Tag Archives: education

We need to make education more equal

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It’s time to end the culture of blame on schools in working-class areas. Only limited gains can be made by changing the way these schools are run. Real improvements in education will come from a more equal school system, where students from different backgrounds attend school together

This is an excellent post by Dr Gena Merrett over on Labour Rose. Well worth reading! Follow Gena on Twitter here

Dr Gena Merrett

This week, I finally got round to reading Michael Gove’s speech to the National College for School Leadership. In the same week, I have been writing a document about creating a strategic vision for school improvement. Uncannily, the theme of the ‘moral purpose of education’ ran through both.

When Gove says what unites educational professionals is ‘the belief that lives can be transformed by what goes on in schools,’ there is little to argue against him since, when students are from areas of high deprivation and low aspirations, their education is their only hope to attain a better life. On the same lines, I have said that a school’s strategic vision must be based on core values and a clear moral purpose with the attainment, progress and well-being of the learner at its very centre.

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What’s the future of the working class? A review of Owen Jones’ ‘Chavs: the demonisation of the working class’

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Owen Jones’ book is a brilliant, moving account of how the working class have been disempowered and blamed for their own situation by both Tories and New Labour. But it could have been braver in acknowledging that Britain today is riddled with class but no longer has any classes. We should also be clear that if (when!) we eliminate all of the problems identified in this book, it will be the end of class altogether

Owen Jones' 'Chavs: the demonisation of the working class'

OK, I admit that I’ve overindulged myself a bit here. This is a long post. The best defence I can offer is that Owen Jones’ book Chavs: the demonisation of the working class delves into the very most important issues facing British society. It’s worth looking at closely.

Chavs is a brilliant account of what has happened in British society since the 1980s. Ignore the sensationalised way it has been marketed, with a provocative title and a Burberry cap on the cover. This book explains how the decline of industry destroyed the structure of working-class communities and took away economic opportunities; it describes how the political and media establishments, under both Tory and New Labour governments, have blamed the working class for their own plight and even mocked them for it; and it explains how the social problems we see in these communities are the results, not the causes, of their situation.

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