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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/25/mossbourne-academy-private-school-rowing-bad-cliche
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| Is selecting pupils by rowing ability such a bad idea? | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Mossbourne Community Academy is in the news again. One can’t help feeling this was the aim. The famously successful London state school was one of the first academies, with a building designed by Richard Rogers and an inaugural head, Michael Wilshaw, who went on to become chief of Ofsted. Now it has announced that it intends to select potential pupils on their potential ability to row. Mossbourne academy wants to be the first state school to win at the Henley Regatta. | Mossbourne Community Academy is in the news again. One can’t help feeling this was the aim. The famously successful London state school was one of the first academies, with a building designed by Richard Rogers and an inaugural head, Michael Wilshaw, who went on to become chief of Ofsted. Now it has announced that it intends to select potential pupils on their potential ability to row. Mossbourne academy wants to be the first state school to win at the Henley Regatta. |
| If that sounds like a calculated bid to camp on the baize-like lawns of England’s top public schools, then I reckon that can only be because it’s supposed to. Politicians still have huge faith in the idea that state schools can only improve by aping private schools. Tristram Hunt’s announcement this week that private schools will lose the financial advantages of their charitable status if they don’t help state schools as much as they ought to, is a case in point. | If that sounds like a calculated bid to camp on the baize-like lawns of England’s top public schools, then I reckon that can only be because it’s supposed to. Politicians still have huge faith in the idea that state schools can only improve by aping private schools. Tristram Hunt’s announcement this week that private schools will lose the financial advantages of their charitable status if they don’t help state schools as much as they ought to, is a case in point. |
| But the critics of academies, of which there are many, are furious. This may not be academic selection. But it’s “engagement selection” – a way of attracting the children of ambitious parents, who set great store by education. | But the critics of academies, of which there are many, are furious. This may not be academic selection. But it’s “engagement selection” – a way of attracting the children of ambitious parents, who set great store by education. |
| The worry, as ever, is that by striving so hard to attract pupils who already have the advantage of pointy parental elbows, Mossbourne will be pushing children who aren’t so fortunate into other schools. The move is good for Mossbourne and bad for everywhere else. | The worry, as ever, is that by striving so hard to attract pupils who already have the advantage of pointy parental elbows, Mossbourne will be pushing children who aren’t so fortunate into other schools. The move is good for Mossbourne and bad for everywhere else. |
| It’s demonstrably true that academic selection is good for selected pupils and bad for the others. In Kent, for example, where grammars still operate, overall educational attainment is lower, even though grammar attainment is significantly higher. But this isn’t academic selection. Critics argue that kids who have the commitment to train as rowers will also have the commitment to study for GCSEs. But that’s a quite individualistic examination. If the idea is to increase general awareness among parents that engagement with school is vital to the life chances of their children, then Mossbourne is doing a more general service to the community. | |
| If the school succeeds as a rowing school, and produces the Olympic contenders it hopes to, it will gain more of the publicity it’s so good at attracting. It may even engage the attention of parents for whom the typical benchmark for state school success – Oxbridge admission – feels irrelevant. | If the school succeeds as a rowing school, and produces the Olympic contenders it hopes to, it will gain more of the publicity it’s so good at attracting. It may even engage the attention of parents for whom the typical benchmark for state school success – Oxbridge admission – feels irrelevant. |
| Sure, it’s unhealthy when a school succeeds by cherrypicking kids who have the right support at home. But a school that increases general awareness of the transformative power of education can have a positive impact on families that have only heard of it. | Sure, it’s unhealthy when a school succeeds by cherrypicking kids who have the right support at home. But a school that increases general awareness of the transformative power of education can have a positive impact on families that have only heard of it. |
| Mossbourne’s foray into the culture of private schools seems almost like a bad cliche. But as our media constantly attests, bad cliches get lots of attention. | Mossbourne’s foray into the culture of private schools seems almost like a bad cliche. But as our media constantly attests, bad cliches get lots of attention. |
| Mossborne’s experiment will be watched with interest. | Mossborne’s experiment will be watched with interest. |
| Maybe that is its great value. | Maybe that is its great value. |
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