An inquiry has found once-in-a-generation reforms are needed to fix an education system that “is not serving the interests of white working-class children”. The co-chair, Baroness Morris said responsibility “cannot sit with schools alone” and was not due to a lack of aspiration or effort from young people. Here, an experienced state secondary school teacher tells India Sturgis what she sees in her classroom.
Reading the recent government backed report into poorly performing white working class pupils, I felt one overriding emotion: frustration. Frustration, particularly, with its assertion that our education system “is not set up to serve white working class children and their families”.
As a teacher of more than two decades, working across state and private schools, it’s a sentiment that I do not share or believe is entirely fair. After speaking to thousands of young people, parents and teachers, the Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes, backed by the Department for Education and co-chaired by Baroness Estelle Morris and Sir Hamid Patel, found absences, academic performance, sense of belonging, and relationships between families and schools were markedly worse for white working class children.
