Anexos

Many subject leaders commented on their pupils, their home background and their outlook and motivation. Both the Secondary and Primary schools in this research are located in a relatively socio-economically deprived urban area in

the north-west of England. This was an aspect commented on more by the teachers at the Primary school, which had more of an inner urban setting. Subject leaders commented that their pupils had a narrow outlook on the world and were not as supported at home as children might be in more affluent areas.

These perspectives have been commented on before by others such as Apple, (1995), Au (2008), Lingard (2013) and Bernstein himself, who noted that those who recognise the distinguishing features of a school are more likely to succeed within it, and that this was more likely of middle-class

children (2000, 104). This symbiosis between school and home is considered by many to be an important one and where it is lacking the pupil may struggle, particularly with externally imposed curricula and testing regimes that may be seen to reinforce or reproduce a particular middle class view of the world and society (Apple, 1995; Au, 2008; Bernstein, 2000; Lingard, 2013).

Feelings about the home background of the pupils and how it affected their work in school were clearly expressed, often with some exasperation, by Juliana. For example, she commented that:

‘You see our children are shocking at Geography. Really, really, really bad at Geography. Because…they don’t go anywhere. A lot of them don’t go out of the town. Some of them might go to Spain, but that will be the only place they go and they’ll go to Benidorm. It’ll be like being in Blackpool. It will be like being on the Promenade to them. It has no cultural significance or difference to them other than it’s hotter’.

While these comments were not meant to be negative, they do suggest a particular view from Juliana of her pupils and why teaching certain subjects may be more difficult. Of course, not all of the pupils would act or think in the same way but her comments do reflect the fact the Primary School was located in an urban area that was relatively poor in the context of its region. These comments were echoed by Heather:

‘The majority of our children don’t go on holiday. I took children on the train yesterday and six out of the eighteen had never been on a train and we were only going to (a local city) and a few of them hadn’t even been there before.’

It was clear that both teachers were supportive of their pupils and that these comments were only highlighting the difficulties of teaching (particularly Geography) to those with a relative lack of experience of the world. Juliana also made similar comments about the pupil’s view of her own subject, English:

‘They don’t read; they don’t go to libraries. We’ve got that library out there…and I’ll go and I’ll say to them ‘go and sit – why don’t you sit on the sofa outside?’ and they’ll say to me ‘and do what?’ They won’t naturally look at those books and think ‘I want to read them’ and there’s a lot of new books out there. They’re not interested’.

Her difficulty in encouraging her pupils to read for themselves and to enjoy the subject was clearly stated and she appeared to be linking this to a general view of the subject, partly formed outside school. As Bernstein and others

have stated, if children don’t have the encouragement at home, then it can be very difficult for the teachers to help them develop a love of learning at school. This point was also made by Nigel, the secondary Headteacher, who felt that parental support and the home ethos was vital to pupil confidence and

academic success. He stated that:

‘I think when…you’ve got your high performing, quite affluent kids that make quite a lot of progress; they’ve got maybe a greater degree of support at home for education’.

Nigel clearly equated success in school to socio-economic background and parental influence and support, and this again supports the comments made by previous research, as noted above. Of particular interest to this study is that these comments clearly reflect the view that a strong link between family and school contexts is more likely to lead to school success and is more likely for pupils from a middle-class background (Bernstein, 2000, 104).

Nina made a similar point when commenting on the attitude of the pupils towards Maths and how she always encouraged their confidence in the subject. She felt that part of the issue was that there was not enough

encouragement at home and a parental ‘fear’ of Maths was being passed on to the pupils. As she commented:

‘children considered themselves to be just crap at Maths basically …not necessarily that they’d been told but a lot of them say ‘well my mum and dad weren’t very good at Maths, therefore I’m not’, so this idea

that it’s genetic which we’re trying to really shake that out of parents and children actually’.

Many of the Primary teachers were aware of the socio-economic location of their school and the home backgrounds of their pupils, and how this might affect pupil progress at school. In some ways this affected how they mediated the National Curriculum, as they had some sense of what their pupils could do and would enjoy (noted particularly by Shirley in Music). However, this also led to some negative concerns from Nina and Juliana as they had to follow the National Curriculum closely to satisfy the demands of the external SATS tests. They could not mediate their own curriculum as much as they would wish, to respond to the needs of their pupils, and were forced to follow a prescribed curriculum that they felt had too much content at too high a level. Nina also stated that the curriculum was then assessed in such a way that her pupils found it hard to access and therefore to achieve success. They both

discussed these aspects of their work with some emotion in their interviews.

Alan also became quite emotional when discussing this aspect of his work. His was aware of the socio-economic location of his school and the

background of many of his pupils and stated he believed in a meritocratic society. However, he felt that the new National Curriculum and the

Department for Education’s desire to compare different types of schools were not necessarily helpful:

‘It’s a constant thing in the Press, I think you just feel that, in the State sector, (that) in the private sector they’re so much better, well isn’t that because you’ve got rich kids from higher socio-economic backgrounds with parents who push them? And I find it risible that we should be going to have a look and how it’s taught better in private schools.’

Alan was unhappy with the comparison made between private and state schools and the pressure that this put on him and his pupils to perform, even though home circumstances might be quite different. In his comments on these aspects, Alan stated:

‘I come across as a raving Leftie but I’m not. I’m just very passionate – and when I say passionate, what I want to say is that I think this kind of issue of a meritocracy; I want to believe that any pupil I teach can go on to govern the country’

Alan clearly believed in the concept of a meritocratic society and was aware of how broader issues within education were affecting his own school and

department. These feelings were apparent from many of the teachers who clearly wanted to do their best for their pupils and felt hampered by

educational structures, such as the nature of the new curriculum itself and the high-stakes testing for some subjects.

5.7 Summary

A clear message from the subject leaders was that the curriculum had ‘got harder’ and that some content seemed to have ‘moved down’ the curriculum

in an attempt by the authors of the curriculum to raise standards. However, as this change would also by default have an impact on cross-phase provision, it made curriculum planning more problematic as many of the teachers noted that cross-phase co-ordination between schools is often difficult to achieve.

The reactions to the new National Curriculum differed between the two

schools. In the Secondary they did not feel that the new curriculum had had a major impact on their work or caused them to make major changes to their subjects at KS3. A key factor was assessment and as the teachers at the Secondary school are not subject to high-stakes external exams at KS3 they felt more able to mediate the curriculum to suit their own philosophies and the interests of their pupils and this had also indirectly led to three-year GCSE courses at the school.

The situation in the Primary school was quite different. While there was also some mediation of the curriculum by teachers, the impact of the new

curriculum appeared to be much greater, particularly on English and Maths. Therefore, unlike the Secondary school, it appears that in the Primary school high stakes external assessment in certain subjects is a key factor affecting the curriculum planning of the subject leaders. The impact of OFSTED looking for curriculum breadth was also felt quite strongly.

These findings will be further developed in the following chapter, where the responses of the subject leaders will be analysed deductively through the lens of Bernstein’s pedagogic device.