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| Do School League Tables make pupils 'just another brick in the wall''? |
A leading Green Party politician has criticised Government
league tables that show nearly half the areas with primary schools not meeting
new nationally set targets are in Yorkshire.
Cllr Andrew Cooper, who is lead Green candidate for
Yorkshire & The Humber in the European elections next year, said he was at
least as concerned about the process of league tables as he was about the
findings. Greens would abolish league tables as they are currently devised and
used.
“These targets are nationally set and take no account of
local issues – it is telling that many of the schools identified are in areas
of social deprivation which have been especially badly affected by the
Government’s austerity drive. Using league tables, which by default rank
schools above or below others, is a crude mechanism for determining real
educational needs and outcomes. It is not helpful and simply stigmatises
schools where teachers, parents and pupils are often working incredibly hard in
spite of frequently lacking resources or having to keep adjusting to changing
diktats from central Government.”
Cllr Cooper went on to say, ”This comes in the same week we
have heard that the Coalition’s flagship policy on free schools is running three
times over budget and failing to meet need in areas with oversubscribed places.
It is dreadful for the Government to now compound this assault on education by
using a one dimensional process to assess our primary schools.”
Cllr Cooper added, “Greens want a very different approach to
education. We support a model where needs are determined more locally but on a
community basis rather than in the way free schools are allowed to operate, and
in particular we want the education process to be one that is geared to
individual children’s needs rather than Michael Gove’s latest idea.”
He said that Greens support primary children starting
academic schooling at 6 rather than 5, which would be in line with successful
education systems such as those in several European countries. Prior to that,
building on the Surestart programme, a system of free nursery education should
be available with an emphasis on learning through play. Greens would also adopt
the Scandinavian model of “all through schools” where pupils would remain in
the same school throughout their education but the schools themselves would
become more local in their nature and smaller than some of the super-sized
establishments found across the UK today.
“We want schools that are linked to the local community, not
Whitehall, and that are central to the local area and focus on the varying
needs of children,” said Cllr Cooper. “The Government has a two-faced approach
of encouraging elitist free schools which drift off in their own direction but
then imposes a one-size-fits-all assessment which simply tarnishes the
reputation of less well resouced schools and even their local area. “
Cllr Cooper concluded, ”Like any parent, I want my children
to have an education that meets their needs, not some national target. Schools
should not be exam factories; pupils are children, not widgets.”
ENDS
Green Party youth and education policy: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ed#Youth
League tables story: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/education/primaries-struggle-to-hit-new-tougher-standards-1-6313206
Free schools costs: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25304382
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