A level crisis — time for no10 to climb down and copy sturgeon | thearticle

On June 22nd, I published a piece for The Article, entitled, “Britain’s no 1 priority“, which focused on the importance of education and the need for this to form part of this government’s

supposed focus on “levelling up”. What can be more important for the future of any country than the education of coming generations? I have been immersed in educational philanthropy for over

20 years, through SHINE-Support and Help IN Education, which I helped set up with some like-minded friends. Its specific aim is to help boost the educational opportunities for the most

disadvantaged. Its board, on which I sit, and its staff, have learned many things about educational challenges, initiatives and seen how outcomes have changed in England. Until 2016, we were

based in Greater London, and our work was based primarily in London boroughs, usually those with the greatest need. We watched a wave of improvements emerge during that period. The

improvements were such that we decided to move to the North of England, and have since been based in Leeds. It seemed that, due both to the improvements in London and the South East, and the

ongoing struggles of many parts of the North, the educational attainment gap widened from both ends — we wanted to see if we could help bring change in the North. This philosophy was

particularly attractive given the emergence of the so-called Northern Powerhouse, and when this government made a series of repeated statements about its desire to “ level up” the country, I

assumed that education would feature. Well, so far there are few signs that this is to be the case, and in the past few days, we’ve seen more evidence that this government’s slogans are not

matched by its actions. The fiasco of the government’s algorithms which have deliberately been structured to stop any notable improvement in A level grades over the previous year (and, as

things currently, stand, will be repeated in coming days for GSCEs), actually achieve the outcome of “levelling down” the country. The algorithm appears to downgrade estimated results from

school teachers on the premise that they are over-optimistic in favour of their own pupils. Designed under Michael Gove’s influential period of Secretary of State for Education (I was

briefly a non-Executive Director), it automatically penalises state schools, especially sixth form colleges, which typically have more pupils than private schools. Usually, most of these

students will be from less advantaged backgrounds. Not only will many of the private school students be from more prosperous backgrounds, their predicted scores have not been downgraded

anywhere near as much as those less advantaged. The government should do exactly as the Scottish government has done and back down. It needs to accept the predicted grades of school

teachers, and figure out a more comprehensive system of avoiding grade inflation in the future. Crucially, such a design must avoid the mistake of not allowing schools to improve every year.

It is bizarre, because it is not allowing schools to improve quickly, and given that the most underachieving schools should be attempting to improve as fast as possible, this is a

fundamental misstep by Ofqual. I suspect that below this, there lies a bigger fundamental issue. The Department of Education has never really been on board with the geographical aspects of

levelling up. It prefers the more philosophical notion that its purpose is to improve educational outcomes for all. While this is admirable in principle, it has left it blind to regional

differences in education. It turned a blind eye to the educational aspects of the Northern Powerhouse agenda under David Cameron and George Osborne, and now, it sticks to its same

philosophy. Introduce more Academy Chains, boost the quality of teaching more in the North (and elsewhere), and as night follows day, education will improve. This ignores the evidence

showing that the big rise in educational attainment in tough parts of London results just as much from the ambition of parents for their children, often second generation immigrant families,

than it does from the schools themselves. And in the more remote communities in many parts of the north, this simply doesn’t apply. This government needs to instruct the Secretary of State

to copy Scotland — and just as the First Minister apologised, so should the Prime Minister. And if he ever intends to try and deliver on his “levelling-up” agenda, he needs to instruct all

the relevant departments to get on board, including the one that seems to be immune to delivering the government’s agenda — the Department of Education.