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Why Streaming in Schools Helps Pupils Achieve More

Posted on: Thursday, 18 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

PUPILS are usually the best people to ask about their school. A number of years ago I attended an open evening at a state secondary where the energetic head teacher did exactly this.

He used a selection of young people to brief parents from feeder primaries on what awaited their children. The half-a-dozen boys and girls sat in a semi-circle on the stage of the school theatre answering questions from the adults.

Cogent and polite, they were fine ambassadors for their educational institution. Then one parent, who lived close to the gates and had the chance to view a wider selection of students, asked bluntly: are all the kids at the school as nice as you?

One by one, they each replied in a similar fashion. They spoke quietly of the difficulty in concentrating, particularly in the first couple of years.

I seem to remember one humorous reference to "heidbangers", and the need to develop personal strategies to combat distraction.

They all reassured the adults that things got better as they moved up the school. I was greatly saddened by this, particularly the acceptance by these bright teenagers that they must learn to cope with disruption to their lessons each and every day.

They were certainly not alone.

Their experience was probably better than that of their contemporaries in areas of greater social deprivation where children with the inclination and ability to succeed are more of a beleaguered minority.

One man did listen to kids such as these, however. Rod O'Donnell, the head teacher of St Paul's in Pollok, Glasgow, introduced streaming by ability in 2001, partly in response to what young people told him.

The children are tested for maths and language skills in the last year of primary and the most able are educated separately as soon as they enter secondary. There are smaller classes for pupils who struggle. The hope was to fast track the clever kids while helping the less academic to learn at their own pace.

Mr O'Donnell's head boy had explained that the first two years of secondary were a complete waste of time, and it was only the pupil's own strength of character which fuelled an improvement in his subsequent academic performance.

Schools inspectors have consistently reflected this young man's anecdotal experience.

The S1 and S2 "lag" is widely acknowledged. Some young people even experience a decline in basic literacy and numeracy after leaving primary school. A number of innovative solutions have been proposed, including allowing primary teachers to work with 12 and 13- year-olds or introducing more vocational subjects.

Yet streaming by ability, the most obvious, commonsense cure, has already been ruled out nationally by the education minister, Peter Peacock.

That decision may have to be reconsidered in the light of the St Paul's experience. The standard grade exam results released last week covered the school's first batch of pupils who had known nothing else but streaming. St Paul's, located in a particularly nasty sink of housing scheme poverty, has a significantly improved performance. The number of general and credit passes rose by 19- percent. The head teacher gave a refreshingly open interview to a Sunday newspaper this week, in which he outlined the kind of resistance he had encountered from other members of the teaching profession - and particularly in the trade unions.

An attempt to introduce streaming in his previous school in Castlemilk had failed, with some staff members allegedly threatening to bring in the city council to overrule any streaming experiment.

He recalled another incident where a senior member of his staff expressed a belief that the pupils would never see any further improvement because of their economic circumstances. It is this fatalism which O'Donnell was determined to counter. Some individuals encourage low expectations to prove a political point: ie social status determines educational success. It does, of course. But disadvantage can be overcome, otherwise we accept the very unprogressive notion that poor children are thick.

In another newspaper article about St Paul's, an EIS official claimed the method widened the gap between high achievers and poorer performers. In an extraordinary justification of the comprehensive ideal, he said:

"Lower-attaining classes often develop a laddishness or anti- school culture and pupils in them can regress as a result." So he acknowledges the problem of indiscipline. Yet he seems to suggest that pupils with potential should be thrown together with the scholastically challenged, to somehow save the troublemakers from themselves.

In fairness to the EIS, its leader Ronnie Smith is more open- minded, suggesting O'Donnell's methods be independently evaluated. Steven Purcell, the new leader of Glasgow city council and a former education convener, has promised to study the Pollok experience closely. Their willingness to at least look at new methods stands in stark contrast to the professors of education, such as Strathclyde University's Brian Boyd, who simply refuse to accept that streaming has any merit whatsoever.

But what exactly has the comprehensive system achieved?

Earlier this year a study into social mobility carried out by the London School of Economics discovered that children born in 1970 were less likely to break free of their family background and fulfil their potential than children born in 1958. A related study by the same institution found that in the 1960s, law firms began to appoint partners educated within the state system. But this trend did not last long and by 2004, 71- percent of younger partners were privately educated.

The Sutton Trust, an educational charity which commissioned the LSE research, believes this decline in social mobility is partly due to the phasing out of grammar schools.

These schools allowed the brightest working class pupils to access the same education as the middle classes, but were phased out completely in Scotland because they were considered elitist and divisive. The 165 grammars still operating in England go from strength to strength.

Their share of pupils gaining three straight-As at A level has consistently increased over the past decade.

The number of pupils in independent schools gaining straight-As also increased but the proportion of these high achievers in English comprehensives remained static.

It is well known, and widely accepted, that talented young athletes or musicians excel when they train and rehearse beside others of high ability. Yet when it comes to learning, we go into a sort of egalitarian selfdelusion. We are in denial. Yet our own experience, in everyday life, tells us peer group stimulation is very important. We have all been in a work or social situation where sparky people get our own creative juices flowing. Why should the classroom be any different? And why should children who have the ability to transcend their environment be condemned to spend each day with contemporaries who pull them down?

If this all sounds a bit personal - it is. I attended a large state comprehensive in the industrial west of Scotland - a place in which the playground sometimes seemed feral.

Anyone with an inclination towards sensitivity or independent thought had to toughen up and run with the herd to survive. But our school was unusual in that it clung to the streaming of pupils for several years after the practice was abandoned elsewhere in Scotland.

Our comprehensive had grown out of the local grammar school and this tradition meant my year was one of the last to benefit from selection. It meant our classrooms were something of a pedagogic haven compared to the mixed-ability mayhem outside.

Streaming provides a tried and tested halfway house between the comprehensive and the grammar.

The latter, which physically separates children, is unlikely to be revived. But Mr O'Donnell's solution at least gives some kids the chance to succeed on merit. The St Paul's motto is "Aiming high for young people". It should apply across the country.

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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