School funding – The system is still stacked against disadvantaged schools
The schools funding promised by the Conservatives is much needed, but if already well-resourced schools continue to prosper while struggling schools are left to languish, how much good can it do, asks Fiona Millar…
- by Fiona Millar
The election is now long over, and whatever people may feel about the result, a government with a large majority at least parks one element of this turbulent recent period. We certainly won’t be going to the polls again for a long time.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that retaining ex-Labour voters who switched to his party will be a priority. Capital investment in roads and rail is being talked up, though it isn’t yet clear what will change significantly for schools.
The funding settlement for the next three years is clear, but we also know that this will simply take us back to 2010 levels and leave some schools still facing cuts. It doesn’t matter which way you cut the pie if it isn’t big enough.
Cold spots
Some of the individuals in charge of education policy during the coalition years are back in harness.
For all the hot air about the reforms of that time, and more recent talk of ‘levelling up’, disadvantaged secondary school pupils are still 18 months behind their better-off peers.
At current rates, closing the existing attainment gap will take over 500 years.
Shockingly, this was barely mentioned in the general election. Extra money is needed, but its impact will be limited without further reforms to ensure that deep structural inequalities are addressed.
The sorting of children into different institutions grants a competitive edge to those private and selective state schools that already already have the most.
That won’t change, though it is encouraging that a majority of new MPs went to comprehensive schools.
Yet just as dangerous, given our recent history, are the divisions between different parts of the country.
Some areas – London is a good example – can overcome disadvantage by attracting good teachers and school leaders while benefiting from access to numerous cultural and employment opportunities.
It’s a different story for smaller towns and coastal communities – those areas largely won by the Conservatives in 2019 – which have long been social mobility ‘cold spots’.
Places where intergenerational disadvantages prove harder to shift, and the purpose of education may be less obvious.
Vicious cycle
Schools alone can’t resolve the problem. We can’t truly close those gaps until all children are fed, clothed, housed, freed from poverty and given the same social and cultural opportunities that their richer peers take for granted.
But we also know that schools in areas of high deprivation and low attainment struggle to recruit and keep good teachers.
Performance measures and Ofsted inspections that take no account of context can lead to a vicious, rather than virtuous cycle for these schools.
The best teachers and leaders, as well as money, should be directed to those areas as a matter of urgency, but it’s as yet unclear from where the will to bring this about is likely to come from.
Our GCSE system works with a fixed proportion of pupils who can reach certain grades. That means we’re stuck with a system where a significant minority of pupils, often the most disadvantaged, will be judged to have ‘failed’ every year.
A lack of technical and vocational routes that have parity with academic education has bedevilled the English school system for generations, reducing opportunities to grow the kind of skills the country will so obviously need once Brexit is finally ‘done.’
Radical reforms, distant dreams
I’ve long taken the view that the best way of addressing this intractable issue is to move to a final ‘wrap around’ qualification at 18.
It would incorporate both academic and vocational qualifications, allowing all pupils to succeed at something and embark upon a meaningful next stage of education or training.
A truly radical reform, but a distant dream.
Last year’s election, like so many before it, was billed as a moment for change, but so little of this was discussed with honesty. I suspect we may well be pondering the same deep, systemic problems when we go to the polls again in five years.
Investing in trains and bridges may be important, but it’s an inefficient use of resources unless we also invest in our people.
Fiona Millar is a columnist for Guardian Education and a co-founder of the Local Schools Network (localschoolsnetwork.org.uk). Her latest book The Best For My Child: Did the Market Deliver? is published by John Catt Educational (£14).
