Is Bridget right?

The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, captured the headlines recently when she spoke about ‘white working-class children’.

She warned that four-fifths of children from white working-class backgrounds were falling short in the English and maths skills required to get on in life.

However, this headline-grabbing warning is slightly misleading because she is referring only to white working-class children on free school meals.

Most working-class children do not receive free school meals, and many working-class communities hold firm to their traditional ideals of family values and work ethic.

But this does not invalidate her point.

Much of what she said is helpful, but obvious.

There are many reasons why white working-class pupils are not doing as well as other children:

• Family breakdown
• Poor parenting
• Behavioural issues
• Poverty
• Low parental expectations
• Multi-generational joblessness
• Lack of good mentors

There are also controversial issues, such as immigration.

A great deal of time is taken up by teachers trying to cope in classrooms with children speaking a multiplicity of languages and not being necessarily proficient in English.

This no doubt impacts white British working-class children, especially when everything seems geared to helping everyone but them.

The creeds of diversity and inclusivity, rather perversely, do the opposite of their intention and lead to the ostracisation of one section of society – white working-class boys.

These problems are multiplied in ethnically diverse areas where the population is poorer.

The issues have also been exacerbated by Covid lockdowns, during which many children developed the habit of skipping school.

There are some basic measures that Phillipson suggests can help:

• Early intervention on absenteeism
• Mental health support
• AI technology to identify affected children speedily

There are some other things that should be a priority, but I fear will not be top of Phillipson’s list:

What is delivered in schools is essential.

This means ensuring the curriculum does not descend into a mire of progressivism. The 2014 curriculum was a great improvement on what preceded it, and I fear the upcoming government White Paper and its proposals could send us spiralling back down the PISA and PIRLS rankings – just like Scotland and Wales, which have highly progressive curriculums.

Ensuring that children are proficient in literacy and numeracy by the end of Year 6 in primary school is absolutely essential. Phillipson should be building on what has worked and not discarding it, as I believe she is likely to do. Labour tends to believe that progressive means it is good. NO! Not always. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. ’ I would urge her to ‘build on it’. If schools continue to improve, it will have a positive effect on the white working-class children because it benefits everyone.

Listen to the right people, and the evidence is there.

Phillipson should not be swayed by ideology but instead by evidence and good teaching practice, and leadership.

Headteachers such as Katharine Birbalsingh are running highly successful schools with motivated and well-behaved students. Phillipson needs to commission studies on schools that are succeeding in difficult areas and find out why. I fear she has ideas, but they are not tested.

She should look to those who can provide sound advice, and not ivory tower progressive academics who have not darkened a classroom for years. It is those with practical experience in the profession who are succeeding, and who should provide the model for improvement. Phillipson has never even visited Birbalsingh’s Michaela Community School, which routinely beats some of the most expensive public schools in the country.

Create clear pathways for more technical/practical education in the secondary system.

At present, all children are encouraged to pursue an academic route. Look at Germany, where 70 per cent of their students move in a vocational direction at 14 years of age.

Proficiency in literacy and numeracy is essential, but it doesn’t have to lead to an academic route. This is only suitable for about 30 per cent of students.

T Levels need to be expanded, but I would go further and do the same for GCSEs. Children could pursue T Level style GCSEs that focus on practical subjects that lead to vocational careers. I think this would engage many children who are bored by studying a whole range of academic subjects that they don’t see as relevant.

The aim of sending 50 per cent of young people to university has been disastrous. For many, this type of education is not suitable, and it has left them with enormous levels of debt. They have often been studying for dumbed-down degrees that will have little relevance to them if they are not going to pursue a career that requires academic rigour.

Since the de-industrialisation of the country, many routes into work for the white working class have disappeared. Whether it was shipbuilding, mining, steel production, car manufacturing, or other hands-on jobs, there was often a good path for school leavers, with many boys following their fathers into the same careers. Many workers who became jobless from the 1980s have children and grandchildren who have never worked; it has become multi-generational. Joblessness has become a viable life choice. This must stop.

There has been a renewed focus on STEM subjects, which is correct. Those children who are not academically inclined get very bored, very quickly, with the traditional subjects. If they went into school knowing they would be building, creating, wiring, cooking, engineering, making things – they would be more enthused. Many schools do this, but the children need to know that at age 14, they can pursue these subjects full-time.

The family.

Those working-class children who do well at school – especially those from ethnic minorities – come from societies in which the family is of huge importance. We can see in some black and white working-class communities that there is an absence of fathers. This is something the left is at least partly responsible for, encouraging women that they don’t need men and by implication telling men that they are no longer important. Those on the far left believe that the State would be better at bringing up children than parents and we can see the creep of this ideology into schools; teachers being forced to change nappies, breakfast clubs, free school meals and the explosion of identity politics, white guilt, white man’s eco-guilt, and the ranking of victimhood in which white children barely register.

Parents and families should again become responsible for their children. Not the State and not schools or teachers. Tax incentives can encourage marriage, which is well-known to lead to better stability and a more stable environment for children.

If children have no father at home and no male role model, they are more likely to look up to, and be inspired by, bad male role models such as drug dealers and gang members. They will not be bothered with school.

Because these issues are multi-generational, the emphasis must be on getting the next generation of white working-class children up to the highest standards; then their children are more likely to follow.

Phillipson must look at evidence that works, not fashionable theories that don’t.

ends