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27 Jun 2015

Parents and Children as Consumers (Updated)

Teachwell Education Policy Children, Parents 5

I read the following article yesterday (here) in which Anthony Seldon, the outgoing head of Wellington College, stated his opinion on narcissistic parents who were hindering rather than supporting their child’s development and how they needed to show more respect to teachers (as well as teachers showing respect themselves to pupils).

To say that the comments section was interesting is an understatement. There were a few comments, from parents who send their children to state schools, insisting that it is teachers who need to show more respect to parents and that ‘as consumers’ they should be treated better.

I had to actually stop myself from laughing. It is true that both parents and children have been encouraged to see themselves as consumers of the product that is education and that they have rights extending as a result of this.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a consumer as: A person who purchases goods and services for personal use.

So I looked into consumer rights and the government have a handy guide here explaining what your rights are as a consumer.

So can these parents exercise consumer rights?

The first hurdle for these parents would be the fact that in order to be considered a consumer you actually have to pay for the goods. Many parents feel that they are through their taxes except for the fact that whatever their contribution may be it certainly does not pay the full cost of schooling.

Those who send their children to private schools can claim to be paying for their children to be consumers, however, even here the water is muddied by the fact that private schools have charitable status which is in effect a state subsidy.

On average the cost of sending ones child to a private school is £12 000 + a year while the likes of Eton charge in the region of £30 000. The average cost of paying for children to attend state primary school still runs into £5000+ a year on average.

The original post included figures based on the contribution that parents would make based on only 12% of their tax being spent on education.

12% of tax goes on education. Parents could only pay this cost fully if they were paying £42 000 in tax. To pay this amount of tax would mean that you would be earning at least £111 000 a year. Less than 2% of UK workers earn this. As a household you would need to earn £132 000 (individually £66 000) which only the top 10% of households earn. The parents individually would need to be in the top 5% of earners. Oh and by the way this only for one child’s education at primary school, it would need to be more for secondary.

The median salary is roughly £19 000, of which you would pay £3000 in tax and 12% of that would mean that your contribution to the education bill is £360. Nowhere near the cost of sending a child to school.

However, as QT kindly pointed out below – it is unlikely that if parents had the full amount of tax to spend at their disposal that they would only spend 12% of it on education. I take that into account and while I think the figures above illustrate the point that I was trying to make in the current context, it is important to highlight what salary would be needed if parents were free to spend the tax money on their own priorities (rather than the percentage the government chooses to spend).

On the median salary of £19 000, parents would not be able to afford to send even one child to school or would have to do so in a school that was spending £2000 per year less on each pupil. In order to pay £5000 a year in tax you need to be earning £36 000.

If we go further and take into account what the figures would be if parents were able to keep both tax and national insurance then in order to fund one school place you would need to earn between £25 000 t0 £26 000 individually or as a household. That would of course mean you would have to find the money for healthcare for your family from the rest of your income. 64% of households earn less than £26 000 and therefore would be in no position at all to afford an education for their child. (Source: 2013 Average Household Income Figures).

As for the other 36%, the 18% who earn between £26 000 and £35 000 would struggle to support one child at school while also paying for private insurance, never mind the loss of all the other benefits that are afforded to parents and/or children which they would need to find the money for.

That leaves us with those earning £35000 + as a household income who would currently pay in the region of £8 000 for NI and income tax. This group would be able to send one child to school comfortable but would not be able to pay for another out of this money.

To be able to afford that you would need a household income of £42 000 + which would cut out most of the 11% earning between £35 000 and £50 000. So to be able to afford to send one child to school comfortably each year you would need to be in the top 18% of households, in order to send two to school you would need to be in the top 10%. None of this takes into account tax credits and the like as they would not exist if we were not taxed.

The reason why all children have access to education is due to the fact that people who have no children or whose children are adults contribute as much of their tax as those who do currently have children. We do so for the good of society and the children in question. As such parents, under, working or middle class, need to be a bit more grateful for the opportunity that is afforded to their children rather than walking around with a sense of entitlement.

There are those that would suggest that these children will be paying for my pension. Well the state pension will only get disproportionately lower and my own employee or private pension will contribute far more to what I will live on than what the state will give me. There are plenty of parents and their children who live off benefits and the reality is that I am better off contributing to allowing more immigrants to come over, who will actually work and pay their taxes, than subsidising children who are being brought up to believe that life on benefits is acceptable.

Furthermore one of the parents suggested that parents should be allowed to spend the money for their child’s education where they choose. I have only got two words in response – the second is off and the first is whatever expletive is favoured by the reader.

Seriously, why should any parent have access to thousands of pounds of taxpayers money to spend on children they have chosen to have. Where does such a right or entitlement even come from? Is this not completely backward, surely as taxpayers we are contributing to support parents to enable them to bring up their children, provide appropriate healthcare and an education. This is not an entitlement, it is a welfare benefit that all parents are given. It’s not ‘their’ money.

Part of me is still livid at the attitudes of such people. Even £9 000 tuition fees do not actually pay the total cost of university – look at Buckingham University which charges over £12 000 a year in fees. In the US and other countries where the state does not fund courses at all the cost runs closer to £20 000 + a year and leaving three years of university with £100 000 debt is not unheard of. Not to mention the fact that university researchers bring in money independently that pays for their research and the cost of administration of the university, which is also a subsidy to those attending university.

I am honestly at the point where i think if parents want to bring up their children to be well-rounded, empathetic, intelligent members of society then fine I am happy to contribute. If, on the other hand, they want to bring them up to be self-centred, naval gazing ignorant narcissists then they can find the money for it themselves.

Be careful what you wish for – if the parent who wanted to spend the money as he sees fit then that’s fine, he should be given exactly what he pays in tax towards education and see where that gets him. Parents need to realise that this is a two-way streak and they need to keep up their end of the bargain if they are to continue enjoying the benefits they currently do with regards to their children.

If they want to be selfish, well the other members of society (who are contributing towards the cost of bringing up their child) can play that game too. Trust me there will only be one loser but then some people need to learn the hard way what their idiocy will lead to.

Using either sets of figures, the fact remains that the vast majority of parents would not be able to afford a place in a primary school never mind a secondary. Additionally, all families with children who attempted to send their children to school would see a very steep and sharp downfall in the income and lifestyle they currently enjoy. If parents wish to be treated as consumers in the process then they may very well get their wish.. and undoubtedly regret it.

25 Jun 2015

Deprived Children – The Politics of Sympathy

Teachwell Behaviour, Progressive Education, Social Class, Teaching and Learning, Traditional Education Child-Centred, Children, Discipline, Early Years, KS1, KS2, Parents, Primary School, Teachers, Teaching Assistants 5

Empathy – the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Sympathy – feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’ misfortune.

(Source Oxford Dictionaries online: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/)

It is easy to mistake the sympathy for empathy but as the above definitions highlight, the difference is huge. Sympathy is driven by one’s feelings whereas empathy would encompass both feelings and thoughts of another. Understanding events in a person’s life and feelings from a different perspective and not simply those confined to your own world view.

Empathy enables the other to understand but to understand, one needs in the first place to accept that those who you are attempting to empathise with may feel very differently to what you do or what you think they should or ought to feel. This is rarely the case with the ubersympathisers within primary schools. This is even more the case when the child is from a deprived socio-economic background, is considered vulnerable or has behavioural problems.

So the story would go something like this:

Child comes to school. teacher realises (via school register, area being taught in, etc) that the child is from a deprived background and this instantly invokes sympathetic feelings. If the child has behaviour problems, then the sympathy goes up in proportion to the extent of the poor behaviour. The worse the behaviour is the more sympathy is felt by the teacher, as they imagine the misfortune suffered by the child is proportionate to their anger/violence/aggression. The other children who are not badly behaved (but may still be going through some difficult situations, equal to and possibly more than badly behaved child) do not elicit the same sympathy as them because, after all, there is nothing to be sympathetic about. They are not showing any outward signs of what they are feeling about their home life that can be latched onto by the said teacher, so they believe it is fair to presume the child is not subject to or suffering any ill effects from their home life. The child seems fine – they have no need for your sympathy.

This is the same tale told in many a primary school and it is stifling for those of us who have learned the power of empathy and find offering sympathy a poor second. This lack of empathy is also due to the inherent ‘romanticised’ view of childhood which is deeply ingrained in the primary schools. This colours the explanations for children’s behaviour – the parameters for what their feelings are and why they are exhibiting particular behaviours – is placed in a pre-designed framework of all children are innocent, blameless and not responsible for their behaviour. Therefore any behaviour must be the responsibility of the adults – parents or teachers – as the child is ‘being made’ to act that way or can’t help it. This leads pleasantly to the myth of the miracle teacher who can come in connect with the child, nurture them and make it all better.

To understand the feelings of someone who lives in a family which is less than perfect does not mean basing it what you already know, it means finding out from those who have actually experienced it. I once taught a child who had been subjected to sexual abuse from the age of 0 to 3 before she was taken into care. She chose to discuss her father with me on one occasion. Her feelings were that of a far more mature person than maybe even I was at the time. She told me that her father simply could not look after her (her mother had abandoned her just after birth) and that it was better for her to be with her foster family, who were in the process of adopting her. She would have two older siblings and she seemed positive and happy about the situation.

Now I accept that her feelings may change as she grows older but is it really so shocking that a child who has been given appropriate counselling and support for many years is not bitter or angry. She was sad that it did not work out with her birth parents but was open and willing to trust those offering her an alternative, given that living with her parents was simply not a possibility. Her situation was a happy one so she went with it. Who is to judge her feelings or thoughts are wrong – they may not be what I or indeed others would imagine them to be but if she was trying to forgive and move on then good for her. I would have believed that she would be angry at the world for letting her down and giving her such a bad hand.

Her perspective is as valid as any other person who has suffered such abuse, to empathise with her involved me really examining my own thoughts and feelings in terms of holding onto the negative from the past and what that achieved. She was willing to let it go – a big thing to let go – but she seemed to want to. I accepted it and put myself in her shoes and really why would she or any other child wish to endlessly replay and be affected by early trauma for the rest of their lives. If they can move on, rebuild their lives, be happy then why not choose that option?

I suspect that part of the issue is that those who are offering their sympathy are needy and would struggle if there were no one to need them. Therefore outcomes such as the above, which it is within their remit to support, would not enable them to play the role they desire. This is an issue, particularly in primary school, both among teachers and TA’s. Like any other job, people do come into it for a variety of reasons.

In addition, I think that it would require a good long look at the current ideas within education on this issue. They do not really seem as though they are based on the experiences of children with difficult backgrounds. It is such a complex area and in comparison the ideas that are taught are highly simplistic – child is from a broken family = needs your love and care. If they reject it, it means they need it even more.

Attachment disorder is an interesting one, even more interesting as it only seems to affect the children of the poor. How many nurture groups are there in middle class schools? Yet there are children in those schools who grow up in abusive or difficult environments also. They do not suffer from poverty on top of that but the emotional pain of watching one parent abuse another for example is not based on the amount of money in the bank account or how nice a house you live in.

Furthermore, I think many would find it hard to accept that often the children who are not acting up despite problems at home do so due to their overriding need for stability. They leave their problems at the school gates, I know I did. I wanted to be in a different environment to the one I experienced everyday. How can anyone go from that to believing that people like myself would want teachers trying to act like substitute parents or indeed compensate for what is going on at home? The answer is of course simple, they are not empathising or understanding what is actually happening.

School can be the one place where people like myself could feel a calm, normalised atmosphere and could learn an alternative way of being, which is vital for those who want to break away from their home environment in the long run. And it is a long-term issue for those children who grow up in such families. Quick fix pity is unlikely to do much good.

When I look back, what I really wanted was for my parents to be happy and to get along, failing that for them to separate and to be happy apart if that was the only way. Not a parent substitute, not pity, not sympathy, just for the situation at home to get better. Therefore the notion that the school or teachers could have intervened in some way is so off the mark. However, the research in this area is focused on those children who come from such backgrounds and are a problem in society. People like myself are of no real interest because I am not being abused or abusing anyone. So am I an outlier? the norm? in the minority or in the majority of people who come from such families? Until there is more comprehensive research I can not say but suffice to say there is more than one way to react to even the most challenging of circumstances.

Ultimately, those of us who have difficult family backgrounds have to come to terms with it, not be allowed to misbehave at school and have such behaviour reinforced (which can surely only lead to recreating the same circumstances of their own family). If we wish to move on, then we need to understand those circumstances, not have well-meaning adults trying to substitute parents. More to the point, no adult is ever going to substitute your parents. They are real people and in some way or another the individual has to reach an understanding or learn to be at peace with the situation. There are ways , including counselling, however it is not a process that others have the right to interfere with unnecessarily. If a child is at risk then you know what to do in terms of safeguarding. Let’s put to bed the ideas and notions though that these children are not moral and spiritual in the same way as others. Maslow’s hierarchy has a lot to answer for in this respect, as it seems to give some adults all the reasons they need to decide that the child can not be responsible for their actions as they are lacking in an area of need. The truth is that evidence does not bear this out, either individually, across societies or cultures.

Those who perpetuate the myth that teachers unwilling to spend their time making such children happy are uncaring or detached need to take a good long look at themselves. Caring teachers, who act professionally and do the right thing by the children in their class by enabling them all to learn, have done far more good than all the bleeding heart liberals throwing pity parties. It is they who give the children the real means to transcend their situations.

It is just unwise that untrained and unsupervised adults at school put in place policies (such as nurture groups) or act on a set of principles which are based on ignorance. It has in my mind gone further and become unethical given that not one of these strategies has been scrutinised properly, not one longitudinal study has taken place that shows this type of pastoral care is either warranted or effective, and lastly there is no feedback from the children later on in life to assess the extent to which such interventions were or were not helpful.

It is time that those, especially in primary schools, took a step back, read a bit more, asked more questions and thought more carefully before attempting to support children emotionally and psychologically. To base it on a set of assumptions which are never questioned is wrong and this situation has lasted far too long already.

We all want to help children who are struggling or who have difficult lives. Ask yourself though if being a teacher is that role or whether there is a different role which involves care more than education as the focus which you are suited to. If you genuinely believe that the school environment is for you then at least attempt to be educated, be empathetic and be ethical before intervening.

14 May 2015

In Praise of Clear Values – the Michaela Free School Example.

Teachwell Behaviour, Conferences, Traditional Education Children, Discipline, Secondary School, Teachers 1

There is understandably a fair bit of controversy about free schools, the way they are funded and to what extent they are succeeding or failing. However, I have been much impressed about what I have read and heard about the Michaela Free School. In his post David Didau writes about his experience of visiting the school – see here.

I heard of Katharine Birbalsingh and knew that she was opening a free school, mainly due to it being reported in the papers. I kind of kept up with it but was too busy being a full-time teacher to really follow-up.

The debate about their no excuses policy seems to have created a lot of heat so I thought I would visit the school website and look at the behaviour policy for myself. You can read it here.

While I would have liked to have seen what merits are awarded for too, the behaviour policy is clear in terms of what is expected from pupils and parents. It is all about dealing with low-level disruptive behaviour and preventing it from escalating. Well done to the team who drew up that policy – anyone reading it knows exactly what the school deems to be poor behaviour and what to expect as a consequence. All stakeholders are clear from the beginning and particularly heartening is that there is a clear guide to the children in terms of what is low-level and what is high level disruption and the differing consequences for these. In addition, if a the child does not accept the consequence, there is again clear guidance about what happens. If a child chooses to escalate their behaviour it is evident that they are choosing to accept a higher level of consequence. I like that governors are actively involved in higher level consequences so they there is more than one person in the school who is responsible for taking the decision and places governors in a role I have not seen before. I think this is important as it should not just be the head who has to carry this burden.

Perhaps even more important than the expectations of the pupils is the expectations from the parents. It is clear that they need to sign up to the values and the ethos of the school. If they don’t want this for their child then they are perfectly entitled to make a different choice. This is about responsibility. The Teaching and Learning Policy makes it clear what is expected from all the key stakeholders – giving clear lines of accountability.

All websites are full of happy, smiley children so I am not one to believe that this necessarily reflects the school. However, if this were replicated in a primary school, I know that I would want to work there. I know that it would enable teachers to teach and pupils to learn. I have seen too many schools where the behaviour policy revolves around the supposed needs (but usually short term wants) of the worst behaved pupils. I would accept I am in the wrong if it worked – it doesn’t. Instead, the behaviour escalates and that of other pupils worsens. There are always children who behave no matter what (the bomb proof children). It is interesting how, not only are they overlooked by some in the school, but the fact that they are behaving well is scorned at times as being too perfect when we should all be hailing the ‘characters’ in the school who like to swear and throw chairs around. If this is what you want for your child then there are plenty of places offering that.

How long can we expect teachers to maintain a behaviour system which does not meet the needs of the majority of the class. What are they learning from watching the behaviour of a minority of pupils who seemingly receive no real consequence for behaviours we all know are unacceptable. I have heard recently of a head who has been told by BST that her staff need to become resilient to the behaviour of poorly behaved pupils. How is this an answer? If behaviour specialists do not know what the answer is fair enough. We should jointly discuss and find out where we might be able to find those answers. Expecting adults to deal with abuse on a daily basis is not the way forward as I have said in previous posts.

If the child has learnt this behaviour by watching it at home, then what will the rest of the class be learning while watching them use the classroom as a theatre to act out their misdirected abuse. Does it come from distress? – in most cases – yes, but the classroom environment never has and never will be the appropriate setting for this to be dealt with, anymore than we expect the places where we work to be able to deal with our problems as adults.

So fair play to Katharine Birbalsingh – she is putting her money where her mouth is and trying to create a school where genuine respect is shown, where all stakeholders understand their role and children are actively being encouraged and supported to show good behaviour that will enable them to learn.