Mixed-ability teaching fails to make the grade in Britain

The 750,000 teenagers who collected their GCSE results yesterday are the first cohort of pupils whose entire schooling has taken place under Labour. They have plenty to be proud of. The number of top grades has risen more sharply than at any time in the past 20 years.

Inevitably, this will prompt complaints about grade inflation (so demoralising for pupils who have worked hard for their As) and the growing tendency for target-driven schools to steer children towards "easier" subjects to punch the right buttons for their Whitehall masters. In fact, it is not quite as simple as that.

Entries in Physics, Chemistry and Biology, for example, increased significantly this summer, although the numbers taking other "hard" subjects such as French, German and History fell.

There remains a worrying tendency for too many subjects to be taken - 10 appearing to be a sort of informal minimum - adding weight to the calls for a smaller number of core GCSEs including English, Maths, a science and a language to become the norm, allowing more time in the curriculum for wider-ranging, less exam-driven study.

But it is at the other end of the ability range that Labour's education policies have proved such a crushing disappointment. A quarter of pupils left secondary school this year without a single decent GCSE - that is, a Grade C or above.

Over the Labour decade, two million pupils have been let down in this way, with many of them emerging from 11 years of education unable even to read or write properly. This is Labour's core constituency; most of those being failed by the system are from poorer homes.

And Labour's spiteful decision to scrap the assisted places scheme kicked away the ladder of opportunity for bright working class children once provided by grammar schools; too many state comprehensives are showing themselves incapable of filling the gap.

This exposes weaknesses in teaching methods that go far beyond the mechanics of testing and examinations. The teaching establishment, shaped by a training structure that remains in thrall to clapped out liberal orthodoxies - to such an extent that most jobs are still advertised in The Guardian - refused to oblige.

Eleven years on, fewer than half of classes are set. In the remainder, mixed-ability teaching - which proceeds at the pace of the slowest - reigns. It is this enervating educational mindset that an incoming Conservative government will have to change.

Tory policies to give schools real control of their affairs - including admissions and staff recruitment - will in time break this ruinous consensus. But it will require immense political will. Just ask Tony Blair.

Source







Four-day week for French schools

Ten million French children returned to the classroom yesterday to find their lessons crammed into a four-day week — a revolution that delighted families but drew criticism from experts. In a scheme decreed by President Sarkozy, all primary and junior secondary children are being spared the unpopular tradition of Saturday morning classes. Since most schools are closed on Wednesdays, the majority will enjoy three days off school every week.

No other Europeans, except for a small minority in Germany and Luxembourg, follow a four-day week. French Lycee (senior secondary) pupils continue with Saturday classes. Children will still spend as much time in the classroom as the European average, but educators say that their learning faces disruption by being squeezed into two blocks of two days. “They took no account of scientific research,” said Francois Testu, a lecturer at Tours university and the author of Life Rhythms and School Rhythms. “Children need a rhythm and the four-day week creates breaks. It is doubtless a decision that pleases parents but they do not realise the damaging consequences,” he said.

The new system was cheered by parents and teachers when it was announced a year ago in fulfilment of an electoral promise by Mr Sarkozy. Saturday school had long been cursed by families who have to rise early to escort children and forgo weekend trips. It meant that divorced parents with weekend visits spent less time with their offspring. Teachers also disliked the two-hour Saturday session, which ate into weekends: quite a few played truant themselves.

Xavier Darcos, the Education Minister, originally wanted schools to make up time with classes on Wednesday mornings but most local councils strongly resisted the idea, which would have required them to spend more on transport and catering. Wednesdays are traditionally for sports and recreation. The fractured routine, unique in Europe, dates back to the days when Thursdays were devoted to Catholic instruction and children attended school all day on Saturday.

The teachers' unions, which are at war with the Government over staff cuts and other reforms, are predicting chaos because they must now also give new classes to underperforming children.

Mr Darcos, whose ministry employs more than a million people, ordered the extra classes to remedy the failure of about 20 per cent of primary school leavers to meet minimum literacy standards.

The unions, which are heavily left wing, and the Socialist opposition say that the end of Saturday classes will hurt poorer children because they will be left to their own devices rather than engaging in constructive recreation. “This free time will enable the children of the privileged to perfect their education, but what about the others?” asked Jack Lang, a veteran Socialist Education Minister. “One of the effects will be to widen the social and cultural gulf between children.”

Source