| |
Now it’s time to move away from segregated schooling
• I WAS dismayed to read Councillor Ursula Woolley’s remarks about being “pretty sure” Islington parents did not play “the church game” (Children flock to church schools as other primaries struggle to fill their classrooms. Are we creating a two-tier system? February 1).
Living in the vicinity of St John’s Highbury Vale and St Joan of Arc and as a parent of three young children, I consistently meet people who attend church and baptise their children precisely to acquire a school place. After the birth of my first daughter, I was asked by my neighbours if I would now start attending a local church. A parent at the NCT group I attended asked if I did “not care” about my child’s education as I was not planning to go down this route. On the contrary, I care passionately about my children’s education and futures. I want nothing more for them at primary level than a first-rate, holistic education: a good grounding in the basics, a rich curriculum and, what some in Islington seem to place no value on, being educated with other members of their community – children from other faiths, cultures and classes – in effect the diversity of London that we all claim to value.
This is the kind of education children can receive at schools such as Gillespie and Drayton Park, which are more representative of the Islington I know. Many of these, like my daughter’s Gillespie Primary, are oversubscribed too.
But parents, through no fault of their own, are urged to measure a good education solely by SATS results. Yet how much recognition is given to the huge role played by the home environment or private tuition – a feature in the lives of so many children in so-called successful schools?
When some church schools are filled mainly with children who fit their strict admissions criteria, what room is there for them to take their fair quota of children – perhaps those from refugee or immigrant families – who arrive on our doorsteps midway or later through their primary schooling, maybe with little English or experience of formal schooling? These children’s results, too, will impact on a school’s SATS but if some schools have very few such individuals then how fair a reflection are SATS of how “good” a school is?
But am I missing something? Church schools were originally set up to serve those in their communities. My understanding of Christian teachings is that anyone bringing up their children as such would aim to teach them of the inherent value of all, the importance of including all and of offering the best to all.
Parents can fundraise or serve their schools in other ways (including critical engagement) and so help to support hard-working staff in offering the best education to all a school’s children.
If a large sector of parents with resources is siphoned off, this reduces the potential pool of a school’s resources. As Martine Oborne says, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Too many Islington parents are complicit in this, turning to attending church to get the best for their own children in the very narrowest sense of the word.
Arguably, there is no more important time for us to be moving away from segregated education to one where our children learn first hand about other cultures and faiths but also have the opportunity to befriend children of different backgrounds from their own. If we could move beyond our own short-sightedness we would realise that “the best” for our own children is to support systems that foster the best for all children. This way lies a safer community and a safer world.
Janice Acquah
Parent-governor, N5
|
 |
|
| |
| Your Comments : |
| |
| |
| |
