Recently there has been tensions between the Heads’ Roundtable and OFSTED over the alleged existence of system bias against schools with large numbers of white working class pupils. OFSTED has rejected this interpretation of the data and further clarified some of the data used in the original piece. They say that they acknowledge ‘factors’ that make it harder for these schools such as not being close to art galleries and museums and working with monocultural communities. Amanda Spielman has waded into the argument accusing this cultural group of people as ‘lacking aspirations and drive’ in particular when compared to migrants to the country.

Heady stuff indeed. However, we can hardly be surprised when schools are partly measured by how well the pupils achieve the specific knowledge that is defined by GCSEs (Outstanding schools especially). Why does OFSTED give some schools lower grades? Because it measures schools partly on their ability to deliver the knowledge based outcomes of GCSEs and, according to the Chief Inspector, these schools’ cohorts and families do not aspire to achieve them – as evidenced by their own interpretation.

OFSTED says schools whose cohorts cannot (will not?) achieve these outcomes are offering an inferior education and so this justifies them being  downgraded. They acknowledge the difficulties in hiring staff, in countering factors, but retain the right to downgrade these schools.

A child will learn from the culture that they grow up in what kind of knowledge will be helpful to them, or is valued within that community –  and what knowledge is a waste of their time. They then aspire to achieve that knowledge which is valued. Their parents’ opinions,  based on the knowledge & experience that their parents have, will also be influential as will the school teachers that they meet and experience. Contextual events might also affect these aspirations. The loss of local manufacturing jobs could influence families to reconsider a career in manufacturing for their child. Aspirations are a complex thing.

So, it isn’t that the white working class are not aspirational. They are perhaps, just not aspiring to develop knowledge of the curriculum being offered to them. Schools do not have the freedom to offer an alternative range of curricula due to accountability frameworks. And then, even despite their best efforts, they are still being told they are not meeting the requirements of the system – to make large numbers of white working class pupils aspire to develop the knowledge identified by OFSTED.
This possibly brings us back to curriculum design. Certainly, this point has been raised before: e.g. @paulgarvey4

If we are trying to select, with more detail, knowledge for the curriculum, then we have to have more debate about what this knowledge is. I’ve already written about how we need to develop more tacit knowledge rather than just explicit knowledge. But it goes further. Pupils are learning knowledge from their cultures. They are learning knowledge from their online interactions with others. They are learning knowledge from electronic stores of knowledge with direct instruction built in – YouTube features so many of these (and I have issues with some of this learning which I have written about in my book). We are making value judgments about this knowledge, so that we only value very specific domains of knowledge as being suitable for assessing pupils and schools. Much of what we should be doing is building curriculua that go further than  they  do currently –  as OFSTED duly acknowledge. We should be working with pupils on ways to acquire knowledge, to evaluate knowledge, to build new knowledge, to transpose knowledge to new contexts and so forth.

Yet, the moment you stipulate one curriculum over another, to recognise the value that either academic or non-academic knowledge has, then you run into issues. Many that I speak to tear themselves in two over this. Is an alternative curriculum like that offered in Germany  one of  low expectations (a technical education) or is it a suitable curriculum (they culturally aspire to achieve it)? Who chooses the curriculum that a child studies? If a school says, we are an academic school, don’t send your pupil here if that is not what you want for your child: is that acceptable? What if the child has a Special Educational Need or Disability?

Who decides what an appropriate curriculum is for the children of taxpayers? Is it the government of the day? OFSTED? The schools? The parents? I don’t think we have the answers yet and downgrading the OFSTED rating of schools serving these communities just seems to encourage schools to reject specific types of pupils in the hope that it will benefit their potential OFSTED outcomes. As Stephen Tierney says, it is career-ending suicide to take on leadership of some of these schools. That doesn’t sound like we have got it right to me.