John McLellan

 

Nothing gets middle class parents going quite like the quality, or usually the lack of it, at their children’s school. Ok, maybe property prices.

So the new Edinburgh University report about the Scottish comprehensive system has received welcome attention, highlighting improvements in equality of opportunity and academic attainment.

What qualifies as improvement is moot, but the authors also pinpoint the importance of parental attitude in pupil performance and challenged politicians and educationalists to come up with ways to narrow the attainment gap.

“Never mind the outputs, what about the unequal inputs?” they asked at a conference this week, with perhaps an unintentional hint of menace. Indeed, education debates too often end up with blame pointed at the aspirational while excuses are found for under-achievement.

The authors might not be looking for excuses, but the danger is a valuable piece of work becomes sucked into a political quagmire which suffocates aspiration and hampers an opportunity to harness energy and imagination to bring about real improvements for all.

In fact, the words aspiration, ambition and improvement in relation to children or their families did not feature at all in the conference slides. Instead there was this: “Find the right balance between the benefits of uniformity (equality) and the need for diversity (liberty), while retaining the benefits of fraternity (community).” To which I suspect most parents would just say “Eh?”

Few mums and dads are educational experts and just want their local school to be good, but beyond exam tables, anecdotes or preconceptions most have no way of knowing. But not being an expert doesn’t mean views are not valid.

After all, house prices remain high near Jordanhill College because of reputation not because everyone who lives nearby is an educationalist.

The pachyderm in the playground is whether whatever true equality represents is attainable when parental background and attitude is beyond anyone’s control.

The assumption in the report is that comprehensive education is, to borrow a phrase, the settled will of the Scottish people. It certainly is in places like East Renfrewshire where St Ninian's and Williamwood offer the same levels of academic achievement and social mix as St Aloysius and Hutchesons’.

It is too in rural communities where the only alternative is boarding at Merchie or Strath, but not in places like Carmunnock where the choice between Castlemilk and coughing up isn’t difficult.

Cards on the table, I’m not a State customer and my children go to George Watson’s College which they love. I make no excuses; fantastic facilities, a wide curriculum, great opportunities, excellent learning support and, yes, a contacts book for the future.

Rightly or wrongly, private schools set a standard which is too easily dismissed as unachievable or even undesirable.

In fact my last direct experience of comprehensive schooling was in 1971 when I left King’s Park Primary. I wasn’t unhappy but my mum was determined the High School of Glasgow was the place for me so I duly trudged into the Elmbank Street exam hall to sit an IQ-style test, the likes of which I’d never seen before.

The headmistress at King’s Park said I probably wasn’t clever enough and she was very nearly right because I only made it to the reserve list and even as a nine-year-old I was gutted.

But Glasgow City Council came to the rescue; its decision to end selectivity meant vacancies arose and I was offered a place. Parents gambled the Conservative government would intervene but Education minister Margaret Thatcher believed councils should decide school policy because Tory councils in England were protecting the remaining grammar schools.

Closure was inevitable and, when blocked from the secondary school in 1974, we could either transfer to Drewsteignton School in Bearsden (to become the core of the new High), go comprehensive or go private.

The majority of the Southside boys went to Hutchie, the common denominator being parents wanting the best start in life for their kids. None were from well-to-do backgrounds, comfortable by comparison to many, but certainly not privileged.

Then, as now, the role of the parents – or a positive role model beyond the classroom -- is crucial to every child’s future, something you don’t have to be an education academic to understand.

Exam passes and university entrance aren’t everything and this week's report supports the excellent idea of a Scottish Secondary Graduation certificate to include non-academic achievement like community service and skills.

But academic or non-academic, the emphasis should be on identifying and maximising potential, not the closure of a notional gap, and if parental commitment was ever to be regarded as bringing unfair advantage it would be disastrous.