Schools: a “catastrophic ten months”
“Don’t worry – they won’t cancel exams again,” I assured my 15-year-old son before Christmas, said Katherine Forster in The Spectator. His elder brother’s A-levels had been called off in the summer, but there wouldn’t be another last-minute retreat – not after Education Secretary Gavin Williamson had just given a “cast-iron guarantee” that exams would go ahead in England. But then, of course, up popped Williamson last week to say that exams were being cancelled after all. As for what form of assessment will take their place, a consultation is under way and a plan will be in place by late February. In the meantime, with no exams to prepare for, what are students meant to focus on? How can they “stay motivated, stuck at home and with everything up in the air”?
The Government’s schools policy epitomises its incompetent Covid response, said The Observer. Ministers have made teachers’ and parents’ lives more difficult with their sudden U-turns on school closures; and schools are struggling to prepare online lessons while dealing with large numbers of children in the classroom. As in the first lockdown, schools are open to vulnerable children and the children of key workers, said The Guardian. But this time, many more have taken up the offer: one survey suggests that one in three primary schools has 20% of pupils in. This is good if it stems from genuine need, but the suspicion is that some are taking advantage of the system, leading to calls for tighter restrictions on who can send their children in.
It has been a “catastrophic ten months” for Britain’s schools, said Sian Griffiths in The Sunday Times. The one silver lining is that it presents an “exciting opportunity” to fix problems with our education system. Some reformers believe it’s no longer fit for the 21st century, citing “declining social mobility, a growing skills gap and a failure to keep up with new technologies”. Among the changes they’re pushing for are more use of online tools; more outdoor teaching (both to protect against viruses and to improve mental health); the scrapping of GCSEs; and a switch to four 10-week terms. If this crisis prompts some much-needed changes to our outmoded school system, it won’t have been entirely in vain.