Unintended consequences (part one)
It’s been a tumultuous week in the education conversation following a wave of school protests up and down the country. Parents and pupils are disgruntled on account of secondaries in Cornwall, Essex, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire deciding to lock bathrooms during class time, the launch of gender-neutral uniforms at Warriner School in Bloxham, and male teachers measuring the length of girls’ skirts at Rainford High School in St Helens.
It’s somewhat ironic that education professionals were annoyed at the disruption, considering they have exercised their democratic right to protest in recent months. Indeed, it might even be argued that striking teachers have fuelled this pupil action by modelling it.
That aside, any disruption is serious cause for concern, not least when it pertains to schools trying to improve safeguarding. The schools that banned skirts because girls were wearing them too short was forced to close. Meanwhile anonymous tweeters spoke of toilets being used for planned meet-ups and fights. Katharine Birbalsingh chimed in, flagging hundreds of toilet stories including anal sex between two 11-year-olds.
Vice principal, Lee Woods, researchED founder, Tom Bennett and principal, Sam Strickland all voiced their support for the schools’ right to create rules to prevent harm. I agree, but it seems to me a consultative approach in partnership with parents and students is far less likely to exacerbate matters and result in disruption to teaching and learning.
Unintended consequences (part two)
In other news, London mayor Sadiq Khan’s scheme to give primary school pupils free school meals for the next academic year will bring some respite to struggling families. However, the scheme will impact access to pupil premium funding for London schools as universal free school meals removes any incentive for eligible families to identify themselves. The initiative will leave London’s primary schools worse off, failing to target those most in need and improve education outcomes for disadvantaged children.
Impetus, a charity, tweeted that the initiative could see London primary schools lose out on over £5 million, with another Twitter user airing frustrations for the scheme’s lack of focus on the disadvantaged. Another pointed out that the scheme would likely save the government millions.
Governors know full well that school finances are stretched beyond their means and any threat to finances will be at the detriment of those most disadvantaged.
Attendance – from SOS to SMS
The Education Select Committee has launched a new inquiry into persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils, driven by new government statistics which corroborate that pupil absences remain above pre-Covid levels. At the same time, School-Home Support launched a new campaign calling on Gillian Keegan to commit £90.2 million for family support practitioners in 19 priority education investment areas hardest hit by persistent absence.
Attendance remains high on the list of concerns for governors, in particular because disadvantaged pupils, minority-ethnic pupils, SEND pupils, Covid-19-vulnerable pupils and those in alternative provision feature among the highest. As a governor for an inner-city primary school, we are often faced with cultural and socio-economic factors that impact school attendance, with the headteacher and SLT regularly transporting persistently absent pupils to school who otherwise would not attend at all.
It’s unclear that text messages, as professor of social mobility, Lee Elliot Major suggested this week, would do much to help us build stronger family partnerships than that. But we’re certainly open to more help.
SEND help
Reports of state-funded schools teaching pupils with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) in cupboards also rightly caused concern this week. Head of Children’s Hospital School Leicester, Stephen Deadman tweeted that delays and a lack of planning have led to crisis.
At the school where I govern, over 18 per cent of the cohort require SEN support and rising need is heavily impacting the school’s finances. It’s hard to disagree with the assessment of journalist, Sam Carlisle, themselves the parent of a child with learning disabilities, that with the number of disabled and neurodivergent children increasing, it’s the whole system that needs a rethink.
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