heart of heartlands lessons

If you are expecting this blog to be a list of things you can do in your classroom to make a difference, a list of strategies to employ tomorrow to bridge the gap, or a way in which to spend the money to ensure positive progress, or a summary of recent reviews on PP spending, or analysis of research into what makes the difference. Stop reading. You will not find that here.

I grew up on a council estate in Tower Hamlets in the 1980s, our neighborhood was diverse, loud and very crowded. School wasn’t important and you certainly didn’t seem to need to have a good job to have a good time but then the recession hit and the tide started to turn. All of a sudden we were all acutely aware of the job crisis and the need for steady employment to put food on the table and pay the rent. The schools of the area at this time were less than adequate; they were dealing with a whole raft of educational change as well as tackling truancy, child protection issues and the new demands of emerging SEND categories. All with little funding, undertrained teachers, a recruitment crisis and more cuts looming. My primary school education had been bland and ineffective. I finished year 6 with no love of learning.

Secondary school was better, by this time educators had started to talk about the new national curriculum and standardising what and how students were taught from school to school. Teacher training started to improve, in 1988 Inset days were introduced and the landscape of teacher’s CPD began to improve. I went to a secondary school which was rapidly improving and at the forefront of these changes. It had a good set of teachers and a plan to raise aspirations. And I certainly remember having little aspiration in year 7. I was acutely aware of coming from a lower income family, university seemed unachievable and undesirable. I didn’t want to study for EVEN LONGER I just wanted to leave school as soon as possible.

I can vividly remember the colour of my free school meal ticket which I had to collect every day at break time from the student office. It was violet. The colour of those disgusting sweets which seemed inexplicably popular in the 70s. I hated that violet ticket and looking back I can see now how it was a daily reminder of the very real barriers I faced. No wonder my aspirations were so low!

Slowly but surely, I learned to love my new school, there were specialist SEND teachers who taught me how to read and write properly and took the time to get to know me and demand of me great things, I did really well there. My tutor, Mr Line, was brilliant. He soon realised I was not giving my mum ANY of the invites to parents’ evenings. So he tried to call, the phone had been cut off, so he turned up at my house. After a long chat with my mum, I was made to do all my homework at school in the library and he would take/march me there every day at 3.30. I am certain he had no idea that I got that violet ticket he just saw a child with potential and he was relentless in helping me get there.

Mr Line also put me on a new programme the school had started called ‘Aim for uni’ (catchy well thought out title there!) I was dragged to university open days and made to sit in lectures and experience campus life. I began to consider this may be for me. I asked Mr Line to help me find out more and he arranged for his niece to come in and speak to me. It was a light bulb moment. She wasn’t ‘posh’ she was ordinary and spoke normally. All of sudden university seemed accessible. I could go. I would go. And I did go.

It wasn’t the free meal, the violet ticket, which got me 10 GCSEs, 3 A Levels, a Degree and a Masters, it was Mr Line believing in me.

Thankfully now it is recognised that students from disadvantaged backgrounds need more than a free meal. Now they come with some additional funding (we would all like it to be much more) and they come with the recognition that these students need to make accelerated progress to even be in with a shot at an even playing field. We do still have a gap, which is widening but taking away the money which helps students in need it not the answer. I could have really done with additional funding coming my way to back up the work of Mr Line and so I certainly think the funding has a place and should be used to mitigate some of the disadvantages that come with poverty. There has been much written in the press recently about the ‘problem with pupil premium’ and the overwhelming evidence that it may not be working and that extra money is not what is needed.

So what do they need? Firstly they need what all students need; the best teaching. They need well planned, engaging, supporting, challenging, assessment focused teaching.

This teaching must be underpinned with belief. There is argument to be had around unconscious bias and is as educators we have tendencies to accept less of those we know face challenges and disadvantage. And it’s not that I don’t think teachers have belief, I have never met a teacher who doesn't have high hopes for their students. I simply think that this belief is tested by students who appear disengaged and unwilling, students who look at further study as unachievable and undesirable. So I am asking you to take a ‘belief moment’ every lesson, to look at the students in front of you, take a deep breath and recognise your power. You can sit them at the front, mark their book first, ask them extended questions or make sure they are the first one you go to when you circulate the class.

But do this to challenge them, to make sure they know, you know, they can and will achieve great things in your lessons. We can all be Mr Line. We can all have the belief in a child which will be the catalyst to a happy, fulfilled life. What will close the gap, change a child's life, convince them to ‘aim for uni’? You.