UK EDUCATION

New Labour's approach to education exposes our society's lack of interest in those who will never be high achievers

The exam-driven, results-focused system is failing too many children

Gordon Brown's pre-budget statement last week focused grimly on the need for all of us to work harder, learn more and compete more effectively in the international marketplace. Education is his priority - not for what it brings to our lives, but because it will turn us into better-qualified, richer and more productive workers.

This vision may make perfect sense to the chancellor, but it emphasises our society's lack of interest in anyone who can't achieve in those terms. Our education system is increasingly geared towards examinations and results. For a substantial minority of children, these benchmarks are absolutely meaningless, and yet they are offered nothing worthwhile to take their place.

Eight years ago my friend Nancy adopted a baby. She knew her child had been born to cocaine addicts, and had gone through the agony of withdrawal. When Myra came to her at a few months old, she was undersized and wary of people. Her new parents, professional and achieving, weren't worried. They were sure that their love and care would make up for the disadvantages of her birth.

It hasn't been enough. Myra is still very small and, despite all their efforts, her physical, emotional and intellectual development has never matched that of her peers. Her school has ignored worries that she may need more help, and yet Myra looks and behaves like a timid five-year-old. That has made her a social outcast. It's been three years since she was invited to a birthday party, or to anyone's house to play. This autumn she started coming home with unexplained bruises, and with rips in the back of her school shirt. The school said there was nothing to worry about - Myra had probably ripped her clothing herself. Even when other children told their mothers that Myra was being badly bullied in the playground, the school ignored her parents' concerns, while assuring them that they took bullying seriously. Her teacher said she wished Myra would concentrate on her work and stop being so irritating to other children.

Two weeks ago Myra's parents took her for an assessment at a private primary, which they hoped might prove safer for their child. After two days, the school's verdict was devastating. Myra was operating at the level of a four- or five-year-old in reading, writing, comprehension and speaking. They were astounded that her current primary had not identified her as having special needs. There was no way in which she could function in an ordinary class.

Myra's only hope now is to be given an official statement setting out her needs and how they will be met, but her current school is not interested in supporting that. If Nancy wants one, she will have to fight for it, and it could take years. The county social worker also dismissed the report. Myra's difficulties would not be unusual in an inner city school, he said. It was only because she was in a prosperous area that she stood out.

Myra is part of a national problem. Every child with real educational difficulties has a right to a statement. But there is an inbuilt conflict of interests. It is the local authority that must both assess the need and pay for it. Some meet their obligations, but others delay, ignore and obstruct statements, so thousands of parents struggle to get them. Even those who succeed often find that the reality doesn't match the theory.

Annie's eight-year-old daughter Bella, who has cerebral palsy, is in a wheelchair and has the right to full-time help in her state school. That means four or five different carers every week, for a few hours each. None are trained, and, while some are loving, some are brusque and unhelpful. Bella has become incontinent, perhaps because she is scared to ask some of them to take her to the loo. So other children now shun her. Her class teacher told Annie that she could not be expected to teach Bella; that was down to the untrained helpers. At a parents' evening she told Annie, censoriously, that Bella's reading, writing and concentration were all poor, and her maths was terrible. Annie asked what she knew about cerebral palsy. "Nothing," the teacher said, indifferently.

Both Bella and Myra are being hopelessly ill-served by their schools. They and many others need environments that can develop the abilities they have, instead of judging them by criteria they can never meet. Bella will never grasp maths - her mother hopes that one day she will learn to count her change - but she is an imaginative child who loves drama and books. Myra is entranced by animals and farms. Neither would be right for a special school, which is where the severely, multiply and physically disabled go. But they both need a gentler and more flexible environment than the one they are in.

The state system doesn't offer one. The doctrine of inclusion pretends that all children can have their needs met in an exam-driven, results-focused system. Instead, we are condemning many thousands to spend years in an increasingly bewildering environment, learning nothing but a sense of failure and social isolation. That's not good enough. Surely when the chancellor talks of maximising people's potential, it has to mean more than simply passing exams.

Jenni Russell
12 December 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1969923,00.html

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