Considering Oxbridge, digital skills and misleading labels
If I lean dangerously out of my office window, I can glimpse four or five university institutions whose academic standing is such that the Ministry of Education of any other European country would kill to have them on their patch (Ticket to the top? 21 June). Oxford and Cambridge together admit about 8,500 UK undergraduates each year, out of a total for all universities of about half a million. The great majority of clever and well-motivated young people are not going to end up at Oxbridge, and so the "half of state school teachers [who] wouldn't advise their brightest pupils to consider Oxbridge", and who probably know more than anyone about their students' abilities and personalities, may be doing them a service.
Dr Paul Temple
Institute of Education, University of London
• While universities have made attempts in outreach, schools aren't doing the same. There's a lot of talk about private-school grooming, but is this completely impossible for state schools to achieve?
aguers via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• I had to smile when I read your article about Oxbridge outreach schemes followed by a letter from Sally Tomlinson of Oxford referring to why Hackney Downs school was closed in 1995. The Hackney Downs I knew as a pupil in the 1950s did not need research-worshipping universities to intervene at all. It was inspired and inspiring teachers, moderate discipline, outstanding leadership and high values that led hundreds of working-class kids from deprived backgrounds to go to universities and polytechnics, and become leading academics, scientists, medics, lawyers, engineers and artists.
It is time governments concentrated on developing schools that are like Hackney Downs.
Mike Goldstein
Streetly, West Midlands
Martha Lane Fox gives some very persuasive arguments, but misses two quite important points (Could you help someone who really needs to learn? 21 June). I currently live in a homeless hostel, and even if I could afford some computer "kit", I wouldn't be able to get connected – I am only going to live here for six months or so, and no telecom company will offer a contract for so short a period of time. My position will be the same as tens of thousands of other people's in the country.
Second, there is a problem with the skills gap. Over four years ago, Microsoft launched its Office 2007 product, which has a completely different look and feel from previous products. My local further education colleges are only now beginning to teach the new version. This means that in skills terms I am way behind anyone who is currently in work and regularly using computers.
Andy Fidler
Southampton
Naming is a powerful vehicle for the promotion of understanding or, equally, for obfuscation. With this in mind, I'm pondering two of the labels being used in discussions about vocational education (A Bacc for the future, 21 June).
In what sense does a "university technical college" embody the traditions, mission and practices of a university? And does the label Professional Technical Baccalaureate imply that Ebacc will not be "professional" in all or some senses of the word? There's a surprising lack of comment from institutions and associations interested in preserving clarity about these labels. Absence of critique helps to ensure another political victory for Michael Gove in the shaping of public consciousness.
Gus Pennington
Faceby, North Yorkshire
This week on the Guardian Teacher Network, you can find lots of fun activities to tie in with My Money Week
Forty-five years ago tomorrow, the credit card was launched in the UK. Meanwhile, there is rioting in Athens as Greece struggles with a debt crisis of epic proportions.
Borrowing more than you can afford to pay back is dangerous for individuals as well as nations – and personal debt management is a subject that today's young people have to master, not least because of the rise in university fees.
This week is My Money Week, run by the Personal Finance Education Group (PFEG). The annual themed week provides a focus on financial capability for young people in primary and secondary schools so they can learn more about managing money in a practical and relevant way.
The week's aim is to weave finance education into the curriculum, says the chief executive, Wendy van den Hende. "It's vital for young people to leave school with the ability to manage their money so they don't get into difficulties. With mortgages and rising university fees, debt is an everyday part of our life. We advise schools to do something substantial on finance education each year so children can understand the territory."
PFEG has developed resources across the whole age range, and gives a quality mark to the best resources created by banks and other finance organisations. We've pulled some of the best together on the Guardian Teacher Network.
Start with the activity packs for primary and secondary. The packs are brimming with flexible and fun activity ideas for teachers and parents to teach personal finance across the curriculum in My Money Week and beyond. As well as lesson plans, there are whole-school and assembly ideas, plus details of this year's future gazing national art and PSHE competition, which closes on 3 July. The pack also includes scenario cards to help bring money dilemmas to life.
Secondary pupils can assess their personal finance knowledge, skills and attitudes by using PFEG's innovative financial capability assessment profile tool, Fincap.
Fortunity is an online game to help secondary pupils improve their financial capability. Players move through different stages of life making everyday and long-term decisions, and discovering their outcomes. It's all linked to the current PSHE curriculum and there are also mini-games to play. For more details, see www.mymoneyonline.org.
For younger children, there are some extremely useful resources sponsored by the Association of Finance Mutuals: bit.ly/mmM49b. Upper primary-aged children can register with the site and learn more here: www.savingsquad.org.
We also have a lesson based on Guardian articles aimed at secondary students for use in school or at home on the background to the credit crunch.
For a simple explanation, and maths activities relating to the Greek debt crisis try this.
The Guardian's Lessons in Finance site, produced in connection with RBS, also has lots of great case studies and ideas for use at school and home.
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers free access to more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This content is being added to every day by teachers and specialists. 33,000 teachers have already registered. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk
This week on the Guardian Teacher Network, you can find lots of fun activities to tie in with My Money Week
Forty-five years ago tomorrow, the credit card was launched in the UK. Meanwhile, there is rioting in Athens as Greece struggles with a debt crisis of epic proportions.
Borrowing more than you can afford to pay back is dangerous for individuals as well as nations – and personal debt management is a subject that today's young people have to master, not least because of the rise in university fees.
This week is My Money Week, run by the Personal Finance Education Group (PFEG). The annual themed week provides a focus on financial capability for young people in primary and secondary schools so they can learn more about managing money in a practical and relevant way.
The week's aim is to weave finance education into the curriculum, says the chief executive, Wendy van den Hende. "It's vital for young people to leave school with the ability to manage their money so they don't get into difficulties. With mortgages and rising university fees, debt is an everyday part of our life. We advise schools to do something substantial on finance education each year so children can understand the territory."
PFEG has developed resources across the whole age range, and gives a quality mark to the best resources created by banks and other finance organisations. We've pulled some of the best together on the Guardian Teacher Network.
Start with the activity packs for primary and secondary. The packs are brimming with flexible and fun activity ideas for teachers and parents to teach personal finance across the curriculum in My Money Week and beyond. As well as lesson plans, there are whole-school and assembly ideas, plus details of this year's future gazing national art and PSHE competition, which closes on 3 July. The pack also includes scenario cards to help bring money dilemmas to life.
Secondary pupils can assess their personal finance knowledge, skills and attitudes by using PFEG's innovative financial capability assessment profile tool, Fincap.
Fortunity is an online game to help secondary pupils improve their financial capability. Players move through different stages of life making everyday and long-term decisions, and discovering their outcomes. It's all linked to the current PSHE curriculum and there are also mini-games to play. For more details, see www.mymoneyonline.org.
For younger children, there are some extremely useful resources sponsored by the Association of Finance Mutuals: bit.ly/mmM49b. Upper primary-aged children can register with the site and learn more here: www.savingsquad.org.
We also have a lesson based on Guardian articles aimed at secondary students for use in school or at home on the background to the credit crunch.
For a simple explanation, and maths activities relating to the Greek debt crisis try this.
The Guardian's Lessons in Finance site, produced in connection with RBS, also has lots of great case studies and ideas for use at school and home.
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers free access to more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This content is being added to every day by teachers and specialists. 33,000 teachers have already registered. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk
Unions are questioning whether redundancies in colleges are justified when the coffers are relatively full
Around 4,300 and counting. Every month the lecturers' union, UCU, updates numbers of further education posts at risk, and each time the outlook grows grimmer.
It's just one strand of a national picture unfolding through the Guardian's Cutswatch, which, with readers' help, is mapping the fallout from the coalition government's austerity measures. Yet while no one expected FE to be immune, there's growing concern that some jobs are being sacrificed even when colleges' financial balances appear to be in rude health.
Recent weeks have brought news of redundancies across the country. "It's never-ending," says the UCU's Midlands regional organiser, Nick Varney. "We believe colleges are using the current environment, where they think people are fearful, to cut deeper than they need."
When UCU and the public sector workers' union, Unison, surveyed around 140 colleges in April, more than 93% said they had already shed staff since June 2009. But over half – 53% – said they intended making further redundancies.
UCU members in colleges will be among those striking on Thursday as part of the national campaign to defend pensions. Many are also embroiled in local disputes.
Meanwhile, it's hard to find a deeper sense of resentment among staff than at Newcastle College. On the one hand, it is facing 200 full-time equivalent job losses, 148 of which are teaching or teaching-related. However, management says that 188 new jobs have been created, of which 157 are teaching or teaching-related. This follows a curriculum reorganisation.
Newcastle College is part of a group (NCG) that includes Skelmersdale and Ormskirk College, and Intraining in Sheffield. Overall, it made a £6m surplus last year. The UCU claims its members were offered a stark choice: redundancy or applying for new jobs that would place many lecturers on a single grade paid just £22,500 a year. The spokeswoman says that a £6.25m cut in government funding meant the college no longer generated the same level of business in some areas, and many lecturing grades were no longer needed. "Therefore these new jobs attract a different salary scale."
Shortly after the news of redundancies first broke, it emerged that NCG's chief executive, Dame Jackie Fisher, enjoyed a pay rise, including bonus and retention payment, of almost £73,000. A spokeswoman points out that Fisher is responsible for three divisions with an annual turnover of £152m in 2009-10. "The [pay] deal had been agreed three years earlier, and paid in August 2010, before the government's comprehensive spending review," she says.
In some colleges, redrawn staff contracts will leave lecturers up to £10,000 a year worse off, says UCU's head of education, Barry Lovejoy. "I worry that it's a growing phenomenon."
College managements say cuts and job losses are unavoidable because of central government cuts. But a recent analysis of Skills Funding Agency data by consultants W3 Advisory revealed that cash balances last year increased by 30%, to an average £3.4m – the highest for five years. Meanwhile, the proportion of income spent on pay fell from 65.7% in 2008-09 to 63.9% in 2009-10.
What to make of it? Lovejoy concedes that the world of college finances is complex. "Ofsted requires them to have a certain amount of surplus in order that they have financial viability," he says. "If you drill down into those figures, colleges will probably come up with valid arguments [for holding large reserves]."
Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive at the Association of Colleges (AoC), says there's no government guidance on the level of surpluses. "It's for governing bodies to make the decision," he says.
Chris Fabby, Unison's national officer for education, believes managements are overreacting. "There are colleges out there with healthy reserves and low borrowing," he says. "There's no financial justification." Fabby claims that colleges spend heavily on agency teaching and support staff. "They say it gives them flexibility, but long term it isn't a good use of public money – they charge a significant mark-up." He says his union wants to work with colleges and "people in the local community to devise long-term ways of making savings".
At Leeds College of Building (LCB), UCU staff have voted to strike over job losses and potential pay cuts.
Around 39 jobs will go, though the principal, Ian Billyard, estimates only six or seven will be compulsory.
Billyard admits that the college has £6m in cash balances, but says governors have agreed to spend £2m of this on retaining staff. "I think that by 2014-15, we'll have £1.5m-£2m remaining," he says. "I believe we're spending as much as we can – any more than that, we're risking the whole college."
At Barnsley, scene of a one-day strike 11 days ago, 40-50 jobs will have been shed by the end of the summer. The principal, Colin Booth, says voluntary severance is being offered to all staff and the likely number of compulsory redundancies has been reduced through consultation from 44 at the outset to six.
Lovejoy believes only goodwill and good practice can prevent excessive damage to the sector – "early consultation, a willingness to seek volunteers and offer other ways through".
• The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday 5 July 2011. An interviewee was quoted as saying that Ofsted, the education regulator, requires colleges of further education "to have a certain amount of [financial] surplus" to ensure continued viability. Ofsted says that while its inspectors look at financial planning and stability, Ofsted does not require some level of surplus.
Unions are questioning whether redundancies in colleges are justified when the coffers are relatively full
Around 4,300 and counting. Every month the lecturers' union, UCU, updates numbers of further education posts at risk, and each time the outlook grows grimmer.
It's just one strand of a national picture unfolding through the Guardian's Cutswatch, which, with readers' help, is mapping the fallout from the coalition government's austerity measures. Yet while no one expected FE to be immune, there's growing concern that some jobs are being sacrificed even when colleges' financial balances appear to be in rude health.
Recent weeks have brought news of redundancies across the country. "It's never-ending," says the UCU's Midlands regional organiser, Nick Varney. "We believe colleges are using the current environment, where they think people are fearful, to cut deeper than they need."
When UCU and the public sector workers' union, Unison, surveyed around 140 colleges in April, more than 93% said they had already shed staff since June 2009. But over half – 53% – said they intended making further redundancies.
UCU members in colleges will be among those striking on Thursday as part of the national campaign to defend pensions. Many are also embroiled in local disputes.
Meanwhile, it's hard to find a deeper sense of resentment among staff than at Newcastle College. On the one hand, it is facing 200 full-time equivalent job losses, 148 of which are teaching or teaching-related. However, management says that 188 new jobs have been created, of which 157 are teaching or teaching-related. This follows a curriculum reorganisation.
Newcastle College is part of a group (NCG) that includes Skelmersdale and Ormskirk College, and Intraining in Sheffield. Overall, it made a £6m surplus last year. The UCU claims its members were offered a stark choice: redundancy or applying for new jobs that would place many lecturers on a single grade paid just £22,500 a year. The spokeswoman says that a £6.25m cut in government funding meant the college no longer generated the same level of business in some areas, and many lecturing grades were no longer needed. "Therefore these new jobs attract a different salary scale."
Shortly after the news of redundancies first broke, it emerged that NCG's chief executive, Dame Jackie Fisher, enjoyed a pay rise, including bonus and retention payment, of almost £73,000. A spokeswoman points out that Fisher is responsible for three divisions with an annual turnover of £152m in 2009-10. "The [pay] deal had been agreed three years earlier, and paid in August 2010, before the government's comprehensive spending review," she says.
In some colleges, redrawn staff contracts will leave lecturers up to £10,000 a year worse off, says UCU's head of education, Barry Lovejoy. "I worry that it's a growing phenomenon."
College managements say cuts and job losses are unavoidable because of central government cuts. But a recent analysis of Skills Funding Agency data by consultants W3 Advisory revealed that cash balances last year increased by 30%, to an average £3.4m – the highest for five years. Meanwhile, the proportion of income spent on pay fell from 65.7% in 2008-09 to 63.9% in 2009-10.
What to make of it? Lovejoy concedes that the world of college finances is complex. "Ofsted requires them to have a certain amount of surplus in order that they have financial viability," he says. "If you drill down into those figures, colleges will probably come up with valid arguments [for holding large reserves]."
Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive at the Association of Colleges (AoC), says there's no government guidance on the level of surpluses. "It's for governing bodies to make the decision," he says.
Chris Fabby, Unison's national officer for education, believes managements are overreacting. "There are colleges out there with healthy reserves and low borrowing," he says. "There's no financial justification." Fabby claims that colleges spend heavily on agency teaching and support staff. "They say it gives them flexibility, but long term it isn't a good use of public money – they charge a significant mark-up." He says his union wants to work with colleges and "people in the local community to devise long-term ways of making savings".
At Leeds College of Building (LCB), UCU staff have voted to strike over job losses and potential pay cuts.
Around 39 jobs will go, though the principal, Ian Billyard, estimates only six or seven will be compulsory.
Billyard admits that the college has £6m in cash balances, but says governors have agreed to spend £2m of this on retaining staff. "I think that by 2014-15, we'll have £1.5m-£2m remaining," he says. "I believe we're spending as much as we can – any more than that, we're risking the whole college."
At Barnsley, scene of a one-day strike 11 days ago, 40-50 jobs will have been shed by the end of the summer. The principal, Colin Booth, says voluntary severance is being offered to all staff and the likely number of compulsory redundancies has been reduced through consultation from 44 at the outset to six.
Lovejoy believes only goodwill and good practice can prevent excessive damage to the sector – "early consultation, a willingness to seek volunteers and offer other ways through".
• The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday 5 July 2011. An interviewee was quoted as saying that Ofsted, the education regulator, requires colleges of further education "to have a certain amount of [financial] surplus" to ensure continued viability. Ofsted says that while its inspectors look at financial planning and stability, Ofsted does not require some level of surplus.
How can schools with many pupils who face major struggles even hope to meet new government GCSE targets? Janet Murray charts a day in the life of Marlowe Academy
'It's annoying when people say you go to a rubbish school," says Holly-Anna Sheppard, a sixth-form student at the Marlowe academy, in Kent. "I've done really well here, but the trouble is, once a school gets a bad reputation, it tends to stick."
She speaks with some authority, having been around since the days of its predecessor, the notorious Ramsgate school, where, six years ago, just 4% of pupils got five A*-C grades at GCSE. "The teachers weren't interested, there were fights breaking out all the time. It was just chaos," she recalls.
The school, considered at the time to be one of the worst in Britain, re-opened as the Marlowe academy in 2005 and, for a while, things seemed to be looking up. By 2010, 68% of students at the academy were achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE – close to the national average. But the introduction of a new "gold standard" for pupil achievement has changed that. Launched earlier this year,the English baccalaureate measures pupils' progress in terms of A*-C grades in five core subjects including English and maths, two sciences, a language and a humanities subject. By that measure no pupils at the Marlowe academy achieved the Ebacc standard and just 14% achieved 5 A*- C grades including English and maths which means the school has plummeted back down the league tables.
It has been a big blow for the academy, which was put on "notice to improve" (the grading just above special measures) by Ofsted last October, due – amongst other things – to weaknesses in English and maths.
Earlier this month, the education secretary, Michael Gove, announced a new target for all schools to have 50% of pupils getting five A*-Cs at GCSE (up from 35%), which has raised the bar even higher.
But how realistic is this target, particularly in deprived areas, where pupils can be trailing behind their peers before they even set foot in a school?
Under the last Labour government, pupil progress was measured against their previous attainment (commonly known as "value added"). Under this method, the academy was performing above average. But as of next year, the government will no longer be using this measure.
Standing in the reception area at the beginning of the school day, it is difficult to believe it is currently the worst school in the country (there were only two schools with lower attainment last year, and both have since closed).
The state-of-the art building was designed with no corners or corridors and, as the vice-principal, Naomi Black, puts it, "no places to hide", but despite the colourful displays, high ceilings and expanse of light, it feels a bit like a prison – albeit a very plush one. The classrooms, visible from almost anywhere in the building, are located over three floors, with half balconies instead of corridors. At the beginning of each lesson, teachers appear in the doorways like sentries before chivvying the children inside.
It's incredibly noisy, and the pupils are boisterous, but they are teenagers, after all, and there is a definite sense of purpose about the place.
The first stop of the day is food technology with year 7, where a group of boys is watching the catering teacher, Gerry Haynes – along with two support staff – demonstrate how to make calzone.
The small class size (around 12) and high pupil-staff ratio is down to the fact that this is a "nurture group", explains Black– a group of children deemed to be vulnerable for a range of reasons that could include special educational needs, bereavement or low confidence.
The aim is to keep class sizes around 25, says the principal, Ian Johnson, although some groups – like this one – are deliberately smaller.
One of the most striking things about the children is their stature. Many of them – the boys in particular – seem small for their age, and underweight. It's something other visitors, and even Ofsted, have commented on, Black tells me, and it is undoubtedly down to poor nutrition.
The school does help, providing a free breakfast for students every day and subsidising school meals by 10% for those not entitled to free school meals (36% of the pupils are), but Thanet, where the school is located, is a very poor area.
One of the biggest local industries here is fostering, so the school has a disproportionate number of looked-after children (currently around 40). With the port of Dover nearby, there are high numbers of refugees and asylum seekers.
In the art room, Andy Lead is introducing another group of year 7s to the work of Rousseau – and they are captivated. But he looks panicky when Black turns up at his classroom, as does every teacher we see in the course of the day. Since last October's unsuccessful Ofsted inspection, Black has been conducting "learning walks" three times a week, which involve dropping in on teachers to observe their lessons and check their lesson plans. "I think they see me as the Angel of Death," she jokes.
But most staff have bought into the changes, says Johnson. "We have made it clear that you have got to teach good lessons all the time. You've got to be at your best and wanting to improve."
When I visit the ASD area (the school's specialist department for children with autism spectrum disorders) an incident is brewing. A boy has been removed from his lesson for swearing – and he says he didn't do it. A chair is thrown, and there is a lot of shouting, but staff quickly defuse the situation. "That's just a normal day," says Audrey Ford, who heads the support and guidance team, of which ASD is part. The school is known locally for its expertise in supporting children with additional needs, she says. The ASD team now has 67 students attached to it who follow mainstream and specialist programmes, while the EAL (English as an additional language) unit has around 72.
But having more vulnerable young people in the school makes meeting the government's stringent targets even more of a challenge, especially in a selective area like Kent, where 30% of pupils are "creamed off" to go to grammar schools at 11, she says.
Ford is angry that the government has moved the goalposts. It would be much fairer to set local targets that take into account social demographics and (in Thanet's case) the fact that it is a selective area, she says. "The school is here to serve our local community … and this is our community. We are all doing our very best, but it is hard."
And there are new challenges every week, says Susan Remaci, head of the EAL unit. An increasing number of pupils, particularly Afghan boys, are arriving at the school illiterate in their own language. "We have children arriving with no teeth, with horrific injuries sustained on their journeys to the UK. They often suffer emotional difficulties as a result," she says.
Over lunch, I talk to a group of year 7s about what they think of the school (they love it) and plans to change the uniform in September (the school is moving from T-shirts and trousers to a more formal look, with blazers and ties). Some of the pupils seem worried about their parents having to buy new uniforms – one boy says he is on one of 10 children (a mixture of step and half-siblings), another girl says she is one of six.
Poverty is a big issue, says Pam Chute, student welfare manager at the school. While she has been out to visit families where children are living in damp conditions or don't have a bed (she recalls one case where a baby was crawling through faeces on the floor), she talks of a new kind of poverty, "where parents will buy a massive TV or a mobile phone, but can't seem to stretch to a hot meal or new shoes for their child".
The pupils seem sleepy after lunch, but because the school day runs from 8.50am to 5pm, they still have over three hours left. Afterwards, I meet Dave Draper, manager of the EBD (emotional and behavioural difficulties) unit, who has been alerted to a problem with one of the boys on his caseload who is being disruptive. He calls the boy out of his lesson, has a quiet word with him and sends him back into his classroom, where he appears to calm down and get on with his work.
There are currently 21 children on his caseload with behavioural difficulties, he says, and their problems are often sparked by problems in their home life. But none of them would be at mainstream school if they weren't at Marlowe, he says – they'd be in a special educational needs school or pupil referral unit instead.
Afterwards, it's back on the beat with Black. Over the course of the afternoon, we drop into numerous lessons, across various year groups and, without exception, there is that calm, purposeful atmosphere. So what went wrong with Ofsted?
Johnson admits that the school "didn't react quickly enough" in identifying and responding to weaknesses in the teaching of English and maths at the school, but points out that entry levels are "the lowest in the area, by some way".
Most of the current crop of year 7 pupils – the first cohort that will be affected by the government's new GCSE targets – were behind their chronological age in reading when they arrived in September. Around a fifth had a reading age of nine or below, and 40% had achieved level 4 in English and maths in their key stage 2 Sats (the average is around 60%), which is generally seen as a reliable indicator of success at GCSE.
What Gove doesn't seem to understand, he says, is that it is not a level playing field. The pupil premium (a government initiative that will give schools up to £430 more for each pupil from a disadvantaged background) is a nod in the right direction, but it can only go so far. "Does the extra £1,500 you might get over five years mean that all obstacles for that student are going to be taken away? Of course not. I applaud him for saying that we need to raise expectations because we do need to, but whether the approach is going to be right, I'm not so sure. Whether he [Gove] understands the pressures that are here, or just assumes we have the pressures because we are not very good at our jobs, I don't know."
At 5pm, I join Johnson and Black on gate duty. As pupils head home, it seems clear that this is a safe, happy school, but with another Ofsted inspection due any time from October, there are likely to be tough times ahead. But while he would clearly welcome a little more understanding from government officials about the nature of the school's intake, Johnson seems wary of making too much of it. He doesn't want any of his pupils thinking they are no-hopers. "If you flip the problem around, what we've got here is untapped potential. If we can unlock that, if we can find out what the barriers to learning are and, above all, we are good enough – we have a chance to turn it around. It's definitely a challenge, but it's not impossible."
• This article was amended on 28 June 2011. The original suggested that 14% of pupils at the Marlowe academy achieved the Ebacc standard across five subjects. This has been corrected.
How can schools with many pupils who face major struggles even hope to meet new government GCSE targets? Janet Murray charts a day in the life of Marlowe Academy
'It's annoying when people say you go to a rubbish school," says Holly-Anna Sheppard, a sixth-form student at the Marlowe academy, in Kent. "I've done really well here, but the trouble is, once a school gets a bad reputation, it tends to stick."
She speaks with some authority, having been around since the days of its predecessor, the notorious Ramsgate school, where, six years ago, just 4% of pupils got five A*-C grades at GCSE. "The teachers weren't interested, there were fights breaking out all the time. It was just chaos," she recalls.
The school, considered at the time to be one of the worst in Britain, re-opened as the Marlowe academy in 2005 and, for a while, things seemed to be looking up. By 2010, 68% of students at the academy were achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE – close to the national average. But the introduction of a new "gold standard" for pupil achievement has changed that. Launched earlier this year,the English baccalaureate measures pupils' progress in terms of A*-C grades in five core subjects including English and maths, two sciences, a language and a humanities subject. By that measure no pupils at the Marlowe academy achieved the Ebacc standard and just 14% achieved 5 A*- C grades including English and maths which means the school has plummeted back down the league tables.
It has been a big blow for the academy, which was put on "notice to improve" (the grading just above special measures) by Ofsted last October, due – amongst other things – to weaknesses in English and maths.
Earlier this month, the education secretary, Michael Gove, announced a new target for all schools to have 50% of pupils getting five A*-Cs at GCSE (up from 35%), which has raised the bar even higher.
But how realistic is this target, particularly in deprived areas, where pupils can be trailing behind their peers before they even set foot in a school?
Under the last Labour government, pupil progress was measured against their previous attainment (commonly known as "value added"). Under this method, the academy was performing above average. But as of next year, the government will no longer be using this measure.
Standing in the reception area at the beginning of the school day, it is difficult to believe it is currently the worst school in the country (there were only two schools with lower attainment last year, and both have since closed).
The state-of-the art building was designed with no corners or corridors and, as the vice-principal, Naomi Black, puts it, "no places to hide", but despite the colourful displays, high ceilings and expanse of light, it feels a bit like a prison – albeit a very plush one. The classrooms, visible from almost anywhere in the building, are located over three floors, with half balconies instead of corridors. At the beginning of each lesson, teachers appear in the doorways like sentries before chivvying the children inside.
It's incredibly noisy, and the pupils are boisterous, but they are teenagers, after all, and there is a definite sense of purpose about the place.
The first stop of the day is food technology with year 7, where a group of boys is watching the catering teacher, Gerry Haynes – along with two support staff – demonstrate how to make calzone.
The small class size (around 12) and high pupil-staff ratio is down to the fact that this is a "nurture group", explains Black– a group of children deemed to be vulnerable for a range of reasons that could include special educational needs, bereavement or low confidence.
The aim is to keep class sizes around 25, says the principal, Ian Johnson, although some groups – like this one – are deliberately smaller.
One of the most striking things about the children is their stature. Many of them – the boys in particular – seem small for their age, and underweight. It's something other visitors, and even Ofsted, have commented on, Black tells me, and it is undoubtedly down to poor nutrition.
The school does help, providing a free breakfast for students every day and subsidising school meals by 10% for those not entitled to free school meals (36% of the pupils are), but Thanet, where the school is located, is a very poor area.
One of the biggest local industries here is fostering, so the school has a disproportionate number of looked-after children (currently around 40). With the port of Dover nearby, there are high numbers of refugees and asylum seekers.
In the art room, Andy Lead is introducing another group of year 7s to the work of Rousseau – and they are captivated. But he looks panicky when Black turns up at his classroom, as does every teacher we see in the course of the day. Since last October's unsuccessful Ofsted inspection, Black has been conducting "learning walks" three times a week, which involve dropping in on teachers to observe their lessons and check their lesson plans. "I think they see me as the Angel of Death," she jokes.
But most staff have bought into the changes, says Johnson. "We have made it clear that you have got to teach good lessons all the time. You've got to be at your best and wanting to improve."
When I visit the ASD area (the school's specialist department for children with autism spectrum disorders) an incident is brewing. A boy has been removed from his lesson for swearing – and he says he didn't do it. A chair is thrown, and there is a lot of shouting, but staff quickly defuse the situation. "That's just a normal day," says Audrey Ford, who heads the support and guidance team, of which ASD is part. The school is known locally for its expertise in supporting children with additional needs, she says. The ASD team now has 67 students attached to it who follow mainstream and specialist programmes, while the EAL (English as an additional language) unit has around 72.
But having more vulnerable young people in the school makes meeting the government's stringent targets even more of a challenge, especially in a selective area like Kent, where 30% of pupils are "creamed off" to go to grammar schools at 11, she says.
Ford is angry that the government has moved the goalposts. It would be much fairer to set local targets that take into account social demographics and (in Thanet's case) the fact that it is a selective area, she says. "The school is here to serve our local community … and this is our community. We are all doing our very best, but it is hard."
And there are new challenges every week, says Susan Remaci, head of the EAL unit. An increasing number of pupils, particularly Afghan boys, are arriving at the school illiterate in their own language. "We have children arriving with no teeth, with horrific injuries sustained on their journeys to the UK. They often suffer emotional difficulties as a result," she says.
Over lunch, I talk to a group of year 7s about what they think of the school (they love it) and plans to change the uniform in September (the school is moving from T-shirts and trousers to a more formal look, with blazers and ties). Some of the pupils seem worried about their parents having to buy new uniforms – one boy says he is on one of 10 children (a mixture of step and half-siblings), another girl says she is one of six.
Poverty is a big issue, says Pam Chute, student welfare manager at the school. While she has been out to visit families where children are living in damp conditions or don't have a bed (she recalls one case where a baby was crawling through faeces on the floor), she talks of a new kind of poverty, "where parents will buy a massive TV or a mobile phone, but can't seem to stretch to a hot meal or new shoes for their child".
The pupils seem sleepy after lunch, but because the school day runs from 8.50am to 5pm, they still have over three hours left. Afterwards, I meet Dave Draper, manager of the EBD (emotional and behavioural difficulties) unit, who has been alerted to a problem with one of the boys on his caseload who is being disruptive. He calls the boy out of his lesson, has a quiet word with him and sends him back into his classroom, where he appears to calm down and get on with his work.
There are currently 21 children on his caseload with behavioural difficulties, he says, and their problems are often sparked by problems in their home life. But none of them would be at mainstream school if they weren't at Marlowe, he says – they'd be in a special educational needs school or pupil referral unit instead.
Afterwards, it's back on the beat with Black. Over the course of the afternoon, we drop into numerous lessons, across various year groups and, without exception, there is that calm, purposeful atmosphere. So what went wrong with Ofsted?
Johnson admits that the school "didn't react quickly enough" in identifying and responding to weaknesses in the teaching of English and maths at the school, but points out that entry levels are "the lowest in the area, by some way".
Most of the current crop of year 7 pupils – the first cohort that will be affected by the government's new GCSE targets – were behind their chronological age in reading when they arrived in September. Around a fifth had a reading age of nine or below, and 40% had achieved level 4 in English and maths in their key stage 2 Sats (the average is around 60%), which is generally seen as a reliable indicator of success at GCSE.
What Gove doesn't seem to understand, he says, is that it is not a level playing field. The pupil premium (a government initiative that will give schools up to £430 more for each pupil from a disadvantaged background) is a nod in the right direction, but it can only go so far. "Does the extra £1,500 you might get over five years mean that all obstacles for that student are going to be taken away? Of course not. I applaud him for saying that we need to raise expectations because we do need to, but whether the approach is going to be right, I'm not so sure. Whether he [Gove] understands the pressures that are here, or just assumes we have the pressures because we are not very good at our jobs, I don't know."
At 5pm, I join Johnson and Black on gate duty. As pupils head home, it seems clear that this is a safe, happy school, but with another Ofsted inspection due any time from October, there are likely to be tough times ahead. But while he would clearly welcome a little more understanding from government officials about the nature of the school's intake, Johnson seems wary of making too much of it. He doesn't want any of his pupils thinking they are no-hopers. "If you flip the problem around, what we've got here is untapped potential. If we can unlock that, if we can find out what the barriers to learning are and, above all, we are good enough – we have a chance to turn it around. It's definitely a challenge, but it's not impossible."
• This article was amended on 28 June 2011. The original suggested that 14% of pupils at the Marlowe academy achieved the Ebacc standard across five subjects. This has been corrected.
Just a month before the Office for Fair Access is due to announce access agreements with universities, some are being asked to raise their targets for widening participation
Universities are doing more than ever to finance and support widening participation. Why is it, then, that just one month before the announcement of access agreements from the Office for Fair Access, we are being asked to raise our access targets again?
Over the last week, Offa has been in touch with universities to discuss their draft access agreements ahead of the announcement on 12 July. Intriguingly, these discussions appear to include proposals for "nudging up" targets.
What could be the rationale for this now? It is already several weeks since universities submitted their access arrangements for scrutiny. Is it to provide some unspoken target for the sector? Could it be to provide ministers with evidence that their policies will deliver increased access to higher education for young people of talent from under-represented groups by 2015-16?
If it is, we should remember that in the same month, the government is to cut its funding for the Aimhigher programme that has supported widening participation activity so well in recent years.
Aimhigher has had a significant impact in encouraging young people from non-traditional backgrounds to consider higher education. Even in these difficult financial times, universities like my own are strongly committed to finding the budget to continue financing this important work themselves. We've seen that it works and acknowledge that it has a key role in helping us to achieve access targets.
We should also remember and applaud the significant efforts and commitment of the many staff in the sector who promote and widen access to higher education. Over the summer, in universities across the country, our staff will bring their creativity, flair and energy to find ever more engaging ways to raise the awareness and aspirations of young people. Outreach teams work with children, parents and schools as early as primary years.
This is excellent work, but it requires a long-term commitment. In a recent briefing, Action on Access (the co-ordination team for widening participation) brought together information from a range of independent reviews and proposed a framework for embedding widening participation within institutions. These include engaging with learners at an early stage to encourage them to enter HE; preparing learners for university; working in partnership with community groups, employers and professional bodies; and, importantly, embedding widening participation and equality in institutional strategies.
Over the last decade, the sector has made real improvements in access for students from under-represented groups. However, for all the nudging of the figures by Offa, and institutional change implemented by universities, the reality is that the impact of government changes to the funding of higher education will be a live experiment with young people's futures.
There are serious concerns that, by altering so greatly the balance of funding for higher education from the public purse to the individual, the government's changes will undermine progress in widening participation, effectively "nudging" under-represented groups "out" of higher education.
Another concern for those working to widen participation is the extensive public confusion about the new funding arrangements. The government appears to have had a problem in getting a simple, coherent message across to future students and their parents about the implications of the changes to fees and loans. I trust that the newly established Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information, headed by money-saving expert Martin Lewis and the former NUS president, Wes Streeting, will be able to address this.
I also hope that Simon Hughes MP, in his role as advocate for access, will be able to ensure that our work in widening participation is supported nationally. Here at Southampton, we are proud to have the highest ranking in the Russell Group for the proportion of state school students we recruit. We are committed to this continuing.
I passionately hope that no student will be deterred by uncertainty about the changes coming in 2012. However, in the light of the new funding arrangements, it is clear that while Offa works to "nudge up" the ambitions of the sector in terms of access, those of us in the sector must work even harder to find ways of ensuring that young people of talent from under-represented groups don't reject the prospect of higher education because of an over-riding fear of debt.
• Professor Debra Humphris is pro vice-chancellor, education, at the University of Southampton
The government is making many small changes, says Estelle Morris, but their cumulative effect goes far beyond the schools at which they are aimed
The forthcoming summer break will mark the end of the first full academic year for this government. We should by now have some idea where the next four years might take us.
In many ways, little that has come out of the Department for Education in the last 12 months should be a surprise. Michael Gove has acted quickly and decisively on his flagship policies.
Almost a quarter of secondary schools are, or hope to become, academies. The first free schools will open in September, and more than 200 further applications are in the pipeline.
The English baccalaureate is already influencing timetables for next year; heads talk about "baccalaureate streams" and music, religious education and social science teachers, among others, worry about their subjects.
Whether you like these policies or not, this secretary of state is proving to be focused and determined. Admirable traits, but we've seen their downside as well. Determination can turn into obstinacy, and focus lead to an unwillingness to listen to anyone else. So in this first year, we've also seen ministers forced into U-turns on school buildings, sports partnerships and books for children.
Yet there's a void at the centre of the government's plans. There's little sign that ministers either understand or are prepared for where all this might lead us. The big picture stuff just isn't there; there is no policy follow-through.
Take the direction of travel of their key policies. Sooner or later over the next four years we are likely to reach a "tipping point", with the majority of our secondary schools becoming academies. Each will have its own admissions policy within a weakened admissions framework and with no overall planning for the number of school places. Every school with its own application procedure and entitled to use different over-subscription rules ???. Freedom for individual schools, but an uncoordinated and cumbersome system for parents.
Changes introduced this year could mean that in four years' time, local authorities will have so little capacity and resource that they won't have a central service to support vulnerable children.
The "middle layer" of education, Becta (the technology in education agency), the Training and Development Agency (TDA), Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) and the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) will have been abolished or will be run by civil servants in Whitehall. International tests will be the high-stake assessment and the curriculum entitlement will be narrowed.
Abolishing the TDA meets today's political agenda for cutting quangos, but where is the vision as to how teachers will be recruited and trained, and how they will access professional development? Teaching schools that arguably will take on this role don't yet exist and not enough are planned to support every school and every teacher.
Getting rid of Becta helps to cut Gove's budget, but what about the consequences? Where are the plans to embed technology in schools, to make sure children benefit from the technological revolution and develop the digital skills the economy will need? It is difficult to find any ministerial comment on information technology, let alone a strategy for the future.
The sum of all these changes will be a very different education system. Yet ministers seem blinkered by their narrow focus on a few political priorities and are failing to think through the consequences of small changes in thousands of schools.
Schools do need their independence and they do not want to be told what to do; the government has shown it understands that; but we are not just a collection of "independent schools", but an inter-dependent school system working towards a shared future.
The cumulative impact of the government's priority policies go far beyond the individual schools at which they are aimed. They will cause fragmentation in the school support system that at some stage all schools will want to use. The secretary of state is entitled to dismantle his predecessor's vision, but we are entitled to expect something in its place.
The iconic Holland Park comprehensive has decided to become an academy. Why?
If you stand outside the Department for Education this morning and listen carefully, you will probably hear the sound of Michael Gove's cheering from within. That's because Holland Park comprehensive in west London, one of the most celebrated jewels in the crown of the British state system and probably the best-known comprehensive in the country, has decided to embrace academy status – and one reason for that, according to its head, is that to do otherwise would be to risk being left behind in the current education reforms.
For Gove, this is manna from heaven. In the controversy over academies, as much rests on the perception that they are the best way forward as on the actual number of schools seeking to convert. For an iconic school such as Holland Park – the one-time flagship of comprehensive education, once known as "the socialist Eton", and the alma mater of actor Anjelica Huston, former broadcaster Dame Jenny Abramsky, and Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee – to convert is a coup for the pro-lobby, and a blow for those who argue that the implications of academies have not been properly thought through, and that the DfE is rushing its plans at a foolishly breakneck pace.
Speaking to Education Guardian, Holland Park's head, Colin Hall, says that, while expediency was not the only factor in making the move, "there was definitely an element of that". "The reality is that this is looking like a successful platform – it's a template for how schools might be," he says. "Our governing body recognises that the landscape might change, but that what's being planned might be the template for ever and we want to be mindful of that. At this moment in time, this is the tree we need to hang our hat on."
Hall says he was aware that there would be a feather in that hat for the DfE, but he says the decision was taken with the sole intention of doing what was best for the school. "We are a confident enough institution that we would have ignored the direction of travel if we hadn't really agreed with it," he says. "We belong to ourselves, not to a political party, and we are making this decision in the context of our school and its children."
Unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy. Eighteen-year-old Nathan Akehurst, who has just left Holland Park after taking his A-levels and hopes to study at Oxford University from the autumn, has launched a campaign against the move. On its website, he says a move to academy status could damage the school, and that "the coalition government, based on their current record, cannot be trusted with school reform, and are committing untold damage to an education sector built on talent, academia and public money over generations".
The letter cites the usual reasons the anti-academies campaign uses to oppose the plans: academies, it says, are unaccountable and undemocratic since they are not accountable to local authorities, and the only extra money available for them will come from funds currently used for local support services. Added to which, it says, although academies were designed with the ambition of pushing standards up, a third of the schools that have converted have already seen their GCSE results fall.
"There are lots of reasons for opposing academies," says Akehurst. "I fear that, though the perception is that the change will make the school's funding more secure, the more likely outcome is that Holland Park will end up being reliant on private finance, especially in the current economic climate. And that's a very worrying step – do we want our education system to be funded by private enterprise?"
Akehurst, and others connected to the school, are also unhappy about the way the move to academy status has been "rushed through". "Even if I thought it was the most brilliant idea on earth, I'd still be concerned at the lack of consultation," he says. "There was just one meeting for parents, and there was no initial attempt to consult with pupils, although eventually the head did hold an assembly."
One mother says she believes the school already favours "the fittest and the brightest", and fears for the future for those who are less academically, socially and economically advantaged. "This school is already elitist – how much worse will that be when it's an academy?" she says. "I'm also angry about the way this is being pushed through – we weren't given anything like enough notice that this was being planned."
Others, too, are complaining about the pace of the proposed change: Hall sent a letter to all parents by first-class post on 7 June inviting them to a meeting on 13 June and informing them that a decision would be made at the governors' meeting on 16 June.
"That was nothing like enough warning for proposals of this magnitude," says Alasdair Smith, secretary of the Anti-Academies Alliance. "What really frustrates me is that the legacy of Caroline Benn, who, with her husband Tony, did so much for Holland Park and gave so much of her time to the principles of comprehensive education, should be being undermined like this. A school like this one should have had an extensive period of consultation and guaranteed not to move on academy status unless it had the agreement of all its major stakeholders. Instead, it's being smuggled through without a proper debate.
"I've heard civil servants describing the pace the education secretary is working on with this project as 'breathless'. And I would argue that it's clueless as well as breathless – and we will pay the price for that down the line."
Hall says the consultation period had been more generous than the law required, and he rejects the idea that becoming an academy will undermine the principles on which Holland Park was founded. "We acknowledge, gratefully, the support of the Benns, but I'm a pragmatist and times change, contexts change, and we are not living in the 1970s any more," he says. "We believe we are true to the spirit of comprehensive education, and becoming an academy will not alter that in any way."
Melissa Benn, whose book School Wars: The Battle for Britain's Education will be published in September and who, along with her three brothers, attended Holland Park, says she has "real concerns" over the school's plans. "I don't think the academy model is the way to go," she says. "I think we have to look at a collaborative local model and modernise and improve it, but I don't believe in stand-alone schools, which are what academies are. It's a recipe for educational anarchy."
European academics are outraged by a new attempt to categorise arts and humanities journals
When new lists categorising European arts and humanities journals were first published in 2007, UK academics were – to put in politely – incensed. We want "no part" in such a "dangerous and misguided exercise", said a plethora of journal editors. A special arts and humanities user group was even formed by UK subject associations to provide a co‑ordinated opposition. It was a successful campaign: in 2009, the architects of the so-called European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) announced they were heading back to the drawing board.
Now their labours have borne fruit. Earlier this month, three years after the initial lists, revised ERIH lists for nine subjects were published (another five are expected to follow by the end of the year). The European Science Foundation – which has overseen the lists – is due to begin publicising them this week. The revised lists see journals categorised in a new way that ostensibly scraps the controversial letter "grades"' that caused so much angst.
Yet academics remain bitterly opposed, and the new lists are promising to be just as controversial as the original.
The ERIH previously classified arts and humanities journals by assigning them a category A, B or C, depending on whether they were "high-ranking international publications" (A), "standard international publications" (B) or those with important "local/regional significance" (C).
Under the revised version, journals are now divided into whether they are targeted at a "national" academic audience (Nat) or a worldwide "international" audience (Int). International journals are then split into Int1 and Int2 journals, depending on their "influence and scope".
The revised lists also include a stern warning: the ERIH is not intended to assess individual candidates for positions, promotions or research grant awards.
"[The earlier grades] were like a red rag to a bull," admits Michael Worton, vice-provost at University College London and one of the five members that make up the ERIH's steering committee. "People got very upset and said it was all about hierarchies and rankings. We kept saying no ... You could call it bananas, oranges and apples; it is just to signal differentiation [in the nature of the journals] ... but consultations with the community were revealing that people didn't understand."
The aim has never been to create a ranking tool, says Worton. Rather it is to make high-quality non-English language journals (often overshadowed by English ones) more visible. He sees the revised lists both as useful in making scholars aware of the wide range of arts and humanities journals that exist across Europe, but also helpful for young scholars looking to get on the publication ladder. Young scholars, for example, might want to start trying to publish in Nat journals first, he suggests. "We are trying to do some shorthand evaluation to help with the development of younger scholars."
But others fail to see any difference in the new system and say it is the same hierarchical ranking all over again.
"The revised categorisation has not changed things one iota," says Robin Osborne, professor of ancient history at Cambridge and chairman of the Council of University Classical Departments, who was instrumental in galvanising early opposition to the index.
"To name things as Int1 and Int2, and to claim that the names imply no hierarchy is preposterous ... [and] Int will be seen to rank above Nat," he adds.
Judi Loach, an architectural historian at the University of Cardiff, who edits the journal Architectural History, agrees. "It is just fiddling on the surface ... you are going to be graded better if your article comes out in Int1, than in Int2, than in Nat."
The academics' point – as with the initial lists – is that the system amounts to a ranking of journals' quality and, therefore, it could be used to grade people. Decisions about promotions and appointments could be made, and research assessed, not by peer review but by the journal in which work appears.
"There is a tool out there, which – even if they say, 'We are not intending it to be used by people to grade people' – is going to be used," says Loach, adding that she fears it is already happening.
Another residual concern, notes Osborne, is the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework. While Hefce makes clear that REF panels "will not make any use of journal rankings in the assessment", it can't be ruled out that universities might use the ERIH ranking in preparing their submissions to panels.
The Australian government – which initially embraced journal rankings with gusto, including them in its own research assessment – announced at the end of last month that it was dropping them after determining they were being deployed "inappropriately" by universities.
The only hierarchy as far as Worton sees it is whether a journal is on the list or not. "The point that very few people seem to get is that being on the list, you already have got your gold star – you are a really good journal," he says, adding that of the 14,000 journals considered by the process so far, more than 50% have failed to make it on because they do not meet standards of "good editorial processes".
Both the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy, the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences, also distance themselves from the revised index. While the Arts and Humanities Research Council was among the European agencies that supported its development initially, the council now says it has had "no engagement" with the recent development of the index and "no plans" to get involved.
"We remain concerned at the low level of confidence in it in the UK arts and humanities research community," it says. The British Academy is equally dismissive about the index: "[We] consider the revised lists/new categories to be just as flawed as before."
Worton says the lists are now "part of the landscape" and "being used all over the world". He acknowledges that academics will want to be in Int1 rather than Int2 journals "because they have greater impact", but said it was up to the community to make sure the lists are not used improperly.
Milena Žic Fuchs, a Croatian linguist who chairs the ESF Standing Committee for the Humanities, which has overall responsibility for the index, says the lists are "not set in stone" and the categories could be revised again if researchers felt it necessary. She may be hearing from a delegation of UK academics soon.
When your teacher is a performance poet, English lessons can have a different accent
Neat rows of well-behaved year 9s collapse into giggles and cover their faces with their hands as, on the stage, English teacher Sam Berkson launches into a Linton Kwesi Johnson poem, Mekin Histri, in a startling Jamaican accent:
Now tell me someting
Mistah govahment man
Now tell me someting ...
What most of them don't know is that by night Berkson is a performance poet known as Angry Sam – and he's not about to be put off by a little teenage embarrassment. They are won over by his conviction and clarity, and soon become mesmerised. Berkson is not so much reciting the poem as rapping it, and he gets them to chant the chorus:
It is noh mistri
Wi mekin histri
It is noh mistri
Wi winnin victri
Berkson and art teacher Chris Beschi, another poet-by-night whose performance name is Curious, have organised a slam at Kingsbury high school, a huge comprehensive in north-west London. They're doing four poems from the year 9 syllabus in the style of a hip-hop contest, and giving the school's 300 year 9s the chance to vote for their favourite.
They have chosen poems about London, one thing their diverse group of pupils has in common. The earliest is William Blake's London (1794) followed by William Wordsworth's Composed Upon Westminster Bridge (1802). The most modern is Kate Tempest's Cannibal Kids, an extraordinary rap about the capital's disaffected youth.
The teachers adopt the persona and speech patterns of each poet, and say a little about themselves before they launch with gusto into the poems.
Poetry may once have been seen as a bit "girly" but hip-hop has transformed that. These days, teenagers are constantly listening to intricate rhymes written by the artists they admire, both American and British. They watch rappers compete to see who can outwit and outperform the rest. There is an energy, beat and relevance that chimes with other aspects of urban culture: hip-hop dance styles, DJing, and graffiti art.
Beschi says: "A big part of making the link between the academic poetry syllabus and the students' love of hip-hop is having people perform it who understand poetry, who have a passion for it, and who write it themselves."
Do pupils identify poetry and rap as the same thing? "Not of their own accord," Beschi says. "They understand the link once other people make it."
Berkson adds: "Many kids are interested in lyrics, and in writing lyrics themselves – and it's not that different from writing poetry." What poets call "lines", rappers call "bars", the poets explain. "Generally, kids will write 16 bars," says Beschi. "In their heads they are hearing a 4/4 rhythm and writing to that."
Berkson says: "The beauty of our approach is that it breaks down the barrier between what they're already into and academic poetry."
Judging by the attention of the pupils in the hall, and the cheers that greet every poem, it's working. Could other teachers do what they are doing, or would it just be embarrassing if they tried?
Beschi says: "I would argue that it doesn't work for everyone. You have an authenticity as a poet that comes into your work as a teacher. And I don't think you can fake that. Being involved in the writing, performing, promoting process – there's something important about artists teaching, practitioners teaching."
But age and accent are certainly not barriers, says Berkson : "It doesn't matter if you are middle-class or middle-aged, it's just if you've got a feeling for poetry. And that comes from a deep involvement.
"Performing poetry is a chance to model the learning behaviour that you want from students," says Beschi. "If you're a white middle-class person reading Linton Kwesi Johnson in a cod patois accent, you're just reversing the role that you ask of your patois-speaking Jamaican student when you get them to read Blake.
"That's really important, not just in teaching poetry but in teaching anything: modelling that kind of academic risk-taking. You're saying: 'I'm going to do something I'm not familiar with because that's what learning is – I try things I don't know'."
Berkson sees his teaching as a step-by-step process, starting with a grasp of what students already know. "You've got to work out where they're coming from, what they understand, and then you've got to work out where you're taking them to. Hopefully, you have a social empathy with the kids you're teaching."
Besides teaching art, Beschi is also Kingsbury's behaviour support manager, and uses poetry to help students with emotional issues. "Poetry can be a channel for frustration and anger. When kids write rap and express their thoughts in a creative way, it's cathartic for them. It's a way of getting things off your chest," he says.
Rap can be pretty crude, he admits. "A lot of the rap that kids listen to doesn't come from record labels, it's home-grown, recorded on your mate's phone, put on YouTube. There's no editing process – it's really coarse.
"And what comes across is that it's an expression of confusion. They're not feeling empowered but they don't really know why. They have a sense that they're part of a structure they can't control. This is a way of getting some control."
The government is keen that pupils study "useful" subjects such as science and maths. But poetry, say the teachers, teaches equally valuable skills – students learn to analyse, to communicate, and to believe in themselves.
"By giving people the opportunity to perform poetry, you're letting them express their own ideas, which there isn't much space for in the English curriculum," says Beschi. "It's empowering to have your ideas heard and discussed."
Berkson adds: "The benefit comes across as confidence. Often people say about public school kids: 'They've got a real confidence about them'. Affluent kids go out and do things; they feel they have the right to ask for stuff and make things happen. And kids who aren't from that background feel that their role in society is to follow. They don't feel like they could be a leader of society. It's vital to build their self-worth and give them a sense that there is a value to their thoughts."
Performing verse, rapping, can give you status among your peers too, the teachers say. Being an urban poet is a pretty cool thing to be these days.
At the end of the slam, Mekin Histri wins convincingly. A group of pupils tells me: "We liked it when he did the accent. We were happy that it was something different, not formal English."
"Using audience participation means they invested in the poem," says Beschi. "And it's a great poem – angry, but also uplifting."
"The last poem in a slam always wins," says Berkson.
Colour could be just one weapon in the war against plant theft – which costs the UK up to £1.5m a week
Not even Bob the Builder ever used a Barbie-pink digger on his building site – but his real-life counterparts could soon be doing just that. It's all because of research from academics at Birmingham City University Business School, who report that painting plant equipment fluorescent colours would help builders to solve a huge problem that is plaguing the construction industry: machinery theft.
Professors David Edwards and Gary Holt began their research project after spending years working in the building industry. Edwards, professor of industrial innovation at Birmingham City, started his career as a bricklayer, then worked his way up the ranks before entering academia. Holt worked as a construction manager in the building and civil engineering industries before doing the same.
But it wasn't until the duo had a chance meeting with the Plant Theft Action Group – an alliance made up of representatives from the plant industry, insurers, the police and government – that they learned of the scale of building-site burglary in the UK and began looking at what they could do about it.
"Theft from building and civil engineering sites is commonplace – not only amongst petty thieves, but also by organised gangs who use their ill-gotten gains to fund people trafficking, prostitution, drugs and even terrorism," says Edwards. "Much stolen plant is broken down for re-sale as parts, in this country and abroad." Thieves apparently find it pretty easy to ship pilfered machines overseas, because despite the scale of the problem, most building firms don't use any serious anti-theft measures.
"Most machinery found on building sites has a high resale value, so it offers thieves fast, easy and high returns," adds Holt. "A 20-tonne excavator can cost up to £100,000, and yet stealing and processing one is arguably easier than stealing a £5,000 second-hand family car." It's difficult to precisely calculate the cost of plant theft in the UK, but the academics suggest it is between £1.1m and £1.5m a week.
"It places a cost on society at large," says Edwards. He points out that stolen plant is frequently used for other crimes, such as attacking bank ATMs. The famous attempt at a diamond heist on the Millennium Dome also saw thieves using a JCB digger. A gang smashed through the gates of the Dome and reached the Money Zone – but the De Beers gems worth £350m had been replaced by replicas after the police received a tip-off.
Having established the serious cost of plant theft and the importance of helping the industry to crack down on the problem, in 2006 Edwards and Holt began working closely with victims, machine manufacturers and anti-theft-device manufacturers, as well as studying post-theft case studies, to analyse how burglaries unfold and to help understand the "method" of plant thieves. They also looked at how theft might be prevented and how stolen items might be recovered.
"Because prevention is better than cure, we conducted a detailed survey of plant users to assess perceived effectiveness of anti-theft devices and how users selected them," explains Holt. Their studies showed the best deterrents to be locking machines in awkward positions, for example with excavating arms extended; adding company logos – and painting machinery Barbie's favourite colour.
"Painting a machine pink is not expensive, but has proven anecdotally to be a strong deterrent," says Holt. Some mechanical tool-making companies have already started going down this track with smaller products. Heavily branded machinery and matching colours are, he adds, "good sales and marketing ploys as well as an inadvertent and psychological anti-theft measure".
But, at the moment, expensive devices on building sites look surprisingly bland. "Within industry, most plant users and owners can be quite apathetic towards their assets being stolen," says Edwards. There's an illusion that the insurance company will cover all costs, but people are becoming more aware of the problem, and some of the larger contractors and insurance companies now require plant to be fully protected from theft, or to be possible to track if stolen. Still, there are very low recovery rates for stolen items because – given the extent of the problem – there simply aren't the resources to find them all."
That's where the pink comes in. "Bright identifying colours psychologically deter a thief, whilst practically making it so much more difficult for them to process stolen components – they'd have to be re-sprayed first. Why steal a pink one when thousands of yellow machines already exist and provide a readily available second-hand market?"
The academics admit the scheme could become a victim of its own success. "If everyone started to 'paint it pink', then no longer would pink machines look out of place," Edwards concedes. "The real message has to be to make the plant as conspicuous as possible and add bespoke livery to match company logos – essentially, you are making the thief look elsewhere."
The duo add that construction site managers still need to retain some common sense. "Through a contact, we became aware of a construction site that was constantly being targeted by thieves with a particular eye for portable generators," explains Holt. "At the end of the working week, the site manager decided to tie up the generators and suspend them from the site's tower crane – "that will stop them," he thought. But when he returned to the site on Monday morning, the tower crane – worth over £2m – had vanished, too. It hasn't been seen since.
"Apparently, the gang wore boiler suits, which made them appear reputable, and they had magnetic signs on their vehicles to denote that they were from a hire company. Nobody questioned them and security even made them a cup of tea." The academics believe that might have been avoided if the equipment had been painted pink. They're aiming to get their message out across the construction industry, and are even thinking about linking in with charity. "If only we could do some related marketing and tie pink machines to breast cancer campaigns, then not only might we prevent theft, but also contribute to a good cause," they add.
You could still play the beautiful game on the Red Planet, researchers say, but the ball would travel four times as far as on Earth – and you would no longer be able to 'bend' it
Football games vary measurably from city to city because of down-to-Earth differences in the air pressures, temperatures and other physical conditions. But those differences are slight in comparison to those described in a University of Leicester study called Association Football on Mars.
Calum James Meredith, David Boulderstone and Simon Clapton published the analysis early this year in the university's Journal of Physics Special Topics.
The journal is produced by and for undergraduates, which makes it a bit unusual. The current head of the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Leicester is Professor Lester.
Association Football on Mars methodically calculates the altered basics of play on the Red Planet. "It would be possible to retain the game in a familiar but slightly changed form," the authors reassure us.
On the Martian surface, the gravitational pull and the air pressure are less than we're used to. The ball would encounter substantially less drag in its journeying from foot to foot to head to foot to goal. On many a kick, the ball would travel about four times as far as it would on Earth. These impressive distances come with a straightforward cost: "the inability to 'bend' the ball due to a lack of air resistance would seem to decrease the skill involved in football".
The Journal of Physics Special Topics takes up topics that seldom find their way into the better-known physics journals. Also in the Association Football on Mars issue, one finds other monographs by Meredith, Boulderstone and Clapton. Two of those consider a solution to our era's most pressing environmental problem.
In None Like It Hot, the trio propose and describe a method "to help combat global warming by moving the Earth further [sic] away from the Sun to reduce its surface temperature". A companion paper, None Like It Hot II, investigates whether this feat "would be plausible given conventional rocket technology". They conclude that the mass of fuel needed to perform the manoeuvre "is only a few orders of magnitude smaller than the mass of the Earth. The number of rockets will make only a small difference due to the nature of the relationship between the two values".
The non-astronomy highlight of the issue is a report by Robert Hopton, Steph Jinks and Tom Glossop called Determining the Smallest Migratory Bird Native to Britain Able to Carry a Coconut.
This pertains to a claim in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when King Arthur postulates that a migratory bird could have transported coconuts from the tropics to Britain. Hopton, Jinks and Glossop calculate that the only British bird with a chance at succeeding is the white stork. No go, they warn. The stork's cross-sectional area is slightly too low to provide the required amount of lift. The stork would fall short, and King Arthur would be nutless.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
From Hackney Downs to AC Grayling
It was nice to learn that Michael Barber is making world-class money working for Pearson (Mad professor goes global, 14 June). But it's sad that he is still quoted as defending the closure of Hackney Downs school in 1995 as some kind of triumph. The hurried closure of the school in December 1995 had a disastrous effect on the education of many of the boys, especially those in their final GCSE year. The history of the closure is one of educational neglect, political machinations and deionisation of the school, teachers, students and their families. Perhaps Barber was right to boast that the stand taken became the foundation of New Labour's education policy. It could stand as a metaphor for the increase in inequalities in the education system and the continuing punitive measures aimed at schools in poorer areas.
Professor Sally Tomlinson
University of Oxford
• Peter Wilby misses one of Michael Barber's greatest successes. Barber was also a member of Lord Browne's review of higher education funding. He was not the only horse out of the McKinsey stable involved in the review. There was also Peter Sands, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, who spent 13 years at McKinsey. Indeed, there are many of us who believe that Browne's report would have been much more honestly entitled "the McKinsey report", but this would have drawn attention to the privatisation agenda underlying its recommendations.
Professor John Newsinger
Bath Spa University
Yup, James Dyson is the obvious choice to spearhead the revival of British manufacturing by repurposing design technology education ('It's not about banging nails into wood', 14 June). You conjure up problems: disappointment that the wheel on your wheelbarrow is not a bright orange plastic football; the frustration of not being able to watch the muck you've hoovered up whizzing round inside the machine. And then, having built a business out of that, you dump a big chunk of your workforce and send their jobs overseas. To me "British manufacturing" means people employed in the UK, paying UK taxes to finance, among other things, design technology education.
Root Cartwright
Radlett, Hertfordshire
Sue Littlemore asked whether vice-chancellors are becoming heads of customer sevices, following a rise in student complaints.
When you pay, you've got rights to complain. When you pay a lot, you've got rights to complain a lot.
jekylnhyde via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Student anger should be directed at the government, which has cut university funding and is making students pick up the bill. The universities will have no more money, while being expected to deliver enhanced services.
coffeetable via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Harriet Swain wrote a step-by-step guide to starting your own university in the manner of AC Grayling.
I find it difficult to see what the fuss is all about. AC Grayling is only doing this to highlight the cuts that humanities departments have suffered.
beth23 via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• A perfect skewering. (I'm still chuckling as I'm typing.)
2baz via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• Journalism of the lowest order.
Lionel via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Could the work of an heiress who recreated miniature crime scenes in fantastic detail have anything to teach today's detectives?
Frances Glessner Lee, the giant astride the world of miniature crime scenes, died nearly 50 years ago. Lee built a collection of what she called "nutshell studies", each a tiny, high-precision recreation of a room in which a murder had been committed.
Each featured a little victim, in or on whom the wee murder weapon was embedded or enwrapped. The many lavishly grim elements of each diorama were, mostly, copped and composited from stories of real crimes.
Lee and her nutshell studies have a context. She endowed an entire, entirely new programme at Harvard Medical School: the department of legal medicine. The concocted crime scenes served as its mesmerising centre of activity.
The authorities know that Lee manufactured her evidence from whole cloth, sliced wallpaper, glass, wood, paint, and other materials. They know that she bankrolled the entire operation. They know that she enlisted the aid of a carpenter, a pricey interior decorating firm, and a company that makes dolls' houses. They know that she conspired with a large number of police officers, whom she plied with lavish meals and strong drink. No one has entirely figured out her motive.
Lee, the heiress of a wealthy Chicago farming-equipment manufacturing family, chose the department's first (and only) leader – a dashing male doctor, her brother's Harvard classmate, whom she had kept very much in mind during the decades that preceded her inheritance.
Several times a year, she would invite and fund police officers and medical examiners from across the US, 30 or 40 at a time, to travel to her Harvard seminar in homicide investigation. Everyone would examine and discuss the miniature rooms, then go and dine together in splendour at one of Boston's finest hotels. Lee even bought the hotel a costly set of china for use exclusively at these dinners.
Author-photographer Corinne May Botz crafted a book called The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Published in 2004, it shows appropriately disturbing close-up photos of the artificial crime scenes.
Botz also reproduces the short descriptive texts that each visiting law-enforcement official was expected to read in connection with his (they were, apparently, all men) visit to Lee and her educational programme.
The US National Library of Medicine has put several of Botz's photos online. A documentary film, Of Dolls and Murder, is scheduled to come out this summer, with creepy John Waters narrating.
Lee-style fantastically detailed miniature crime-scene recreations never became a standard tool for crime-scene investigators. But their spirit lives on. There is now something of a police vogue for crime incident diagramming software, polyflex forensic mannequins, and mini tubular dowel crime-scene reconstruction kits.
The Harvard department of legal medicine did not long survive the passing of its founder and funder. Its crown jewels, the little rooms, went south and now reside at the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore.
(Thanks to the Meusey/Baguley family for bringing this to my attention.)
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Andrew Adonis is championing a technical baccalaureate for all schools
Susan's best subjects are PE, ICT and art. But, despite showing talent in all three, the 14-year-old has been told by her teachers that she can only take one as part of her GCSE courses next year. Her school is keen to get as many of its pupils as possible to achieve the new English baccalaureate, or Ebacc.
To do so, pupils must obtain A*-C grades in five GCSE subjects specified by ministers: English; maths; two sciences; ancient or modern history or geography; and a modern or ancient language.
With teachers diverted to these subjects, the school can no longer offer many of the more vocationally oriented subjects that Susan and her friends had hoped to take.
It's something Andrew Adonis, the former schools minster, takes issue with. Adonis says it is "extraordinary" that a government that believes in decentralisation "should be dictating from the centre that it is more important to study modern history than engineering".
"Competence in vocational skills is at least as useful as knowledge of the Tudors and Stuarts," he says, ahead of Vocational Qualifications Day tomorrow. "And that is effectively the trade-off." The Ebacc neglects "crucial" areas of the economy, such as information technology, he says, when these are "huge employment sectors".
On the other hand, it's important to keep a sense of balance, Adonis warns. The Ebacc is just five subjects and most pupils take eight, nine or 10 GCSEs. Besides, there is scope for developing vocational elements within the five subjects of the Ebacc. Modern languages could include an option of business language skills rather than literature, he suggests.
"The Ebacc is perfectly compatible with a technical curriculum because it's only five GCSEs and within them it is possible to study subjects in a more applied manner," he says. "However, there is an argument that the Ebacc is too rigid. There is a case for reforming it."
Ideally, Adonis says, a technical baccalaureate should be offered alongside the Ebacc.
The education charity Edge, which promotes technical and practical learning and of which Adonis is a trustee, is working closely with the Baker Dearing Educational Trust to come up with such a qualification. Under the plans, seen exclusively by Education Guardian, pupils aged 14 to 16 would spend 60% of their time studying for GCSEs in English, maths, science and another subject. The rest of their time would be taken up with a technical qualification, such as an engineering diploma or a construction course. They would also be expected to study a language, but not necessarily to GCSE standard.
This would be known as a Professional Technical Baccalaureate, and the organisations hope it would be used as a measurement in school league tables, as the Ebacc is now, and offered in all schools. The pupils who take it might well go on to further education colleges after their studies.
The new university technical colleges would be the first to teach it. These are new schools for 14- to 19-year-olds that will teach engineering, product design, health sciences, construction, environmental services and food technology. Their school day will be longer than most, and pupils will also be expected to study English, maths and science, as well as humanities and foreign languages.
One of these schools has already opened in Staffordshire – across the road from its sponsor, the big machinery maker JCB – and there is government support and funding to set up another 15.
Further education colleges may want to be involved in teaching the new baccalaureate, too. They can provide vocational education to a far greater number of students than the university technical colleges can on their own.
Adonis says he is "strongly in favour" of this alternative baccalaureate because a high degree of competence in vocational skills "enhances the employability of young people and their success in life".
Peter Mitchell, chief executive of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, is convinced that the Professional Technical Baccalaureate would raise the standard of general and technical education in the UK to that of its international competitors. It would also address the shortage of highly skilled technicians the country has "up to and including at graduate level", and the need to grow the engineering and technical elements of the UK's gross domestic product.
"The Professional Tec Bacc would consist of a demanding education with high-quality, rigorous technical qualifications at its heart. We hope that the achievement of this Bacc would be shown alongside the English Bacc in school and college performance tables," Mitchell says.
Sue Betts is director of Linking London Lifelong Learning Network, which is based at Birkbeck, University of London, and which helps those who take vocational courses to go to university. She says that if the Professional Tec Bacc and the Ebacc were given equal standing, the idea could be a success. Too often, vocational courses are considered inferior to academic ones, she says.
But she worries about which courses the Professional Tec Bacc might displace. "There are tried and tested qualifications, such as BTecs in IT. "These are known to be as good a route to university as A-levels are," she says. "We don't want to destabilise the qualifications that work."
In his foreword to Professor Alison Wolf's review of vocational education, published in March, Michael Gove, the education secretary, says that wasting the talents of young people is a "special tragedy because we know that encouraging genuine, high-quality, vocational education can guarantee access to further and higher education and rewarding employment".
Gove says the kind of courses that lead to a "passionate understanding of, and commitment to, the joy of technical accomplishment are immensely valuable".
It is enticing to try to invent ways into this kind of rewarding employment. But some people will wonder whether we need yet another vocational qualification, when the number of them has increased already by 4,000% in the last six years, and Wolf is in the process of sorting out which vocational qualifications should no longer be deemed equivalent to GCSEs.
Twenty years after graduating from Cambridge, Mary O'Hara talks to students who benefited from Oxbridge outreach schemes, but think more work needs to be done
Listening to Michelle Obama tell a group of inner-city London schoolgirls last month that they have as much of a right to aspire to Oxbridge as anyone, it all came flooding back: the many times when I felt – or was told – that the hallowed halls of Britain's top universities were not "for the likes of me".
There was the time a bloke trying to chat me up in a pub in Belfast almost choked on his pint when told I went from a comprehensive in a deprived part of the city to Cambridge. "People from St Louise's don't go to Cambridge," he spluttered. "They do now," I said. Or when my teachers first suggested I apply, and I felt mortified at the prospect of going somewhere I believed would be stuffed with privileged kids who would look down on me. And then how I was so out of my depth at the interviews I was left feeling stupid and inadequate. I may have been a bright, hardworking student, but unlike my equivalents at private or selective schools, I wasn't "groomed" to get into Oxbridge, and it showed.
I recalled the time a student from a wealthy background asked me after my arrival at Cambridge why I was there if my father hadn't been there. And the time I was dining in "formal hall" and a revered academic told the assembled crowd how important tradition was and that colleges should do what they could to make sure "our" children attend in later years.
That was 20 years ago. Just last week a report from the OECD showed that the UK today performs poorly in an international league table showing how many disadvantaged pupils succeed "against the odds" at school. I was one of the lucky few.
As it turns out, regardless of coming from a low-income background (my father, a bricklayer, lost his job in the early years of Thatcher and never worked again), and despite being the first from my school to get to Oxbridge and the only person from my family to attend university, I loved my time at Cambridge. There may have been episodes of abject snobbery and the galling sight of over-privileged hoorays sauntering around with their whiff of entitlement – the very thing that almost put me off applying in the first place – but there was also a first-rate education, a stimulating environment and the opportunity to mix and make friends with people from right across the social spectrum.
I'd earned my place and knew that I, and others like me, had every right to be there. The problem is that having a right to go – these are public universities after all – is not the same as having an equal opportunity to go. Or, it turns out, an equal opportunity to reach the upper echelons of a profession upon leaving.
Perhaps Michelle Obama's speech resonated because it was 20 years ago this month that I graduated. But it's more likely due to the toxic debates around Oxbridge access and social mobility dominating the news in recent months, and the glaring absence of the voices of those of us who made it to the "elite" universities despite the heavy odds stacked against us.
So what is it like now to be one of those (still) very few students from a disadvantaged background who make it to Oxbridge? And, importantly, what, if any, difference does it make to social mobility when the numbers getting in are so small? According to the latest statistics from Oxford, just under 10% of undergraduates come from families with an annual income of less than £16,290, the level for free school meals. Research shows that the professions – particularly the upper echelons – are dominated by Oxbridge, but especially by the privately educated. What signal does that send from the outset?
For the last few weeks, I've been interviewing current Oxbridge students and graduates from low-income backgrounds. First, I canvassed their views on access. Second, I wanted their views on how an Oxbridge education affects social mobility. Is it a one-way ticket to the top?
On access, the universities both do extensive work in this area, but our interviewees were almost in total agreement: Oxbridge needs to do even more to reach out to children and schools in deprived areas. Everyone I spoke to was worried about the end of Aimhigher, the national scheme aimed at raising university aspirations, which officially winds up next month. New access agreements for all universities are due to be published on 11 July.
Rebecca Creamer, a student at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, describes her background as "modest". She went to school in Failsworth, Manchester. She says the interview process intimidated her more than she expected and that when she met other candidates it "opened my eyes" to how privileged some other applicants were. It took her "ages to adjust" and she felt that the culture shock was "huge". She also felt for a long time that she didn't fit in, and that there was an extremely visible cohort of public school people. "Everyone else seemed to have this public school confidence". Creamer believes some of the outreach work that is done is misdirected and more should be targeted at schools where applications to top universities are not necessarily considered. "It needs to be better concentrated on people who wouldn't necessarily think of applying."
Creamer says it doesn't help that the universities defend themselves on access with a false dichotomy between "private" versus "state" school ratios (both universities point out that more than 50% of intake is now from state schools) rather than addressing the discrepancies between inner-city or underrepresented schools and selective state and public schools.
Aimee Cliff, currently at Keble College, Oxford, agrees, saying that while outreach "is always important" it is "fundamental" that those who most need it are reached.
Andy McGowan, a young carer of two disabled parents from the age of six, who got a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 2007 and who is now an access officer at Cambridge University Students' Union, says the image of Oxbridge as elitist still puts young people off whatever outreach is being done. "I think a big thing is not thinking it is for 'people like me', which is what I hear time and time again. It isn't helped by some politicians going for the easy target and attacking Oxbridge."
Fahim Alam, who studied law at Oxford from 2004 to 2007, goes further. He says the activity around promoting applications from poorer children including outreach and visits to colleges are mere "peripheral interventions" and "too little too late". Too much focus being put on what the universities do, Alam argues, means that systemic problems with the wider education and social system are left unaddressed. Like others, he is adamant that the wider education system needs to improve dramatically if more youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds are to get in to university, let alone Oxbridge, both in terms of generating competitive grades and in preparing children adequately.
"Interventions [such as outreach] aren't enough to correct a system of education which privileges some over others," he says. "Furthermore, access is predicated on having social and cultural capital in order to navigate a way through a system that is completely alien to people from a non-traditional background."
It is this lack of cultural and social capital – the family contacts, exposure to professional networks and carefully honed social skills – that many students and graduates believe (and researchers conclude) is the crucial missing link in the social mobility chain. Alongside issues of access, many argue it is this that directly affects the longer-term prospects and social mobility of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, including the few who have an elite education under their belts.
Rob Berkeley, who matriculated at Oxford in 1993 and is now head of The Runnymede Trust, encapsulated what many of those interviewed said. "I felt socially inadequate and that my life experience was far from normal," he says, speaking of the well-connected, hyper-confident public school contingent he encountered who were consummate networkers. "There is a great deal of conspicuous wealth on show. One morning, the hunt left from outside college. These are not normal experiences." Berkeley enjoyed his time at Oxford, thanks to the quality of education and the variety of people he met, but his experience nevertheless caused him to question the wider system.
"The problem is when these networks become the people running the country and it is clear that they have had very little contact with people who have experience of marginalisation."
Cliff says she worries that broader inequalities in society play such an influential role in overall outcomes for students. "I do think the system is unfair sometimes. That [where you end up] is determined by where you were born." Creamer adds that while graduates from less-well-off backgrounds probably are helped by having an Oxbridge degree, she is "unconvinced" that it is a genuine springboard to the top of the professions.
Alam, now a freelance researcher, says that the wider social problems around race, identity and poverty and how these play out in the education system and beyond deserve greater attention. The lack of "brown faces" at Oxford was a shock for Alam, but he stresses that this was only one aspect of the difficulties some young people face before, during and, crucially, after university. "Every child needs to be nurtured from a young age. Children who come from poorer or racial/ethnic minority backgrounds have so many traumas behind them and so many obstacles in front of them."
The evidence seems to suggest that the same things which deter youngsters from less well-off backgrounds (and indeed many from families on modest incomes) from applying to Oxbridge are the same hurdles blocking their path to the top after graduation.
David Johnston, chief executive of The Social Mobility Foundation, a charity that helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to aim for Russell Group universities and the professions, says the impact of feeling that Oxbridge "is not for the likes of us" can't be emphasised enough. Research among the youngsters the foundation helps found that just 14% cited financial reasons as an obstacle to Oxbridge application, but 48% said "not being for them" influenced decisions.
On top of this, Johnston argues, the lack of connections or exposure to people in the professions serves to reinforce the educational and social divide. And, he says, it is frequently the lack of long established connections as well as networking and carefully honed "social skills" that hinder young people from poorer backgrounds in entering the professions. "Children who go to public schools have connections. They tend to be groomed for Oxbridge. The top professions – law, the media, banking and finance – are the hardest to get into without connections. We are working with firms to try to change this."
Studies by The Sutton Trust, which among other things runs summer schools for disadvantaged youngsters, reinforces Johnston's conclusions. "Many non-privileged children still exhibit an 'Oxbridge is not for the likes of us' attitude", says Lee Elliot Major, its director of policy and research. "We shouldn't underestimate the often stereotyped perceptions of Oxbridge that persist." The trust will publish a new study soon that shows family background is a major influence on attainment at age 15. "This underlies the fact that attainment at school drives much of the admission trends at Oxbridge."
Elliot Major says that if young people from less-well-off backgrounds are to make their mark in professions later in life, the issue of attainment well before university has to be a priority. "Half of state school teachers said they wouldn't advise their brightest pupils to consider Oxbridge. Advice and guidance in state schools, meanwhile, is in urgent need of reform."
Twenty years on from my graduation, it is upsetting that many of the barriers my generation faced are so prevalent for poorer youngsters today; that they are still so underrepresented in our top universities, and that those from privileged backgrounds retain their stranglehold on the professions. Just 7% of children are privately educated, yet they account for more than half of top doctors, judges and barristers.
Would I advise young people from my background to apply to Oxbridge? Absolutely. If left unchallenged, elitism will continue. But with the best will in the world, placing the responsibility for change on individuals pushing for the top despite an education system that favours the privileged won't cut it. While well-meaning and inspiring, Michelle Obama was wrong to say that hard work is enough. Our society is rife with inequalities. As long as these endure, too many young people will continue to see both the top universities and the top jobs as "not for the likes of me".
• Mary O'Hara is a journalist and Alistair Cooke Fulbright scholar
• This article was amended on 21 June, to correct the name of Fahim Alam's university.
Will the long-awaited white paper give private colleges the boost they are looking for?
As the dust settles on the launch of AC Grayling's New College of the Humanities (and rarely can so much spin and marketing have generated so many column inches), attention turns to the more serious business of the higher education white paper, expected soon.
The two are linked since this much-delayed policy paper should determine how far the government intends to push its mission to boost the private higher education market. The direction of travel was set soon after the general election, when ministers granted university college status to the BPP University College of Professional Studies.
BPP is owned by the for-profit US education corporation, Apollo Group, which runs the fast-growing Phoenix University, where student enrolment has mushroomed from about 20,000 to almost half a million over 15 years. Does the future lie with multinational, for-profit, education companies? Compared with the booming echo of the expansion plans of this commercial giant, the New College of the Humanities is muted sherry party chatter.
There is potential for the private market to expand in Britain. Globally, private institutions deliver about 30% of higher education, yet in the UK it is much less. Exactly how much less is hard to say as, according to a recent report from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), private providers are not required to report student enrolment numbers.
BPP is currently one of only four private providers with their own UK degree-awarding powers. And, although the private sector already operates in higher education in other ways, it remains niche, providing mainly professional, graduate-level qualifications in business, management, law and finance.
So looking to the market to expand mainstream undergraduate teaching requires a leap of faith. But as well as its ideological commitment to the market, the government (or at least the Conservative bit of it) desperately wants to find ways of boosting the supply of undergraduate places at little or no cost to the taxpayer. It also hopes that competition from private providers will reduce unit costs among traditional universities.
The for-profit sector certainly sees opportunities in the UK once the cap on tuition fees rises to £9,000. The principal of BPP, Carl Lygo, told a parliamentary committee last month he has "aspirations to make a wider subject offering" than the current focus on business, law and health. He noted that Apollo already runs universities in arts, communications and wider health subjects, and that "is certainly the aspiration for BPP".
So what does the white paper need to do to boost the private sector? A big risk for private universities is that their degree-awarding powers are only granted for a six-year period. If they lose those powers, their entire business case collapses. Extending that period, or making it permanent, would encourage market entrants.
The other big issue is public subsidy. In the US, for-profit private universities rely almost entirely on student fees since they lack endowments or direct public funding. However, as a recent University and College Union study of the US model showed, there is an indirect public subsidy behind their fee income since students at private universities in the US are eligible for federal student aid. Indeed, it has been claimed that without this indirect subsidy the model would barely be profitable.
At present, in the UK most students at private institutions do not receive state financial support, although they are eligible under certain circumstances. As Lygo told MPs last month, this area is "opaque and obscure, so it is not surprising that the whole of the private sector does not know about that particular source of potential funding". Any white paper measures clarifying this could be a shot in the arm for the private sector.
But what are the risks of opening the taps to greater private provision? The universities minister, David Willetts, should know since his department received a private warning from Hefce last July and that advice has subsequently been published.
In it, Hefce highlighted the risk that private providers could cherry-pick profitable courses, ignoring the high-cost science and technology subjects the country needs. This brings the further risk of destabilising existing universities that, more altruistically, attempt to offer the full range of courses.
Hefce concluded that, taken together, the dangers of greater private sector involvement "may amount to a reputational risk for UK higher education". So, if the white paper does herald a rush to the market, ministers cannot say they were not warned.
Saturday art clubs – a reincarnation of a 1970s idea – are inspiring disadvantaged children
See their work in this gallery
The young boy looks wistfully out of the window at the huge green expanse beyond, the darkness of his clothing – layered with tiny strokes of coloured pencil – contrasting with the airiness of the never-ending countryside.
This extraordinary drawing – which goes on show this week in a new exhibition at London's Somerset House – is not the work of a professional artist, but 14-year-old Leeds schoolboy Hafizullah Karim.
The exhibition spotlights the potential of more than 400 young people aged 14-16, showcasing their work in disciplines from drawing, painting and sculpture to photography, print-making, ceramics and digital graphics. All have taken part this year in the fledgling National Art and Design Saturday Club scheme, receiving free specialist tuition from their local art college.
The Saturday club is a modern version of an earlier incarnation, which bit the dust in the 1970s. The aim was – and is – to encourage disadvantaged youngsters to consider careers in the creative arts. So on Saturday mornings 14 art colleges – including Leeds, Plymouth, Hereford, Grimsby and Hastings – have been throwing their doors open to this group of young people who often struggling lengthy distances by public transport to get to the lessons.
Hafizullah seems surprised by the huge interest in his work since he won a place last year on the club run by Leeds College of Art. "I love art," he says. "It is my favourite subject at school, but I have learned so much from the Saturday Club. My tutors have encouraged me to be more adventurous in my style. In art, the more you do, the better you are. I have worked with clay, done graphics and also used watercolours." He explains that for this work, he originally took a photograph of himself sitting by the window at home but adapted it for the drawing – which he completed in about a week and a half – substituting the urban views outside for countryside. "The outside world and nature are so important to us all," he says, declaring himself an admirer of the Impressionists.
His love of the outdoor space may reflect the earlier restrictions in his life. Hafizullah's family left Afghanistan when he was three to live in Pakistan while his father went to find work in Leeds. The youngster honed his drawing skills at the afterschool Ghoighola Art Class in Quetta, which he attended for four years.
In February last year, he and the rest of his family moved to the area and he joined year 9 at City of Leeds high school. He won a place at the Saturday Club after the school's head of art, Catherine Walsh, recommended him as exceptionally gifted.
This year, more than 400 young people attending 100 schools in the UK have taken part in Saturday Club – funded predominantly by the private Sorrell Foundation to the tune of £150,000 a year – but it is hoped to increase this number to 500 next year. It is estimated that there are a further 100 UK colleges that could offer the programme using existing facilities, and the aim is to "scale it up" each year to allow more young people to take part.
The scheme targets 14- to 16-year-olds who have already shown evidence of artistic talent – many from challenging social backgrounds – who are still weighing up their academic options after GCSE and are yet to decide whether to pursue further or higher education. While the regular classes offer the kind of tuition and facilities that most secondary schools could only dream of, they are supplemented by "Master classes" given by renowned artists and designers such as Antony Gormley, Thomas Heatherwick and Naomi Cleaver. This brings the best of inspirational British art and design talent to youngsters from poorer backgrounds who might not otherwise be able to tap into such creativity, along with opportunities for longer-term mentoring. All students are also taken to London for a day – for many their first visit – for tours of major galleries.
Also studying at the Leeds club is Nida Mozuraite, a 16-year-old student at Morley Academy, who came to the UK with her family from Lithuania six years ago. She has been getting up regularly on Saturday mornings at 8am to travel to Leeds for the three-hour sessions. "I have got used to getting up early and I do it because I enjoy it," she says. "I have made lots of new friends and also been introduced to techniques I would not have been able to use at school. The tutors treat you like grownups, not children." Nida is just finishing her GCSEs and plans to study full-time at the college on its BTec national (extended) diploma in art and design in September.
The clubs' success is reflected in high attendance rates – no mean feat given that Saturday mornings are a time when you would expect most teenagers to be chilling out or hanging around with their mates – if they manage to drag themselves out of bed at all. Last year, Leeds College of Art received 80 applications for just 25 places, while at Plymouth College of Art some students happily undertake a 60-mile round trip to attend classes.
The clubs use existing resources, but the art college lecturers (helped by student volunteers) have to give up their valuable time on a Saturday to teach – a considerable sacrifice at the end of a busy week.
The drive to expand the programme into a fully national one is given extra impetus given the cuts to arts education funding that threaten to constrict the supply of talent to colleges, universities and, ultimately, the creative sector in the UK. Similarly, many teachers fear that art GCSE is at risk if schools have to comply with the new EBacc curriculum – which for the same reasons could also lead to design technology being downgraded.
Plymouth College of Art's club has been running for five years, and last year 38% of club members went on to take up courses at the college. An enthusiastic "veteran" is 15-year-old Ben Lintell, whose striking photographic work for a magazine project features in the exhibition. "I have done everything from old-style poster printing to pinhole photography, which has been great," he says. "The sky's the limit in terms of what you are taught, and I have also enjoyed the chance to work collaboratively."
Fellow member 14-year-old Eleanor James-George says: "I would very much like to go on to study at Plymouth College of Art. I have really enjoyed screen-printing T-shirts with photographs, and using darkroom equipment, enlargers etc that we do not have at school."
Alumni of the original 1970s art clubs included designers John and Frances Sorrell (who went on to form design consultancy Newell and Sorrell and who set up the Sorrell Foundation) and advertising genius John Hegarty of Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
Sir John Sorrell reflects: "This strikes me as something the government should support as it is all about localism in action. Frances and I were lucky that we could start our careers in a Saturday morning art and design class when we were 14 years old, and by the age of 19 I was running my own business. We believe the club offers a real pathway for youngsters to develop their skills and confidence, and find worthwhile and rewarding careers. Just as we did."
• The exhibition is open until 17 July, admission free.
Giving everyone digital skills is a key factor in tackling long-term unemployment, argues Martha Lane Fox
Last week, the CBI pressed the government to apply the same rigour to tackling long-term unemployment as it has shown to reducing the deficit. The scale of the challenge certainly warrants such a focus. In the UK, 2.46 million people are unemployed; 5 million people of working age are on benefits and 2 million children live in households where nobody works. These statistics carry a huge economic and social cost: for society and government, for families and for the individual.
Education and skills professionals are at the frontline in tackling a key cause of worklessness. This work, if the CBI is right, will only become more urgent as the UK moves further towards a high-skilled jobs market, and opportunities for those without qualifications fall sharply.
Digital skills are now vital for education and employment: we know that you're 25% more likely to get work when you have web skills, and, once in that job, you'll earn 10% more. Unison, the biggest public sector union, has just conducted a skills survey of some of its 1.3 million members. Almost half of middle-aged, low-paid women (cleaners, catering staff, carers) argued that lack of digital savvy was their most serious skills gap. Our figures show that 4 million of the 8.7 million UK adults who have never used the internet are from our hardest-to-reach groups.
At Race Online 2012, we are pushing to build a 100% networked nation in the UK by the time of the Olympics. We now have more than 1,100 partners, and many of them have worked with us to recruit a 100,000-strong national volunteer force of "local digital champions" to inspire and encourage people in their communities to go online. This is key, because peers and family members are best placed to encourage the 64% of people who say they have never been online due to lack of motivation. Other partners are working with us to remove the other key obstacle – the cost of kit – by taking part in our national scheme to get high-quality but low-cost recycled PCs to low-income groups for as little as £92. The Trades Union Congress's learning affiliate, Unionlearn, is working with employers and us to ensure that anyone facing redundancy, early retirement or redeployment in the current downturn has these vital skills.
Connecting more people with the web is a vital first step. But the close correlation between disadvantage and digital skills underscores what a vast untapped market there is for great, innovative educational tools to reach and engage our hardest-to-reach groups.
There is a large and growing body of evidence that shows that technology can transform people's experience of education. The clever use of technology lets students study at their own pace, using interactive, collaborative, conversational teaching modules, supported by teachers who can tailor their support to individuals' needs. This is hugely significant, especially for those who might have had bad experiences of the traditional classroom environment first time around.
In the UK, we have a few notable success stories of traditional bricks-and-mortar institutions that are already putting technology at the heart of how they design education for the 21st century, such as the Open University's expansion into digital with its iTunes and OpenLearn channels. We also have innovative platforms such as the secure prisoner learning intranet, Virtual Campus, whose roll-out should be a key plank of the "rehabilitation revolution". Both represent tremendous opportunities to widen access to education.
However, educationists in India and the US are a step ahead in really seizing the chance these new and powerful tools provide to tackle educational inequality. Back in 1999, Professor Sugata Mitra put a computer in a lean-to in the centre of a New Delhi slum. His experiment proved how quickly anyone could master basic computer skills, and showed that with the right content you could inspire the unlikeliest of demographics to engage with informal learning. The results were so convincing that the computer kiosks have been rolled out across the slum and into India's villages.
Technology is helping to shake up formal learning environments, too: in New York, when he was city schools commissioner, Joel Klein pressed relentlessly for people to reimagine schools for the 21st century, particularly concentrating on failing schools. The New York department of education is now embarked on a technology programme, both for education professionals to share strategies to tackle stubborn problems, and to really exploit digital learning tools to improve student attainment.
A good example of that type of thinking is the Khan Academy – a tiny education charity that didn't even exist five years ago, but has now delivered 59m lessons online. The charity grew from Salman Khan's decision to upload chatty, personalised maths seminars on to YouTube so he could coach his 12-year-old cousin in maths. The academy now has 2,100 free learning videos and a grant from the Gates Foundation.
We urgently need education professionals to connect our hardest-to-reach groups with technology. But if we're to build the skills we need for UK plc to stay relevant in the 21st century, we should go further and be bolder. This is not about wiring up more classrooms, but about rewiring our brains to think internet-first in education, so we realise the opportunity to reinvent our institutions of learning for the modern age.
• Martha Lane Fox is the UK's digital champion. To find out more about how to be a digital champion go to helppassiton.co.uk
This week on the Guardian Teacher Network you can find resources for Wrong Trousers Day, which raises money for the Wallace and Gromit Children's Foundation
It's Wrong Trousers Day on Friday – the charity fundraising day that invites children (and adults) to pay £1 for the right to look "wrong" in a pair of wacky or weird trousers.
All the money goes to the Wallace and Gromit Children's Foundation, set up with the support of Nick Park, at Aardman Animations, who created the loveable pair. The foundation raises funds to improve the quality of life for sick children in hospitals and hospices in the UK.
On the Guardian Teacher Network we have pulled together resources for the day and beyond to use at school and home. The education website Pencil Street has created worksheets for primary school-aged children. You can find them all here.
From acrostic poems to sorting jumbled words, to codework in numeracy, to designing trousers for Wallace, these worksheets do the job. There's also a series of PDFs that print out into a ready-made wall display.
Out of school, children will also find some advice from Nick Park on how to draw Gromit on the Wrong Trousers website, as well as information on how to join in on the day. There are also a series of useful ready-made assemblies and seriously funny videos.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has resources on the history of textiles and fashion, exploring cultural and gender-specific issues surrounding clothing. Using the dress collection and textiles are two of the gorgeously rich online resources supporting the art, textiles and technology curriculums from upper primary right through to A-levels.
Children are encouraged to think about the uses to which fabric is put. Go to Search the collections to view exhibits. If you're planning a visit, then be warned that the fashion galleries are currently closed as part of the V&A's Future plan project, but schools can book a fashion design workshop or tour at the V&A by emailing bookings.office@vam.ac.uk
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers free access to more than 70,000 pages of lesson pans and interactive materials. This content is being added to every day by teachers and specialists. To see (and share) for yourself go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are also nearly 2,000 jobs on the site and schools can advertise: free schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk
Universities have a new weapon in the battle to protect their reputations: the friendly student blogger
A few days ago, Vshuf, an international student, posted a message on the Student Room discussion site. He/she wanted to know which university – Glasgow, Birmingham, Warwick, Nottingham or the Institution (sic) of Education would be the best place to study business. The academic reputation of the institution was important, but there was another consideration: "How are people like in these universities?" the post asked. "I have watched some videos about Warwick on YouTube and it seems to me that the people are snobby and arrogant in contrast to those from Nottingham." Members were quick to defend Warwick, but Vshuf remained unconvinced.
The thread highlights the difficulty that universities face in the age of social media. At a time when reputation is more important than ever because of higher student fees and greater global competition, the ability to manage their reputations is increasingly falling out of their hands.
How to reach an increasingly networked generation that is more inclined to trust the opinion of their anonymous peers on the internet than official bodies such as universities was a problem discussed at last week's Youth Strategy Marketing Conference 2011.
Helen Pennack, head of marketing communications at the University of Leicester, says students now post queries on Facebook or the Student Room about open days or where to find their timetables, rather than simply contact the university directly. "When we do relationship marketing communications, we are trying to strike up a two-way dialogue with students and they are taking the conversation away from us and having it with other people," she says. "How we make ourselves part of that conversation again is quite a challenge."
Her university has responded by setting up a system that allows students to sync communications from Leicester with their Facebook account. But she says universities also need to be present in other web spaces used by students, such as Twitter.
Warwick, which appointed a digital and online communications manager last year, knows well the benefits of having a social media presence. "A year ago, an applicant tweeted, 'Oh, no. I hear the University of Warwick is closing, what am I going to do?'" says Warwick's spokesman, Peter Dunn. While this tweet could have caused huge problems if spread, the university was able to tweet back, "We're still here, honest".
He says the communications team check what is being said about the university on social media once or twice a day, and responds if someone is confused or asking for information. But it depends on the forum. "If they are on the Student Room we assume they want to bitch about us behind our backs," he says. "If it is on a much more public space like Twitter or Facebook, someone like us can see it and respond."
The challenge for universities is not only to know where to respond but when, and getting the tone right. "We are always careful about proactively intervening in the conversation because that would be seen as rude," says Pennack. "What is much more effective is if one of our students wades in there and puts somebody straight."
Some universities have already responded to this, she says, by having a group of students "primed to some extent to join the conversation and correct people where it is appropriate to do so". It is not something Leicester has tried yet, but, she says, "we may consider it".
While Imperial College does not prime students, it does recruit a team of official student bloggers to write regularly about their experiences at the university. They are not paid or moderated, and are free to blog about whatever they like. But there are occasional prizes for the most frequent bloggers. Pamela Agar, head of digital media at Imperial, says the college could potentially ask them to blog on a particular subject, but had not done so yet.
"They can and do say negative things about us," she says. "When they do, it's useful feedback." It can also make the blogs more authentic, she says – something that is particularly important to the social media generation.
Chris Fonseka, a third-year information systems student at Imperial, says he applied for a student blogger role because he was attracted by the idea of having a voice around campus. He blogs about his general activities at the university, including his membership of the chocolate society. He also receives regular emails from students and prospective students anxious to put queries about accommodation or finances to a real student.
He says he has never felt restricted in what he writes. "I think there's possibly a line that you cannot cross, but you would have to be pretty determined to cross it," he says. "If I honestly felt negative about Imperial, I would write about it."
Tom Ridgewell went a step further. While studying media at the University of Lincoln, he decided to create a television advert for the university and put it up on YouTube. "While television and parents prefer elevator music and false smiles in university propaganda, the internet and those who inhabit it prefer explosions and dinosaurs," he says. (His advert contained both.) "I labelled the videos as 'banned' simply because it's funnier to imagine that I actually showed them to a board of directors and got thrown out of the room. Also, videos generally do a little better with an exaggerated title."
Ian Richards, press officer at Lincoln, says the university only became aware of the adverts once they were an online hit and Google alerts showed people were blogging about them. "We didn't know what to make of them, but when students were talking about them on open days we felt it was something totally left field, but a bit of a blessing for us." Ridgewell has since been commissioned to carry out work for the marketing department.
How far universities should try to control what members of their community say about them on social media is something some have already faced with academic bloggers. In 2006, Erik Ringmar resigned from his lecturing post at the London School of Economics after the university objected to him posting a speech critical of the university on his blog. A year later David Colquhoun was asked to remove his blog from the University College London site after complaints from alternative therapists.
But, while institutions are paying increasing attention to what is said about them on the web, most recognise that there is little they can do about it. "Is it realistic to control every word that's out there about us?" asks Richards. "I don't think so."
Fundraising is increasingly keeping schools afloat in affluent areas. What about the rest?
How much would you bid for a bucket of manure? A day in a beach hut near Bournemouth? Or lunch in the House of Commons with the home secretary?
Such an eclectic mix of items is typical of that sold every term through schools' auctions of "promises". Amid the standard offers of babysitting, ironing and cakes, parents have also pledged powerboat rides, loans of holiday villas, teenagers to polish your silver, the chance to be a zookeeper for a day (including mucking out a zebra), and two female apricot ducks.
Auctions of promises are big money-spinners for parent-teacher associations, but they are not the only ones. Families from Kilmersdon primary in Radstock, Somerset, are poised to spend their 13th year selling baked potatoes at Glastonbury music festival. Their annual effort, recognised with an award this month from the National Confederation of PTAs, raises about £8,500.
Another NCPTA winner, Dr South's primary in Islip, near Oxford, raised £40,000 between 2008 and 2010. It expects to make £20,000 this year – thanks mainly to a sponsored 65-mile bike ride and its auction of promises plus hog roast held earlier this month.
"We get the community involved and we go with the calendar," says Fiona Forbes, PTA chair at Dr South's. "Our summer fete is coming up and we always mark Halloween, Easter, May Day … Even selling refreshments after the nativity concert makes a little, plus it is a lovely thing to do."
But it's hard work, especially as most of the women – and it is mainly women – combine their voluntary work with jobs and childcare. "Sometimes it's exhausting," says Fiona, "but we care passionately about giving the children the best springboard possible. It's no good sitting on the sidelines and saying why hasn't the school got this or that – you've got to get involved."
Claire Sage, chair of Kilmersdon PTA, agrees. Her association starts planning for Glastonbury in January. Some parents take a week off to attend. Once there, they might have to work from 9am until midnight, although "perhaps the biggest commitment is proven by those who hold in any desire to go the toilet".
Across the country, parents are raising more money than ever before, according to David Butler, chief executive of NCPTA.
He estimates that the 13,000 associations – 10,000 primary and 3,000 secondary – raised £100m in 2010-11, up from about £79m in 2009, despite the recession. This works out at an average £7,700 per school – tiny in comparison with a typical secondary-school budget, but valuable because heads can spend it as they like, says Butler.
Primary PTAs usually say their role is to put the icing on the cake. Some schools, like Dr South's and Kilmersdon, manage the marzipan as well. This term, Dr South's PTA spent £10,000 on 16 top-notch laptops. It pays for a sports coach, sports equipment, blinds and additional books. And it is funding a website redesign as well as the vegetable garden and the chickens that roam around it.
Kilmersdon PTA has contributed to a £25,000 amphitheatre. It has also funded a garden, a pond and a polytunnel, as well as paying for school trips. "We want to provide the children with memories," says Sage.
PTAs are not the only source of icing. Larger-scale fundraising is common, with heads applying for donations from companies or making bids to charitable trusts and the Big Lottery Fund.
Bob Jennings is an expert in this field. A former director of community development in an inner-city Bristol school, he now runs the Progress through Partnership consultancy. PtP, which claims a 100% success rate, specialises in fundraising masterclasses for schools.
Last week, Jennings was enjoying the delight of a Sedgefield primary-school bursar just awarded £30,000 from the Big Lottery Fund. "The money's still out there," he says. "Some funds have been dented a little by low interest rates, but the capital is still there. You just need to know how to ask."
He says he is often called in to run classes for schools by local authorities, but central government is not interested. "Any recognition of what I do would essentially be an admission that schools aren't funded properly."
Like PTAs, businesses and charitable trusts prefer to fund the icing on the cake. "They don't consider it's their business to fund the curriculum. They're not interested in putting sticking plasters over a failing education system."
But, with school budgets under pressure, many PTAs fear they will end up paying for the sticking plasters. Capital grants have been severely cut, and many pots of money such as funding for specialist schools, ICT and the Reading Recovery programme have been drained.
Alison Peacock, head of Wroxham primary school, Potters Bar, and leader of the Cambridge Primary Review network of schools, says in the past her PTA has raised money for the library and to create a quiet garden. Now she has had to ask them to replace the interactive whiteboards.
"Our capital grant has been slashed and the ICT grant has disappeared, but our boards need replacing. That's a massive piece of infrastructure, and we haven't got the resources, short of losing a member of staff. Our association has agreed nicely, but reluctantly, because they don't think it's their job to pay for this."
Her school is in a relatively affluent area and has a good relationship with its PTA. She fears for those who are not so lucky. "Are schools going to have to set budgets relying on external fundraising? If this money becomes a necessity, suddenly we are in a whole different ballgame and some schools will lose out."
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, agrees. "Inequality is the key concern here. Many schools in challenging areas relied on government grants. Hoping that fundraising will replace them is difficult. It's unpredictable and will only exacerbate divisions. The most disadvantaged will lose."
Fundraising is time-consuming, whether it's organising a summer fete or filling out a grant application. Peacock says there is an issue of capacity. "An outstanding school that is not fighting for its life has the time to make these bids. So schools that already have are far more likely to get."
An outstanding school is also more likely to employ an effective business manager who sees bid-making as a key part of the job. The role represents a professionalisation of school fundraising – something that concerns Rob Paton, professor in social enterprise at the Open University.
Joint author of Thoughtful Fundraising, Paton says he is a sceptical friend of an industry he has watched develop over the decades. In the 1960s and 70s, he says, fundraising gradually became a career choice for marketing professionals or creative types keen to work for a good cause.
"Now every school feels it ought to have a fundraiser. They're creating yet another management job and another school overhead – and they're all chasing the same pot of money," he says.
He agrees that some schools will be far more successful than others. "A little inequality is acceptable if it fuels dynamism, creativity and energy. But if the inequality becomes too great, all kinds of processes, like, for example, admissions policies, can become dysfunctional."
PTAs are vital sources of social capital, says Paton. "They get parents involved in schools, they ease communications with staff. I don't care if they only raise £400, though professional fundraisers would cringe at this as they only have pound signs in their eyes."
Sadly, it is the pound signs that seem set to matter most over the next few years.
Find it tricky to remember faces? Perhaps you, like Duncan Bannatyne, suffer from prosopagnosia
Earlier this year, millionaire businessman Duncan Bannatyne told his 350,000 Twitter followers that he suffered from prosopagnosia, or "face blindness" – a condition that can leave sufferers struggling to identify their own close friends or family. Some were surprised: according to every business handbook for success, the Dragons' Den star would need to be a networking wizard to create the string of successful businesses that have seen him valued at £320m. But Bannatyne confirmed the diagnosis, and told his followers: "I would like prosopagnosia to become more known as it cause[s] sufferers to be thought of as rude … Google prosopagnosia, you might suffer from it … or have a friend who does."
He is right: face blindness is more common than it sounds. According to Sarah Bate, a psychology lecturer at Bournemouth University who is devoting her career to investigating the condition, medical research over the last 10 years has thrown fresh light on prosopagnosia.
"One study has suggested that as many as 2.5% of the population might have developmental prosopagnosia," Bate explains. "Even if that's an overestimation, thousands of people in the UK must suffer."
Face blindness affects sufferers in different ways, ranging from those who struggle to put a name to an acquaintance to those who cannot recognise their own children coming out of school – or their own faces in photos. Prosopagnosians may also have difficulties with related problems, such as identifying other people's emotional expressions, or judging age or gender of faces.
Bate first heard about prosopagnosia in a lecture in the second year of her undergraduate degree. Finding it to be under-researched, she decided to examine it further for her PhD, and has continued doing so after completing it two years ago. Bate is particularly interested in whether face blindness is hereditary and physiological rather than psychological, as many had previously assumed. She explains that cases come in two categories: people with developmental prosopagnosia have usually failed to develop the processes for normal face recognition from birth, while others acquire problems later in life due to brain damage, for example after a stroke.
While some sufferers find prosopagnosia to lead to occasional embarrassment, for others it affects their social aptitude and employment options. "They might withdraw from social events, and work in jobs that avoid the need for face-to-face interaction with colleagues and clients," says Bate. "The condition can cause much anxiety and even depression. One young man told me about a time when he met a girl at a party and asked her out on a date. She agreed and then went on her way after giving him her number, but he then asked her out again later in the evening, thinking she was a completely different person." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bate reports that the girl cancelled the date.
"Another of the individuals with face blindness I'm in contact with has suffered from the condition since childhood. His failure to recognise faces had been a long-standing joke in his family, and when he heard about my work he asked to be formally assessed. He turned out to be severely prosopagnosic, and found much relief in realising that it is a recognised condition and that many other people suffer from it."
Bate reports that some sufferers "cope remarkably well, and develop elaborate compensatory strategies that help them recognise people".
Teachers with face blindness, for example, often devise seating plans in the classroom. Others become very perceptive at recognising people from non-facial cues such as their gait, hairstyle or clothing – or even informing their colleagues, family and friends, and asking them to introduce themselves each time they meet.
"These strategies might work some or most of the time, but occasions do occur when a familiar person is met out of context and the strategy breaks down," Bate explains. "It's difficult to imagine how young children might cope with the disorder, particularly as most are required to wear school uniform and obey strict rules regarding their appearance at school."
Keen to find out more about the different sub-types of face blindness, the academic realised she needed to find a way to build a large pool of research participants, and took to the internet to launch prosopagnosiaresearch.org, a website designed to both inform the public and recruit candidates for research. The site hosts an online test where participants are shown 20 male bald faces and then repeatedly asked to identify them from a choice of three. Nearly 4,000 people worldwide have taken the test so far, with more than 300 registering to participate in research, and about 20 who live in southern England are travelling to Bournemouth to undergo the latest tests and analysis.
"When a new participant makes contact, I arrange a meeting at the university to carry out a screening session," Bate explains. She has used eye-tracking technology to assess how prosopagnosics take in faces visually, but so far that hasn't yielded conclusive results. "I've found a conflicting pattern of findings – while eye movements appeared normal in some cases, other individuals were ignoring the key inner features of the face – eyes, nose and mouth – which are critical for recognition," she says.
The academic is also working with genetics researchers to test families of prosopagnosics and examine any links. "Some individuals who have prosopagnosia suspect other members of their families suffer from the condition," she says. "We are attempting to test as many members of each family as possible – including those who believe they have normal face-processing abilities – to confirm that multiple members of the same family suffer from the disorder. The next step is to take samples of each person's DNA, by simply taking saliva swabs. But to collect meaningful data we need to identify more families of prosopagnosics who are willing to participate in this research."
Early findings suggest the condition "certainly does seem to run in some families. But some individuals suffer despite no apparent familial connection. It's important to understand the different causes and sub-types to develop appropriate treatment techniques, and then pick up prosopagnosia and its related deficits in children," she says.
"With prior knowledge about which children are at risk of developing the condition and the range of difficulties they might confront, we'd have a much better chance of successfully reducing these difficulties."
• Test yourself for face-blindness at www.prosopagnosiaresearch.org