Thank you to Eva Wiseman for her compassionate article (“Schools today are failing – and it’s clear who needs detention”, Magazine). I disagree somewhat with Ofsted’s narrative about attendance. Numbers of those persistently absent have been increasing since the early 2010s and tend to happen at key-stage changes (years 1, 3, 7 and 10). This usually impacts those who are neurodiverse and have known special educational needs. Half of the pupils with persistent attendance issues experience difficulty with attendance by the age of seven. It’s convenient for Ofsted to blame parents and Covid, when actually this problem has been gradually increasing for years.
I have an autistic son who has had no meaningful education for over two years. Parents like me end up going to court to beg for more support or get press-ganged into “electively home educating”. There is very little Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services support for the neurodivergent.
For these children, it is not that school is boring or difficult, it is that they find school to be a hostile environment where they are not safe and no amount of cajoling and parental intervention can convince them otherwise. These children don’t decide they are not going to school; they can’t go to school. They starve themselves, cut themselves, destroy the classroom, attack their teachers and peers, run into traffic, or try to kill themselves because they can’t cope. That’s the point at which parents “keep them home”.
This is not all about Covid changing the social rules, as Ofsted says. It is a much more pervasive problem about the focus of schools on results rather than wellbeing, lack of investment in special school places and lack of innovative educational environments, because they might not work well with the Ofsted framework.
Laura Rhodes
Chester
It’s awful that it should be the very sad suicide of a headteacher that brings into focus just how inappropriate the whole Ofsted setup is (“Surge in schools complaining about ‘brutal’ and ‘hostile’ Ofsted inspections”, News). When I began working as a teacher, in 1977, my French lesson with year 9 was visited by an inspector from the area education office. He was an expert in language teaching and sat quietly at the back of the classroom observing my early steps in the profession. After the pupils had left, he spent some time talking to me about what had gone well and some areas that could do with improving – and how one might achieve that end.
This is what should be happening in schools. Give useful advice rather than doling out damning verdicts.
Jonathan Toye
Downham Market, Norfolk
The Brexit gloves are off
At last, William Keegan, a remainer economist, has taken Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor, to task for his support for Brexit (“Thatcher? Brexit? This isn’t the way to Labour hearts”, Business). Why has it taken so long? And thank you, Mr Keegan, for reminding us that Edward Heath did not feel the need for a referendum when we joined the European Economic Community in 1973.
Roger Fletcher
Broadbottom, Hyde, Greater Manchester
Heartless visa policy
In reference to James Tapper’s article (“Dismay grows over Tory visa rules where ‘only the rich dare fall in love’”, News): this, like so many other Conservative policies, is heartless, short-sighted and makes no economic sense. Most people applying for spousal or family visas are perfectly capable of working and supporting themselves, and huge numbers of British citizens manage on much less than this arbitrary threshold [earning at least £38,700 a year] without burdening the state. In a country with jobs to fill, we should be welcoming anyone who actually wants to live here and is willing to legally apply for residence which, from personal experience, is a soul-destroying process. Forcing couples and families to live apart on the spurious notion that they will start claiming benefits is Tory twaddle.
This government has created a climate of blame, suspicion and division filled with notions of immigrants (legal or otherwise) who will suck the public purse dry, when it has wasted and misappropriated billions and deliberately turned the UK into a societal wasteland.
Susan McGregor
Bideford, Devon
How not to teach
As a recently retired secondary school teacher of economics, I have first-hand experience of the failed progressive education policies that Sonia Sodha refers to in her excellent article (“Scottish schools have tumbled from the top of the class. This is what went wrong”, Comment). The consequences of such policies, which favour “skills” over “knowledge”, are far reaching, not least in their impact on the most disadvantaged students.
Piaget’s theory of constructivism is a theory of learning, not a theory of pedagogy, but as a teacher I was required to use “student-centred” teaching methods in order to meet the requirements of a “good lesson” as determined by senior managers. I was to be a “guide on the side”, not a “sage on the stage”, and the less I spoke in the classroom, the better. If anything, such “inquiry-based learning” appeared to give free range to those teachers lacking in confidence or subject knowledge to simply design “research tasks” (the “just google” approach to teaching), which ultimately disempowers the teacher and leads to the educational outcomes we are witnessing in Scotland and Sweden.
The pushback against such progressive policies has been led by teachers themselves, who recognise the damage done by theories at the expense of evidence. Daisy Christodoulou, Tom Bennett and his teacher-led ResearchED are to be applauded for their outstanding work in this regard.
Andrew Uprichard
Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia
Thank you to Sonia Sodha for highlighting the decline of Scottish school standards, a situation rightly described by Prof Lindsay Paterson of Edinburgh University as “catastrophic”. However, this otherwise excellent article misses two key points. First, Curriculum for Excellence was originally a Scottish Labour policy dating back to 2002. Second, there is a behaviour and expectations crisis in Scotland’s schools. Government and local authorities push a catastrophic “restorative” approach rather than supporting schools in implementing consistent routines with clear consequences. Fife council recently agreed a policy that pupils bullying other pupils in school would not face punishment. Just occasionally in education, it’s not about the money.
John Reardon
Glasgow
Panettone panegyric
Rachel Cooke might be indulging in hyperbole for comic effect in her attack on the Christmas panettone (Notebook), but if she looks up Nigella’s recipe for panettone French toast she’ll find an absolute game-changer. Retrieve them from under the stairs, stock up on mascarpone and breakfast luxuriously over Christmas and beyond!
Anne Cowper
Bishopston, Swansea
