Academy schools

Academy schools were introduced in 2002 by New Labour. Michael Gove has continued to allow and enable state schools to be academised. What are the benefits and problems of this further privatising of the education system?

The first thing to say is that academy status does seem to produce better results at GCSE than when the schools were state run. There is a higher rate of A*-C passes with most achieving the government's minimum benchmark of 53 per cent pass rate. 

There is also an argument that the academy schools offer the chance of a longer school day with better provision for students to undertake extra-curricular activities. I have a teacher friend who has just begun a placement at an academy in East London. The school starts at 8 and there are numerous activities which go on until 530 in the evening. This keeps students from being bored and out on the streets. Their home time coincides much more with the average working day. 

In terms of the problems, however, there are many. Academy schools are heavily oversubscribed and while 30 percent of the students are eligible for free school meals, there are questions over how easy the new school structures and systems are to navigate, especially for the less educated or less pushy parents. 

There is also a problem in only partially introducing academies and that they are heavily concentrated in London. Over 60 per cent of academies are in the capital. The rural population do not have an equal opportunity to access such schools.

Another issue is that they reflect and promote a very narrow view of what education is for. They are still exam results focused and in one academy the school mantra is 'climbing the mountain to university together.' Such a statement is truly an abhorrent realization of the perverted value system we now adhere to. University should not be the single end goal of all students, but in suggesting this is the only way to success we doom some students to failure and we restrict options for other students. Not all students should go to university but neither should they be devalued for not 'climbing' that mountain. The introduction of the EBacc will only add to a narrowing of this sad vector of what subjects and careers we perceive as valuable. Ultimately it engenders the idea that lawyers, bankers and the corporate world is at the heart of what is useful. How can we hope to revitalize industry and other vocations? 

When local authorities run schools they have to make provision for the disabled and those with very special learning needs. There is no guarantee that these will be provided by the academy. The transition also breaks the links with other local authority services.

The constant changes to the way the school is governed also creates extra work for teachers. And in this final point, the government has strong-armed many schools into becoming academies with little or no consultation with teachers and staff. In fact every teaching union remains in opposition to the academy schools programme. Nevertheless Gove continues to push ahead with little consideration for those who will have to live with his decisions. 

The question of identity and values

Only 7 per cent of UK school children are taught by private education and yet their alumni continue to dominate every major institution and profession. Christopher Ray in The Telegraph suggested the Left had created a mythology about private education in which schools like Eton and Harrow (which cost £30,000 a year) are overemphasized as part of the problem, when in truth most private schools cost nearer £6000 a year and a lot of the parents earn less than £60,000 a year. But how can you deny a figure of 7 per cent? How do you figure that most parents do not earn anywhere near £60,000?

The debate over private education is one concerned with social justice, and not just for those who are excluded from access to it. A private school can afford to promote extracurricular subjects that are often vital in helping students to form decisions about their career. As I have said before and, as Helen Mirren pointed out at the BAFTAs this week, the rich privately educated kids continue to dominate the arts. The identity of students is formed and solidified in these schools; the privilege they experience at home is reinforced. Some of these students are also trapped in a system where their values are determined and alternative ways to live are denied or belittled. Can we seriously believe that a public school student would consider a career in road maintenance? Too many students are limited into what they think are appropriate careers and ways to live. 

Not only this but private schools' charitable status lowers their tax burden as institutions, but I have yet to see this translated into public good. If two-thirds of a private school's intake was made up from families where the joint income was less than 40,000 a year and where places were funded by the school or by the remaining third we might reach a more equitable system, but no independent school is going to agree to that. In truth they offer just enough bursaries to appear that they are offering support for those who need it but not enough that the privilege and identity of the school is put at risk. Charitable status should be removed and taxation should be raised off such schools unless they offer a minimum of 50 per cent assisted places for low income children. 

Having been lucky enough to get through Oxford from a state-comp background I regularly see my fellow graduates using their school networks to get job openings. Of course, the problem of inequality is reinforced by parents who bank roll their children so they can pursue careers that are already closed to others. I see my fellow graduates do all they can to get an advantage and who wouldn't, but that is why we need to offer better opportunities earlier in life. 

Envy. Undoubtedly for those excluded from the advantages of such an education, or for those who managed to succeed with fewer advantages, jealousy comes into play. But many students will be unaware of the opportunities that were denied them. Even my school, which was a good state school, didn't have the skills to articulate and prep me for Oxbridge interviews. Part of the solution is obviously to invest money in state education and offer students the services and facilities that private institutions can offer but there also needs to be radical rebalancing. Quotas should be placed on private schools for university entrants. How can you hope to have equal opportunities if 60 Westminster kids go to Oxford each year? 

Coursework corruption

I have touched on this subject already but I want to talk in more detail about coursework cheating at GCSE and A Level.

The way coursework is carried out in most schools allows students ample opportunity to cheat and the unspoken truth is that teachers, parents and tutors turn a blind eye to it and, in some cases, even collude in helping.  

Coursework accounts for somewhere between 20-25 per cent of a student's final grade. In English it will usually involve writing two essays of 2000 words or a piece of creative fiction and commentary in response to a piece of literature. In History it might involve a response to four  different sources about a particular event or person or a written investigation into a historical problem. 

Now the form and level of cheating varies hugely. The students are allowed some general feedback on their first drafts. However, some teachers go much further than this. For example, I was recently working with a student on an essay about Forster's A Passage to India and Where Angels Fear to Tread and I saw the teacher's notes. There were about 6-7 comments per paragraph and in many cases the teacher had offered a rewriting of a sentence. He referred to Italy being a place of 'passionate possibilities' in relation to Edwardian England and yet the student had not made this connection at this point in the essay, referring instead to a character's lust for Italy being attached to a lost classical world. Good point but a different point. OCR states in its marking guidelines that the teacher must 'be able to verify that the work submitted for assessment is the candidate's own work.' I am afraid that some teachers overstep the line and help write a student's essay. I would say that 10-15 per cent of this essay was nothing to do with the student and was instead the teacher's pen at work. 

Of course, many teachers do not collude and maintain good practice but they should not be assessing coursework. They cannot be impartial when they need to achieve certain exam results. Once more, league tables and the whole assessment system skews the work of the teacher. 

Controlled assessment is also a joke. I know lots of students who sneak work into the classrooms, use their phones and talk to one another about how to answer the question. The teachers again turn a blind eye because it is not in their interests to accuse their students of cheating. 

The students who have pushy parents who pay private tutors to write their coursework or write it themselves also contribute massively to the problem. I try to give structural advice or what might be called a writing frame when students work on an essay but when you are there with them for three or four hours at a time the temptation to help them rework sections is high, but I have learned to take a step back. Ultimately you are not there to think for them and you are often long gone when results come out. 

This leads me to the problem of the Internet as a source of chat rooms, essay writing forums and fraudsters willing to make a buck from writing coursework. A little Google search provides several options for students looking for people to write essays for them or download articles and copy or barely reword sections. 

Mori carried out a survey into teacher's attitudes towards coursework back in 2006 and, unsurprisingly, they came out in favour of coursework for the students. Although only 29 per cent said they thought it helped the students build skills for the subject, which is surely one of the main reasons for studying, along with 25 per cent saying that it encouraged independent learning. What was even more discouraging was that only 10 per cent of teachers polled agreed that it motivated students. With such figures it doesn't really add up why teachers think coursework is useful. If it is to be representative of a student's capabilities and a way to develop skills it needs to be part of a more sustained process of assessment. The question is how to build honesty into the system and I think this needs to be tackled in several ways. No coursework outside the classroom. No league tables as it promotes dishonesty. And perhaps students should be marked by candidate numbers and by another teacher in the school or in a sister school so the work is marked with less risk of prejudice. 

The problem with not tackling this is that we are creating generations of students who do not understand how to think independently and as a result they cannot truly articulate their own views. 

Confessional Courtesies

So, here is the first of many posts that aim to chart my experiences in the world of private tutoring, although I hope to discuss many topics related to education. For obvious reasons I have changed the names of those involved and I am writing under a pseudonym, but pretty much everything that follows has happened. I’d love this to be a safe space for people to discuss and talk openly about what is going on with education in this country. I feel I have been part of a largely unregulated industry that very occasionally does good, but more often than not has aided the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. I grew up in rural Suffolk, attended a state comprehensive and had no extra help other than what I received at school. My education was pretty good but all schools are different and there have been moments in the last six or seven years when it has felt like I’ve been shitting on my fifteen-year-old self by helping those who really don’t deserve it. However, although I have seen amazing levels of privilege I have also been privy to levels of neglect and maltreatment that have shocked me. I have begun to move away from tutoring and into running workshops and following my first love writing and performing. This is really a record of some of the things I have experienced and seen and you can make of it what you will.