̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - primary education

Changing Course on Climate

plc32 — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 12:01:02 +0000

̽��ֱ��global publishing and assessment arm of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is calling on teachers in 160 countries to help improve climate change education for nearly a million 3-19 year-olds.

A new educational initiative – Roots – makes music a priority

ehs33 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 09:57:29 +0000

Cambridgeshire secondary school pupils had the chance to put into practice their new singing talents – from music from the Middle Ages through to the present day – at a public concert in Trinity College Chapel on March 19.

For the past 5 months, the students from North Cambridge Academy and Sir Harry Smith Community College have been training alongside professional musicians thanks to an innovative music programme that seeks to close a gap in school education.

̽��ֱ��three-year project focuses on helping students develop both vocal and instrumental skills through regular workshops with professional musicians from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Associate Ensemble VOCES8 and ̽��ֱ��Brook Street Band. Using the ‘VOCES8 method’, teachers and students are encouraged to learn through participation, using vocal and rhythmic exercises that develop their music skills and confidence.

“Amidst the current environment of low funding for education, many local schools in Cambridgeshire struggle to make basic provision for music,” explains Dr Sam Barrett, one of the organisers of the programme, called Roots. “Music can help children develop skills and confidence that can underpin many other aspects of their educational journey. Roots aims to redress the balance by providing a new model for future music education within primary and secondary schools in the region.”

One teacher remarked: “One of the Year 8 [aged 12-13] boys struggles with dyslexia and his academic work. He is not confident – due no doubt to this learning difficulty - and finds it hard to make friends. This project is making a real difference for him. Not only has he stood up with his group to lead, he has introduced his group and as the day went on, began to comfortably lead some warm-ups.” A Year 8 boy added: “I feel more confident after the choir leadership project, I would now put myself out there for more and more things.”

Roots involves the regional music education hub, Cambridgeshire Music; two charities, Cambridge Early Music and the VCM Foundation; and is supported by both Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ�� and Cambridge ̽��ֱ��. Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Faculty of Music, for instance, have been working with teachers to help develop lesson plans informed by their latest insights.

A parallel instrumental strand is being developed by Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ�� to establish a tangible legacy by founding a period instrument ensemble specifically for under 18s. Specialist coaching will be provided through workshops, access to historic instruments and the Brook Street Band’s innovative online resource Handel Digital, culminating in performance opportunities.

̽��ֱ��concert at Trinity College represents the completion of the first phase of the project. Responses from the schools involved have been overwhelmingly positive both from teachers and pupils alike. As one teacher said: “Another pupil in year 8 has behavioural difficulties – often out of lessons and unable to manage in a regular classroom. She loves music. This project has given her an incentive to better manage her behaviour so that she can participate. She has been able to attend the training sessions and now, having helped lead warm-ups for the children she has something to feel very proud of.”

Funding for the first year of the ROOTS project has been provided by the Helen Hamlyn Trust and the SoundMe project sponsored by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area). Individuals or societies interested in supporting years 2 and 3 of the project are invited to contact Dr Sam Barrett for further information.

Cambridge researchers and musicians are helping to support schools in Cambridgeshire to deliver high quality and sustainable music provision over the next three years.

Amidst the current environment of low funding for education, many local schools in Cambridgeshire struggle to make basic provision for music

Dr Sam Barrett

Andrew Wilkinson Photography.

ROOTS concert at Trinity College Cambridge

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We are all 'others': teaching children to celebrate differences

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0000

At times of dramatic change and conflict, words can become weapons. Europe is transforming: migration, economic crises and Brexit are shaking the continent’s sense of identity, and debate has turned quickly to division and misunderstanding, to angry Twitter exchanges and pumped-up political stand-offs.

Now, a new Europe-wide project led by Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and closely linked to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS) is encouraging better dialogue – by initially removing language altogether.

̽��ֱ��three-year DIALLS project (Dialogue and Argumentation for Cultural Literacy Learning in Schools) will use wordless picturebooks and short films as a stimulus for discussion by children in primary and secondary schools. Exploring their individual and collective responses to the texts within school – and with peers in partner countries from Portugal and Cyprus to Israel and Lithuania – will, researchers believe, help children understand their own cultural identities, while also recognising and respecting those of others in a fast-changing and diverse Europe.

“Our approach is to use the skills of dialogue to promote understanding,” says Dr Fiona Maine, a visual literacy specialist and principal investigator for the €4.4 million project, funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme and involving nine universities. “To have an effective dialogue, you need to understand other people’s perspectives and where they are coming from, and perhaps critique your own views.”

Texts without words, needing no translation across borders, are an ideal stimulant for cross-cultural debate, Maine says. “These texts are ambiguous, and so give rich opportunities for discussion.”

A preliminary collection of dozens of materials gathered from across Europe since the project’s launch in May 2018 reflects the fact that many picturebooks have resonance for readers of all ages. ̽��ֱ��Mediterranean, by the Swiss illustrator Armin Greder, is for older readers and tackles themes of displacement and violence, its beautiful charcoal images confronting the tragic reality of refugees lost at sea. Baboon on the Moon, directed by Christopher Duriez, is a quirky animated film in which a baboon is taken from the jungle to top up the moon’s light each day. At first glance, it’s more playful, yet it addresses similarly powerful notions of home and belonging that could be discussed by all ages.

̽��ֱ��next task is to whittle the initial selection down to a core set of 45 texts, likely to include some 30 books, with films and potentially artworks making up the total. It is here that children will themselves get involved in the research, with pupils at UCPS – the UK hub for the project – reviewing and choosing alongside their teachers.

“Student voice is important in the selection,” says Maine. “We’ll ask children which they like, but also which they feel give them real opportunities for discussion.”

̽��ֱ��chosen texts, divided for different age groups where appropriate, will then be used by partner schools in each of the nine participant countries to stimulate discussion over 15 lesson sequences. ̽��ֱ��aim is twofold: children in 300 classes across Europe will explore their responses to the ideas prompted by the books and films, but in doing so will also develop their skills in dialogue and argumentation (the structuring of discussion by hearing and building on others’ points of view). These, in turn, underpin the fundamental goal of the project: to develop children’s “cultural literacy” – not in the sense of knowledge of a defined European culture of art and literature, but in an openness to engage with many different interpretations of it.

“For effective dialogue, in essence, you have to be tolerant, empathetic and inclusive of other positions,” says Maine. “Cultural literacy is not about accessing culture, but about a disposition to engage. Through understanding your own heritage, cultural identity and values and how they are positioned, you are better able to see that actually everybody has a slightly different experience. So it is not about saying ‘us and others’: we are all ‘others’.”

Children’s exploration of this ‘otherness’ will begin in the classroom as they discuss texts with fellow pupils, moving on as the project develops to discussions with children elsewhere in their own country (in England, 30 schools will be involved at first, with more in the third year once resources on using the texts are online).

Children across Europe will be able to share their ideas using a specially created digital platform. One landmark will be a semi-virtual conference in May 2020 bringing together school students to share ideas on the themes explored in the wordless texts, leading to the creation of a “manifesto for cultural literacy for young people in Europe” to sit alongside a set of freely available resources for teachers.

Along the way, children will also develop their own ‘cultural artefacts’ – artwork, stories or short films to be made publicly available in a virtual gallery. In the UK, participating teachers will have access to the Faculty of Education for professional development.

For UCPS, with its close ties to the Faculty and strong research mission, the DIALLS project sits perfectly with its own curriculum priorities. “ ̽��ֱ��real key perhaps to the project is to connect teachers and academics and children, and doing that through different texts,” says UCPS Headteacher Dr James Biddulph. “It fits in with our school’s focus on developing compassionate citizens who are actively involved in their world.”

But with its pan-European scope and ambition to promote understanding, is there a risk the DIALLS initiative could seem unduly idealistic in an era of transition, enormous complexity and debates that can seem so intractable that many in the adult world are tempted to turn away and tune out? How can we expect children to make sense of Europe and its different – and changing – cultures, when even we adults frequently seem unable to do so?

For Maine, the goal is not to find cosy solutions to the world’s problems, but to give children more tools to manage difference positively. “This isn’t about finding answers – we aren’t trying to get people to agree, nor even to seek to agree. This is about listening and understanding. It’s about a way of being.”

Read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

As the world around us increasingly divides into ‘us and others’, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School is taking part in a new research project to help children discover for themselves that far more unites us than divides us.

This isn’t about finding answers – we aren’t trying to get people to agree, nor even to seek to agree. This is about listening and understanding. It’s about a way of being

Fiona Maine

Linda Culverwell (ARTBASH)

Details from artwork commissioned by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School featuring paintings by the pupils

Yes

Releasing the imagination: the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School

fpjl2 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:31:48 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School is committed to improving education for all primary children, everywhere.

READ THE STORY HERE

Also available: Dr James Biddulph discusses the Primary School's approach and life as a headteacher as part of the 'We are the ̽��ֱ��' podcast series:

Read more about our research on the topic of children in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

More than just an outstanding Ofsted rating sets the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School apart: it places research at its heart, informing education practice and furthering research at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and elsewhere.

We want to be a new voice in the chorus

James Biddulph

ARTBASH/ ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Primary School

Yes

Improving support for pupils with English as an additional language

ta385 — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 10:45:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��report identifies opportunities to target outreach to parents of EAL pupils, and develop frameworks and qualifications for English language support specialists to enable better assessment of language proficiency among pupils.

̽��ֱ��researchers, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ��, were commissioned by the Bell Foundation to conduct a two-year longitudinal study of secondary schools in the East of England between 2013 and 2015.

̽��ֱ��project, which took a new cross-disciplinary approach and linked quantitative and qualitative methods, involved a regional survey of 46 secondary schools as well as tracking the progress of 22 newly-arrived EAL students at two case study schools over a two year period and interviewing dozens of teachers, parents and carers.

Diana Sutton, Director of the Bell Foundation, said:

‘Crude headlines which assert that EAL children either outperform others or are a drain on scarce school resources miss the point. ̽��ֱ��picture is mixed, complex and nuanced, as this and previous research shows.’

̽��ֱ��new research highlights the benefits which such children receive from growing up in mixed-language social groups, and gives an impression of the pace at which they start to feel a sense of belonging as well as academic achievement.

But the survey found that EAL support was uneven across different schools. While some have qualified EAL coordinators managing schoolwide support, others have teaching assistants covering the role, and some have an already overstretched subject teacher subbing in.

Key recommendations in the report include:

‘EAL coordinators’ within schools should be part of a national framework of support specialists for children for whom English is an additional language

Michael Evans, Reader in Education at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, said:

‘There is a need to develop high quality, Masters level accredited training for the EAL co-ordinator role, akin to the requirements for the new Special Education Needs co-ordinators. ̽��ֱ��role of the EAL Coordinator should be professionalised. Networks could be established and guidelines developed and shared to raise the status of EAL support, and the prominence of those who coordinate it within individual schools, as well as the wider system.’

A model of accountability should be established, similar to Pupil Premium support for those eligible for free school meals, in which resource from the national budget is contingent on pupil progress

̽��ֱ��report warns that there is a lack of accurate information on linguistic proficiency, which can mask EAL pupils’ academic potential. While pupils within the study developed functional oral proficiency within a year, many continued to struggle to use appropriate “academic” English.

Currently, recorded data gives no indication of an EAL pupils’ proficiency and funding is for three years only, after which there is no additional support, regardless of the pupil's proficiency in English. By contrast, in the US, assessment continues and pupils only exit the EAL status once proficiency is achieved.

Embedding EAL training in teacher training programmes, and including EAL inductions as part of the school orientation for newly qualified teachers

In interviews, the researchers found that the parents of EAL students cared considerably about the social and academic progress of their child. However, they also observed that school staff often use very limited definitions of parental engagement, such as attendance of parents’ evenings. Many parents of EAL pupils had little understanding of the school system, leaving them lacking confidence and fearful of engaging, along with barriers of language. This can lead to assumptions about parents that are ‘unlikely to represent actual level of interest’.

Encouraging parental involvement

Claudia Schneider, Principal Lecturer in Social Policy at Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ��, said:

‘Schools should take advantage of the opportunities offered by high levels of parental interest, by developing information and communication strategies which reflect an ‘outreach mentality’.’

‘Targeted strategies for encouraging community and parental networks could, for example, offer bilingual support by sharing translations of routine school information. Parents of EAL are significantly underrepresented in school structures, and such cost-effective networks could help integrate this untapped resource.’

̽��ֱ��report’s authors have created a template through which newly-arrived families could be encouraged to get involved by presenting on their country of origin. They also highlight simple technological aids such as embedded widgets on school websites that allow for translated information when clicked on.

̽��ֱ��report contains forewords by the Vice Chancellors of both Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ�� and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge who both have a migration background and highlight the importance of migration for Higher Education.

Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, himself the child of Polish immigrants, wrote:

‘[T]he report underlines the need for a holistic approach to EAL children’s experience, involving parents as well as schools. It calls for evidence‐based approaches to the teaching of EAL students, for greater consistency in the assessment of their progression, and for a review of testing that may put them at a disadvantage.’

̽��ֱ��new research builds on the Bell Foundation’s 2014 report on school approaches to the education of EAL students.

Download the Executive Summary of the 2016 report.

Download the Full Report.

A new report on UK school pupils who speak English as an additional language (EAL) argues that their progression in English language proficiency, academic achievement and social integration is closely linked and that a strong professional knowledge base is needed in schools to support the pupils. ̽��ֱ��authors also argue that parents are an ‘untapped resource’ for support and social integration. ̽��ֱ��report makes a series of policy recommendations.

̽��ֱ��report underlines the need for a holistic approach to EAL children’s experience, involving parents as well as schools

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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New index of children’s ‘school readiness’ highlights importance of family support

cjb250 — Wed, 27 May 2015 23:00:09 +0000

Researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Centre for Family Research and Psychometrics Centre have completed a study in which they developed the simple questionnaire for teachers, dubbed the Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI).

̽��ֱ��government has indicated that it wishes to introduce testing for all children at Reception (when they first enter school at age four) in September this year. These tests seek to provide baseline assessments of a child’s ‘school readiness.’ However, the proposals have been criticised by several teaching organisations as being too narrowly focused and likely to add to the difficulties of an already challenging period for both children and their teachers.

“If schools are to deliver the extra support needed to help children make a successful transition to school, some form of assessment is required, but the tests due to be introduced in September are not what teachers need: they are labour-intensive and potentially stressful for four-year-olds,” says Professor Claire Hughes from the Centre for Family Research, who led the research.

“Teachers need something that is brief but reliable and that harnesses their own skills and experience to identify children in need of extra support. A short teacher questionnaire such as the BESSI could provide all the necessary information and be easier to implement.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge study was a study commissioned by Frank Field MP who, following his 2010 report, ̽��ֱ��Foundation Years: how to prevent poor children becoming poor adults set up and now chairs the Foundation Years Trust. Part of the Trust’s work is to develop, implement and promote life chance indicators, which are seen as playing a key role in driving policy and incentivising a focus on improving children’s long-term life chances.

̽��ֱ��BESSI questionnaire is unique in being both brief (one page) and broad (including, for example, items about the kinds of support children receive at home). A previous, much longer questionnaire, the Early Development Instrument (EDI), was designed by a Canadian research team and has enabled teachers in Australia to profile the development and wellbeing of more than 260,000 five-year-olds. This national census revealed worrying regional disparities in the proportion of children with ‘developmental vulnerabilities’, with clear policy implications for mobilizing extra support. However, the EDI is not appropriate for use in the UK because British children start formal schooling one year earlier than children almost everywhere else in the world – a significant time difference in terms of a child’s development and a source of concern for many.

Professor Hughes and colleagues carried out focus groups with teachers in Field’s Birkenhead constituency with a view to getting a first-hand view of variation in children’s school readiness. This highlighted an additional problem: a lack of consensus on how ‘school readiness’ should be defined.

Researchers in the USA have noted that for politicians, whose primary interest is in the extent to which schools produce employable young adults, school readiness hinges on achieving foundation skills in literacy and numeracy. As Professor Hughes explained, “For teachers, who face the more immediate challenge of 30 small children in a confined space, the obvious starting point is children’s behaviour and emotional and social development.”

Defining school readiness is also complicated by the fact that learning takes many forms – from ‘surface learning’ (e.g. letter recognition) to ‘deep learning’ (e.g. finding patterns or principles). Some theorists argue that the very term ‘school readiness’ is intrinsically unfair, in that it appears to place the burden of responsibility on the child. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge researchers noted that a lack of educational support at home was a frequent issue raised by teachers.

To address these various problems, the researchers developed and piloted the BESSI. So far, this has been tested in three waves involving schools and nurseries in the Wirral, in London and in Manchester. ̽��ֱ��first wave was with teachers of over 800 children in Reception, the second was with nursery staff working with a similar number of much younger children, and the third was with teachers of a further 270 children to check the reliability of BESSI ratings.

Amongst other factors, the BESSI provides information about children’s social and behavioural adjustment (e.g. are they able to play with other children or to wait their turn?) as well as measures of their daily living skills (e.g. can they use cutlery and can they go the toilet by themselves?) and language / cognitive skills. Importantly, it also captures variation in family support and includes items about reading, praise and fun at home. ̽��ֱ��findings around fun are particularly interesting as they indicate that parental support is not simply a matter of regular reading at home – although there may be a virtuous circle by which parents and children who have fun together are also more likely to read together.

As the researchers expected, some problems, such as distractibility and trouble sitting still, were very common, even among the older children in the sample. However, the BESSI also provided some surprising insights. First, not only were problems typically almost twice as common in boys as in girls, but these gender differences were also evident in family support. For example, compared with girls, boys received much lower ratings of ‘fun at home’.

Second, children from low-income families lagged behind their more affluent peers – but these differences were removed when scores for family support were taken into account. In other words, when families facing financial difficulties are still able to have fun together, the children appear better prepared for school – but teachers’ ratings indicated that fun at home was often lacking.

“We should not blame parents who provide low levels of support, or recast problems of inequality as a matter of parental responsibility, or let these findings detract from efforts to reduce inequality in order to give all children a fair start in life,” adds Professor Hughes. “Instead, our hope is that the BESSI will help educational professionals support all children, regardless of family background, who display difficulties during the transition to school or nursery.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Westminster Foundation and the Foundation Years Trust.

Reference
Hughes, C et al. Measuring the foundations of school readiness: Introducing a new questionnaire for teachers – ̽��ֱ��Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI). British Journal of Educational Psychology; 8 May 2015

̽��ֱ��importance of family support on a child’s ‘school readiness’ is highlighted in a study published this month in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. Researchers developed and piloted a new index that might provide a simple and stress-free alternative to the government’s proposed baseline assessments for four-year-olds starting school.

̽��ֱ��tests due to be introduced in September are not what teachers need: they are labour-intensive and potentially stressful for four-year-olds

Claire Hughes

Martin Abegglen

Back to school (crop)

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Project seeks nation’s most memorised poems to investigate power of poetry ‘by heart’

fpjl2 — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 09:56:11 +0000

On this year’s National Poetry Day (2 October), themed ‘Remember!’, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will launch the first nationwide survey to find the UK’s most memorised poems. ̽��ֱ��survey is part of a research project investigating how our relationship to poetry changes when it’s committed to memory.

̽��ֱ��Poetry and Memory Project, supported by former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion, aims to investigate how memorisation and recitation affect our understanding and appreciation of poetry – how, for example, poems might act as an emotional resource, develop an ear for language, and play a role in memories of a personal or communal past.

̽��ֱ��researchers are asking the public to contribute to their research through a national online survey (with a print-and-post option available). Participants are asked what poem they know by heart, and what it means for them. To take part, visit: www.poetryandmemory.com.

̽��ֱ��site contains audio clips of poetic reflections, such as a poet remembering his mother reciting John Masefield and a comedian finding a life manual in T S Eliot.

Poetry memorisation, once a staple of British education, declined dramatically over the last century, and was controversially reinstated on the English primary curriculum by Michael Gove – the then Secretary of State for Education – in 2012. But researchers from the ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Education say that how these changes have affected our relationship with poetry remains largely unexamined.

“Whilst there is evidence of reviving interest in memorising and reciting poems, both within and outside education, there is practically no research on the particular value of these embodied experiences of poetry. And whilst many – notably poets themselves – argue that poems communicate much of their meaning through sound, classroom activities tend to focus on the poem on the page, and on poetry as a textual construct, particularly once you get to GCSE stage. It’s like studying music by only reading the score,” said project researcher Dr Debbie Pullinger.

“In an age where we can summon thousands of poems onto a smartphone in seconds, the idea of keeping a sonnet in our head may appear rather pointless. So this research also feeds into a wider debate about locations of knowledge, the short-circuiting of learning and the ‘out-sourcing’ of human memory to digital devices.”

Sir Andrew Motion said: “This project is fascinating and important. And it reveals a web of truths that we too often fail to notice: that our pleasure in poetry is as natural as breathing, that it forms a part of our foundation as individuals, that the poems we commit to memory stay with us for ever, and grow as we grow.”

Pullinger says that the researchers are not looking for ‘GCSE English answers’ or an analysis of what the poem is ‘supposed to be about’:

“We want to know what significance this particular poem holds for you. This might be something to do with the meaning, but it could also be to do with the sound. It may be that there’s one line which is particularly special. It may be that you associate the poem with a particular occasion or period of your life. Or it could have no significance for you at all – and we want to know about that, too.

“We really want to hear from anyone at all who has a poem in their head.”

̽��ֱ��team hope to reveal the UK’s by-heart ‘top ten’, and will be combining survey data with other research approaches as part of the wider investigation – including an analysis of the past 100 years of educational literature, in-depth participant interviews, and studies in schools adopting these practices.

̽��ֱ��researchers believe their findings may have particular relevance at a time when teaching of poetry is seen as problematic. A number of reports towards the end of the 2000s, such as the Ofsted report Poetry in Schools, found that poetry was the worst taught of all literary forms, with many teachers having difficulty teaching it and feeling deeply unconfident.

A similar picture emerged from a small-scale Cambridgeshire study, conducted in 2012 in primary and secondary schools by the same project team, which indicated that – although a few classes benefitted from inspirational teachers – the overall poetry picture was extremely patchy.

So if knowing and speaking are found to be vital modes for understanding and appreciating poetry, a reassessment of their place within poetry teaching may be part of the answer.

That, the researchers say, is why research in this area is so important – because at the moment, opinion is divided.

“For some people, there is nostalgia for a shared poetic repertoire within public memory, but for others, negative associations with rote learning and the stress of enforced performance is very strong,” said Pullinger.

“Had we been doing this research a hundred or even fifty years ago, the results would have been more predictable. Up until 1944, children memorised ‘staple poems’. But in the second half of the century, poetry learning became deeply unfashionable within education – the baby thrown out with the rote-learning bathwater.

“And yet, many people do still know a poem or two, for all sorts of reasons. So that’s what we’d like to know: what are the poems that live in people’s memories, at this moment, in October 2014? What poem or poems beat most strongly at the heart of the nation?”

By aiming to discover the UK’s most memorised poems, a new research project – backed by a former Poet Laureate – will explore the poems that live in our collective memory, and the value of keeping poetry in our heads and hearts instead of just the page and screen. Is there a poem inside your head?

This research feeds into a wider debate about locations of knowledge, the short-circuiting of learning and the ‘out-sourcing’ of human memory to digital devices

Debbie Pullinger

Alexcoitus via Flickr

Thought

Is there a poem inside your head? Get involved:

• For more details and to do the survey, visit: www.poetryandmemory.com
• Hear people reflecting on poems they know by heart for the project on Soundcloud
• Follow the project on Twitter and Facebook, and help spread the word

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A Class Apart

bjb42 — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:07:53 +0000

Social mobility, recent research tells us, has ground to a halt. Not just that, it has actually slipped backwards since the 1950s with the chasm between classes even wider than ever. There are many ways of measuring social mobility, of course, and one of them is education. Achievement within the education system is seen as one of the critical benchmarks for social mobility.

̽��ֱ��latest figures paint a dispiriting picture. A report by educational charity the Sutton Trust earlier this year argued that the top comprehensives were even more exclusive than the country’s remaining grammar schools with only 9.2% of children at the top 164 comprehensives coming from "income-deprived" homes, even though those schools drew their pupils from areas where about 20% were poor.

Only last month government watchdog the Office for Fair Access called for sweeping reforms because working class pupils now have less chance of getting into the most sought-after universities than 15 years ago. At seven of the Russell Group universities – the UK's 20 leading research institutions – less than 5% of students came from low-participation neighbourhoods.

̽��ֱ��relationship between society and education is an area that has fascinated Diane Reay, Professor of Education at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Education, since she was an undergraduate at Newcastle. Why? “Because I was brought up in a working class mining community and inequality of all kinds has been a lifelong concern,” she says.

Reay forged her career in teaching, working in London primary schools for 20 years before taking a PhD and moving into academia (South Bank Polytechnic, King’s College London, London Met, Cambridge – “quite a mix”). She’s made her name as a sociologist, who takes a feminist ethnographic approach – in other words, she embeds herself within her research field to observe, analyse and record the communities she’s studying.

Her priority, she says, is to engage in research with a strong social justice agenda to address inequality in all its guises. ̽��ֱ��projects she has undertaken over the past 10 years are set against backdrops that range from inner city schools to the most selective universities - with the accent on “social class, gender and ethnicity and how they play out in people’s actual lives”. In academic circles her best-known work is a study of home/school relationships and she is acknowledged for her innovative work in analysing social class.

Prompted by a concern about educational inequality, Reay’s latest work revisits economic historian RH Tawney´s conclusion in 1931 that social class is the hereditary curse of the English educational system, constraining a sense of social solidarity and limiting freedom. "Freedom for the pike is death to the minnows" as he famously put in his book Equality.

R H Tawney was a pioneer of adult and workers’ education – though himself educated at Rugby and Oxford. As an activist, he devoted his intellect and energy to putting into practice his passionate belief in social justice. He joined the Workers Education Association (WEA) and travelled up and down the country teaching at trade unions and working men’s institutes, lecturing at Stoke-on-Trent one day and in Rochdale the next. This he described as having two-way benefits. “ ̽��ֱ��friendly smitings of weavers, potters, miners and engineers, have taught me much about the problem of political and economic sciences which cannot easily be learned from books”.

Tawney was convinced that true democracy could be achieved only through the “elimination of all forms of special privilege which favour some groups and depress other.” In his book Equality (1931) he argued that difference between groups (which should be valued) was no reason for not seeking the largest possible measure of equality of opportunity, environment and circumstance.

Reay believes that many of the barriers to equality that Tawney identified almost a hundred years ago continue today – both within and beyond the educational system. Her analysis of the relationship between education and social class in contemporary Britain throws up many interesting questions – and turns some accepted thinking on its head.

A paper in collaboration with other researchers explored the positive decisions of middle class parents to send their children to urban comprehensives as a result of their beliefs in the principle behind non-selective state schools. In the course of in-depth interviews it emerged that many of these parents saw the mixed environment of their local schools as a resource that would benefit their children for “coping in the real world” or “toughen them up”– and that genuine mixing of social groups was only rarely taking place.

In a later project Reay looked at the question of “fitting in or standing out” for working class students at four contrasting universities. Although her sample was not statistically significant, her findings that high-achieving working class students often under-perform and feel disappointed, and that their pathway to top universities is often more a question of “luck and happenstance” than planned design, are particularly pertinent set against recent data. This shows that the percentage of students from the two lowest socio-economic groups gaining places at Cambridge was just 3.7 and at Oxford a mere 2.7 (Higher Education Statistics Agency report).

Social mobility is a problematic phrase bringing assumptions and implications. ̽��ֱ��underlying concept is of movement upwards and downwards. At the bottom of the heap sits the working class with council estates, manual jobs and low aspirations among its youngsters; at the top stand the upper/middle classes with glittering careers, large houses and young people with unassailable self-confidence.

Life just isn’t as simple as that – and real people don’t fit into neat categories. Modern sociology recognises more dimensions and cultural subtleties in the shifting social roles that people move into and out of. As Reay points out, the area of education in most urgent need of reforming is vocational training where Britain lags way behind its European partners.

“ ̽��ֱ��reality is that any current growth in the jobs market is in the service and care sector – and that’s an area that’s been badly neglected,” she says.

Just back from a Nordic Federation Sociology of Education conference in Iceland, Reay speaks warmly about Finland where children don’t start formal school until they are seven years old and there’s “no setting, no streaming and no testing”. It’s a country where teaching is the second most prestigious profession - and its children come top of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) league for literacy and second for numeracy. “Private schools educate only 2% of children in Finland, and those that do exist were set up to provide an alternative kind of education,” says Reay.

Reay is tremendously excited about her next project which is writing a paper for ̽��ֱ��Journal of Educational Policy describing her vision for a socially just education system – “a fantastic opportunity”. On a broader and more pragmatic front, she fears that the new coalition’s proposal to extend choice will further empower already powerful groups in society “although the pupil premium for poorer students may genuinely help to redistribute resources”.

Reay makes no bones about the fact she’d like to see private schools abolished - as did expensively-educated Tawney. “As long as children continue to be educated apart from their peers from different class and ethnic backgrounds, and 'a good education' remains the prerogative of the upper and middle classes, social class will continue to be the curse of the English, and beyond that the British, education system,” she says.

Professor Diane Reay will be speaking at the Hay Festival on June 3^rd, at 5.15pm.

Despite our best efforts, social mobility in the UK does not seem to be improving. Diane Reay, Professor of Education at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, will be speaking at Hay about the hereditary curse of the English education system and her developing vision for a “socially just” replacement.

As long as children continue to be educated apart from their peers from different class and ethnic backgrounds, and 'a good education' remains the prerogative of the upper and middle classes, social class will continue to be the curse of the English, and beyond that the British, education system

Dr Diane Reay

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