The mass evacuation of children from British cities to rural areas laid bare the abysmal lack of education many had received. The government response was the 1944 Education Act, which established what we now call state-maintained comprehensive schools and free, compulsory education to the age of 15. Free, as in not requiring parental fees. It was a change the then education minister, Rab Butler, would describe in the House of Commons as characterised by “dignity”; but 75 years later, under cover of Brexit, this basic pillar of our postwar order is being quietly eroded, with “free” schools asking parents if they can make a contribution to help meet the chronic funding shortfall they are facing. Money for the “little extras”, as the chancellor, Philip Hammond, in his recent budget, described the luxuries our pampered snowflakes enjoy these days – things like toilet paper, textbooks and stationery. [...]
Here’s a conundrum. How does a school that struggles to pay for textbooks meet the increasing pressure to demonstrate high performance? Ofsted, the schools regulator, acknowledged last month that schools were limiting their curriculum to focus on end-of-year tests. A primary school teaching assistant I spoke to recently told me about children learning nothing but maths and English in their final year. The children who had no hope of passing were siphoned off into a dud class so that the higher performers could get on with providing the school’s required performance data uninhibited.[...]
Some schools are overtly creating a top tier, where the most academic pupils are groomed for high grades and Russell Group university admissions, and offered experiences – such as residential and theatre trips – that are simply not available to the rest. One state school organised a £3,000 trip to Borneo, for those who could afford to pay – achieving class segregation through seemingly voluntary exclusion.
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