Good to see what many of us have always believed, confirmed:
“Last year, the Department for Education asked a firm of accountants to trawl its vast pupil database and find the secret of great state schools. Deloitte had access to the records of almost half a million pupils, factoring in everything from postcodes to ethnicity. It could examine the bizarre variation in spending per pupil, ranging from £4,500 in Lyme Regis to £10,000 in Salford. And the study would be useful in light of the Coalition’s policy for a “pupil premium”, offering £900 to help the poorest pupils. Or so it was assumed.
When the results came back, the conclusion was extraordinary. As one would expect, schools marked “outstanding” tended to achieve the best results. Poverty mattered, but not as much as Deloitte had expected. The biggest surprise, though, was the money: no matter how you split the figures, the amount spent didn’t seem to make the blindest bit of difference. “There is no correlation at all,” it concluded, “between the level of per-pupil funding and educational outcomes.” This was seemingly not what a cash-hungry department wanted to hear. The report was parked in an obscure part of its website, with no public comment.
The study’s conclusions are, of course, rather devastating to the Liberal Democrats’ flagship idea of pupil premiums. Pupils trapped in a sink school are unlikely to be helped by a bit of extra cash poured into a dysfunctional system. But the policy will go ahead because David Laws, the schools minister, is under orders to bring back a “win” for his party. His boss, Nick Clegg, wants applause lines in speeches boasting about the help given to poorer pupils. The Deloitte report, of course, confirms what is obvious to most parents: ethos is what matters most – and you can’t buy a good ethos. Head teachers who turn around a school are utterly priceless, in every way.
So it emerges that the whole premise of Labour’s education policy – that cash matters most – was false.”
By: j_jza80 - 1st May 2013 at 22:22
The teachers, who of course came from these ranks, were themselves completely hopeless, and could not write a grammatical sentence so, what chance did their pupils have?
And it’s getting worse. I personally know several newly qualified teachers, and I wouldn’t want them teaching my hypothetical children.
By: charliehunt - 1st May 2013 at 21:57
In a word, John, exactly!!
By: John Green - 1st May 2013 at 21:12
Yes. You are right. Being taught and encouraged to think is, I think the nub of a good education. It is what our top universities (not over rated polytechnics) were once famous for.
But, we’re not yet at that stage. Most state educated youngsters leave school barely literate and numerate. How do I know? I used to employ them. Not from just the big cities but, from rural areas. The outcome was the same. The level of illiteracy and innumeracy was shocking.
Adding, subtracting, multiplication and simple division were beyond most of them. Percentages, decimals and fractions – it was pointless asking. As for literacy……!
The period in question is the last forty years.
The teachers, who of course came from these ranks, were themselves completely hopeless, and could not write a grammatical sentence so, what chance did their pupils have?
By: silver fox - 1st May 2013 at 19:56
If Gove wins this battle in the long campaign ahead there is a chance that our education system might recover the respect in which it was once held.
If Gove gets his way education will be poorer for it for many pupils, I was a Grammar School boy 11 plus and all that, one teacher in particular would tell us frequently that simply learning facts and figures only proved that we were capable of learning, the most important achievement for this school was to send out pupils with the ability to think for themselves, to learn of their own volition the things that were important, to be able to form their own opinions from the information available, not remembering a string of historical dates or such parroted learning, yes we had to pass exams but do exams as such always tell the whole story?
By: charliehunt - 1st May 2013 at 12:35
If Gove wins this battle in the long campaign ahead there is a chance that our education system might recover the respect in which it was once held.
By: trumper - 1st May 2013 at 12:11
http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/search/?q=peterborough+school
By: TonyT - 26th April 2013 at 19:01
I would hate to be a teacher in Boston, there was a programme on their problems with so many students from many migrant countries, the other problem they suffered from was their school budget was set at the start of the year on the amount of pupils they had, but crop picking being migratory and seasonal their numbers would swell considerably during the year, though the budget wouldn’t.
By: trumper - 26th April 2013 at 18:27
Sorry, but which pupils born and bred here cannot speak English?
I never said born and bred–people come over from other countries and get permission to live/stay here.Having said that there are plenty of illiterate delinquent people who were born and bred here.
By: charliehunt - 26th April 2013 at 17:28
Sorry, but which pupils born and bred here cannot speak English?
By: trumper - 26th April 2013 at 16:42
Foreign pupils should not be taking up teacher time because their language knowledge is deficient.
If we accept your point at face value, which I do not, it would never be possible to make an examination of and form a conclusion about the education system. Which is if course, nonsense.
Who said anything about foreign pupils??? i am talking about pupils who are over here and can’t speak English -.If they can’t speak English then they have to be taught ,they are here it’s no good being in denial and shutting the door.
If a teacher isn’t going to teach them ,who is??
By: charliehunt - 26th April 2013 at 15:10
Foreign pupils should not be taking up teacher time because their language knowledge is deficient.
If we accept your point at face value, which I do not, it would never be possible to make an examination of and form a conclusion about the education system. Which is if course, nonsense.
By: trumper - 26th April 2013 at 14:10
It is fluid, each school has a different pupil base,different teachers,different facilities even different religious outlooks,how much more fluid can you get.Regarding pupils who can’t speak the English language properly [or more correctly not as a first language ]then they will need more teacher time to bring them up to a level where they can start to learn.
Schools will also change yearly as the pupils are starting and leaving school.
I agree with not throwing good money after bad ,you shouldn’t do that in any walk of life.
By: charliehunt - 26th April 2013 at 13:46
I do not regard the fact that our education system has to cater for pupils who can barely speak the language as any reason for throwing good money after bad. The report does not seem to be “moving arguments around” but has come to surprisingly clear conclusions based on a large sample of schools and pupils.
By: trumper - 26th April 2013 at 13:27
Once again i suppose you can move all sorts of arguments around it is such a fluid situation.
Take an inner city school with a very poor financial base,a huge amount of pupils don’t have English as their first language are going to suffer more than people who can send their children to schools who can cherry pick their intake of pupils.
More money SHOULD help as they will be able to afford better equipment,projects.
I think better discipline in and out of school and changing the attitudes of parents is just as important.
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April 26, 2013 at 1:15 pm