith & West London college

9

8%
William Morris sixth form

10

10%
Top 10 sixth forms

212

13%
London as a whole

980

13%
England as a whole

1,972

9%

There have been 3 more years of university progression since 2010 so we clearly need more up-to-date figures to see any London-wide trends. Recent data for Newham sixth form college (NewVIc) show a strong increase in both the numbers and the proportion progressing since 2010, including to the most selective universities.

Recent years have seen the creation of many new sixth forms, some via convertor academies and some via free schools, often with substantial start-up costs and vacant funded places. Many of these new providers aim to increase the numbers of disadvantaged young people progressing to university. In London, the evidence is that there are many existing providers with an excellent track record of doing exactly this. So, in a recession, why establish so many expensive new sixth forms rather than seeking to build on the success stories we already have?

Notes:

The data are from gov.uk “Destinations of key stage 4 and key stage 5 pupils by characteristics: academic year 2010 to 2011”. Students are those who entered advanced qualifications drawn from the National Pupil Database and matched to HESA higher education data. The top third selective universities were the most selective universities in the UK based on the A level tariff score of their entrants in 2010/11.

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One nation education

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

“One nation under a groove … is what we’re funkin’ for” sang George Clinton’s Funkadelic in the late 1970’s. After I bought the single I had the tune in my head for weeks. It was funky and catchy and the lyrics seemed to suggest unity around more than just hippy hedonism.

The phrase goes back much further of course. Despite being borrowed from Disraeli, who was a Tory, “one nation” can be a useful slogan for Labour. As with the “big society” it promises to be a starting point to define principles and policies capable of healing a fractured society. But as with the “big society”, failure to fill in the detail could invite ridicule and cynicism.

In education, “one nation” may be a decent label, but the bottle itself is still a rather empty vessel. Labour needs to start filling it pretty soon with policies which could help us move towards a less divided, more cohesive society. So, for example, what education policies might be inspired by “one nation”? Here are three ideas to begin with:

  1. The “one nation” school: We all want good local comprehensives but by 2015 we will be faced with a complex hierarchy of schools and people will be weary of government’s obsession with structures and novelty; academy conversion, whether voluntary or forced, free schools, University Technical Colleges and so on. An incoming government should quickly establish a single status for all publicly funded schools which finds a good balance between institutional autonomy and system-wide planning (eg: on fair admissions). This would defuse the issue of structure and allow all schools to concentrate on teaching, learning, standards and contribute to area improvement.
  2. The “one nation” curriculum: English education is also increasingly hierarchical in terms of what is taught. The privileging of English Bacc subjects at GCSE and facilitating subjects at A-level has moved us away from any parity of esteem between subjects or between ‘applied’ and ‘general’ learning. We need a single framework which offers all young people a broad, liberal education and contains both practical and theoretical elements as well as an increasing degree of choice; all within an overarching baccalaureate or diploma which values the achievements of all learners. Talk of a “forgotten 50%” simply reinforces a binary divide and says nothing about actual students or the way they learn. Vocational education can prepare for university and general learning for employment and focusing on “skills” does not, of itself, create the jobs young people need.
  3. The “one nation” education service: We no longer have any kind of recognisable education “system”. What we have is more like a market free-for-all with competing schools and chains of schools each fighting to be slightly more desirable than their neighbours. Such a system has many losers and cannot guarantee equity or improvement overall. There are very limited democratic means for people to shape education provision in their area and hold the system to account. It’s time to re-discover the elected local education authority and give it real responsibility for whole-system leadership, guaranteeing fairness, standards and improvement for all within their area.

In these ways “one nation” can be applied to show what an education system might look like where all learners, all subjects and all institutions are regarded as having equal value. This could just as well be applied to early years and further and higher education but I offer these three examples to demonstrate how a new government could start turning the slogan into reality.

But if “one nation” turns out to be as empty as the “big society”, we may end up recalling a very different Funkadelic lyric: “Maggot Brain”, and that’s definitely not what we’re funkin’ for.

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10 proposals to improve education

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Following my previous post: 10 principles to shape education, I would like to suggest 10 measures to start putting those principles into practice:

1. Aim for a comprehensive system: state funded schools, colleges and universities should have a single status and belong to the community, providing everyone with the opportunity to participate and benefit as equals. They should offer access for all to a wide range of educational opportunities as part of a lifelong entitlement to free education.

2. Offer a broad liberal education to all: we should collectively define what key areas of knowledge acquisition and skills development are desirable and use this as the basis for an outline national curriculum and a school leavers’ diploma accessible to all. This should be based on a definition of the educated person and provide a good platform for lifelong learning.

3. Introduce elected education forums: those who shape and oversee the education system in an area should be accountable to, and elected by, local people. Education policy is the rightful concern of the whole community.

4. Establish service learning: every student should be expected to engage in service learning which benefits others. In return they would be entitled to an equivalent amount of support from a mentor.

5. Link learning and work: learning and work should be inextricably interwoven. Every employer above a certain size should offer apprenticeships or paid internships and be prepared to release their staff to mentor students.

6. Educate for global citizenship: education should acknowledge that we are global citizens and need to understand and address the great global challenges facing us:  injustice, inequality, conflict, disease, environmental degradation.

 7. Encourage action, reflection and connection: every course or programme should be set in a wider context, encourage reflection and judgement and make connections between past and present, with other areas of knowledge or skill and with other people and different perspectives.

8. Develop a research culture: every student should have the opportunity to undertake substantial useful research and produce an outcome which could be of some benefit to others.

9. Create schools for democracy and leadership: every education provider should see itself as a school for democracy where people’s enthusiasm for making things better should be encouraged through opportunities for discussion and debate, community activity and community leadership. People have enormous potential which can be released by working with others.

10. Promote mastery and creativity: making things and changing things requires creativity and teamwork. Everyone should have the opportunity to be creative and master at least one skill or craft in depth and “find their genius”. This requires much experimentation and some failure.

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Socrates on e-learning

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

2,400 years ago in ancient Greece, when the main medium for cultural transmission and learning was the spoken word, the philosopher Socrates warned that “the written word poses serious risks for society”. In an oral culture, writing was a new technology and Socrates had several concerns about its possible impact:

  1. He thought the written word was inflexible: “living” speech was dynamic and ready to be uncovered through questioning and dialogue. In the “dead discourse” of written speech words seemed to talk to people as if they were intelligent. Once written, they would go on saying the same thing forever whatever people thought. Written words could be mistaken for reality and readers might get a false sense that they fully understood something when they had only just begun to understand it.
  2. He thought the written word would destroy memory: memorising large amounts of orally transmitted material preserved cultural memory and increased personal understanding. Readers couldn’t “own” text on a page the way they could something they had memorised.
  3. He thought we might lose control of language and therefore of knowledge. There was no accounting for who would read something and how people might interpret it. Once a thing was put in writing it could drift all over the place, getting into the hands of those who didn’t understand it as well as those who did. Text couldn’t adapt to address different people and when it was abused it couldn’t defend itself.

Although Socrates didn’t believe in writing, luckily for us, his student Plato was prepared to keep written accounts, including a record of Socrates’ best arguments.

Two thousand years later, we are so dependent on the written word that it is impossible to imagine our modern world without it. Since Socrates’ day, the written word has become an essential part of cultural transmission. So after all this time are we in a position to respond to his concerns?

Faced with a 21st century Socrates, we might start by pointing out that it is now inconceivable for any single person or group of people to personally know everything that is known to humanity and we could demonstrate the vital necessity of written text to store the sheer quantity of human knowledge in a form which can be shared and referred to by skilled readers. We could also demonstrate that the widespread use of the written word has not stifled dialogue or debate and has in fact become the principal medium to propose, disseminate and contest new ideas. We would probably agree that the written word can be put to uses unintended by the author, but we could show that the development of widespread literacy and critical readership is the best protection against abuses.

Although memory hasn’t been destroyed, there is certainly much less learning of things “by heart” and much less need for extended memorisation except for specific purposes such as acting. But instead, we have developed a range of sophisticated research skills which help us find what we need from the mass of written sources available and weigh up its validity. The pleasure of learning a poem, a song or a favourite quotation by heart is still available to us and even if we’re not routinely reciting epic poems we do use our memories in all sorts of complex ways on a daily basis.

Socrates’ concerns about the negative impact of one new communications technology have been echoed during each successive communications revolution. Would printing encourage the spread of heresies and debase the culture? Would photography and then cinema bring about the death of painting and the theatre? Would the telephone and email undermine the “art” of writing? For each development there were fears that the losses would outweigh the gains, but once a new communications technology matures and settles down we usually find that it is both enhancing human interactions and allowing the “older” technologies to find a new place in our lives.

Today, we are in the midst of another revolution in the way we communicate and the combination of high speed global individual connectivity with easy access to searchable, interactive resources which integrate images, sound and text offers us fantastic educational possibilities. Teachers have always been keen to apply new techniques to support effective learning but it takes time for their usefulness to become evident. Some of us remember our early encounters with classroom computers which initially seemed to offer very little of educational value and only really inspired a minority of enthusiasts. The technology needed time to develop and we needed time to see how it could be applied to support learning effectively.

So, teachers need to embrace these powerful new technologies as part of our toolkit but we also need to ask the sort of questions Socrates raised: what might be lost and which aspects the “old” technologies should we preserve?

In their brilliant short essay “Questions for a Reader” published in “Stop What You’re Doing and Read This” (Vintage 2011) Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai outline some of the challenges of digital communication for learners:

“Will today’s novice reader learn to want things simple, quick and explained by others? Alternatively, will young people immersed in technological innovation become adept at prioritising, sorting and critically evaluating different types of reading styles based upon their purpose (finding info, understanding it)? …Will the flexibility of digital text … actually enhance the reading experience for many readers, propelling them into a deeper engagement with text, or will such enhancements serve as further distractions?”

Wolf and Barzillai’s suggest that successful learners will need to

“connect the existing expert deep-reading skills to the evolving information-processing skills in order to be able to use the resources of the twenty-first century external platforms of knowledge wisely and well. The task is to figure out how to get there.”

Learning is too important to be a passing fad or a lazy attempt to be “relevant”. We should not be dumbing down in an attempt to reach the on-line generation with their allegedly short attention spans. Good teachers who know their subject, have clear aims and understand the learning process should be designing and selecting the best possible e-learning materials and using them intelligently to enhance their students’ acquisition of knowledge and understanding; both broad and deep. They should also use the technology to share curriculum development and good practice in teaching and avoid reinventing the wheel.

In doing this we need to find time for concentration, thinking, speaking, listening, extended reading and writing in the learning process. We must be ambitious in our aims for e-learning. We want our students to be browsing the internet for book synopses and reviews as well as reading whole books and making their own minds up about them. We want them to be tweeting as well as writing essays, chatting with others about their learning as well as engaging in sustained individual effort. In short, we should be developing skilled learners who can use all the media available to them appropriately to enhance their learning and their lives.

And it may well be that one of the results of using new digital technologies could be to free teachers up to talk to their students more and engage in the very “Socratic” dialogue which the old man would most approve of.

 

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Drop the aspiration tax

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

The government has announced that funding for 18 year olds studying in colleges and sixth forms in England is to be cut by 17.5% per student next academic year. Among those affected will be a large number of students currently in their first year of A level or advanced vocational courses who want to complete these courses next year. Many of these students left school without the grades they needed to progress straight on to an advanced course. By studying at intermediate or GCSE level for a further year they have been transformed from “no hopers” into “second chancers”. These are ambitious and aspirational students who have stuck with their commitment to education. They are doing the right thing; investing time in their education precisely as everyone has advised them to and as they are now required to by law. How were they to know that the system would decide that they don’t deserve to be funded for 3 years of further education at the same rate as those students who only need 2 years? What makes this cut so baffling is that these students are indistinguishable from classmates who are one year younger; they study alongside them and get the same teaching and support.

For next year’s 18 year-olds this cut will come in the middle of their 2 year course and it’s difficult to see any way for colleges to mitigate the impact. These students have enrolled, they want to achieve, they have completed half their course so what is it we would deny them that their 17 year old classmates receive? It is virtually impossible to cut course hours for different students on the same course, so colleges may end up having to cut across the board thereby affecting all students whatever their age.

In effect this will be a tax on aspiration and one which will hit the most inclusive and comprehensive colleges the most. Colleges and sixth forms which select and only admit “first time round” high fliers will lose nothing; their students are already in the fast lane. The colleges hit the hardest will be those which have a more comprehensive intake and run substantial foundation and intermediate provision from which students often progress to advanced courses. These “second chance” routes are a lifesavers for students whose education was interrupted or who did less well at school and need a little more time to develop their skills and confidence. The students on these courses lack neither aspiration nor potential, they simply need an extra stepping stone to help them achieve their ambitions and navigate their way into the fast lane.

At Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) in East London, this cohort of 18 year olds amounts to 550 students, some 20% of our total student body. Spread out across all our learners the proposed cut will reduce the funds available to support learning by 3.5% or over £500,000 per year. Changes to the funding methodology generally provide a clue as to what action the government wishes to incentivise. In this case, it’s difficult to see what it is we are expected to do: turn 18 year olds away? Force them into part-time courses which won’t lead anywhere?

Our experience is that this group of students achieves well, despite their shaky start. Of the 767 NewVIc students who progressed to university last summer, 130 got there through the 3-year route. Most left school with “unpromising” GCSE grades, some made a false start or had medical reasons for dropping out for a while. So 130 young people who would otherwise have been written off at 16 are now at university because they were funded to study for 3 years instead of 2. They are now studying the same wide range of degree courses as our other students and they are attending the same wide range of universities, including some of the most selective institutions.

Imposing this tax on aspiration runs absolutely counter to the idea of helping students according to their need. It caps ambition and penalises those providers doing the most to promote social mobility. The government is rightly proud of the pupil premium which is targeted at the most disadvantaged school students and colleges also benefit from disadvantage funding. So what has happened to the idea that ambitious young people with a greater distance to travel need more support?

This measure would be a harsh blow to the very young people who best epitomise determination and self-improvement through hard work. The government should keep faith with the instinct which gave rise to the pupil premium and they should drop the “aspiration tax”.

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Young people between hope and despair

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Eddie Playfair

Young people’s natural reserves of hope are running low in the current recession. As a result, much of Britain’s youth now seem strangely suspended between hope and despair.

In the London borough of Newham, reasons for despair are not hard to find. 1 in 4 young people are unemployed; a cohort of nearly 3,000. Even university graduates are having trouble finding work with over 40 applicants chasing every job. The state seems to be withdrawing much of its support for youth, with those eligible for bursaries reduced to a fraction of those who received the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which it has replaced and with the personal cost of a university degree stretching well into the future. To add to the sense of alienation and dislocation, the riots of 2011 highlighted how easily society’s fabric can be torn apart.

How do young people react when society seems to be turning its back on them? Responses include apathy and fatalism but also anger, protest and action. Many young people have found creative and constructive ways to make their voices heard. At Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) our students developed witty on-line videos against EMA abolition, they debated, lobbied MPs and marched.

But to some observers, protest and riot seemed indistinguishable. In the aftermath of the riots, Conservative politician Shaun Bailey wrote in the Guardian: “the liberal intelligentsia encouraged posh kids to protest and riot over student fees – and now poorer kids have joined in and we are all appalled. How can you complain when you supported such activism only a few months ago?” Our students are as far from posh as it is possible to be and when they marched against the cuts in March 2011 they were engaging in a peaceful and purposeful form of activism at the very opposite end of the spectrum from the wanton destruction of the riots later in the year and many of us were proud to march with them.

Riots, apathy and fatalism are the signs of despair while anger, protest and action are the signs of hope. This active engagement was a real political education for many young people and it can be harnessed constructively. Of course young people need to learn how slow social change can be and understand that a single march or campaign won’t bring an instant turnaround, but that is not an argument against wanting change or joining in the action.

One variety of hope we have here in Newham is that of the very real physical and commercial regeneration of our area, partly linked to the Olympic Games. Such opportunities are not on offer everywhere, but even this hope may be transient.  Many of the stores at Stratford’s colossal Westfield shopping centre are staffed by young people but how many genuine new careers will be available to them? When there is less money being spent overall is it possible that this can be any more than a zero-sum game? Can retail boom in one part of East London without precipitating a crash next door?

Another variety of hope is that being offered by a range of new selective sixth forms including a 16-19 free school sponsored by a group of “top” private schools. This was founded on the rather shaky premise that greater social mobility and inclusion can be entrusted to those very schools whose main expertise is in promoting social immobility and exclusion and that better results will be achieved by segregating those 16 year olds who achieve higher grades at GCSE from their peers. This is a perversion of the free school ideal being neither non-selective nor a response to any locally expressed demand. It proclaims itself a “lifeboat” of hope for the disadvantaged youth of East London. As the local sixth form college we are presumably the “ship” these young people need rescuing from – despite the fact that our students achieve excellent A-level results and record numbers progress to university including an increasing proportion to highly selective institutions.

Such mutant varieties of hope seem more like signs of despair and social fragmentation, based as they are on nurturing pure self-interest in an increasingly polarised society where upward social mobility is a high-stakes project available to the few. At a time like this, the narrative of personal advantage is appealing, but it fails to make any connection between personal and social advancement. Surely at a time like this we need to be talking about the possibility of a better society and model how we might work together to achieve it. This would provide a more lasting basis for hope.

And such hope does exist. It can be found deep in the public service values of our comprehensive schools and colleges. Education here is an expression of hope in the whole community – not just one section of it. Our students are ambitious for themselves and for others; they want to make some positive impact on their world, most of them want to progress to university and hundreds of them regularly volunteer to help others. They know their peers and prefer to get on by working together rather than advancing at someone else’s expense. We need to see every one of our students as a vital thread in the social fabric.

In such a context we don’t need to artificially “raise aspiration” because aspiration is not what is lacking. What we need to do is provide the practical, material and intellectual means for young people to realise their aspirations and to give them some experience of doing it for themselves. We need to give them the tools to turn their aspirations into a better future.

Perhaps what we need in these hard times is a curriculum of hope rather than a curriculum of despair. A good broad liberal education to help all young people wise up about their world: literature, art, philosophy, history, geography, economics, politics, sociology, maths, science and technology from disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, global and local perspectives. We need to skill up tomorrow’s citizens by encouraging creativity, leadership development, research projects, community action, service learning and social enterprise.

To this generation hovering between hope and despair, our schools and colleges need to offer more than the limited hope of consumerism, social mobility or blind faith in the system. We need to say: “Join the human social project; locally and globally and think of yourselves as leaders and change-makers, shaping your world. Try to understand where we’ve come from as well as the challenges we face and learn to work together for change. Be inquisitive rather than acquisitive; ask the awkward questions rather than reaching for pre-packaged answers. Learn to work with others to find new answers and make a difference for the better, to weave the web of relationships, thought and action which can build a strong community.”

In hard times, young people need a rational basis for hope. Can educators rise to this challenge?

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