Sink schools and the social divide

If you haven't seen it already, I would strongly recommend watching the documentary by John Humphreys: "Unequal Opportunities" which is all about the huge gulf between rich and poor kids when it comes to education. You can watch on BBC iPlayer.

Most of the programme was a rant about "the middle classes" who send their kids to independent schools, spend thousands on private tutors, and bus their kids to the best state schools miles away whilst everyone else has to languish at the local comprehensive. (can you blame them when there is no decent local state school available?)

But the best and most inspiring part of the documentary was the fact that he visited several high performing schools that were:

1. Based in poor areas with poor pupils
   
2. Had a mixed intake of kids from various countries and communities
3. Were in a delapidated premises

And despite all that, the schools performed well because of

1. strong leadership from the head
2. good teachers
3. strict discipline

It just goes to show that whether you're rich or poor, middle class or working class, give kids the right school environment and they can succeed in life. Throwing all the money in the world at schools (as Labour did) makes little difference. Britain seems to suffer from a "can't do" culture, a mindset that finds every excuse under the sun to explain under performing schools. It's very simple: we need to and we can raise the standards of our schools that serve the poorest kids. We also need to recognise that it's perfectly fair and normal for parents to have the power to choose the best schools for their kids. We just need to make sure that the poorest parents also have that choice.

I just hope Michael Gove's free schools experiment succeeds in raising standards, because Labour have tried just about everything else and with the exception of Academies, nothing else has worked so far.