I’ve been told that the government are about to release a major report that they hope will ‘correct’ the impression that the life quality and life chances of disadvantaged children in the UK are not improving. This report, it is said, will lay the basis for the government’s new 10 year strategy. I sure it will be given a high profile launch, but fear not, I will post a link here as soon as it appears.
Monday, 19 November 2007
Sunday, 28 October 2007
1 E-mentoring as aftercare?
I was impressed by this project http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialcare/story/0,,2192278,00.html When I worked as an education social worker, it always seemed to take ages to get support to children whose troubled behaviour was rapidly moving them into harms way. Too often, by the time they were offered support, it was too late and they were already locked into serious anti-social behaviour. Forgive me, but I doubt the claim here that after this intervention, only 6% of these little lovelies ever get into bother again. I can well believe that they fall back to a lower level of troubled behaviour, and maybe for a good while. However, I was wondering if anyone has ever considered the use of e-mentoring as a mechanism for delivering aftercare to these young people following a successful intervention. With a system of long-term mentoring support maybe the minimal aim of keeping out of serious trouble could be developed into constructing a positive future.
2 Scots do it differently
One of the interesting effects of Scottish and Welsh devolution is that social policies are now being pursued differently within the UK. One example that caught my eye is the plan to provide free school meals for all pupils in some Scots primary schools http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7054334.stm – This deceptively simple initiative could, in my opinion, significantly benefit the whole school population. It will benefit children from seriously disadvantaged families, who will no longer be identified or feel stigmatised by qualifying for free school meals (FSM). It will also help the borderline disadvantaged who come from families with low incomes, but who don’t qualify for FSM and whose carers sometimes don’t think it worth the financial outlay, as they know their child hardly eats anything. For all the pupils, it could be the basis for a healthy diet which could be a key component in an integrated exercise/local life style regime aimed at combating early year’s obesity. It would also build social capital, through encouraging a sense of social inclusion and unity among all pupils in a school. We often hear how good it is for families to sit down to a shared meal, a common experience and bond, why not among school pupils. Meanwhile, initiatives in England seem to be all puff and nonsense, celebrity based baloney, such as super nannies, super chefs, and patronising advertising campaigns. Why are the population of England so easily fobbed off with celebrity stunts while the Scots do policy seriously?
3 Too clever Eddie
Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, has announced some interesting additions to the range of the new educational diplomas, some of which are being launched next year. http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/pnattach/20070195/1.htm For us, at The Brightside Trust, the new general science diploma might be of particular interest.
However, the newspaper responses were almost entirely focused on whether the announcement of these new non-vocational diplomas, combined with a delay to the review of A levels until 2013, was indicative of a government manoeuvring to replace A levels with the new education diplomas, as had originally been proposed by the Tomlinson report http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2197531,00.html
The background to this is that Blair’s former education ministers buckled under pressure when presented with the Tomlinson report and refused to get rid of A levels. It’s going to be a recurring problem for the Brown government, how to reverse policies brought in by the Blair government, often by individuals still in the Cabinet, without admitting the reversal. The preferred strategy seems to be to make the changes by manoeuvre and stealth, accompanied by the mantra ‘circumstances have changed’. I think the press commentators were basically correct, this government would like to adopt the Tomlinson proposals, and in particular it would like to abolish A levels. Ed Balls thinks he can manoeuvre into a position where he can argue that diplomas have become the qualification of choice and that A levels can be phased out. Just one problem Eddie, the approach you’re adopting won’t work. The diplomas will not be seen to flourish as long as A levels are on general offer. Sometimes you cannot manoeuvre cleverly while presenting yourself as the unbiased Renaissance man making a rational choice.
Look back to 1988, when Mrs Thatcher abolished O levels. Thatcher abolished O levels in the teeth of opposition from her own party, her own supporters and her own supporting newspapers. She didn’t finesse the change, she didn’t manoeuvre, she knew that wouldn’t work, so she just did it, poleaxed them with a single blow, and that was the end of the debate and the end of O levels. Sometimes you just have to do it, Eddie. Take a leaf out of Mrs Thatcher’s book; some might say you’ve already borrowed the entire first volume, so what harm in one more page. As long as we have A levels there is no chance of diplomas being seen as an equal alternative, just as there was no chance of grammar and secondary modern schools ever having, to use the ministerial jargon of the 1960s, ‘parity of esteem’. Kill the A levels Eddie, shut your eyes and think of Maggie.
However, the newspaper responses were almost entirely focused on whether the announcement of these new non-vocational diplomas, combined with a delay to the review of A levels until 2013, was indicative of a government manoeuvring to replace A levels with the new education diplomas, as had originally been proposed by the Tomlinson report http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2197531,00.html
The background to this is that Blair’s former education ministers buckled under pressure when presented with the Tomlinson report and refused to get rid of A levels. It’s going to be a recurring problem for the Brown government, how to reverse policies brought in by the Blair government, often by individuals still in the Cabinet, without admitting the reversal. The preferred strategy seems to be to make the changes by manoeuvre and stealth, accompanied by the mantra ‘circumstances have changed’. I think the press commentators were basically correct, this government would like to adopt the Tomlinson proposals, and in particular it would like to abolish A levels. Ed Balls thinks he can manoeuvre into a position where he can argue that diplomas have become the qualification of choice and that A levels can be phased out. Just one problem Eddie, the approach you’re adopting won’t work. The diplomas will not be seen to flourish as long as A levels are on general offer. Sometimes you cannot manoeuvre cleverly while presenting yourself as the unbiased Renaissance man making a rational choice.
Look back to 1988, when Mrs Thatcher abolished O levels. Thatcher abolished O levels in the teeth of opposition from her own party, her own supporters and her own supporting newspapers. She didn’t finesse the change, she didn’t manoeuvre, she knew that wouldn’t work, so she just did it, poleaxed them with a single blow, and that was the end of the debate and the end of O levels. Sometimes you just have to do it, Eddie. Take a leaf out of Mrs Thatcher’s book; some might say you’ve already borrowed the entire first volume, so what harm in one more page. As long as we have A levels there is no chance of diplomas being seen as an equal alternative, just as there was no chance of grammar and secondary modern schools ever having, to use the ministerial jargon of the 1960s, ‘parity of esteem’. Kill the A levels Eddie, shut your eyes and think of Maggie.
4 Future perfect
The Conservative leader, David Cameron, has committed the Conservatives to abolishing poverty in the UK. A summary of his speech can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7047193.stm This commitment appears to be more than a match to the Labour government’s pledge to end child poverty by 2020. Consequently, it would seem that whoever is in government, we at The Brightside Trust, and the bulk of the rest of the third sector, have at the most 13 years before our collective reason to exist will disappear. However, before everyone under the age of 52 rushes off to discover new challenges, I think we should check the small print. The full speech can be found at http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=139763&speeches=1
Limiting welfare, as a strategy to end poverty is, of course, nonsense, but as a way of getting some people to move into the workforce and out of poverty, has been shown to have some success during periods of full employment. In that regards, the Cameron policy is on a similar trajectory to that of the government. Unfortunately, it doesn't look to me as if the target of halving child poverty by 2010, which was the first and easiest part of this strategy, will be achieved. Today, the government are announcing a new unit to co-ordinate their anti-poverty drive, this will involve officials from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Children http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7066838.stm I’m not sure what they plan to do, but the link with the DWP suggests a further increased emphasis on getting carers into work. This is a worthwhile enterprise, which I could see The Brightside Trust being involved with, but ending child poverty by 2020, I'm afraid there's a lifetimes work here.
Limiting welfare, as a strategy to end poverty is, of course, nonsense, but as a way of getting some people to move into the workforce and out of poverty, has been shown to have some success during periods of full employment. In that regards, the Cameron policy is on a similar trajectory to that of the government. Unfortunately, it doesn't look to me as if the target of halving child poverty by 2010, which was the first and easiest part of this strategy, will be achieved. Today, the government are announcing a new unit to co-ordinate their anti-poverty drive, this will involve officials from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Children http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7066838.stm I’m not sure what they plan to do, but the link with the DWP suggests a further increased emphasis on getting carers into work. This is a worthwhile enterprise, which I could see The Brightside Trust being involved with, but ending child poverty by 2020, I'm afraid there's a lifetimes work here.
5 Young people today: I say bring back national service
Yes, that’s exactly what I think the government will do. If I were laying a bet on what will be the surprise idea of the Brown government, I’d put money on a ‘new’ national service for young people. It won’t be in the military, they have no need for mass cannon fodder these days, despite the revived fashion for invading countries. It will be a community service organisation. It will be a copy of the sort of organisations that are already in place in the USA. Remember, Gordon Brown is a more integrated Americophile than Blair ever was. There are a variety of American models to choose from, for example http://www.americorps.gov/for_individuals/ready/programs_vista.asp This program is aimed at post-college students, while my guess is that any UK variant would be aimed at 18 year-olds, as a sort of gap year exercise. Note the way that service is counted as a financial credit against college debts in the USA.
These American origins will not feature strongly in the UK launch, as the aim will be to build on the Brown vision of Britishness. The movement will strongly feature the union flag and it will be projected as a force building national unity through community development. There will be an emphasis on the way that it unites individuals from all classes and ethnicities in a common endeavour. Politically, the quasi-military style will play well in middle England where it will be spun as instilling discipline into our feckless youth. It will also be presented as a practical way to mend the broken bits of society rather than just moaning about it (Cameron).
Still, a significant question remains, should this movement take its name from its inspirational founder and be called the Brownies, or maybe the brown shirts, oh no, I guess all forms of brown trousering is out; so the brown socks it is. Forward the brown socks, always loyal to our movements historic pledge, ‘a little community DIY or death’.
These American origins will not feature strongly in the UK launch, as the aim will be to build on the Brown vision of Britishness. The movement will strongly feature the union flag and it will be projected as a force building national unity through community development. There will be an emphasis on the way that it unites individuals from all classes and ethnicities in a common endeavour. Politically, the quasi-military style will play well in middle England where it will be spun as instilling discipline into our feckless youth. It will also be presented as a practical way to mend the broken bits of society rather than just moaning about it (Cameron).
Still, a significant question remains, should this movement take its name from its inspirational founder and be called the Brownies, or maybe the brown shirts, oh no, I guess all forms of brown trousering is out; so the brown socks it is. Forward the brown socks, always loyal to our movements historic pledge, ‘a little community DIY or death’.
Monday, 8 October 2007
1 Sweet Dreams
If I was to be restricted to a single source, or reference point, for analysis of poverty and disadvantage in the UK, then I would choose the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website. As you can see from their home page http://www.jrf.org.uk they conduct wide ranging research projects and produce excellent research reports that are available free, as pdf files. For example, of current interest to the Brightside Trust, is the study http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/eBooks/2063-education-schools-achievement.pdf which is an example of a quantitative study using large data sets.
These investigations often find their way into the national news and have for many years acted as a spur to social policy. For example, this project which literally mapped out the increasing social divisions in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6984707.stm . If you look round their website you'll find many similarly insightful reports. What I particularly like, is the way that their findings are often both surprising and counterintuitive. For example, http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/pdf/2123.pdf found that “Just 14 percent of variation in individuals' performance is accounted for by school quality”. I was genuinely surprised by this finding, as I had assumed that individual school quality was overwhelmingly important to overcoming educational disadvantage. I guess I had formed this opinion on the basis of government policy and statements of the past 20 years, which, in my opinion, have assumed individual school performance to be fundamentally, indeed at times, exclusively important. For us, as a charity addressing disadvantage, I believe this finding potentially broadens not only the site or focus of our work but what we see that work achieving. For example, the way mentoring and e-mentoring works towards overcoming disadvantage must be seen as much more than a school supplement.
It also suggests that understanding social disadvantage needs to be more imaginative; for example, I felt the approach adopted by the ‘dare to care campaign’ who asked children what they thought defined living in poverty was interesting. Not having a mobile phone featured strongly in the replies.
http://www.daretocarecampaign.com/News/Missing-school-trips-makes-you-poor---say-British-.aspx
These investigations often find their way into the national news and have for many years acted as a spur to social policy. For example, this project which literally mapped out the increasing social divisions in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6984707.stm . If you look round their website you'll find many similarly insightful reports. What I particularly like, is the way that their findings are often both surprising and counterintuitive. For example, http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/pdf/2123.pdf found that “Just 14 percent of variation in individuals' performance is accounted for by school quality”. I was genuinely surprised by this finding, as I had assumed that individual school quality was overwhelmingly important to overcoming educational disadvantage. I guess I had formed this opinion on the basis of government policy and statements of the past 20 years, which, in my opinion, have assumed individual school performance to be fundamentally, indeed at times, exclusively important. For us, as a charity addressing disadvantage, I believe this finding potentially broadens not only the site or focus of our work but what we see that work achieving. For example, the way mentoring and e-mentoring works towards overcoming disadvantage must be seen as much more than a school supplement.
It also suggests that understanding social disadvantage needs to be more imaginative; for example, I felt the approach adopted by the ‘dare to care campaign’ who asked children what they thought defined living in poverty was interesting. Not having a mobile phone featured strongly in the replies.
http://www.daretocarecampaign.com/News/Missing-school-trips-makes-you-poor---say-British-.aspx
2 Private Parts
The first avowedly commercial enterprise, BPP College, has been authorised to award UK degrees http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7012203.stm . In my opinion, this will be the first of many. While no minister would say it, I believe that it is government’s hope that by increasing the numbers and types of suppliers of degrees that this will drive up efficiency and quality standards at the old polytechnics who are at present the bulk suppliers of degrees to the masses.
3 Do you feel lucky?
Philanthropy and 5% (or maybe 20%)
‘The Cabinet Office has opened a consultation on the working of a new £10million risk capital investment fund for social enterprises. Many social enterprises find it difficult to access risk capital, leaving a gap in their finances. The risk capital investment fund will fill this gap and help develop better access to private and independent investment in the future.'
I don't know if it's a conscious revival of an old movement, but there were Victorian social housing companies that informally used the slogan ‘philanthropy and 5%'. It was a sort of ethical investment campaign of the 19th century, where money was raised to build social housing while guaranteeing the investor a moderate return on their money. I guess this is intended to be a similar model, so I cannot see this fund offering a high return to investors.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/documents/consultations/consultation_risk_capital.pdf
However, if we at The Brightside Trust had a ‘sure fire hit' of a project, and wanted to raise between £250,000 and £2 million, might this be an appropriate vehicle for funding. Do we have anything to contribute to the consultation exercise, given our experience of funding successful projects?
‘The Cabinet Office has opened a consultation on the working of a new £10million risk capital investment fund for social enterprises. Many social enterprises find it difficult to access risk capital, leaving a gap in their finances. The risk capital investment fund will fill this gap and help develop better access to private and independent investment in the future.'
I don't know if it's a conscious revival of an old movement, but there were Victorian social housing companies that informally used the slogan ‘philanthropy and 5%'. It was a sort of ethical investment campaign of the 19th century, where money was raised to build social housing while guaranteeing the investor a moderate return on their money. I guess this is intended to be a similar model, so I cannot see this fund offering a high return to investors.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/documents/consultations/consultation_risk_capital.pdf
However, if we at The Brightside Trust had a ‘sure fire hit' of a project, and wanted to raise between £250,000 and £2 million, might this be an appropriate vehicle for funding. Do we have anything to contribute to the consultation exercise, given our experience of funding successful projects?
4 Calm before the storm
Once again, the Sutton Trust has produced a research report that has triggered public debate. In particular, the finding that a third of places at Oxbridge are given to pupils from only 100 schools, 80% of which are private. This short piece from the Guardian poses the question, ‘whose job is it, universities or government, to transform the educational chances of poor children?’ The two contributors, the universities minister John Denham, and Wendy Piatt, waltz through the current debate with no apparent animosity in this Guardian article
http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialexclusion/story/0,,2176286,00.html .
However, I think this mild mannered debate could get rather edgy rather rapidly. There is great unease in the Brown government that progress in reducing social disadvantage in the UK seems to be slow. The government are still committed to their very ambitious objective of ending child poverty by 2020, so there is real frustration that something as ‘easy’ as opening up higher education to the socially disadvantaged seems to be making little progress. Equally, on the basis of recent discussions I've had with some Aimhigher staff, they too are frustrated, but in their case because of what they see as government’s inability to stick to a consistent strategy or to let them get on with the job. Instead they find they have to cope with ever changing demands and guidelines. I predict this will come to a crunch next year, when schemes which cannot prove in detail that they are working with disadvantaged students, in the terms laid out by HEFCE, will suffer a ministerial biting. Remember, Gordon Brown only allowed himself one class struggle moment in the last 10 years, when he attacked Oxford University’s admissions procedures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Spence_Affair
As an end note, I notice that john Denham mentions that every secondary school is to have a higher education partnership and “We'll soon be setting out how formal partnerships through academies and trusts can be established.“
http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialexclusion/story/0,,2176286,00.html .
However, I think this mild mannered debate could get rather edgy rather rapidly. There is great unease in the Brown government that progress in reducing social disadvantage in the UK seems to be slow. The government are still committed to their very ambitious objective of ending child poverty by 2020, so there is real frustration that something as ‘easy’ as opening up higher education to the socially disadvantaged seems to be making little progress. Equally, on the basis of recent discussions I've had with some Aimhigher staff, they too are frustrated, but in their case because of what they see as government’s inability to stick to a consistent strategy or to let them get on with the job. Instead they find they have to cope with ever changing demands and guidelines. I predict this will come to a crunch next year, when schemes which cannot prove in detail that they are working with disadvantaged students, in the terms laid out by HEFCE, will suffer a ministerial biting. Remember, Gordon Brown only allowed himself one class struggle moment in the last 10 years, when he attacked Oxford University’s admissions procedures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Spence_Affair
As an end note, I notice that john Denham mentions that every secondary school is to have a higher education partnership and “We'll soon be setting out how formal partnerships through academies and trusts can be established.“
5 Young at heart
In my opinion, the Young Foundation are the UK’s leading analysts of innovation and the role of the third sector. They have recently produced a report “In and out of sync: growing social innovations” which seeks to explain why certain social innovations grow and why others don’t. For example, why did the Big Issue newspaper flourish in the UK but flop in California? The report has a strong analytical structure and is enlivened by a series of attention-grabbing case studies
http://www.youngfoundation.org.uk/files/images/In_and_Out_of_Sync_Final.pdf
The report identifies four conditions that are essential for developing innovative products, services and models on a large scale and in a sustainable way:
demand for the innovation within society;
good supply of ideas in workable forms;
effective strategies to connect supply and demand, and to find the right organisational forms for putting the innovation into practice;
ongoing learning and the ability to adapt to changes in the external environment.
I believe this is what we have been doing at The Brightside Trust, but I'm not sure that we have been doing it in an overt and systematic fashion, perhaps we should.
http://www.youngfoundation.org.uk/files/images/In_and_Out_of_Sync_Final.pdf
The report identifies four conditions that are essential for developing innovative products, services and models on a large scale and in a sustainable way:
demand for the innovation within society;
good supply of ideas in workable forms;
effective strategies to connect supply and demand, and to find the right organisational forms for putting the innovation into practice;
ongoing learning and the ability to adapt to changes in the external environment.
I believe this is what we have been doing at The Brightside Trust, but I'm not sure that we have been doing it in an overt and systematic fashion, perhaps we should.
Monday, 24 September 2007
Disadvantage defined
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has produced a document which “provides guidance on targeting outreach activities at young people from communities under-represented in higher education (HE)”. Some of you might think that it would have been wise to have sorted this out before spending millions of pounds but I’m not one of those moaning minnies http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07%5F12/
For anyone working on widening participation related projects these guidelines are essential reading. As they are to be implemented from autumn 2007, I would suggest checking that you are HEFCE compliant as soon as possible. I particularly liked the rule of thumb that “Aimhigher partnerships and HE providers should aim to ensure that around two-thirds of participants in widening participation activities are from the target group.” The good news is that we appear to be ahead of the government’s game, as we have been evaluating our work in the terms that HEFCE recommend for the past 12 months. The only slightly surprising feature is the modified categorisation of adult employment which we can easily incorporate.
Overall, I welcome these guidelines, as they are relatively tight and proscriptive and should help us engage with disadvantaged populations.
HEFCE has promised universities and Aimhigher assistance with local data in order to identify qualifying neighbourhoods and schools. In the past, a number of universities have said they found this data difficult to obtain: frankly this claim is disingenuous. Even without HEFCE help, excellent school and neighbourhood data can be easily marshalled from two major on-line sources. If we find that partner organisations are claiming that a lack of local data is making evaluation difficult, then we at the Brightside Trust can show them how to construct their own local map.
Firstly, the government’s national statistics office, neighbourhood statistics http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadHome.do;jsessionid=ac1f930bce6048c8bb53e5240d89babfb8ebe040ced.e38PbNqOa3qRe34LbxuNah4ObNj0n6jAmljGr5XDqQLvpAe?bhcp=1 Why not try your own postcode and see the range of datasets that can be drawn upon. If looking in detail, I recommend choosing the ‘more areas’ tab in section 2 and then selecting ‘lower layer super output area’, as your unit of choice. This has emerged as the fashionable unit of analysis among the pointy head analysts of neighbourhoods in the UK and will be the HEFCE unit of choice when they get their act together. Indeed, if you really want to be part of the ‘in’ crowd, use the other tab on the data sets screen to get a view of the range of stats available. Note lower layer super output areas can be found by postcode, so as long as you know a student’s postcode then you can define their neighbourhood as disadvantaged or not. For individual school details, ask the student which school they attend and then draw on the OFSTED website http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/portal/site/Internet/menuitem.2daefc8f97e956fe628a0d8308c08a0c/?vgnextoid=ba6a8587fd24a010VgnVCM1000008192a8c0RCRD, where every school in the UK’s latest inspection report can be downloaded. This provides considerable detail of both the schools performance, including the strengths and weaknesses of individual subject departments as well as the demographic and social profile of its pupil population.
There can be no excuses for non-compliance!
So, I hear you ask, how are people going to bend the rules. I know where I’d begin: there are some small neighbourhoods which are sharply divided between advantaged and disadvantaged, especially in cities, especially in London. For example, neighbourhoods in Islington where multimillion pound properties stand over the road from Victorian council flats. Even with lower layer super output area small area analysis, these neighbourhoods will average out as disadvantaged (each area has around 2000 people). Who’d care to bet that some universities haven’t already identified the post codes of these ‘golden’ lower layer super output areas and will be especially welcoming to its residents.
For anyone working on widening participation related projects these guidelines are essential reading. As they are to be implemented from autumn 2007, I would suggest checking that you are HEFCE compliant as soon as possible. I particularly liked the rule of thumb that “Aimhigher partnerships and HE providers should aim to ensure that around two-thirds of participants in widening participation activities are from the target group.” The good news is that we appear to be ahead of the government’s game, as we have been evaluating our work in the terms that HEFCE recommend for the past 12 months. The only slightly surprising feature is the modified categorisation of adult employment which we can easily incorporate.
Overall, I welcome these guidelines, as they are relatively tight and proscriptive and should help us engage with disadvantaged populations.
HEFCE has promised universities and Aimhigher assistance with local data in order to identify qualifying neighbourhoods and schools. In the past, a number of universities have said they found this data difficult to obtain: frankly this claim is disingenuous. Even without HEFCE help, excellent school and neighbourhood data can be easily marshalled from two major on-line sources. If we find that partner organisations are claiming that a lack of local data is making evaluation difficult, then we at the Brightside Trust can show them how to construct their own local map.
Firstly, the government’s national statistics office, neighbourhood statistics http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadHome.do;jsessionid=ac1f930bce6048c8bb53e5240d89babfb8ebe040ced.e38PbNqOa3qRe34LbxuNah4ObNj0n6jAmljGr5XDqQLvpAe?bhcp=1 Why not try your own postcode and see the range of datasets that can be drawn upon. If looking in detail, I recommend choosing the ‘more areas’ tab in section 2 and then selecting ‘lower layer super output area’, as your unit of choice. This has emerged as the fashionable unit of analysis among the pointy head analysts of neighbourhoods in the UK and will be the HEFCE unit of choice when they get their act together. Indeed, if you really want to be part of the ‘in’ crowd, use the other tab on the data sets screen to get a view of the range of stats available. Note lower layer super output areas can be found by postcode, so as long as you know a student’s postcode then you can define their neighbourhood as disadvantaged or not. For individual school details, ask the student which school they attend and then draw on the OFSTED website http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/portal/site/Internet/menuitem.2daefc8f97e956fe628a0d8308c08a0c/?vgnextoid=ba6a8587fd24a010VgnVCM1000008192a8c0RCRD, where every school in the UK’s latest inspection report can be downloaded. This provides considerable detail of both the schools performance, including the strengths and weaknesses of individual subject departments as well as the demographic and social profile of its pupil population.
There can be no excuses for non-compliance!
So, I hear you ask, how are people going to bend the rules. I know where I’d begin: there are some small neighbourhoods which are sharply divided between advantaged and disadvantaged, especially in cities, especially in London. For example, neighbourhoods in Islington where multimillion pound properties stand over the road from Victorian council flats. Even with lower layer super output area small area analysis, these neighbourhoods will average out as disadvantaged (each area has around 2000 people). Who’d care to bet that some universities haven’t already identified the post codes of these ‘golden’ lower layer super output areas and will be especially welcoming to its residents.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
1 Gangs, Shooting and Anarchy
Much has been said and written about the shooting of Rhys Jones in Liverpool. This child lived in a middle class area that abuts 2 disadvantaged estates. It might be an unpalatable thought, but maybe the killing of middle class children will be more of a spur to politicians than the mutual slaughter of the disadvantaged. But what action are they going to take? I worry about the inadequacy of the measures being mooted and that there is a naive simplicity to much of the talk. First, the idea that increasing the cost of alcohol is a way of dealing with the problem: in my opinion this will make things worse. The youths concerned will turn to using greater quantities of other drugs to get out of their brains and will then spend the little money they have on alcohol to top the evening off. This cocktail of drugs and drink will make them even more unpredictable and disagreeable. Also, it will push them even further into the hands of local drug dealers; it would be better to push them further into the hands of the local off-licence. Secondly, there has been much talk of there being an easier access to guns in the UK now than there was in the past. This again, is plain wrong. During the 20th century, the UK was always awash with guns; many were trophies from the First and Second World War and this pool of weapons was regularly toped up by a constant feed from returning imperial troops and civil servants. In terms of the law, you didn’t even need to register having a gun before 1920 or need a licence to buy or own a shotgun before 1967.
I think we need to understand a little more before prescribing a fix. In pursuit of that, I think Camila Batmanghelidjh has written an interesting article
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2893902.ece
This line of argument chimes with my own experience from when I ran a group for 14 year-old boys on the edge of school dropout and offending. It was a condition of group membership that they attended school and kept out of trouble with the law. One day I received a report from the police juvenile bureau that one of the boys had been caught stealing a vehicle. I spoke to him about what had happened and he told me, in a matter-of-fact fashion, that he had stolen a steam roller (if this is what they are still called) from a road repair site. I couldn’t believe the stupidity of it, I asked him, what were you thinking of; how were you going to outrun the police on a steam roller; what was the point of taking it, you couldn’t sell it - All good rational questions and, of course, completely irrelevant. He shrugged, no answer. The point I only later came to understand, was that he didn’t think because he lived in a world where there wasn’t any point in ‘thinking’. Without outlining his personal history, his life had been chaotic; he couldn’t plan or rely on anything or anyone, so before he did things he didn’t ask himself consequences-type questions. Rather, he lived in the present, and took it from there. This tended to short-termism in decision making and also to doing what made him feel good at that moment. I agree with Camila, this is nihilism, not anarchy.
However, I’d like to ask a trickier question: are these children so very different from the rest of modern British society? The way the press are speaking of gang members they are seen as self evidently, ‘the other’, the jackals of society, living by a different philosophy, uniquely selfish and dangerous to those around them. However, when the gang members look at ‘us’, what do they see? I would say they see a society dominated by a similar ethos of amoral individualism. This ethos includes a similar disregard for others and a disrespect for the law when it is thought to be interfering with an individual’s immediate desires. If we brought a Liverpool gang to London Bridge, might they look no further than the respectable middle class commuter cyclists disregarding all traffic laws and caring nothing for the safety of pedestrians as they hurtle along the pavement? If they asked the cyclists why they do this, they’d be told it’s because they are in danger from the car drivers who care nothing about them, and who similarly breach traffic laws whenever they think they can get away with it, including dangerously making calls on their mobile phones. Our child thugs might then point out that many more children are killed each year by wilfully careless car drivers than by gang members with guns. Also, when people speak of having alternative adult role models for these children, who do they have in mind? Sports personalities perhaps, but what lessons can be learnt from them. It seems to me, that many footballers and their partners are appalling individuals leading trite and dissolute lives. Or perhaps we should introduce them to the City folks who make money out of selling arms to repressive regimes and asset stripping third world countries of their natural resources, what is our juvenile gunman going to learn from them - to increase his prices perhaps. Or the Daily-Mail-reading-60-year-old who rants about the law being flouted, while they park in the parent and baby spaces at the supermarket, allow their dog to run loose and foul the local playing field, and drive home from the golf club drunk as a Lord. Is our visiting crew really so different, when they individualistically and amorally pursue their own self-interest with no concern about the impact on others. I’d go further; I’d ask who came first, who is imitating whom.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advising hugging a hoodie; they’ll either hurt you or steal your money or probably both. You can call these children feral, if you like; life for them is indeed a sort of opportunistic scavenging in an unpredictable and unstable world. There are many more children growing up in chaotic environments than is often acknowledged, for example, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2327918.ece
Finally, I suspect when the young person who committed this latest shooting is caught, their explanation will seem wilfully inadequate. However, rather than reacting with anger about that, I suggest, accept it at face value and see this shooting as a product of lives lived as a series of reactions to events, not as some diabolical strategic gang initiative that went wrong, and then, most sadly of all, recognise that the reasons for murder can be truly banal.
I think we need to understand a little more before prescribing a fix. In pursuit of that, I think Camila Batmanghelidjh has written an interesting article
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2893902.ece
This line of argument chimes with my own experience from when I ran a group for 14 year-old boys on the edge of school dropout and offending. It was a condition of group membership that they attended school and kept out of trouble with the law. One day I received a report from the police juvenile bureau that one of the boys had been caught stealing a vehicle. I spoke to him about what had happened and he told me, in a matter-of-fact fashion, that he had stolen a steam roller (if this is what they are still called) from a road repair site. I couldn’t believe the stupidity of it, I asked him, what were you thinking of; how were you going to outrun the police on a steam roller; what was the point of taking it, you couldn’t sell it - All good rational questions and, of course, completely irrelevant. He shrugged, no answer. The point I only later came to understand, was that he didn’t think because he lived in a world where there wasn’t any point in ‘thinking’. Without outlining his personal history, his life had been chaotic; he couldn’t plan or rely on anything or anyone, so before he did things he didn’t ask himself consequences-type questions. Rather, he lived in the present, and took it from there. This tended to short-termism in decision making and also to doing what made him feel good at that moment. I agree with Camila, this is nihilism, not anarchy.
However, I’d like to ask a trickier question: are these children so very different from the rest of modern British society? The way the press are speaking of gang members they are seen as self evidently, ‘the other’, the jackals of society, living by a different philosophy, uniquely selfish and dangerous to those around them. However, when the gang members look at ‘us’, what do they see? I would say they see a society dominated by a similar ethos of amoral individualism. This ethos includes a similar disregard for others and a disrespect for the law when it is thought to be interfering with an individual’s immediate desires. If we brought a Liverpool gang to London Bridge, might they look no further than the respectable middle class commuter cyclists disregarding all traffic laws and caring nothing for the safety of pedestrians as they hurtle along the pavement? If they asked the cyclists why they do this, they’d be told it’s because they are in danger from the car drivers who care nothing about them, and who similarly breach traffic laws whenever they think they can get away with it, including dangerously making calls on their mobile phones. Our child thugs might then point out that many more children are killed each year by wilfully careless car drivers than by gang members with guns. Also, when people speak of having alternative adult role models for these children, who do they have in mind? Sports personalities perhaps, but what lessons can be learnt from them. It seems to me, that many footballers and their partners are appalling individuals leading trite and dissolute lives. Or perhaps we should introduce them to the City folks who make money out of selling arms to repressive regimes and asset stripping third world countries of their natural resources, what is our juvenile gunman going to learn from them - to increase his prices perhaps. Or the Daily-Mail-reading-60-year-old who rants about the law being flouted, while they park in the parent and baby spaces at the supermarket, allow their dog to run loose and foul the local playing field, and drive home from the golf club drunk as a Lord. Is our visiting crew really so different, when they individualistically and amorally pursue their own self-interest with no concern about the impact on others. I’d go further; I’d ask who came first, who is imitating whom.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advising hugging a hoodie; they’ll either hurt you or steal your money or probably both. You can call these children feral, if you like; life for them is indeed a sort of opportunistic scavenging in an unpredictable and unstable world. There are many more children growing up in chaotic environments than is often acknowledged, for example, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2327918.ece
Finally, I suspect when the young person who committed this latest shooting is caught, their explanation will seem wilfully inadequate. However, rather than reacting with anger about that, I suggest, accept it at face value and see this shooting as a product of lives lived as a series of reactions to events, not as some diabolical strategic gang initiative that went wrong, and then, most sadly of all, recognise that the reasons for murder can be truly banal.
2 You(test)Tube
America's National Science Foundation has opened a test version of a video sharing site called SciVee, a sort of "YouTube for science" http://www.scivee.tv
Video is a bit slow and I couldn’t see a way to directly embed into this blog. Why not try http://www.scivee.tv/node/53 - OK, it’s a specialist taste.
Video is a bit slow and I couldn’t see a way to directly embed into this blog. Why not try http://www.scivee.tv/node/53 - OK, it’s a specialist taste.
3 This Year’s Physics GCSE Paper.
Those of you on the distribution list will have received a copy of one of this year’s GCSE physics paper. Here are the answers – how did you do?
1. C, 2. B, 3. C, 4. B, 5. C, 6. B, 7. B, 8. C, 9. A, 10. C, 11. D, 12. D, 13. A, 14. C, 15. C, 16. D, 17. A, 18. D, 19. A, 20. B, 21. D, 22. A, 23. B, 24. D, 25. C, 26. C, 27. C, 28. C, 29. B, 30. A, 31. D, 32. C, 33. A, 34. D, 35. A, 36. D, 37. C, 38. B, 39. D, 40. C
1. C, 2. B, 3. C, 4. B, 5. C, 6. B, 7. B, 8. C, 9. A, 10. C, 11. D, 12. D, 13. A, 14. C, 15. C, 16. D, 17. A, 18. D, 19. A, 20. B, 21. D, 22. A, 23. B, 24. D, 25. C, 26. C, 27. C, 28. C, 29. B, 30. A, 31. D, 32. C, 33. A, 34. D, 35. A, 36. D, 37. C, 38. B, 39. D, 40. C
Sunday, 12 August 2007
1 Star Turn
The government recently asked the National Audit Office (NAO) to investigate and report on dropout rates at UK universities - they have now reported http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/06-07/0607616.pdf . Note the page 38 reference to The Brightside Trust. We’re beginning to establish our reputation as experts worth consulting. Unfortunately the NAO didn’t dwell on the importance of mentoring in the report itself, ‘peer mentoring – whereby second and final year students give informal support to new students – is a feature of the student experience in Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States…’ was the high point. Still it’s good to be to be seen as relevant by government agencies.
2 Whistling Eddie
According to Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, ‘Pupils should be able to get into top universities by taking the new Diplomas instead of the traditional A-levels’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6915060.stm Will the health option level 3 diploma get you into medical school? Will it even get you an interview? I doubt it, but why not ask them Ed? How does this square with http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6917842.stm . Whistling in the wind has been the musical accompaniment to vocational training in the UK for the last 50 years and it’s not a popular act.
3 Tough Choices
A report from Durham university poses the question: if some A level subjects are harder than others, why not recognise that and regard the harder ones as more valuable. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2147194,00.html
4 Everyone’s Favourite Philanthropist
I think this article and video interview with Bill Gates could be very relevant to the future of e-mentoring. It strikes me that the seamless integration of different modes of communication, which seems to be central to Microsoft’s ‘schools for the future’, potentially renders obsolete the clear division between face-to-face communication and electronic communication. These are not just ideas; he will make this happen and some of it will shape schools in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/6917156.stm
5 Young People Today
A major government investment in youth clubs was announced on July 27th.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,2136106,00.html I would argue that the history of youth clubs in the UK, since at least the 1960s, has been a cycle of promotion and then cutback, every 10 to 15 years. I’m worried that the establishment and running of youth clubs is seen as unproblematic; believe me they are not. The proposal to give ‘young people’ control of 25% of the budget is frankly bonkers. This could only be implemented if a carefully selected group of young people were given very closely proscribed choices, which they would not see as controlling the budget. Result: disenchantment and rejection all round. There are many practical questions, not least, how difficult it can be to engage some individuals in a controlled fashion. For example, in my experience, as soon as a youth club is established there are exclusions – the excluded then either hang around the door, where they are at best a nuisance and often resentful and dangerous and/or they are elsewhere on the estate acting as an even more concentrated group of antisocial individuals.
I’m worried that this is another new Labour house built on sand. New Labour has been good at using the weight of public prejudice to advance progressive policies, a kind of political Jujutsu, using their opponents’ weight against them. The danger is that while simple answers appeal to prejudice, they are not enough to guide successful policy. Certainly among some sections of the press there is an open contempt for social workers of all kinds, who are said to be more concerned about political correctness than taking effective action. Implicitly or explicitly, it is assumed that this is a straightforward occupation if you are practical, down-to-earth and have common sense: youth clubs, what’s to know?
In my opinion, youth work among disaffected young people is difficult and in many ways I think it’s getting more difficult. I thought this when reading an extended article about Eton Manor, a youth club that ran from the early twentieth century until the 1960s in a rough part of Hackney http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2133792,00.html . Reading the Eton Manor story, it’s the differences between the 1960s and now, that struck me. For example, I’d forgotten that it used to be common practice to have a shooting range as an appropriate activity for disadvantaged boys; I guess to encourage them to join the military. What of Eton Manor that would work today? I cannot see a system based on class deference to old Etonians being a success; but role models, like the boxer, seem just as relevant; upgrading the shooting range to a drive-by shooting range – perhaps not.
In my opinion, once again government are underestimating how difficult these things are. My fear is that after bunging a load of money into ill thought out schemes they will then silently back away. If this happens, then the cycle of promoting youth services, to only see them cut back and marginalised a few years later, will continue.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,,2136106,00.html I would argue that the history of youth clubs in the UK, since at least the 1960s, has been a cycle of promotion and then cutback, every 10 to 15 years. I’m worried that the establishment and running of youth clubs is seen as unproblematic; believe me they are not. The proposal to give ‘young people’ control of 25% of the budget is frankly bonkers. This could only be implemented if a carefully selected group of young people were given very closely proscribed choices, which they would not see as controlling the budget. Result: disenchantment and rejection all round. There are many practical questions, not least, how difficult it can be to engage some individuals in a controlled fashion. For example, in my experience, as soon as a youth club is established there are exclusions – the excluded then either hang around the door, where they are at best a nuisance and often resentful and dangerous and/or they are elsewhere on the estate acting as an even more concentrated group of antisocial individuals.
I’m worried that this is another new Labour house built on sand. New Labour has been good at using the weight of public prejudice to advance progressive policies, a kind of political Jujutsu, using their opponents’ weight against them. The danger is that while simple answers appeal to prejudice, they are not enough to guide successful policy. Certainly among some sections of the press there is an open contempt for social workers of all kinds, who are said to be more concerned about political correctness than taking effective action. Implicitly or explicitly, it is assumed that this is a straightforward occupation if you are practical, down-to-earth and have common sense: youth clubs, what’s to know?
In my opinion, youth work among disaffected young people is difficult and in many ways I think it’s getting more difficult. I thought this when reading an extended article about Eton Manor, a youth club that ran from the early twentieth century until the 1960s in a rough part of Hackney http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2133792,00.html . Reading the Eton Manor story, it’s the differences between the 1960s and now, that struck me. For example, I’d forgotten that it used to be common practice to have a shooting range as an appropriate activity for disadvantaged boys; I guess to encourage them to join the military. What of Eton Manor that would work today? I cannot see a system based on class deference to old Etonians being a success; but role models, like the boxer, seem just as relevant; upgrading the shooting range to a drive-by shooting range – perhaps not.
In my opinion, once again government are underestimating how difficult these things are. My fear is that after bunging a load of money into ill thought out schemes they will then silently back away. If this happens, then the cycle of promoting youth services, to only see them cut back and marginalised a few years later, will continue.
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