British education and how I would fix it

In a previous article, I used the BBC’s 3-part documentary series chronicling an experiment in which Chinese teachers took on a class of British kids for a month, to describe the ways in which I believe British education is broken. As the series concluded, we saw that the Chinese teachers, despite battling nothing short of mutiny among their students, achieved results 10% above the rest of the year group in examinations set by an independent research body. It was a slap in the face to the previously uber-confident headmaster Neil Strowger, who predicted the failure of the Chinese school with alacrity. His response summarised everything objectionable about education today.
Rather than accept with good grace his defeat, he whined on that the Chinese methods challenged the brightest pupils, as though this is a bad thing. Of course to the progressives who have taken over education today, it is. The desire to demonstrate rising standards and attainment has created a culture where most can succeed, but the best can’t flourish. Incompetent exam boards have gone unchallenged for years, producing qualifications that have become increasingly passable by providing set answers in line with marking prescriptions, rather than giving the students an opportunity to show originality and flare, and be judged by a competent subject expert. So, my first fix for British education would be to weed out progressivism and have exams that stretch. These would be exams with a standard set by the board, who is unafraid to fail a pupil who doesn’t meet it. Rather than this race to the bottom, let’s have exams that test students to their limit. These should be set by the universities with reciprocal agreement by the universities affirming their confidence in each other’s offering. Except for arts subjects or the diagrams in science and mathematics, there should be no pictures. A leaflet from a local council containing only pictures should not be seen in an English exam (this is what I had). Giving students photographs of Parliament at a point in history and asking them to explain differences and similarities seen when compared with a photo of the contemporary Parliament, does not constitute an acceptable history question (this happened this year).

So that’s exams dealt with, now for the curriculum. I believe that there has been too much emphasis for far too long on structure as a solution. Academies were meant to be the answer to all our ills, and it seems David Cameron continues to believe that. In reality, it is the content of the curriculum that is the problem. Rather than go through every subject, I have some specific pointers that I would implement.
• Every child will do 5 hours of physical activity every week.
• Oratory should be taught, with regular competitive debates held and certificates awarded for public speaking.
• Every child should begin to learn a language at the age of 5, so that every child, by 16 will be sufficiently proficient in a second language to be defined as bilingual. Languages such as Mandarin should be encouraged as well as traditional European favourites.
• Every child should leave school proficient in Microsoft Office, able to build a basic website and familiar with at least 1 programming language.
• Self-development should be taught, to help students explore their reactions to stress, failure, conflicts and so-on. In yesterday’s closing episode, not only did one of the pupils cry because she didn’t have a good throw, but the teacher was blubbing as well. This is ridiculous.
• Religious Education should be broadened to include philosophy, and every child should visit a place of worship for all the main religions.
• A Christian act of worship should take place every morning, with non-Christian pupils able to opt out and non-Christian teachers able to request a colleague facilitate this. Alternatives should be provided where possible for pupils of other faiths.
• History must cease to be dominated by twentieth-century Europe but should critically explore global and British history much further back, including controversial aspects of it, such as the empire, to help them understand changing political concepts over time and changing perceptions of other people over time.
• Children should all have undertaken community-based activities, not just those who volunteer for schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, however great that is.
• Subjects such as home economics (now food design technology), or design technology, should be assessed mostly on one’s ability to cook or make things, not write about it.
• A much wider range of practical subjects should be offered at the point where students make subject choices.
• I don’t know if there really is a course called ‘café studies,’ but if there really are such nonsense courses we need to get rid of them and bar their creators from working in education for life.
• Students will have a proper understanding of grammar. What is the subjunctive? What’s the passive voice? What is the continuous past? What is a preposition? This is double-dutch to most of us, and it shouldn’t be.
• As a new campaign is today launched to get kids reading, a list of core classic texts should be drawn up that all students should have read in English. Yes, there’s Shakespeare, but many others too.

So, these are quite generalised, but it’s time we put our desire to increase our competitiveness in to specific policy suggestions and ideas, rather than pretend that any particular structure of management for a school offers the answers. I would, finally, re-introduce grammar schools. We have to ask why we are regressing to a society where a private education gives one enormous advantages. Unless, like me, you are lucky to get in to a really good state school with men and women who rise above the system to provide a rounded education and instil a love of learning, you’ve got pretty poor chances compared to your privately-educated counterpart. A fellow at Cambridge University told me that when she was interviewing applicants, she found that if she challenged anything they said, they immediately relented and agreed with her. She explained that they simply didn’t understand that she wanted them to argue, to defend their point and to have the confidence to question others, not uncritically accept everything. Another explained: “When they get here, we’ve got a lot of damage to undo.”

Chinese School was, at times, uncomfortable to watch. Did the Chinese teachers have everything right? I think they were the first to admit that they didn’t. But what was very clear was that these strict, authoritarian teachers and their traditional methods ultimately garnered the respect of the pupils, who seemed genuinely saddened by the teachers’ departure. Traditional methods form the mainstay of teaching at universities. Ever wondered why?
We never ask how pupils learn. We obsess over standards, but never the character we produce. We need to ask how we help create informed, engaged citizens with a good ethic, a confidence in their abilities and a will to succeed. I’ve given just a few ideas of how we do that, some or all of which you may disagree with, but at least I’m trying to answer the right questions. So, if British education is broken, improperly focussed and letting our kids down, how would you fix it?