Education - Ministers are making far-reaching decisions based on the experience of London alone. Elsewhere, people are remarkably happy with their children's schools
When 12-year-old Jay won the 200 metres at the Seven Kings High School sports day, there were mixed feelings among the spectators. A few might have hailed Jay's victory as a small miracle. The boy had won a place at this popular comprehensive, equipped for children with physical disabilities, on the grounds that he was almost unable to walk. The cynics in the crowd, meanwhile, concluded that Jay's parents were among the many who play the system to get their children into the best schools.
"He'd hardly been able to stand when he came with his dad to look round a few months before," says Alan Steer, headteacher of this school on the outskirts of London. There is a range of common ruses, he says. "Addresses are a constant one. Round about October or November, we start hearing that the new arrivals have moved out of the catchment area." Steer's experience is not unusual for the head of a successful London school. About 70 or 80 families appeal each year after being rejected for a place at Seven Kings, whose admissions are administered by the Borough of Redbridge. In Redbridge as a whole, almost 9 per cent of parents lodge appeals.
The appeals figures point to high levels of parental angst over the availability of places at good secondary schools. In inner London, the picture is even more acute - in Newham, 22 per cent of families appeal because they are unhappy with the school place allocated to their child; in Lewisham, 19 per cent. The government has nodded to this unhappiness in the debate surrounding its new Education Bill. Parents dissatisfied with their local schools should be able to change them, ministers have argued, by demanding their closure or the sacking of their headteachers. But the government seems to be taking a London-centric view, for the appeals figures show that elsewhere, concern among parents is much lower. In the north-east, just 4 per cent of families appeal against their allotted secondary-school place. In Cumbria, the figure is 1.4 per cent. Nationally, the level of appeals stands at 6 per cent, one-third of which are successful.
In general, parents are remarkably happy with their children's schools. Five years ago, researchers from Sheffield Hallam University talked to parents about their experiences of the admissions system. Ministers must be aware of the findings of the study, as it was published by the Department for Education and Skills. Yet it does not indicate the level of anxiety that the government now seems to be striving to address. The researchers found that 96 per cent of parents won a place at a school for which they had expressed a preference. Half of the 4 per cent who were apparently thwarted said later they were happy with the outcome, and this proportion seemed to rise after children had settled into their new schools.
Despite the furore over selection, the bill does not make any substantial changes to the way pupils are admitted to schools. Yet it does carry an aspiration that parents might become more involved - and that in doing so, they might raise standards. There is widespread scepticism about this. Steer's parents show little sign of wanting to get more deeply involved. "I think the truth is that parents are very supportive of the school. The percentage that turn up to parents' evenings is extremely high. When kids misbehave, the vast majority of their parents are very supportive. But would they want to run the school? I would say they recognise the truth: that the professionals run the school. And that will continue as long as they are happy."
Margaret Morrissey, spokeswoman for the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, echoes this view. "I was quite taken aback when these proposals came out," she says. "The fact is that a lot of schools are finding difficulty in getting parent governors, and we've had to look seriously at how we can reduce the number of meetings they have. Life has changed, and the majority of parents go to work. There will always be a minority who make it their business to get seriously involved, but it will be very much that - a minority."
And here is the rub - despite all this, ministers might actually be on the right track in trying to get parents more involved in their children's education, though for the wrong reasons. If there is good cause to argue that parents are happy with the way schools teach their children, there is equally good cause to argue that their complacency may be misplaced.
Recent studies suggest that parents may be happy not because all their children's schools are excellent, but because their own expectations are too low. Researchers from the University of Sunderland compared the attitudes of parents in England, the US and Russia, and found that the Russians were by far the most likely to express dissatisfaction with their children's schools. The researchers attributed this to a "Lake Wobegon factor": a misconception among the British and American parents that all was well with their world, in which "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average". They argued that parental involvement was a vital ingredient in education systems. In the Russian schools, standards tended to be high. Yet Russian parents, asked what would help their children to do even better, tended to put the spotlight on themselves rather than on the schools. English and American parents were 15 times more likely to stress the importance of the teacher's role rather than their own. The researchers suggested there should be more emphasis on parents working with their children at home.
We are unlikely to hear much about this in the debates on the bill. The last thing ministers want to do is to blame parents. There are many votes in promising to improve educational standards, and very few in saying the responsibility doesn't all rest with schools. But there may be room for some discussion of just how much, and how, parents should be involved with their children's education.
Parents may indeed prove reluctant to take part in the day-to-day running of their children's schools. Yet education does not take place at school alone. Playing the admissions system to win a place at the "right" school may be one strategy, but it is not the only one.
Children's names have been changed. Fran Abrams's Seven Kings: a portrait of the next generation will be published by Atlantic Books in September
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
