Calls to cut Britain’s schools down to size
A report published by TeachFirst, a charity which fast-tracks high achieving graduates into teaching, has this week called for Britain’s giant comprehensives to be broken up into smaller schools in order to improve behaviour and results. Based on a survey of 1,000 teachers, it argues that sprawling comprehensives fail to create a ‘learning community’ and students often feel lost in a ‘sea of anonymity’.
The report and the success of the small schools movement in the US, has reopened the issue of restructuring British schools among the leading political parties. Since 2002, New York has seen many large failing high schools broken up to create 47 new small schools with encouraging results. The big question is: can this model work for UK schools? The main political contenders would seem to think so. The Conservative party has announced that it is in favour of downsizing schools. Former Labour Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, has argued that reducing school size is the key to successfully managing pupil’s transition to secondary education from the comparably close-knit world of primary school. Andrew Adonis, the Schools Minister, has praised New York’s small school experiment and expressed a willingness to consider similar proposals for UK schools.
I certainly feel that super-size comprehensives struggle to create a sense of community and feeling of belonging which are important to keeping pupils engaged with education. Having examined this issue, I think that, while small schools may seem a radical idea, they would target the root cause of underachievement among 11-16 year olds. Small schools are not without problems, such as few staff and resources, and would therefore require close collaboration between smaller units in order to be successful. However, I question how such a massive overhaul of secondary education would be financed and whether the focus should not be on smaller schools but the rather more achievable target of smaller classes?
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