Our Education Is Fake News
Nov 20
We all have to trust in our school system, we are after all, legally obliged to send our children to be taught by qualified professionals. We have faith that the curriculum contains the correct information, at the right stage for each year group and that the government appointed body, Ofsted is checking the correct things. But who is Ofsted checking things for? Not for the children. Not for the parents. Not even for the schools themselves. Ofsted check exam results so that the government can improve their educational statistics. So that every year the current Minister for Education can say,
‘Look everybody, results are getting better each year. We must be doing something right!’ But these results are skewed and muddled and incomplete. They are doctored in whichever way makes the current government look favourable. John Roberts, in an article in Tes, writes about the NAHT heads’ Union’s ‘School Accountability Commission’
“The NAHT heads’ union’s School Accountability Commission will warn that government tables and targets are distorting schools’ behaviour and do not work in the interests of pupils, parents or the government. It highlights how primary schools drilling for Sats has become common, with some schools even running revision classes and practice tests during school holidays. The commission, which includes a range of experts from across the sector, also warns that comparing the performance of pupils at schools in different settings has been proved to be unreliable but is still being used to judge how effective schools are.”
Some schools are even preparing eleven-year-olds for their GCSE’s by introducing mock GCSE’s. Is this really in the interests of our children at such a vulnerable time in their lives? The first year of a new school is a traumatising event in itself, without the added shock of an exam that will be taken in five years’ time. The relentless pressure put on children to attain a favourable academic outcome is detrimental to many children’s health and development. Childline has released statistics highlighting a worrying trend,
“Childline delivered 3,135 counselling sessions on exam stress in 2016/17 — a rise of 11% over the past 2 years. 1 in 5 of these took place in May as pupils faced upcoming exams with many telling counsellors they were struggling with subjects, excessive workloads and feeling unprepared. olds were most likely to be counselled about exam stress but this year saw the biggest rise — up 21% on 2015/16 — amongst 16–18 year olds, many of whom will have been preparing for A-levels to determine university places.”
This seems to suggest that we are making our children mentally unwell for the sake of some exam results that for most pupils, are meaningless. Teaching them to strive for meaning and purpose in their lives would be a much healthier option. Giving them the tools to become a happy and fulfilled individual is what we should be concentrating on in their education, maybe some lessons on Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy would be a good alternative to forcing everyone to remember suspiciously chosen data until they can recite it verbatim and branding them failures when they fall down. Not everyone is academically inclined, and nor should they be. God forbid we should have a country full of professors but no plumbers, carpenters or engineers. When did these essential professions become lesser? When did they stop being taught in a serious capacity in school or with realistic apprenticeships? Laura McInerny, chief executive of Teacher Tapp and a governor and former teacher, writes in the Guardian
“Education academics Thjis Bol and Herman van de Werfhorst used the data from 29 countries, including the UK, to study the impact of vocational qualifications on employment. They found that countries that enabled young people to study for highly specific vocational qualifications while still at school typically had much lower rates of youth unemployment than countries whose students did solely academic subjects. Young people in these countries also spent less time looking for work when between jobs.”
Whatever the governments reasons for this concerning trend in valuing academic success above all else. It is not good for our children, their self-esteem or their happiness as adults and it needs to stop. The entire education is broken and misfocussed by being pulled one way and then the other to feebly try and portray an image of success and it desperately needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, for the sake of all of us. The mental health system in this country is well past breaking point and it will not cope with yet another generation of miserable adults and anxious children.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.tes.com/news/curriculum-skewed-tables-and-targets
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/news-opinion/exam-stress-overwhelming-for-thousands-of-children/
