How education inequality is being fuelled by lockdown and pandemic – Jayne Dowle

Little thought has been given to the impact of coronavirus measures on the way our children and young people must adapt to a complete different set of rules in the classroom.

My son, Jack, who is studying for a broadcast journalism diploma, is balancing a mixture of college days and online learning. At college, he now must stay in the building from 9am to 5pm. Students are not allowed out to socialise or eat lunch on any other part of the site or in town.

To be fair, these restrictions seem to be having a positive effect on his progress. On the first day he produced two online news articles and a blog. He admits that the discipline is beneficial. I told him that it’s good preparation for the world of work, then realised that the “office day” could well be a thing of the past.

Meanwhile his sister Lizzie, who has started her GCSEs this year, is finding the new term very frustrating. Whilst academic subjects are being taught as normal, her practical choices – dance and photography – are pretty static because of the necessary social distancing measures.

She worries more deeply too, about the future. What will be the point of studying hard for GCSEs and then A-Levels if there are no guarantees that the system will work fairly? And what’s the outcome anyway? In four years’ time, will universities even exist as we know them?

Understanding how frustrating it can be in the classroom is doubly important in our region. Attainment may be slowly improving, but there is still a huge chasm between academic achievements in deprived areas of the North and similar locations in the south of England, in particular London, which has had money pumped into education budgets.

There is also a worrying – and growing – gap between state and independent schools. State-educated Northern children like mine face a complex set of barriers and hurdles and no one should understand this more than the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, who went to Scarborough Sixth Form College and the University of Bradford.

Yet he still managed to preside over the GCSE and A-level fiasco, quashing the dreams of thousands of young people and disproportionately affecting those attending state schools and colleges.

Speaking in the House of Commons last week, Labour MP Stephanie Peacock, who represents my own constituency of Barnsley East, pointed out that this year independent schools have seen their proportion of top A-level grades double. Meanwhile, she added, 60 per cent of young people at Barnsley College – which my son attends – saw their A-levels downgraded, compared with 40 per cent nationally.

She’s asking for a Government statement to promise that this “scandal” will never happen again. I look forward to hearing what Gavin Williamson has to say, but expect it to be the usual confection of obfuscation, denial and excuses.

Correcting the exam system is absolutely paramount, but no government true to its promise to “level up” should lose sight of the wider holistic picture.

I’ll give you an example. I have a friend, a single mother with a daughter almost exactly the same age as Lizzie.

This 14-year-old – I’ll call her Lucy – attends a relatively modest independent school in Scotland. Her mother has pulled out all the financial stops to pay for it.

Lucy already has a personalised progress plan, overseen one-to-one by a designated teacher, to achieve her ambition of becoming a neuroscientist. She has relevant work experience mapped out and will put University College London at the top of her Ucas form, because it leads the field in studying the brain.

When she told me all this, I was impressed by her quiet confidence. 
Lizzie looked on in amazement. She’s been told to find a work experience placement this school year, but that’s about it. Her school is an excellent academy, but there is only so much time and resources to go round.

There is more to a good education than a clutch of top grades. Our young people – all our young people – deserve to leave school with confidence, aspiration, resilience and a sense of entitlement.

I fear that the coming months will highlight the disparity between the haves and the have-nots even further. The Government, and in particular Mr Williamson, clearly refuses to acknowledge this. The challenge is placed squarely on the shoulders of teachers, tutors and leadership teams.

Not only do they have to ensure that their schools, colleges and pupils are Covid-secure, but they are fully aware that the playing field is not only out of bounds for the foreseeable future but anything but level.

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James Mitchinson