1) A bit of good news (after a gloomy start)

A consistent strand to British culture is the dislike of children and the fear of adolescents. I think it is part of a deep pessimism of the soul that Polly Toynbee discussed on her recent visit to Daily Mail island http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/20/mydailyhell While much of the reporting in the Daily Mail is simply laughable, Polly reminds us that it has a chilling appeal to it ‘"The ideal Daily Mail story," a former Mail journalist told me, "should leave you hating someone or something"’ These journalists seem to speak directly to the barely controlled unconscious of middle England, which longs to find the cause of its frustration and failure. Unfortunately, they will never look in the mirror – the cause of their misery must be someone else and once found they must be severely punished. One of the easiest of targets, and always one of the first, is ‘young people today’. However, despite their volcanic unconscious and limited intellectual toolbox, there is more to the consciousness of middle England than this; there is also a benign conscious, which includes a receptiveness to humour, and through it, occasional self-parody. In the end, with their obvious frustration, they are more Rigsby than ripper and like Rigsby will make common cause with the youngsters when it is clearly a matter of natural justice. Which is why I think this initiative is timely http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/youthmanifesto “The Youth Manifesto has been set up by the Talented Young People organisation to address the current situation regarding young people in this country and as a way to combat the current problems.” Yes, lets have a few celebrations of success but lets not be too worthy guys, lets go for the humour and the fun, and as a miserable old git may I advise that when dealing with your detractors always go for the low blow, middle England would expect nothing less.

2) Where are they now?

“One in 10 state school pupils will drop out of education before university despite having once been among the brightest in their class...” More Sutton Trust research http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/tenth-of-brightest-pupils-opt-out-of-higher-education-846241.html the problem seems to be keeping disadvantaged students actively engaged in the education process, especially up to and beyond GCSEs. This is going to become even more problematic when the education leaving age is raised to 18. Possibly shedding some light on this problem, an article from the Guardian, which is effectively a detailed case study of a disadvantaged student who made it,
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2290865,00.html the analysis seems tough on parents but this is a recurring theme.

3) Absence makes the heart ….

As you may have noticed, the same old social issues and problems come round every few years; they get chewed over and when they no longer seem to be worth the jaw ache are spat out and left on the carpet in favour of something else. Then one day, for some reason, they are taken up again and once more become the touchstone issue of the day, a harbinger, a proof that we are all going to hell. So, I thought I’d get ahead of the pack and lock my nashers onto the temporarily deserted bone of school truancy. Even in terms of the official figures there are a lot of pupils not going to school http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7385275.stm however; I don’t think that these students should be seen as a discreet subset of the school population who have cut themselves off from their peers, rather they should be seen as a subset of a larger group: the disengaged. By the age of 15, many of these little lovelies can be found floating around school, some having registered, some not. Did you know that one of the recurring problems with students who have been excluded from school is keeping them away from the premises? When we discuss students who leave school without 5 GCSEs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7348088.stm , I think we should be thinking of a group of children who have been in the process of gradually disengaging since they were 12 or 13. They slowly become unglued from the school routine and their reaction can then take the form of absence, disruption or even sometimes bursts of enthusiasm. People have tried many ways to re-engage these types of pupils. At the moment, peer mentoring seems quite fashionable, however this wouldn’t be my first choice, I think that having a significant sympathetic adult is what is needed. Anyone fancy starting an e-mentoring/mentoring scheme for occasional truanting/mildly disengaged 13 year olds? Your reward: when truancy next becomes the subject of national alarm you will be running the best stall on the market.

4) Firm but fair

“She gives away lots of - other people's - money to charities, but they have to meet tough business targets and prove they can rise to the challenge.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/09/voluntarysector proving efficiency and effectiveness when seeking monies is only going to get harder in the new philanthropic capitalism.

5) Knifes are us

There has been much panic and alarm about teenage knife carrying and murders but I wonder if this is a single or even a new phenomena. I was surprised to find the Sun newspaper contributing something worthwhile to the debate
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/justice/article1418367.ece I think it important to note that it was the cutting, the slashing, that was the purpose for these gangsters, not murder. The cultural and social context of knife use is important and not just in London, for decades Glasgow has had a much higher level of knife crime than the rest of the UK but as I understand it, once again the aim is to slash, hurt, humiliate but not kill. Silly boys carrying knives does not automatically lead to murder.

Are we even dealing with a single phenomenon? Details of these murders are hard to find but in at least one instance, murder followed a perceived slight in a bar where the attacker then went home, armed themselves with a knife and returned to kill the victim. This would seem very different to the theme of government and popular commentary where it is assumed that these fatal stabbings are the result of ‘situations get out of hand’ where young men carrying knifes find themselves using the knives, spontaneously and unplanned, resulting in an unintended death. The gangster slasher, the revenge stabbing, the panic wounding are all very different and I worry that they are being grouped together as a simple single phenomenon. If there are these differences then solutions might have to be both specific and different, depending on the detail of what is really happening.

6) Not that difficult

There has been discussion that some unfashionable universities may face closure due to falling numbers of undergraduates http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2289878,00.html or maybe universities need to recruit more effectively from the less represented sections of society through their widening participation programs. They could also alter the types of courses on offer with universities becoming primary providers of foundation degrees and advanced apprenticeships. Especially as apprenticeships are about to get a major increase in funding and support http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jul/13/youngpeople.workandcareers
In short, I would suggest that those universities who fear that they will be disproportionately hit by a diminishing student population should act now to develop a more overtly vocational slant to their courses and move away from an obsessive focus on traditional honours degrees. Indeed, perhaps we should give these new style universities a special name – how about polytechnics?

7) A report I welcome

In my opinion, the formal teaching of under 5s is unwise http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2290715,00.html we have plenty of evidence that it’s the soft skills that are lacking among many students in later life. The foundations for these skills are laid during the early years; in my opinion, forget early reading and writing; try to develop human empathy and a positive self-image through play.

8) Interesting fact

Did you know that summer babies are less likely to go to university http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1034773/Babies-born-summer-likely-study-university.html

1) Aspiration

The Sutton Trust has found that the numbers of students saying that they were very likely or fairly likely to go to university is now three in four. While I'm sure this response rate is in part dependent on the questions asked and the circumstances of asking them, this is still a significantly larger number than will actually find their way into higher education http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7370869.stm To be optimistic, for once, this would suggest to me that poverty of aspiration, which in the past was seen as a major obstacle to achieving the governments target of 50% young people going into higher education, is now much reduced and that the opportunity exists to build on this aspiration to meet that 50% target or even to exceed it. The detail of that venture must include addressing the widely different rates of participation by social group, especially for that of the least successful group: white working class boys on free school meals. Only 6% of white working class boys on free school meals go onto university, compared to 66% of girls from an Indian background http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2151025/White-working-class-boys-becoming-an-underclass.html . On the other hand, maybe attempts at widening participation are a waste of time, as Newcastle University’s reader in evolutionary psychiatry believes, because ‘fewer working class students at elite universities was the “natural outcome” of class IQ differences’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7414311.stm . For myself, I'm sure that the numbers of working class boys going onto university could be greatly improved without resorting to IQ boosting drugs or genetic engineering but I would advise them against attending a university that appoints readers in evolutionary psychiatry.

2) The living finger writes

I think that when the history of the Brown government is written, the most significant effect of its time in office will be seen to be the increased outsourcing of government services. Not just in the NHS, where outsourcing has been underway for some time but at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2008/jun/drc-082-050608.asp and in local government http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/02/voluntarysector.localgovernment

In a week or so, John Hutton, the enterprise secretary, will publish a review by DeAnne Julius, which is expected to give a further boost to outsourcing, indeed it has been widely trailed that she will recommend a significant expansion, arguing that the contracting out of 100% of government services is theoretically possible. As you all know, I’m not one to gossip, but while you might have guessed from the name that Dr DeAnne Shirley Julius is no horny handed daughter of toil, would you have guessed that she is a former CIA analyst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeAnne_Julius I wonder what the reaction in the UK would have been if a former KGB functionary was writing Labour government policy. However, enough of such trivia, I think some really important issues are beginning to emerge from outsourcing. Such as the recent conundrum thrown up by ECT Group, one of the UK's most successful and diversified social enterprises, who has sold its recycling business to a private company http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/828078/News-analysis-Whats-price-social-enterprise/4C32FEE7AF154B2D4A8223156D5F0D37/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin We are rapidly moving into an environment where there are no clear boundaries between the private, charity and government sectors. I could see this impinging directly on how third sector organisations, including ourselves at The Brightside Trust, will organise our business and work in the near future.

3) Minimum income

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) made a bit of a press splash with their report discussing what is the minimum income required for an adequate standard of living in the UK today http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/02/welfare full report at http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2244.asp This is an interesting addition to the more common debate about relative and absolute poverty. Minimum adequate income was calculated on the basis of what goods and services were needed to pay for an "adequate" standard of living as defined by a panel of adjudicators who assessed a range of goods and services that are widely available and deciding if they were a necessity or a luxury. I was interested by their classification of broadband access as being a luxury, except for families with secondary school students. I feel they are a bit behind the times on this one, and I would have included it as a necessity for all citizens wishing to live an adequate life and I would further argue that without it families with children of all ages slip below the threshold of an adequate life into the disadvantaged. For example, if one looks at the type of home/school internet links that will soon be in place http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2288247,00.html these will fundamentally alter interactions between parents and teachers and as the article shows will put those who are not able to engage on a routine basis over the internet at a major disadvantage. I don’t think the existence of public points of access are equivalent to home access.

4) Short and sweet

“By the age of three, children from disadvantaged homes are up to a year behind in their learning than those from more privileged backgrounds.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6740139.stm

This reminded me of a Sutton Trust study that described the way in which children from poorest homes were less equipped to cope with starting school http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2284405,00.html

5) Political correctness gone mad

Well, quite a good idea really http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,,2288262,00.html I think it is always sensible to offer people learning opportunities that relate closely to their real immediate needs and existence. I could see some of the people who are successful at this then moving onto tackling other qualifications or training, not that the great British public will see it that way.

6) Sciences harder

I think this simple truth has long been understood by students http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels/story/0,,2288309,00.html and yet another report that highlights the problem of recruiting and keeping specialist physics teachers in state schools http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7478302.stm which will be compounded by problems of future recruitment http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2288115,00.html but wait, a little hope, physics can be made more interesting by the use of games http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/03/physics.video.games

7) The vision thing

Gordon Brown has announced that there will be a government white paper later in the year that will draw together the government’s plans to increase social mobility in the UK. In a recent speech to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust he gave us a flavour of what will no doubt be in that paper http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page15837.asp The thing I find most puzzling about Gordon’s policy is the way he turns to the USA for ideas and projects to improve social mobility for the UK, when the USA has such a poor record in this matter, as the report by Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin, at the London School of Economics has shown http://cep.lse.ac.uk/about/news/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf To quote from their key findings “International comparisons indicate that intergenerational mobility in Britain is of the same order of magnitude as in the US, but that these countries are substantially less mobile than Canada and the Nordic countries. Germany also looks to be more mobile than the UK and US”.

So, why are we looking for examples of good practice to the USA rather than our near neighbours?

1) Second chance

The government has announced that more than one and a half million young people in England are to become eligible for £7,000 each to spend on improving their qualifications. The offer is open to 18-to-25-year-olds who want to boost their education to GCSE or A-level standard http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7448213.stm

2) Snail’s pace

Another batch of statistics and a report finding that widening participation into higher education is only making slow progress http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article4069357.ece

3) Off-site units and PRUs

The government has produced a white paper, ‘Back on Track: A strategy for modernising alternative provision for young people’ http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/backontrack it is discussed here http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2281099,00.html I feel that it is very wrong to assess the effectiveness of pupil referral units (PRUs) by the number of GCSE passes and it suggests to me that the people driving this policy review have little idea about the reality of such places. For example, it has always been the stated aspiration of off-site units to re-integrate into mainstream: it simply doesn’t happen in practice. Why? Because frankly everyone, student and mainstream school, are thoroughly sick of each other by the time the move to the PRU is undertaken. Its not surprising that few students get 5 GCSEs A to C, the kind of young people I came across were more like the characters in this article describing a unit that combines boxing with study http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2285860,00.html From my experience it should be seen as a success if students leave the PRU functionally literate and numerate with a sufficient repertoire of ‘soft skills’ that they are employable. Forget 5 GCSEs, once employed they can get an equivalent trade qualification that will serve them better.

4) Conservative Assessment

In an article by Oliver Letwin, interestingly placed in The Guardian, he argues that ‘Our aim is to be as radical in social reform as Margaret Thatcher was in economic reform.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jun/03/conservatives.labour spelling out that project, the Conservative Party has produced a discussion paper, ‘welfare to work’ and their spokesperson Chris Grayling has outlined in a speech what he calls the ‘next steps in welfare’ http://www.cps.org.uk/latestlectures A common mistake and a common theme that I think I see in both Labour and Conservative analyses is that the out-of-employment population are seen as languishing away in their homes, sullen but ready to be swept up by programs of training or employment. From what I’ve seen over the years in Finsbury Park and from working as a social worker this is not the case. The lifestyle is not so much one of being gloomily stuck, it is more that of hanging out with friends, having a laugh, ducking and diving, being a gangster or at least a shoplifter or small time dealer. They are in a state of permanent adolescence, a careless nihilism. If you do pester them about their plans they will tell you that one day they will go to college and become a plumber or a beautician and earn more cash than you. Living in a haze of drink and drugs, time passes quickly enough and there is always one more money making scheme to be tried. Some exist for years thinking they just need a break and then they will become a celebrity.

In short, they have aspirations but little plausible idea as to how or when they will achieve them, however the offer of doing something hard, like picking vegetables at the minimum wage is not on their agenda. Shifting them will be a much more difficult project than government or opposition seem to realise.

5) Poverty statistics going the wrong way

This report makes for gloomy reading as it shows child poverty rates seem to be on the rise again, as reported in The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/failure-on-child-poverty-targets-is-moral-disgrace-842780.html and at The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jun/07/socialexclusion.taxandspending and http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jun/11/socialexclusion.children1 but I thought the charts at the end of this last article were interesting, in particular, the way they show a fall in the percentage of national income going to the middle and fourth cohorts of the population as well as to the poorest. I think this explains, at least in part, why in the UK the middle classes are feeling unloved, insecure and not particularly sympathetic to the poor. Yes, there has been consistent economic growth over the past ten years from which they have benefited in real terms, but it would also seem that the middle classes are right in feeling that their share of these gains has been minimal and that it stands to be wiped out by the present burst of commodity price inflation. I feel that another thread in the current middle class consciousness is paralleled in another article which focuses on a single parent who is quoted as saying ‘it feels like I am not giving my children what I had’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jun/11/socialexclusion.children2?gusrc=rss&feed=society . I think many middle class married couples could be found expressing the same sentiment albeit using different criterion. In turn, I think this is linked to the mood of public pessimism, which seems to be impervious to genuine improvements, such as the falling levels of crime. On the upside, I guess the Labour Party could save money and catch the popular mood by recycling the 1997 ‘things can only get better’ campaign song for the next election campaign.