Tackling educational inequality - CentreForum

Tackling educational inequality
cohorts coming through the school and the continued very low
attainment of the new pupil intake.
The most important factors behind the school’s achievements,
according to Ofsted, are outstanding leadership (“successes to
date have hinged principally on the drive of the head teacher”),
alongside effective systems for monitoring and supporting pupils
and a relentless focus on raising standards (the head teacher’s
mantra is “pushing pupils in their learning until they can push
themselves”).
Some argue that an emphasis on leadership could come at the expense
of good management. A school’s performance should not be reliant on
one individual, but should be indicative of a wider system of support,
embodied through organisational structures and teacher quality. What
is needed therefore are good management structures, with greater and
clearer distribution of leadership responsibilities, rather than the current
emphasis on transformational leaders who are, by definition, exceptional.
Overall, Searle and Tymms, who conducted the quantitative analysis for
Policy Exchange, argue that factors such as ethos, culture of learning
and especially staff quality are the critical factors in determining how
a school performs. Probably the most important strategy headteachers
can adopt is to make sure that there is a good and clear management
structure, with good teachers in the classrooms.
Class Sizes
Another high profile debate about school effectiveness has focused on
the issue of class size. Teachers and school staff, with considerable
support from parents, have increasingly argued that class size has a
significant impact on the effectiveness of their work. There is an intuitive
logic to this claim, but empirical research has not led to a consensus
on the issue.
Support for reducing class sizes primarily comes from US studies
– particularly the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) four year
pilot in Tennessee, beginning in 1984, and the Prime Time pilot in Indiana,
beginning in 1981. Analysis of the STAR project concluded that
reductions in class size did benefit pupils’ attainment. 43 Comparatively,
there was little high quality UK specific work in this area at the time,
despite the subsequent 1997 Labour government commitment to reducing
class sizes to 30 or under for 5, 6 and 7 year olds.
Considering the large financial implications of reducing class sizes, it is
important to ascertain exactly how smaller classes might have a signifi-
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