Getting results
MOST of Guernsey's Education board has offered to resign over poor GCSE results and their initial refusal to divulge the statistics for individual schools. It's puzzling why they even tried to keep those results secret when that policy was clearly unsustainable. Drawing a line in the sand and then rapidly backing down is the worst of all political tactics.
MOST of Guernsey's Education board has offered to resign over poor GCSE results and their initial refusal to divulge the statistics for individual schools. It's puzzling why they even tried to keep those results secret when that policy was clearly unsustainable. Drawing a line in the sand and then rapidly backing down is the worst of all political tactics.
I understand Education's aversion to a league table culture, but parents and taxpayers have a right to know how schools are faring.
Ironically, the initial wall of silence probably only heightened the danger of us all now becoming obsessed with exam results. It also guaranteed a more hostile public analysis of the figures at the expense of some hard-working teachers and pupils.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that by trying to hide bad news, the department has made a difficult situation worse for those on the front line. Likewise, constantly branding all concerns over the results as 'hysteria' is only likely to enflame emotions.
Some of the comments have indeed been unfair. Guernsey's high schools can't compete on exam results with comprehensives in the UK because of our selective system. They can't even compare with 'secondary moderns' in the few counties that have retained the 11-plus. There, only about 12% to 15% of pupils are 'creamed off the top' for grammar school education, while here about 25% are selected for the Grammar School and colleges and far more parents opt to pay for subsidised private education. Against that backdrop, Les Beaucamps' performance is truly admirable, but elsewhere the results are very worrying indeed and there's clearly much work to do.
Even the total GCSE results for all Guernsey pupils are poor. Ten years ago, one of the killer arguments used for retaining the 11-plus was that it produced much better results than the UK's largely comprehensive system. That claim has now been shown to be completely false. This year, 51% of Guernsey children achieved five GCSEs with A* to C grades, including maths and English, compared to 50% in the UK. When you consider all the advantages Guernsey enjoys – less poverty, far fewer children for whom English isn't their first language, higher investment in ICT and smaller class sizes – we should really be streets ahead of the UK.
Personally, I'm convinced that doing away with selection by school at 11 is long overdue. I don't advocate mixed-ability teaching, but setting by subject within a school is a far more sophisticated way of ensuring that children are taught together with those of similar abilities. It allows for differing speeds of development without the requirement to move schools and recognises that many children have very different abilities in different subjects.
Certainly the response to the current revelations should include proper consideration of why our selective system is failing to produce the results it should, given Guernsey's inherent advantages. Whether that analysis leads to changing the current system or simply making it work better, it'll be more constructive than stigmatising pupils at La Mare de Carteret.
The way to avoid that situation arising in the first place wasn't through obsessive secrecy, but by openness and explanation.
The handling of this whole episode has been lamentable. When Deputy Stephens first placed her written questions, the Education Department should have used the time available to prepare fulsome replies that put the data into proper context, acknowledged that the results were unacceptable, and explained what was being done to improve the situation.
Will the States accept Education's resignation? Probably, judging by the lightning-fast reaction of the chief minister in dumping Deputy Carol Steere and trying to distance himself from the problem.
Deputy Lyndon Trott's call for a root-and-branch review of the Education Department is ironic. He chairs the Policy Council, which four years ago commissioned an inquiry into the management of the Education Department. The resulting Robinson Report was feeble, but included one clear recommendation – that in two or three years there should be a comprehensive, Ofsted-style review of the whole department. So it should have taken place a year or two back, but the Policy Council has done absolutely nothing to implement the findings of its own report.
Is such a review needed? Yes – and it has been for many years. The department's culture of secrecy is endemic, dating back to when it routinely refused to release 11-plus results showing that girls needed a far higher mark to 'pass' to Grammar than boys.
Then there's been the stream of talented educationalists whose careers mysteriously hit the rocks when they went to work for the department. Not to mention one of the most damning unfair dismissal reports ever delivered and a director of education who spends much of his time acting as a project manager.
Should the resignations be accepted? It's hard to see how they can be refused having reached this stage. I'm sure all the political members of the board genuinely have the best interests of local youngsters at heart. Alas, just like their predecessors, they've wholly failed to tackle the failings at the heart of the department. Some even seem to be in denial that any such problems exist.
Will a six-month term attract politicians capable of addressing those problems or will this hugely-important issue for the long-term future of our community once again almost come to a head, only to be forgotten by yet another new set of politicians after another general election?
