{"id":1076,"date":"2016-09-09T12:56:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T12:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2016-09-09T12:58:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T12:58:39","slug":"grammars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/grammars\/","title":{"rendered":"Grammars, Faith and Pedagogy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"It's a dead end baby\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/a_mason\/19189587\/in\/photolist-2GmoX-J7ca8S-DeGyB-fvjCZk-rgnmqT-rUH3BP-9fEvxR-4Df5dm-qYyRP5-qYFSbp-atBHzr-2uVYE-iYxRGq-8Bzsdf-kBm6F-aVi6RT-hpfejz-tdNs-oCdiUo-8Rn1DV-dmeRnU-iYxRMA-cBLha5-bRrFvz-dTzUcW-9QPhiK-zwRC1F-3ar4sx-qb7REm-4Npo8P-81gdnj-9y5sRd-8Y7Hyg-dKZaS7-ajxAeN-ntAXhc-dmmSKq-h4X9MM-8LNFcw-dJiNhv-biD1Lc-dQNCfm-qWWAhG-4uAeBr-51h5Mf-prUAnN-jxbn86-d5NVh-9tAoH4-98RbWE\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/c4.staticflickr.com\/1\/13\/19189587_f698d845fe_b.jpg\" alt=\"It's a dead end baby\" width=\"567\" height=\"426\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>The debate about opening the doors to new grammar schools is being well covered in the news media. There is a battle of ideologies and the tried and tested weapons of that argument have been wheeled out and fired across the battlements. But there are fundamental fractures that are being overlooks and threaten the best of Britain.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m against grammars, and the planned changes. \u00a0I think there are two additional problems that are not getting the attention they deserve &#8211; the fixation on academic pedagogy and faith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That said, I do also accept that the current offering for many families is not offering the social mobility promised by the comprehensive ideal. We do have selection by postcode and most of our children do not get the education they deserve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, \u00a0grammars are not the solution, or are they about adding choice or improving outcomes for more of our kids. They will, once again kill off choice and progressive shifts in our society. But all this is being well covered elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Firstly &#8211; the grammar ideal &#8211; of an academic education for the smartest kids, contains the pernicious view that the most able are best suited to an \u2018academic\u2019 pedagogy. Academia is great and an essential part of the picture &#8211; but all corners of our society deserve and need leadership and excellence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are also still only using a single measure (examination results) to judge success for children and across the system, which doesn&#8217;t capture the range and breadth of human talent and experience. Grammar schools double down on this narrow measure &#8211; like going &#8216;all in&#8217; in poker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Grammars, and the academic model of pedagogy they perpetuate, are wrong and dangerous for our economy and society &#8211; as they take those most likely to transform our world away from the modes of learning with connect most to the \u2018real world\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If there were choices of selective schools that offered <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bie.org\/about\/what_pbl\" target=\"_blank\">Project Based Learning<\/a>, or work-based learning models &#8211; with different accreditation or qualification routes \u2026 for the brightest and most able\u2026 and our society valued those as much as business does\u2026 then we would have choice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have an unspoken agreement that politicians and society will not tell teachers how to teach &#8211; and that the modes of teaching are not to be politicised. However, we know that exams and structural aspects of schools are being \u00a0shaped to an academic ideal ill suited to our society. <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/education\/educationnews\/10943278\/CBI-too-many-school-leavers-underequipped-for-life.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is not just my opinion &#8211; but also one shared by the CBI.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, when we talk about choice &#8211; maybe it is time to offer real choice in terms of what happens inside the classrooms. I think much of the promise of the free schools policy was in the model of what has happened in the US &#8211; where charter schools have grown highly successful groups of schools offering a range of pedagogies &#8211; including the wonderful <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/eleducation.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Expeditionary Learning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/hightechhigh.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High Tech High<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> schools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Worse than this, the plans to allow faith schools to select based on religious belief (or professed beliefs) will further<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/accordcoalition.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Databank-of-Independent-Evidence-on-Faith-Schools-April-2014.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> divide our society into smaller cultural ghettos.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The faith school system is the basis of our mass education and we have many reasons to grateful to the Church for creating a model of education embraced our children and communities in learning. However the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_education_in_England#Eighteenth_century\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> history of our school system also shows that church attendance was more important than coin in children attending school. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Faith schools are the reason that we still have selection in our school system &#8211; as they have grasped this principle jealously &#8211; and we have allowed the idea of schools \u2018choosing\u2019 which children to teach to remain. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The exclusivity is not only divisive, it is unfair and should be illegal. In Oxford City, we are overwhelmed with faith provision, where only a handful of community schools provide an non-faith \u2018choice\u2019 for parents. In a hugely divided city, where a there are more children attending private schools than average we also have the destabilising impact of selection by wealth as well as academic ability.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The implied growth of new grammars comes with the promise of new faith schools (as the old free school policy has failed) to answer the pupil place crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If there was an opposition worth lobbying, (sigh!) we should not only be urging them to fight grammar schools. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>If we want better and appropriate education for our children, to fuel our economy, and enrich our society, then we must also take on the white elephants of academic learning and faith.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We must, once and for all, take academic learning off the pedestal it is wobbling atop.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We must remove all faith provision from our state funded sector.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Until these things happen, the logic of grammar schools, high stakes testing, ignoring the well-being of our children and teachers, \u00a0and increasing workload for teachers, will continue unchecked.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The debate about opening the doors to new grammar schools is being well covered in the news media. There is a battle of ideologies and the tried and tested weapons of that argument have been wheeled out and fired across &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/grammars\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[171],"tags":[75,161,206,38],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thinking-out-loud","tag-faith-schools","tag-freeschools","tag-grammar-schools","tag-oxford"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2vDki-grammars","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1078,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions\/1078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ezekiels.co.uk\/eylan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}