It takes a village…
Steve Younger, CVE Scotland School Chaplaincy Project Leader, writes:
At the close of the winter term last year, my chaplain-colleague and I each received a gift from one of my schools: a box of chocolates and a book token. Of course, we don’t partner with our schools for financial reward or for gifts-in-kind, but a book token (with chocolate while reading) is always welcome! Mine bought a copy of James McEnaney’s meticulously researched book, ‘Class Rules: The truth about Scottish schools’ (Luath Press, Edinburgh, 2021). A teacher turned journalist, his book is a penetrating and perceptive critique of government policies on Education and the current state of Scottish schools. He covers data from the first COVID lockdowns and careful analysis of their impacts; current OECD data; examines the factors and types of ‘attainment gap’ Scottish education is grappling with; and sifts through a host of thorough research reports.
McEnaney speaks late in the book of a statistic that stuck in mind for him when he was teaching and that also caught my attention: “In England, one of the most common measures of a school’s success and effectiveness has traditionally been the number of pupils gaining ‘five good GCSEs’. But according to Professor Dylan William of the University College London’s Institute of Education, ‘only 7% of the variation between schools on this standard benchmark is due to the effect of the school. The other 93% is due to factors over which the school has no control.’” (McEnaney 2021:197) McEnaney concludes that Scotland is no different.
As McEnaney puts it: “If you want to close the attainment gap then you need to focus on improving pupils’ lives rather than simply concentrating on their time in the classroom.” (McEnaney 2021:147) The realities of Scottish education at the moment are under-resourced staff pressured to do the impossible: tasked to patch up the COVID-impacted curricular deficit and close academic gaps when 93% of the factors are beyond their control. The damage caused by lost teaching during lockdowns may prove irreparable.
McEnaney’s book lays out the bare and brutal statistics. In 2010, 10% of Scottish pupils were assessed as having additional support needs. In 2020 that had increased to 30%, of which a high proportion relate to mental health issues. All this at a time when there are just 378 educational psychologists “across Scotland’s nearly 2,500 schools – one for every 1,858 pupils.” (McEnaney 2021:110) The psychologists, guidance staff, pastoral care teams, CAHMS teams and support staff are overwhelmed. Children impacted by poverty are coming to school hungry. My own High School of 1400 pupils had 80-120 pupils each morning queuing up for a free breakfast in the school canteen in a recent trial for our local Foodbank. The ‘Centre for Chaplaincy in Education’ (an Anglican-run network in English schools) held an online conference last month (16th January) on the impact of bereavements on school children with Ilze of the “Never Alone” project (tnap.org.uk) and Pete from the “At a Loss” charity (www.ataloss.org) informing us that 1 in 29 children – roughly one in every class across the UK – has been impacted by the death of a loved one.
Let’s be clear: our schools need us – the chaplains, the faith communities, the para-church organisations, the Foodbanks, the Youth and Family workers, the nanas and papas with time and compassion, the trauma-trained church staff, the faith-inspired bereavement and mentoring programmes, the after-school youth activities, the in-school SU groups… Yes: they still need us to provide the ‘Time for Reflection’ and ‘Religious Observance’ assemblies and the classroom assistance to deliver ‘Religious and Moral Education’. But they also desperately need us to partner with them in meeting the health and wellbeing needs of staff member and pupil. Truly – it takes a village to raise a child.
[All blogs on our website are the personal view of the writer and do not necessarily represent a position taken by CVE Scotland.]
