The Life and Death of Secondary Education for All

Richard Pring

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136211751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Is there life after death for secondary education?

This book focuses upon the quality of learning. 'Reform', so called, too often begins with qualifications, examinations, institutional provision, paths of progression. All those are very important, but their value lies in the support they give to learners and their learning in its different forms. One needs to start with the aims of education and then with what it means to learn (practically, theoretically, morally) and with the very many different needs of the learners. That is what this book aims to do.

In so doing, it will be both philosophical in analysis and empirical in example. So much is happening 'from down below' that goes unrecognised by policy makers. But innovations too often get hampered by government interventions, by a bureaucratic mentality and by failure to spread good practice. The general argument of the book, therefore, will be illustrated throughout with detailed references to practical developments in schools, colleges, the third sector, youth work, independent training providers and professional bodies – across several countries.

The book builds on Education for All, which was based on 14-19 research into secondary education, this book transcends the particularities of England and Wales and digs more deeply into those issues which are at the heart of educational controversy, policy and practices and which survive the transience of political change and controversy. The issues (the aims of education, standards of performance, the consequent vision of learning, the role of teachers, progression from school to higher or further education and into employment, the provision of such education and training and the control of education) are by no means confined to the UK, or to this day and age. Pring identifies similar problems in other countries such as the USA, Germany and France – and indeed in the Greece of Plato and Aristotle and offers solutions with a comparative perspective.

It is a critical time. Old patterns of education and its provision are less and less suitable for facing the twenty-first century. The patterns and modes of communication have changed radically in a few years and those changes are quickening in pace. The economic context has been transformed, affecting the skills and knowledge needed for employment. The social world of young people raises fresh demands, hopes and fears. A global recession has affected young people disproportionately making quality of life and self-fulfilment ever more difficult to attain.

In addressing 'learning' and the 'learners' first and foremost, the book will argue for a wider vision of learning and a more varied pattern of provision. Old structures must give way to new.

Part I
Aims, values and culture

1 Secondary education for all

Dream or reality?

Secondary education

In a purely descriptive sense, all developed countries claim to have secondary education for all – namely, the provision of compulsory schooling to the age of about 16, with its continuation beyond that for many who choose to benefit further from formal education.

However, one might question whether there is secondary education for all. In England, the Newsom Report (1964) showed that the aspirations of the 1944 Education Act had not been achieved by half our future, even though they remained in secondary schools until the age of 15. Subsequently there have been many attempts to reform the system in order to embrace the other half of our future. But critics remain – many of them. Is education for all possible? If so, what changes are needed?

In most countries there is a break in the provision for young people somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13. That break takes place between primary (including elementary and preparatory) school, on the one hand, and, on the other, secondary (including high and senior) school.

Precision here is not important. It is assumed that changes take place about then which demand a different kind of curriculum and a different context for learning. The Hadow Report (1926) for England and Wales, aptly entitled The Education of the Adolescent, set the tone in claiming that ‘there is a tide which begins to rise in the veins of youth at the age of 11 or 12. It is called by the name of adolescence.’ The adolescent, so it is argued, needs a different environment – one that is more ‘grown up’, more oriented to the adult world for which he or she is being prepared.

However, it is increasingly felt that in this period from 11 to 18, when the young person changes from dependent child to adult (entitled to get married, to earn a living and to fight for their country), changes are so great that they cannot adequately be responded to for all young people in a totally uniform secondary system. Different opportunities and environments should be available at 14, and also (or alternatively) at 16. At least there should be collaboration between different kinds of institution (for example, between schools and colleges of further education) which offer different pathways from 14 onwards.

Indeed, recently in England there have been calls for a ‘transfer’ at 14. Some have argued that 14 is when young people are able and need to make choices about the most appropriate educational pathway – influenced by their aspirations for the future, their preferred modes of learning, the range of possible courses available, or the need for a more ‘grown-up’ environment. Kenneth Baker, once Secretary of State, is promoting University Technical Colleges (UTCs) for those who, at the age of 14, see their future in the more practical and technical, but equally demanding, world of engineering. Several have already opened. In the USA, transfer at 14 is the norm as young people progress from junior high to the high school.

All such claims emerge from the recognition of the need for a wider range of learning opportunities and for different environments to meet the needs of growing young people. Educational provision should be based on the learning needs of young people, not on the needs of inflexible institutional provision.

Therefore, the definition of ‘secondary education’ is fluid in terms of institutional provision, learning opportunities, appropriate environments, and progression routes into further training and higher education.

Some areas of concern

How such secondary education is shaped depends on answers to several issues of concern.

First, the change at the age of 11 from one environment to another is smooth for most, but somewhat disconcerting for others. Croll et al. point out from their extensive research:

Children had very mixed views on the transition from primary to secondary. Some of them had been happier in primary school and found secondary school to be too big and impersonal. Others, however, had welcomed the transition as a move from a claustrophobic environment into a more varied and grownup world offering them much wider academic and social possibilities.

(Croll et al., 2010: 101)

That shift from a small, cosy environment to a larger, more impersonal one with a variety of teachers and a complex timetable can be difficult to cope with. Therefore, secondary education for all needs to attend to this transition and to the larger and less personal nature of the school. At the same time, importance is attached to a ‘more grown-up world’ which is seen to characterise the secondary phase. Perhaps the US division between elementary, junior high and high school is the best after all.

Second, development is gradual. It occurs at different paces, depending on the individual, on their environments and on the opportunities offered. Part of what one might expect from a secondary phase is the recognition of different levels of attainment, of pacing and of motivation within the same age group – and thus a great deal of flexibility in the ways in which the educational aims might be realised for different young people. Individual progress should not be tightly constrained by ‘standards’ defined for age groups.

Third, as the journey through the secondary phase progresses, so educational development needs to acknowledge a more adult environment. There is surely a connection between educational development and recognition by young people themselves (and by others) of their growing adult status. Such an environment and such recognition can, of course, be reflected in many different ways – relationships within the school between teacher and learner, opportunities for learning in the workplace, or transfer to the more adult world of the further education college.

Fourth, by their second decade young people have accumulated a lot of experience which shapes their sense of relevance, their aspirations and their very perceptions of schooling. There is a need to acknowledge the informal learning through which their minds and their values have already been provisionally formed.

Fifth, modern communication technology has opened up in revolutionary ways social networks, conversations beyond immediate acquaintances, ready access to information and opinions – even to the extent that some argue for future classrooms without teachers. Florida State, for example, is using virtual classrooms called elearning labs with on-line teachers. And many, if not the majority of, young people in the secondary phase have developed independently an expertise in the use of technology. Perhaps the normal institutional framework for providing education for all, with its carefully controlled curriculum, should be questioned.

Sixth, the time approaches, during the secondary phase, when decisions have to be made about further or higher education or about training for employment. Opportunities to anticipate the future, in terms of both personal aspirations and realistic employment possibilities, should be part of the educational experience for all.

Hence, a lot depends on the characterisation of a secondary phase. It is when young people move into a different and potentially less personal environment, when they are soon to see themselves as young adults, when there emerges a wide range of abilities, achievements and aspirations, when their prior and contemporary experiences sieve the formal curriculum through different perspectives, when a command of communication technology opens up a much greater social and academic freedom, and when crucial decisions are made about their respective pathways to the future.

All these characteristics of the secondary phase demand flexibility of provision, respect for the learner’s voice, and collaboration between educational providers (schools, colleges, Youth Service, voluntary bodies, employers and training providers). Are the institutional arrangements we have inherited appropriate for secondary education for all in the twenty-first century?

The dream

In the USA, the ‘common school’ was an ideal promoted by, amongst others, the philosopher John Dewey (1916). A principal aim of education was to help nurture a sense of community. This sense of community should be characterised by mutual respect and by learning through the interactions between learners of different backgrounds and experiences. ‘Education’, ‘preparation for democracy’ and ‘community school’ went together.

In England and Wales, secondary education for all was established by the 1944 Education Act. This was to be achieved (following the recommendations of the Norwood Report, 1943) through recognition of three broad areas of innate ability, each to be nurtured through a separate kind of school. There were those who were good at abstract thinking for whom the traditional grammar school was appropriate; there were those who were motivated by technical interests and were good at applying ideas, for whom technical schools and colleges were appropriate; and there were the rest who were motivated by practical activities and the more immediate environment, for whom secondary modern schools were relevant, followed by an early departure into the world of unskilled work. A very different ‘dream’ from that of the American High School!

This is not the place to rehearse all the criticisms of such an arrangement, in particular, the inequality of opportunity, of respect and of funding amongst those so categorised. But four criticisms stand out.

Equal opportunity to acquire intelligence

In England and Wales certainly, prevailing assumptions (spelt out in the Norwood Report, 1943) about ‘different kinds of children’, characterised by an objectively measured level of intelligence, came to be questioned. Far from being fixed and unchangeable, intelligence can, where the opportunities are provided, be ‘acquired’, as the Conservative Minister of Education, Sir Edward Boyle, declared in the Foreword to the Newsom Report (1964). The essential point is

that all children should have an equal opportunity of acquiring intelligence, and of developing their talents and abilities to the full.

There was much evidence for this – for example, that of Vernon (1957) whose research demonstrated that coaching for the 11-plus examinations (by which children were selected for grammar school) could boost the intelligence scores by as much as 15 points.

A wider vision of achievement

The Newsom Report was scathing about the treatment of the ‘half our future’ which was denied the educational opportunities enjoyed by the other half. They deserved better. The curriculum needed to be broadened and enriched, and their achievements, too, should be recognised in public examinations. Indeed, until the implementation of the Beloe Report (1960) in the establishment of the Certificate of Secondary Education (first sat in 1965), there were no publicly funded examinations for anyone beyond the (roughly) 20 per cent selected for the GCE ‘O’ Level examinations.

More to education than academic success

There is much more to education than academic success. The rarely examined word ‘academic’ usually excludes the practical and demanding studies leading to engineering and design, and to the creative arts. Schools and colleges should be enabling young people to live more fulfilled lives and to live and work together as fellow citizens.

Economic needs

There was the economic argument. A more sophisticated economy needed a more sophisticated workforce – a higher level of literacy and numeracy, and a broader basis on which to build the skills and knowledge for the world of work.

All in all, there should be meaningful secondary education for all.

That, of course, was the rationale for the development of the comprehensive school – the kind of school which would bring young people across the socio-economic spectrum of society and across the ability range in order to mitigate social differences, provide greater equality of opportunity and create a less socially divided society. Those who welcomed the birth of comprehensive schools as the attempt to provide ‘education for all’, not for just an elite in the independent sector or in the grammar schools, saw the creation of a ‘common culture’, through the provision of a ‘common curriculum’ (and preferably in a ‘common school’) to be central to that vision.

Yet, despite the evidence to the contrary, the tripartite mentality lives on. One pioneering comprehensive school in south London was reopened in May 2011, divided into three ‘houses’ or ‘mini-schools’ – one for the gifted and talented, one for the middle ability and one for the lowest ability. Membership of each ‘house’ warrants a different coloured tie – purple for the gifted and talented, red for middle ability, and blue for the lowest ability. They are taught in separate buildings, play in different fenced off playgrounds and eat at different times. This is seen by the head teacher as the ‘only way to survive in the brave new world of market-driven education’, where the school is competing for children with the nearby grammar schools in Bexley. According to the head teacher, mixed ability teaching has failed and hence back to the tripartite system within the school – with a vengeance (Education Guardian, 26 July 2011).

The end of a dream?

The ‘dream’, which helped to shape the American High School as the twentieth century progressed, came under critical scrutiny. Such education for all was seen not to be possible without compromising educational aims – ‘a fragmented curriculum that lacks a unified purpose and focus’, and a compromise of academic rigour and demanding standards.

As a result, it is often suggested, the effort of the high school to provide for everyone has created an institution that serves no one particularly well.

(Franklin and McCulloch, 2007: 7)

Further problems emerged where the common school reflects only what is common within economically and racially segregated communities, or where ‘choice’ enables some learners to take flight from their community schools. As Ravitch points out in relation to New York City:

As it elevated the concept of school choice, the Department of Education destroyed the concept of neighbourhood high schools. . .. Neighbourhoods were once knitted together by a familiar local high school that served all the children of the community, a school with distinctive traditions and teams and history.

(Ravitch, 2010: 83)

In Britain, despite massive investment in schools, a large proportion of young people is regarded as uneducated, school failures, disengaged from the formal learning, ill-prepared for the world of employment, untouched by the prospect of social upward mobility. Employers complain about the lack of employability skills. Critics point to the lack of ‘social mobility’ amongst those from the most disadvantaged sections of society. Universities speak of the lack of preparation of 18 year olds for the demands of university work (Wilde and Wright, 2007). Politicians blame the school...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART I Aims, values and culture
• PART II Putting aims into practice
• PART III Provision of education
• PART IV Conclusion
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index