14-19 Education

Policy, Leadership and Learning

Jacky Lumby, Nick Foskett

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781446231685
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Secondary Education

?AT LAST, A BOOK ABOUT THIS MOST VEXED PART OF THE CURRICULUM WHICH IS OBJECTIVE, HONEST AND RESEARCH-BASED. These two well-established authors have done what even supposedly neutral writers of official reports have been unable to do and this is because they emerge as having only one ?axe to grind?, namely what is best for the students and the country.

Showing only too clearly the confusions and competitions which have bedevilled provision for this age group, THE AUTHORS? VIEWS ARE CONVINCING AND CREDIBLE PARTLY BECAUSE-UNUSUALLY- THEY COME FROM NEITHER A ?PRO-SCHOOL? OR A ?PRO-COLLEGE? LOBBY.( Read, for example, the chapter on leadership to see how leaders in the two sectors-but providing for the same young people! - can be seen being encouraged to move in different directions.) They rightly argue that this not the point. Although, like others, they argue that partnerships are the way ahead, they show that these so far have a poor record. Their arguments, all firmly based on clear analysis of the politics and resourcing of 14-19 education, and constantly referenced by the experiences of young people of fourteen to nineteen years, are set in a totally realistic perspective and, as they conclude, the price of future failure in this provision will be calamitous.

LEADERS IN BOTH THE SCHOOLS AND THE POST-16 SECTORS SHOULD READ THIS BOOK AND REFLECT ON THE WHOLE PICTURE IT OFFERS OF WHAT MIGHT BE POSSIBLE FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. Policy makers should do the same but whether they have the will and courage to act accordingly is a matter for future debate? - David Middlewood

?The reform of the 14-19 stage of education and training in England is likely to be on the policy agenda for the next two decades, but until now our understanding of 14-19 education, like the stage itself, has been incoherent and fragmented. Lumby and Foskett provide a comprehensive, authoritative and readable account of the recent history and current state of 14-19 education. They challenge some of the myths and misconceptions that have grown up around it. I recommend this book to all people with an interest in 14-19 education in England and in the current attempts to reform it? - Professor David Raffe, Centre for Educational Sociology, University of Edinburgh

Schools and colleges are being asked to deal with fundamental changes in 14-19 education. Designed to support policy makers, practitioners and students of education in improving their understanding of this phase of education, the authors present a discussion of the evolution of policy and practice across schools and colleges, and their possible future development.

A range of educational institutions are discussed with specific reference to changes in government policy, the curriculum, support services, and the advent of Learning and Skills Councils.

PART 1

SETTING THE CONTEXT

---

Chapter 1

14–19 education:
the high-stakes battlefield

Introduction

In a radio programme the ornithologist Bill Oddie recounted how he once saw a fox from his kitchen window and in great excitement shouted to his teenage daughter to come and look. She hurried to respond to the urgent shouts, looked out of the window and coolly asked her father, ‘And this affects me how?’ Writing a volume of this sort, there is a sort of parallel situation; the authors are convinced of the timeliness and excitement of the subject but recognize that potential readers will be equally cool in calculating the relevance of the content to them. We wish to argue and to convince that the focus of this volume, the education of 14–19-year-olds, is a phase of education which demands greater attention from a whole range of stakeholders and that the case for such attention is urgent and compelling. The incident also has a second relevance, in that it reflects strongly the perspective of the young person involved. In this volume too, we wish to attempt to understand how 14–19 education and training are viewed and experienced by young people themselves.

Until recently, secondary education was conceived as comprising compulsory and post-compulsory elements as distinct components, or sometimes as two age groups, 11–16 and 16–19 year olds. The idea of learners aged 14–19 forming a discrete classification has only relatively recently come into the policy and practice domains, with the first White Paper focused on this group, Learning to Compete (DfEE, 1997a). Education is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, with different parts of the system and different priorities remaining on the periphery or coming into sharper focus over time. This book is founded on the belief that the myriad pieces which constitute the experience and outcomes of learning have shifted. A new pattern named ‘14–19 education’ has emerged as a focal point and will remain a stable and influential priority for some time to come. This book hopes to illuminate policy and practice for all those involved in devising policy, preparing educators and supporting the development of young people in this age group.

Look now!

The conviction that the time is ripe to take an in-depth look at 14–19 education is one of the drivers of this volume. During the 1980s and 1990s dissatisfaction with the outcomes of education was broadly shaped by the twin criticisms that young people were not being adequately prepared in their knowledge, skills and attitudes for the world of work and that standards of achievement generally were slipping (Pring, 1990). Dissatisfaction with both outputs (qualifications achieved, value-added) and outcomes (number entering employment or further education [FE]) (Chapman and Adams, 1998) has continued, fuelled by international comparisons, particularly of the number of young people failing to achieve minimum qualifications at 16 and the percentage remaining in education after 16. However, a number of factors, including changes in the demographic profile of society, global demands for higher skill levels in the workforce, flows of migrants and the disproportionate experience of poverty by children in the 3.8 million living in low-income households (Palmer et al., 2003), have increased the emphasis on education as the key for social and economic success. The changes have also compelled a more sophisticated analysis of education and the causes of perceived failures. Governments have been forced to accept that the roots of divisions and underachievement within education cannot be explained purely by blaming schools (McLean, 1995). Rather, the process of social reproduction, the ways in which those who have power and resources retain them, has become much more the target for change. There has been a sort of intensification of concern, an urgency to tackle the persistent educational underclass (OECD, 1992). In response, policy changes and initiatives have sought to reform every part of education, but 14–19 is at the heart, the nucleus of intense expectation.

The second driver of this volume is the belief that the 14–19 phase of education is not only distinctive but in some ways unique and therefore requires a dedicated perspective. We argue that it is a particularly critical fulcrum in the educational process, where learners are distinctive, where the expectations of government, young people, families and employers, amongst others, are funnelled and competing, and that, as a consequence, 14–19 education is a battlefield where high-stakes competition between individuals and groups results in contradiction, contest, and confusion.

The distinctive phase

Learners

The 14–19 phase of education is distinctive in a number of ways. First, the nature of learners is unlike those in other phases. As learners enter their adolescent years, they are, in legislation, compelled to remain in school. In practice young people exercise choice in absenting themselves through truanting. They may also exhibit behaviour which results in their exclusion by others. In 2001/02 there were 33,040 unauthorized absences from secondary schools. The national average of 1.1 per cent conceals variation where in some cities the absence rate is over 10 per cent (DfES, 2003a). In the same year there were 7,740 permanent exclusions from secondary schools (DfES, 2003b). Statistics are not collected in colleges in the same form of unauthorized absences, but the Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate commenting on post-compulsory education notes that: ‘The attendance rate at all lessons observed by inspectors was 78%. In sixth form colleges it was 85%, and in general further education and tertiary colleges 76%. All these figures are unsatisfactory’ (OFSTED, 2003, p. 1). Overall, the figures provide evidence of a large number of young people who are temporarily or permanently outside the 14–19 education system.

Fourteen to nineteen-year-olds feel a strong sense of their growing adulthood and wish their voice to be heard. De Pear (1997) researched the attitudes of excluded and disaffected young people and found that the perceived absence of adults listening to them was a factor in the physical or psychological opting out of such learners. There is also a growing demand for ‘respect’ and much evidence that many learners believe teachers do not offer it (Bentley, 1998; Blatchford, 1996). The generation gap between teachers and learners, not such a problem lower down the system, comes into sharp focus (Bentley, 1998). Though the rate of maturation obviously varies amongst individuals, within the 14–19 age range young people increasingly see themselves as adults with a right to be heard and to exercise control over their lives and their learning. Bentley (1998, p. 80) summarizes the dilemma that in the latter part of secondary schooling, ‘there is a growing disjunction between the power of adults and institutions and their authority’ (original emphasis).

Awareness of the world beyond school or college also grows. The earlier connection in learners’ minds between doing well at school and getting a good job strengthens (Blatchford, 1996). Contact with employment increases as part-time work is a growing element in learners’ lives. Recent studies indicate that 42 per cent of 14-year-olds are in paid employment, rising to 80 per cent of 18–19-year-olds (Hodgson and Spours, 2001). The work is not necessarily confined to the weekend but is also undertaken during the school week. Such work is not a sort of hobby or minor adjunct but an essential part of young people’s self-identity (Hughes, 1999; Lucas and Lammont, 1998). The need not just for financial security, but for sufficient funds to enjoy life are essential for a sense of success. However, striving for such personal success is within the context of increasing polarity within society between the haves and the have nots (Palmer et al., 2003).

A picture emerges of young people increasingly wishing to control their lives, to receive respect from other adults, to make choices according to their own preferences and not necessarily to be confined by school parameters. They may choose to spend time in paid work as a priority and they may choose not to come into school at all. Many young people have already faced life choices, changes, demands and difficulties which exceed those experienced by many adults. But this is only a partial picture. There is also evidence of the lack of experience of young people, their vulnerability in needing adult approval, and their fear, as well as relish, of adulthood. De Pear’s (1997) study showed disaffected young people not only wishing their voice to be heard, but also needing affection, needing a sense of acceptance. Lumby et al.’s (2003a) study of young people in London schools presents evidence of the degree to which young people are manipulated by adults in schools, colleges and their families to support a range of expectations and vested interests. Lumby and Briggs (2002) also discovered that young people combined a strongly felt wish for independence with a fear of situations where they had too much freedom, too much responsibility. They wanted ‘cushioned adulthood’ (ibid., p. 61). Thus, neither the pedagogy evolved in relation to children nor the androgogy which reflects the learning style of adults may be adequate to the needs of the 14–19 age group who are neither fully children nor fully adult. In this sense the 14–19 age group is unique and presents the first contradiction. How can young people be offered the independence and choice they increasingly demand, and yet be protected from the ill effects of such independence which they themselves fear as well as desire?

Government

The sources of government expectations lie with a plethora of beliefs, assumptions, fears and aspirations. At a European level, the 1992 meeting of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Education Ministers wished education to develop skills to support employment, but also personal and social skills such as ‘curiosity, independence and leadership, ability to co-operate, tolerance, industriousness, and problem solving under conditions of uncertainty’ (OECD, 1992, p. 104). Within the UK, this desire to meet both economic and social aims has been explicit in Labour’s ‘Third Way’ orientation, seeing education as powering both social justice and an internationally competitive economy. The two, of course, are not independent of each other, the stability of the economy and of society being mutually reinforcing.

McLean (1995) highlights the reason why upper secondary education is of particular interest to governments in offering opportunities to engineer society and the economy through a differentiated curriculum in a way which is not possible lower down the system. Younger children follow a largely undifferentiated curriculum to achieve foundation skills and knowledge:

After 10 to 14 years of education, the range of attainment of 16 year-olds is too great for them to be taught to one standard. Particular gifts of all young people, specialised as well as of a general kind, need to be developed ... Artistic, physical, manual as well as particular intellectual talents need space to flower. Yet general education to basic levels needs to be maintained by all. (McLean, 1995, p. 147)

McLean places the alteration at 16, but the choice of GCSE options suggests the point of change as earlier, at 14. Differentiating what is taught much more than for 5–13-year-olds, opens up the prospect of manipulating the curriculum to achieve government aims. It is an invitation to experiment which has proved irresistible for some decades. In particular, successive governments have grappled with the ambivalent aims of providing success for all and also a classification system for the benefit of higher education (HE), employers and wider society.

Classification takes priority as 14–19 education is shaped above all by assessment (Bowring-Carr and West-Burnham, 1997; Lumby 2001a). Foucault (1977) analyses examination systems as providing surveillance and punishment, ensuring a restricted entry to the elite and penalties for the remainder. This has certainly been the experience of 14–19-year-olds with half of 16-year-olds failing to achieve the target five or more A*–C at GCSE in 2001/02 (DfES, 2003c), and high rates of both failure and dropout in A levels and GNVQs by 19 (Audit Commission/OFSTED, 1993; OFSTED, 2003). McLean (1995, p. 142) contrasts the approaches of the Soviet Union, in attempting to ensure achievement by all of a minimum standard by a system of sanctions against parents and students, the USA which provides a ‘comprehensive curriculum of academic, vocational, social adjustment and recreational subjects’ taught in a style which encourages articulate and confident students, and the European approach which sets minimum standards and then lets the majority fail to reach them.

In the UK the subject content of the curriculum has not changed very much since the start of the twentieth century (Pring, 1990). Adjustments in education have been largely driven for decades by the repeated ritualistic expression of concern about A levels, their narrowness and academic orientation, followed by, until recently, a refusal to change them. In essence, reform has mainly comprised a series of initiatives to sort young people onto ‘tracks’ and then provide discrete solutions – Youth Opportunities, Youth Training Programme, Modern Apprenticeships and so on, which largely have not touched the mainstream 14–19 curriculum (see Chapter 2).

Fourteen to nineteen is also of particular interest to government in that it crosses the point of ‘massification’ of the system (Hodgson and Spours, 2003). If skill levels are to be raised in the whole population, persuasion to stay on after the compulsory phase must be laid prior to 16 and the offering post-16 must be sufficiently attractive. In this way, it could be argued that success in national aims to secure an appropriate workforce hinges on success in the 14–19 phase.

The potential contradiction in both the existing arrangements and in aims for the future is evident. How can 14–19 education provide an experience of success for the whole population while simultaneously differentiating people according to levels of ability and skills predilection? This is the second contradiction.

Families

The perspective of families differs from those of governments. The overwhelming concern for middle-class families is not success for all, but success for their own children. The aim is to maintain or increase social and cultural capital. The impetus is intense and anything that threatens or impedes is resisted (Ball, 2003). For working-class families education presents more complicated choices, as young people and their families use education as a route to another class, or as a means of confirming their identity within their family’s current class and culture (Reay, 2001a). Families are then ‘the motor of inequality’ (Ball, 2003, p. 4). As McLean (1995) points out, even in Japan where enrolment in schools is strictly by ability, and strategies such as moving residence, for example, will not gain entry, rich parents still have resource to crammer schools to offer an edge to their children. Globally, the curriculum is designed from the perspective of the dominant class and is therefore unlikely to be subject to change which will threaten that dominance. In the UK the long history of middle-class resistance to changing A levels is an obvious example (Hodgson and Spours, 2003). There is little that can be done to circumvent the rich and powerful from securing advantage for their children.

Young people themselves are complicit in maintaining class division. When interviewing young people as to their choice of programme and place of study post-16, Lumby and Briggs (2002) found repeated reference to status and prestige as highly desirable commodities. Young people themselves were instrumental in primarily seeing education as the means to secure long-term advantage in terms of jobs and income. They had bought into credentialism and were anxious to secure qualifications which would act as currency for entry to the highest status institutions. In this way, they were curators of class divisions as enacted through the different status accorded to different education programmes and institutions. For some, far from wishing to erode differential prestige, buying into or opting out of the hierarchy of prestige is an essential source of their self-esteem and ‘street cred’ with others (Lumby et al., 2003b) enacted through choosing to study wherever is ‘fashionable’. Foskett et al. (2003, p. 6) explore the idea of ‘fashionability’ which: ‘in this context is seen as the primacy of particular choices on the basis of their perceived acceptability to specific social groups, where that primacy is based on subjective judgements of value rather than, necessarily, objective measures of value’. The flow towards the perceived greatest prestige and status are thus embedded in cultures which aim for or avoid particular locations for study or training.

Fourteen to nineteen is therefore the phase where staying in or moving class is most crucially negotiated. The examinations at 16 and 18 each act not just as gateways to further study/training, to employment or to becoming subject to the curt term ‘NEET’ (not in education, employment or training), but also to a position in relation to others. If the resulting position is not as hoped, the consequences may be lifelong. Although it is possible to recover lost opportunities by returning to study in later life, for many, the 14–19 phase is an irrecoverable rite of passage where success or failure impacts on life chances in a profound way. It is a high-stakes conflict area, between individuals, classes, families and government.

Employers

Much of the change suggested by government is justified in terms of the need to suppl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• PART 1 SETTING THE CONTEXT
• PART 2 A COHERENT LEARNING EXPERIENCE?
• PART 3 LEADING TEACHING AND LEARNING
• PART 4 FUTURES
• References
• Author index
• Subject index