Tomlinson 14-19 Reforms: Involving Young People in the Choices to be Made
Talk given by Alison West, former Chief Executive of the National Extension College, on 23 November 2004.
When we look at the promise of a personalised curriculum side in the Tomlinson report on the reforms in England of the 14-19 system, it appears to offer greater freedom to many pupils at all levels of ability and in theory at several ages. He offers a more flexible system. He offers pupil choice. Of course this is a welcome development. For the historically minded, this takes us back to a genuine debate in the late 60s and early 70s about pupil rights and powers. From John Holt to the deschoolers, educationalists questioned the rigidity of educational provision and the negative effects this had on many pupils. In addition, the brief flourishing of the children’s rights movement gave political support for more choice in what to learn.
The Tomlinson report reminds us of a time when change seemed seriously on the agenda. That change has drifted away from us. For those interested in how children learn, and how they fail, the fossilisation of the curriculum gives cause for concern. Looking back over the past hundred years or more, what is astonishing is how little the curriculum has changed. Subjects which are likely to attract pupils if appropriately taught, including perhaps politics, psychology, and philosophy, remain peripheral if they appear at all. The lack of change has an educational effect: new learners in new subjects give a blood transfusion to education. Freshness in education can come from the opening up of the curriculum, either through an influx of new subjects or through a more radical unpicking of traditional subjects and their boundaries. Interestingly and on a piecemeal basis, those working on gifted and talented pupils are already asking for mixtures that pick and mix from within traditional subjects– a bit of physics here, combined with some history etc.
For schools, Tomlinson appeals to the idealism that lies behind our school system and its teachers. Schools want all children to reach their full potential: that is their business. Already, schools use most of the tools that Tomlinson will require, including assessment, diagnosis and personal learning plans. In terms of practicalities, choice is already a feature of school planning. Subjects that are difficult to fit in have been a feature of provision for over 50 years, and children have been taught Latin at lunchtime, minority languages after school and have been bussed to other schools. So what is so new about Tomlinson?
Partly, it is the rhetoric of re-engagement. Tomlinson claims that the proposed changes will prevent the premature drop-out of the pupils who are then labelled or rather stigmatised as ‘NEETS’ – those not in education, employment or training. Will the proposed changes keep pupils inside the system? And if so, on what terms? It is worth looking at the political context in which Tomlinson was commissioned. The report comes from a government with a strong commitment to what some might see as inappropriate consumerism, offering people choices that are not meaningful (e.g. which surgeon). Choices where few lay people can make a meaningful choice are not choices at all, simply the semblance of such. This is a country where people cannot be bothered to change their bank accounts despite newspapers regularly showing them how little interest they are earning. For many people, they are content to leave choice to the professional. In the case of education, this means the teacher. Many parents trust the teacher to guide their children wisely.
Not the middle classes, of course. Middle class parents palpably do not trust the average teacher and Tomlinson is a consumer charter for such parents. They will demand their choice of curriculum. They will demand their set of combinations for their child. Above all else, they will fight to the death to prevent their own child going at 14 into a vocational stream. Such parents will put pressure on the school to redirect their child. They will force complex cross-school arrangements. They will put up with almost any level of bussing. After all, these are people who are prepared for the upheaval of moving house and there is nothing new here: the difference will be the scale of the negotiations with the school.
It is not yet clear how much real choice is on offer. Will the pupil, or often the parent, be able to demand any subject, any combination? Can the professional advice of the teacher and of the school be rejected? If the responsibility for choice really did fall to the 14 year old what distortions will appear in the range of provision, as pupils drop ’difficult’ subjects. Already we see a falling off in the willingness of young people to learn a foreign language unless compelled. What other subjects will rapidly vanish from the menu? And should we worry if they do?
More worrying than the loss of certain subjects may be the loss of educational coherence that radical pupil choice could bring. Will the core proposed by Tomlinson be strong enough to give coherence and will the extended project for all pupils give enough depth? Whatever happens, this report puts a new level of pressure on the young person whose fate will rest on decisions made at 14. The fixing of choice at this age for most pupils will see choice issues slowly bleed down into KS 3. Tomlinson stresses the ability to break with age related education but in practice this will become a mass system with routing taking place for most at one age only, 14. Those who break the age link will be the high flyers, the fast trackers and this change will simply make them more visible within the school system and is likely to increase the sense of failure that streamed children already feel.
Quite apart from the pressure that such crucial decision- making puts on young people, there is also the issue of capability, of the truly informed consumer. At 14 it is extremely hard to know one’s own inclinations and aspirations, let alone any of the details of academe or of the world of work. Young people are likely to need guidance but who can be a reliable source of untainted advice? Tomlinson says that ‘all learners should receive high quality, impartial advice and guidance” (para 78). Note that he says ‘should’ and not ‘will’. The only ideas offered by Tomlinson, in paragraphs 296 and 297 refer to teachers, Connexions advisers and mentors. Even Tomlinson admits that they may need a bit of training on giving such advice. Is this good enough? All of these are tainted sources of advice in that they cannot be described as outside the system.
While the rhetoric of re-engagement would suggest that the pupil chooses, the reality is likely to be a complex and time-consuming dialogue between the teacher, the pupil and the parent. This will produce as many distortions as the present system. Teachers themselves are subject to bias, to perceptions of groups of pupils that rest on cultural stereotypes. Already the DfES website records details, on the Ask David page, of a school allocating pupils to the vocational path with no reference to the pupil at all. When financial consequences are linked to selection of this sort, probity comes under strain. Quite apart from the pressure of the school budget, there are the strains that come from any mass system with current staffing levels. Troublesome children are a pain to teach without additional support. They do tire out any teacher and the temptation to route them into ‘easier’ subjects they will object to less must be almost overwhelming. There are also issues of teacher expectation. Slower learners or those with disability may find, as David Blunkett did, that their teachers allow them to settle at a comfortable but unchallenging level.
The huge danger, of course, is that we will create the grammar school within the comprehensive. If the transfer of vocational children to FE continues, we won’t even have the grammar school within the comprehensive, we will be back to the 11 plus at 14. Why is this sorting of children into sheep and goats likely to happen? Again it goes back to the genesis of the Tomlinson report. The ethos is functional. The aim is to “help employers and universities’ to select candidates for the good things of this life. The Diploma will allow for clearer grading of pupils.
The proposals deal with early leavers by assuming that they want and will be retained by a “high status vocational programme”. If they want that they will have to leave the country. What this pious hope ignores is the fact that such a programme will not be high status unless there is a major change in English social attitudes. Because of the lack of respect for vocational (i.e. non-professional) work and education, the middle classes will direct their children away from it and will have the knowledge and skills to do this successfully. Provision will simply divide by class.
In addition, these proposals let us, as educators, off the hook. There is no subject that cannot be accessed by any pupil. The early leavers are not hostile to subjects, but to the content and the way they are taught. It is not the subject that is the problem, but the way it is packaged for teaching to different ages and levels of ability. It is also insulting to young people to ignore existing research asking early leavers why they have left the system. The reasons given fall overwhelmingly into three categories, all of which are under the control of educators:
- a) they see the curriculum as boring and badly taught. That does not mean they are rejecting philosophy and politics in favour of plumbing.
- b) they see only too clearly that some of their teachers dislike and in some cases despise them
- c) they suffer bullying, from peers or teachers
When interviewed, those not in education, employment or training between 14 and 19 years of age describe achingly normal aspirations, for a job, a house, a car, a family. They are not refusniks at all. There is no rebellion or rejection going on, just a slow drift away from a system that does not pay them attention. Young people themselves are painfully conscious of the endemic snobbery of our educational system.
No child should want to leave school before 16.
And how to change things? Not by exacerbating and institutionalising our failure to give many children a good general education as a preparation for the world of work. Not by pushing them prematurely into a choice of work. Far from offering a choice that is so false we can predict the outcome in advance, we should compel all children, male and female, middle and working class, to take manual trade subjects, from plumbing to hairdressing, and equally we should compel the same children to take suitably taught academic subjects of the most challenging kind. Dream of the day when a middle class parent storms up to the school to complain that their child has missed their session on plumbing because they were forced to study Latin.