The London Challenge is a lesson in how to turn around poor pupils' lives
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Version 0 of 1. A decade ago, parents were fleeing inner London to avoid sending their children to local schools. Today, a poor pupil is more likely to perform better in the capital than anywhere else in the country. Much of this is down to the London Challenge policy of school collaboration which, in the mid-noughties, turned around life chances – and now needs a national rollout. For if last week's education debate was about the Pisa results, this week, it is the turn of the annual Ofsted report, published on Wednesday. Where the international data pointed to stagnation in schools standards, while some of our competitors shot past us, Ofsted's chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, looks likely to praise the continued improvement in England's schools. This apparent contradiction can be put down to disturbing regional disparities. In short, lessons from the success of London Challenge are not being learned, and poor pupils (identified this weekend as "white working-class boys") in coastal towns, second-tier cities, and middle England counties are bearing the cost. The Pisa report was clear on this: "As in many other countries, socioeconomically disadvantaged students in the UK are less likely to succeed at school than their more advantaged peers. However, some countries are more successful than the UK in reducing the influence of socioeconomic status on student performance." The data is unforgiving. Of the 1.2 million young people on free school meals last year who sat GCSEs, almost two-thirds (64%) failed to achieve the expected level of attainment – five A*-C grades, including maths and English – at age 16. There is a 23 percentage point gap (36%-59%) between the average attainment of children on free school meals and the rest. This is a powerful block to social mobility as well as a drag on broader academic attainment. A policy of educational equity is essential if we are to achieve the rising standards that Germany and Poland have managed. Yet across England such equity is a long way off. In affluent counties, where there is a thin spread of pupils on free school meals, it is disadvantaged young people who suffer most. According to the government's social mobility and child poverty commission, "the worst region for attainment by the poorest pupils is south-east England, and the worst schools for them are in areas such as West Berkshire and Herefordshire, and towns such as Peterborough and Swindon". Indeed, in West Berkshire and Herefordshire, only around a fifth of pupils on free school meals reach the expected level of GCSE attainment. In the past, the education secretary, Michael Gove, has quite rightly pulled up Labour-run city councils for failing to deliver on school improvement. He must now do the same for the Tory counties presiding over a policy of educational apathy that hits the poorest hardest. We need to think about how to apply London Challenge lessons to counties such as Lincolnshire or cities such as Wolverhampton. At its core was a commitment to breaking the link between deprivation and attainment. That meant zero tolerance of low expectations, smart use of data to track pupil progress, and the strategic use of sponsored academies. But in contrast to the government's aggressive, free-market approach to schooling, the Challenge was also built around a system of collaboration. It raised the standard of teaching in the classroom by peer-to-peer review; headteachers helped one another turn good schools into outstanding; and it offered a "pupil pledge", providing young Londoners with access to sport, the arts and university life. Today, children on free school meals in London do 50% better at GCSEs than their peers elsewhere. The Challenge also required political support, yet after the 2010 election that was withdrawn. Rather than expanding the initiative, the coalition abandoned this strategy. The government clings to the dogma that an ever more competitive market between isolated schools will deliver rising standards, at the same time as all the international evidence – from Sweden to America – disputes this. Our education system needs intervention to promote the best teachers into the poorest performing schools; track pupil progress properly; and create networks of schools that collaborate to raise results. It is a historic reversal, but this week Wilshaw looks set to tell us the counties of England need to ape the councils of London – and learn that raising standards among the poorest pupils delivers improved attainment for all. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |