Adulting - #73 The British Education System with Fiona Millar

Episode Date: July 12, 2020

Hey Podulters, hope you’re well! In this weeks episode I speak to journalist, education campaigner and former advisor to Cherie Blair, Fiona Millar. We discuss a private versus state education, where our system is failing, and what Fiona’s ideal model would be! I loved speaking to Fiona and I really hope that you enjoy the episode! As always please do rate, review and subscribe O xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hey, poddlters. I hope you're well. In this week's episode, I speak to Fiona Miller. She is a journalist and campaigner on education and parenting issues. And she's also the former advisor to sherry blair she's also my very good friend grace campbell's mom we discuss why private schools don't necessarily provide the best education and why we should all take a vested interest in making our state education system the best for everyone unfortunately because of the remote recording there was a lag and so in a couple of instances we interrupt each other i'm really sorry about that but I hope it's not too much of an issue. I absolutely love speaking to Fiona. I learnt loads and I'm sure

that you will too. As always please do rate, review and subscribe. Enjoy the episode. Bye! Hello and welcome to Adulting. Today I am joined by Fiona Miller. Oh, hello, hello, hello, hello. How are you doing? I'm very, very well, yes. It's a beautiful morning, so I'm feeling more optimistic than I have been for a few weeks. Oh, yeah, definitely. The weather makes such a difference on these things. Absolutely. So I want you to tell us a little bit bit for people who don't know who you are,

could you tell us who you are and what you do? Yes. So, well, I was trained as a journalist on national newspapers in the 1980s. And then I had a little detour into politics when I went to work for the Blairs when Tony Blair was prime minister. And when I left Downing Street in 2003, I slipped into writing about education, which is something I'd always been very interested in. I made a film about parental choice for Channel 4. And then I got a column on The Guardian. And I've basically written for The Guardian ever since about education. A lot of it is comments, some of it is feature pieces. And I tend to go around the country as well, talking to people and taking part in conferences and doing media. I would also say that I'm a sort of sometime education

campaigner. But obviously, that's a slightly delicate role, because I have to keep my journalism quite objective. I'm also a school governor, and so I have to remain very objective in that context. So I'm quite steeped in state education, all round and all the various different political arguments about education and the state versus private sector, which is one that never goes away. So, obviously, you've had so many different roles and jobs in your life, but what was it that really drove you to have such a vested interest in education? Was there any one moment that kind of became the catalyst for you really thinking like, this is the thing that I want to focus on

from now on? Yeah, well, I think, you know, everybody's got an interest in education, haven't they? Because we've all been to school. So I was interested from my own school days, because I went to a grammar school in the era when you had to take a test at 11, and it then decided which school you went to. And I remember thinking that was incredibly unfair at the time. But the real catalyst for me was my own children started at school, and I became a school governor. And it was, I mean, this is ancient history for a lot of younger people now, but it was just at the time that the idea of introducing a market in education had come into public policy. So parent choice was going to be the big driving force. And then the schools that weren't good enough or

weren't wanted would sort of fail. And the ones that were wanted to become very successful. That was the underlying philosophy. And our children went to a local state school that basically was failing. And, you know, it was quite a battle to turn it around. But it really taught me a lot about, you know, human instinct in education, how parents behave, the incredible challenges you've got with turning around a failing school, and also about what happens to kids who don't have the sort of resources that our children had and you know the glaring inequalities that I'm afraid to say still exist. So when you were considering sending your children to this school and you knew that it was going to be quite a difficult space for them to enter did it ever cross your mind of sending your children to a

private school or you always knew that that was not something that you would put your money behind? Never absolutely never I mean we didn't know it was going to be as disastrous as it was when they joined the school. But we didn't. I mean, it was a very different era then. Parents didn't shop around in the way that they do now. And I don't think there was the same level of anxiety that exists now about school choice. So, we just went to the school that was at the end of our road. And we never even looked at any other schools. So, in terms of how schooling has got worse, I suppose we can, austerity and cuts to education are probably one of the main factors, would you say, that mean that schools are so overcrowded and lacking the ability to cater to children

in the way that they should be. Would you say that's one of the main things? Well, I think, you know, look, public funding, austerity, these policies come and go. But what doesn't change in the English system, and I've been reading during the lockdown period, I've been reading a lot about the history of education, is the fact that better off children generally get a lot more money spent on them than the poorer children do. And that's a glaring inequality that goes right back to the 19th century and before. And nobody's ever really tackled that. And I think one of the things about COVID and before. And nobody has ever really tackled that.

And I think one of the things about COVID and what's happened in the last six months is that those inequalities really come to the fore again. It's made people realise, you know, for all the reforms we've had, we still have a desperately unfair system. And that's at the heart of what I try and do, is try and change that.

Completely, because I guess even if you're not at private school, if you get sent to a state school, if you're one--off you can afford to have tutors and other means of educating your children and complementing them alongside their school education so what what changes do you think can be made what's your ideal model would it be something like they have in kind of is it denmark or they have amazing state schools for everyone. Finland, they abolished selective and private schools in the 1960s. I mean, they basically made it illegal to pay for education. Now, there were lots of reasons why the Finnish system is so good and got better, although it's by no means perfect. But one of the underlying features is it's fundamentally

a comprehensive system where everybody goes to the same schools regardless of background. I doubt very, I think there probably is a hierarchy within the Finnish system because that's inevitable wherever you go. But the fundamental way that the school organises education is fairer than ours is. And there's no doubt about that. And we're so far from that point. It's really shocking. So I didn't realise about the market thing that you were saying about earlier, because this is another thing I wanted to ask you about this kind of postcode lottery idea, which isn't really a lottery because people will literally move to be near yes good schools and then it creates this unweighted unequal as you say like pools of

very good education with in richer communities what was it like before that market idea then was it just everyone just sent their kids to their local school well i mean the trouble with before is we had this we had a different sort of hierarchy before because we had the grammar school system. So you had the 11 plus, which basically benefited the better off children, got into the grammar schools and everybody went to schools that were secondary moderns, which were the ones that took the bottom 75% of the ability range. If you believe in fixed ability, which I don't really, I don't think you can do a test at 11 and decide what a child's potential is going to be. So, but I mean, we did have probably a very unfair system then. Then the comprehensive ideal kind of came along and most of the grammar schools were got rid of. We had a comprehensive school system. So for a brief period there, it was more equitable probably than it is now. And then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to introduce this thing

about parent choice driving everything. And that's when we got the league tables and Ofsted and inspection reports and things like that. So parents could look and see how their child's local schools were performing. Once that happened, it was absolutely inevitable that the better off, sharp-elbowed parents with all the resources would find their ways into the better schools. And once you've got a better school in the boats, you know, in that market, it's easier to attract the good teachers. And the schools that have got the more challenging pupils and the generally disadvantaged intakes find it harder to attract the good teachers.

And so it becomes like a vicious or virtuous circle, depending on which type of institution you're in. Yeah, and it is really competitively to say, because I even know people who kind of pretend to be catholic to get into certain really good catholic schools and none but what so i went to an amazing private school which was ridiculous and it's i've having gone there afterwards it's like oh my god of course you'd want to send your children there however understanding fundamentally how problem problematic private schools are in that they take away from the i, if you've got all

those, as you said, those really powerful or rich parents that are strong-arming people, their children's going to private schools, the state schools aren't then getting that much care. Would you say that's a fundamental issue with having this private sector of education? Like, how do you think it directly impacts the state schools? Well, I think it's more complicated than that, though. I mean, I would dispute your idea that you got the best education. I feel that my children got a privilege to have a fantastic state school education in a London comprehensive schools. And actually, I think that's given them something in life that I value as much as I would value, you know, their exam results. And incidentally, because they come from a two graduate parent, upper middle class family, they got just about the same exam results as they pass the same sorts of

exams as all my friends who send their kids to private schools. So I don't necessarily think I mean, I think you get all the bells and whistles in a private school. Yeah, but I'm not necessarily sure it's a better rounded education. I think the problem is that there's a competitive advantage for people who have that sort of luxury education. There's no doubt about it. So however much you improve the system, the gap between the rich and the poor will always exist. And schools have got better. It's just that the rich people have just soared away further and further and the poorer children have struggled to keep up.

Sorry, I didn't mean I had a better education. What I meant was when I left the school, I remember thinking, God, my school was amazing. I've actually now, looking back, I don't think my education was any better. I think I would have had the same academic outcome at any school. The things I did get were exactly what you mentioned. You get connections, you meet people, and it's an unfairly privileged circle that you end up befriending. And then, as you say, the bells and the whistles and the the athletic centers and all these other things but what would what would then happen to those

infrastructures and those big private schools that have all these um like equestrian centers and would they get turned into state schools or would they have to be used as a completely different entity what would they what would literally happen in your imagined ideal well i mean it's actually very very difficult to get rid of private schools because a lot of them are based on charitable foundations that go back centuries um so i mean even if you took away their charitable status and said you can't pay they would still exist because they've got independent sources of income. Nevertheless, I think there is a way of trying to make the system, make them do more for what they get. And I've never understood why any political party hasn't seen it as their mission to try and ensure that local private schools engage more fully with the state sector and help them in the ways they need to be helped.

Because what happens now is they get charitable status in return for giving bursaries to the sorts of children that the local state schools want to keep because they're the able and motivated kids. So you just diminish your local state schools if you keep giving bursaries to the sort of the more aspirational families. I think they should be helping state schools in the way that they need the help. So opening up their facilities, you know, helping with children who are likely to be excluded from school. You know, some children would really benefit from the small class sizes, but there's never been any obligation on them to do that. And that would be my preferred way forward, I think, to integrate them more into local state school systems and make sure they play

their part. But the thing is, I think the parents who pay the fees, a lot of them don't want to be integrated with the state sector. The reason they're paying fees is because they don't want their children to be educated with the kids, you know, that they see hanging around on the street corners and the poor kids. I mean, I've had it, you know, when my children were at primary school, I once wrote a piece about all the things that people said to me, you know, you can't send them there because, you know, the children won't have as good manners as you. They'll be black, you know, they'll, your children will speak with a Cockney accent. They won't be able to read.

Ridiculous prejudice is that people had about state schools. It was shocking. In fact, none of those things have turned out to be true. They do have slight sort of estuary tinge to their accents. But that is the sort of prejudice you're up against. And unless you start to integrate these different sections of society, I think we just continue to build up huge problems for the future. I completely agree. And I think we just built continue to build that huge problems for the future I completely agree and I think one of the things I really lacked in my education was um a social awareness of like culture and socio-political issues I really had to unlearn a lot of things that I'd been conditioned to learn in a very small echo chamber of quite rich mostly white people um and I actually think that that's much more damaging than the

other way around. And if anything, it completely doesn't prepare you for life because you kind of enter the world and you've been coddled. So I do agree that I think it's really problematic. I guess the argument people make is they assume that, you know, you're guaranteed this better education if you pray for it and as you say you have more opportunities but the unfairness of that is that all those opportunities as you say are then just again lumped into this one very small group of people who already would have had those privileges anyway i mean i think you might be unusual i think you might be unusual though because the reality is a lot of people don't have to worry about the things that you're recognizing about now because they'll leave their you know exclusive private schools

they'll probably go to Oxford or Cambridge or one of the top universities then they'll sail into one of the professions which are still dominated by people from that background basically white middle-class private school educated Oxbridge mostly men and they never need to move out of that bubble I mean it's fantastic. I think it's really interesting that you're challenging that and questioning whether it was the best thing. But I think there's quite a lot of people who don't question it. They just think, right, I'm the lucky one and I'm just going to make sure my kids are as lucky. And there's people like me who are sort of trying at the other end to try and get the state schools to be, you know, raise up

the chances of these children who don't have those sorts of opportunities it is a real struggle real struggle and what so if our idea is that we want to be making sure that we're kind of funneling more more people to go through these state schools then how do we how do we counter this argument of the people that say like oh well i'm going to send my kids to private school because then it elevates you know some of the pressures of having really full classrooms. Or I'm sure that people make these moral arguments that they think somehow exempts them. What do you say to that? Well, I don't blame the individual parents. I mean, I think one of the problems with this, we brought this debate down to a level of personal choice.

On the one hand, there's personal choice. And people, of course, have the right to do what is the best for their children. On the other hand, you've got the state actors, if you like, the governments, politicians, and their responsibility, I believe, which is what they say they want to do, is to create a more equitable society. Now, the private schools, and to a lesser extent, the grammar schools, had a place in an era when people literally believed you should be educating an elite, and it didn't matter what happened to the rest. I mean, that was the prevailing philosophy in England for 150 years, wasn't it? It's only more recently that people like David Cameron have come out of Eden and said, oh, you know, I believe in social mobility and I want to end up, I want to end segregation and so

on. But they pay lip service to it because they've got to create the system where the parents' choices are constrained in a way. You can't expect parents to do it. I think you've got to create the system where the parents' choices are constrained in a way. You can't expect parents to do it. I think you've got to create the system where those things aren't possible. So there's, you know, I think it's also not just about the private sectors, but all the inequalities in the state sector. As you say, parents can colonize certain schools and turn them into sort of pseudo-private schools, can't they, by buying houses in the area.

So there's things you could do about that. Then there's the funding issue. I mean, it's still shockingly bad that some state schools are funded at a quarter of the rate of their local private schools. And then I think there's an element of positive discrimination at the other end. Universities like Oxford and Cambridge, which are then the end of the little funnel, need to be doing much more to admit a more diverse intake.

And as you say, it's definitely lip service because we've even seen with COVID that children are going back to state schools. And yet Boris Johnson's children have many that are at schools that aren't necessarily open their gates. And so we see this disparity of like one rule for us and one rule for the other and it's odd that it's so obvious and yet they're able to continue as if as as if it's fair it's just difficult to and state schools in the UK they do get such a bad rap like I do just hear and it's really sad to think that teachers don't feel as though their their jobs I mean this is changing obviously this has been one of the great things to come out of the pandemic, because we are really seeing who our key workers are, and it's doctors and teachers and nurses and all those people. Do you think that that would have any impact on the

attitude that people have towards whether or not we need to, one, have more funding and teachers need to be getting paid more, but really give a bit more credence to these things that we kind of just have left to go to but share well i think three things i think one is that the pandemic could have perverse consequences one is that more people may go into teaching whenever there's a recession people go into teaching we would otherwise go into the city or you know corporate life or whatever the second thing is that some parents may not be able to afford private fees so they may look at their local state school and that would be a very good thing.

But unfortunately, I was so heartened at the beginning to see all this positivity towards relatively low-paid public sector workers. But what's creeping into the discourse now is the lazy teachers, they should be working. The kids in the private school are getting much more education, which totally overlooks the complexity of educating a very comprehensive intake where children may not have the home circumstances in which they can access online learning. So I think we need to watch and see in six to nine months' time, will we be demonizing state schools and teachers again? Or will we be saying these are vital public sector workers? I think that probably applies to nurses and so on as well. So I'm quite cynical about that. But I think there is an

opportunity here for us to say, I think the opportunity is to say, look, what this pandemic has shown is the gross inequalities in society. And if you want to eradicate those, you've got to start with education. And you say, the reason they get away with it is because they load all the burden onto parents and say, oh, parents want that. They want to choose those schools. Therefore, we can't interfere with that. But the role of politicians is to make the big decisions about what sort of society they want. And, you know, I'd like to see the Labour Party do this. They need, somebody needs to say,

look, the roots of the education system are very, very unfair. And that is contributing to the fact that we've got a very unequal society. You know, we're not going to tackle the inequalities unless we tackle the school system. Yeah, and I guess the other thing with state schools is often if these children are coming from lower socioeconomic

background where they perhaps don't have like the safety of a nuclear family or their parents are working loads of jobs those schools aren't just schools they are also places of respite for the children and those teachers are taking on so much more which is what makes it so much more unfair because I've heard so many stories of teachers saying they have to, sometimes they have to take a child home to wash at their house, or they have to bring them in food. And those stories are so shocking to think that in a place where, you know, it really should be safe for children, there should be time for these teachers to be able to teach. They don't get the luxury of just teaching. They take on a hell of a lot more. Is that something you've thought

it's been increasing throughout your time well it's got much worse with austerity and i think i think one of the other things to watch now is how quickly we revert back to that you know let's just get they've got to get their exams they've got to pass their exams you know it's all about the progress it's all about the attainment not about their care and their mental health and their well-being because the truth is a lot of state schools are going to have to do a lot of work to get some of these young people who may not have been in school for six months mentally back to a place where they can start learning again. It's not just straightforward as putting them in front of a teacher and saying,

right, you know, off you go, you're doing your GCSEs next year. I think schools are going to be dealing with a lot of psychological and social problems at the end of this pandemic. And people, a lot of these families will have lost relatives to COVID. And don't underestimate the impact that cuts to local government have had, because all the other services that schools need, social services, mental health services, health services, just aren't there in the way they were 10 or 15 years ago. So that's why schools are having to do this stuff, because it isn't really their job to make sure the children get food, get washed.

But nobody else is doing that. So it falls to them. It's very hard to explain to people who haven't experienced that or seen it. I haven't experienced it as a parent or as a child, but as a governor, I witness the impact of it all the time on families. It's very hard to understand what it's like for the teachers who have to welcome those young people in and compensate for everything that they lack in their personal lives in order to get into the sort of starting point that our kids would have been at automatically because they would have left a warm, comfortable house and have had breakfast and have parents who've got books around them who can help them with their homework. And then the other devastating thing is if then we cannot provide this education you are not helping anyone break

that cycle of wherever they've come from which again is through no fault of their own and I think that the sad thing as you mentioned earlier about this kind of punch down idea where government make you feel like you as the individual are the one in the wrong and so with this is I mean this is kind of the cause for so many issues that we have right now but it means that these children who do no fault of their own and probably the parents who no fault of their own have been in a position of poverty or unable to care for them in the way that they wanted to and then these these children never escape and it becomes this never-ending cycle and as we're seeing that that's growing ever more and more what what kind of things i mean

obviously in your work you're constantly lobbying for change but what kind of things direct actions can people take or is it just we need a real truthful awakening for the people that are more privileged especially to recognize just how catastrophic it is for us to be losing our grip on being able to support and provide for these families and children the fact that people like you are talking about it on this podcast is incredibly important. I mean, the truth is education hasn't been a very high-profile topic since Michael Gove stopped being Education Secretary. There's not much attention on these issues, and it's very important.

I think one of the things about the pandemic is people have suddenly thought about the roles of schools in society. But therefore, this is a moment this is a moment to seize because these moments don't come come along very often what i'm seeing is not very radical thinking i'm just seeing people saying well let's just go back to business as usual but sort of accelerate it but that won't really do because in this country business as usual has never really been quite good enough you know unless you want to run a you know your society on the basis that an elite rise up to the top

and they don't let anybody else come and take their places. And fundamentally, that's what we've still got, sadly. You mentioned earlier about, and I also completely agree, I wasn't someone that excelled in exams, even though I would always get told I was really bright. But the traditional format of the way that you're tested I never really like warmed to it and then I've ended up doing really well in a in much more creative industries and not having to fit into those very specific types of learning especially I just don't think it works for for every child it definitely doesn't is that something you think needs to be interrogated that we actually really

need to break down how we're delivering lessons like on a much more specific level as well as how we're actually the infrastructures of the schools and and the and what's provided fanduel casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling winning which beats even the 27th best feeling saying i do who wants this last parachute i do enjoy. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario.

Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. I think one of the things, if I had one thing I could do, I mean, there's a lot of structural stuff that needs to happen. We've talked about that in a way. But if I had one thing that I could do that would be a really radical reform, I think I would abolish GCSEs and move to a system which happens in many other countries where you have a final qualification at 18, which is more like a sort of baccalaureate. And so you can embrace a wider range of activities,

skills, exams, tests, whatever you like into this sort of grouped qualification. So you would also include any social activity you'd done, sporting activity, creative activity, art, music, drama, and you could include more sort of technical and vocational subjects as well. So you'd get a diploma when you left school, but it wouldn't say, you know, you pass three exams in X, Y, and Z. It would say, well, you've got these three exams, but you've also done all these other things as well. And that's what's given you your final passport to go on into the world. I think that would be very appealing to a lot of parents who do want their children to have a rounded education.

And the irony of it is that the things that are being diminished in the state sector are, as you said, the things that people are paying for in the private sector. In other words, fantastic drama, music, art facilities, sports facilities, and so on. We're being told that they don't really count. All counts is the academic subjects, whereas people are paying a fortune to give their children access to those things in the private sector. But we need to value them more in the state sector.

And the only way to do that is to get away from the system where everything is success is defined by a number of exams you pass in particular subjects. Yeah. And it's interesting to think about as well with the current Black Lives Matter movement. And I've signed lots of petitions and been trying to get really involved in people talking about the need to change the curriculum, which I completely agree with, so that we actually teach sort of like Britain's colonial past and change the way that history is taught. And I think that's perhaps opened a few people's eyes to the fact that this curriculum has really been stuck and stale in lessons that aren't really that relevant anymore to the way that we're moving forward, especially in terms of the way that the job market is changing and what kind of roles people are going to be going into. And I think that's putting a lot of people off going into higher education past schools as well, because university kind of seems redundant to a lot of people. They just feel as though, what is that going to do for me? You know,

it just doesn't, it's not worth the money. Is university part of your overall umbrella thing that you talk about when it comes to education? And do you have any thoughts on if that needs to change? Well, the best question I ever heard about education, which is posed by somebody who led a huge study into 14 to nine education about 15 years ago, was what is an, what do we believe an educated nine, what is an educated 19 we believe an educated nine what is an educated 19 year old in this country what do we want that person to be do we want them just to be somebody who can say look here's a little bag and i've got three a levels and nine gcses or do we want them to be somebody whose mind is open to the world who's got transferable skills um who may not have

succeeded academically but may succeed at something else, more creative or technical. And once you get that objective in place, I think you can design a system, and university obviously has a part in that, but so do other forms of training and more vocational further higher study. You can design a system that allows us to create those people. What we create is a very narrow range of young people who currently, I don't know if you're aware of what's going on with the current GCSEs, but the government has increased the amount of content that people have to learn. So it's almost overwhelming. It's just like pack it all in, churn it all out,

and then move on to the next thing. And I don't think that is an education really. I mean, it's a lot of knowledge that people will probably forget. There probably isn't much deep learning going on. At the expense of the other things they may want to do, as you say, you didn't particularly felt you flourished at school. But once you got into a creative environment where you could play to your skills, you felt like you could become successful. And I've got, you know, I've got three, we've got three children, two of whom did sort of academic degrees, one of whom did a more vocational degree. And I say the three,

she's the happiest. And she's the three, she's the happiest. And she's the one who's found the thing she loves doing. But the education system didn't really lead her to that at that time. You know, it led her to doing an academic degree, which she started and then dropped out of after three months. And there is so much pressure. And I don't think you realize when you're younger, because you don't really understand what stress is.

But you're kind of, I remember thinking, oh, my God, I need to be like a doctor. So I was doing like four A levels, trying to make sure that if I suddenly needed to be a doctor when I finished school I could do that because I didn't know you don't get taught about the range of careers that you can have and I remember even doing a biology exam and my dad's a doctor so he taught me things about the heart and I'd written what he'd said and I got a really bad mark and my dad took the paper and he was like well no she's got it right and they said sorry it's not what we've got in the marking scheme I know and obviously we contested we got it back and I ended up getting like an A but it was ridiculous that there was no like that doesn't teach a child anything if you just got to remember I don't remember things unless I understand them

so I could never just revise and remember a sheet of paper Ian McEwan's son went to school locally here in the sixth form and he wrote an essay about one of his father's books and he got it marked and it was sent back and they said, no, no, that's completely wrong. So he showed it to his dad and said, well, that's actually wrong. That's not what I meant at all. So it's all very formulaic, isn't it? That's the problem. And in terms of helping young people to become creative people who can play a part in society, I don't think we are doing as well as we could do. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's not as good as it could be. There are other schools, aren't there?

And I can't remember what they're called, but I know there's certain schools where you only learn sort of social skills up until five or six and then you learn to write. And do you know what I'm talking about? Steiner and things like that, aren't they? But I mean, I think you've got to be a bit careful that you don't end up with something that's so sort of woolly and wishy-washy that you don't understand the basics. And I mean, that's the primary school our children went to was a school like that in the sort of late 80s, early 1990s, where, you know, some of the teachers didn't believe in teaching maths and they did art all day long, but they had nothing in their books. I mean, it probably would have been fine for our kids who would have taught, you know, they would learn to read and write. But for the poorer children who don't have the home learning environment, a lot of kids were leaving at 11 without any literacy or numeracy.

So I'm not saying we shouldn't do the basics. I'm just saying the thing has become so exam driven and the way the curriculum is structured has driven out so much of this stuff that people in the private sector pay for that we're actually compounding the inequalities. Completely. And I think that it's that overarching feeling as well that people feel like there's no jobs and then there's no money and then children are from i don't think i was hyper aware of it but from the sounds of family members that i know 15 year olds are going to like deep anxiety around thinking about what they're going to do and i don't think that's a fair place for a child to be i think you should be allowed to be a child and then i mean i still don't know what i'm going to do and I don't think that's a fair place for a child to be I think you should be allowed to be a child and then you I mean I still don't know what I'm going to do and I don't

think anyone feels completely I mean do you feel that now in your job do you feel like you're 100% where you want to be coming up to retirement but the thing is I mean if I look back over my life what I can tell you is when I was 18 I had no idea of the way my life would go but I mean I was just fortunate in a way that, you know, it was an era where I think there was more flexibility and second chances. And I've done low, well, I think we're going into a whole different area because my life has been defined partly by being a woman and having children, which is another whole story because, you know, girls and boys are equal educationally or in fact girls do better

until they have kids and then they go down another, generally they go down another track altogether. But going down that track provided me with other opportunities to do lots of different things, because I gave up my, you know, full time job as a journalist. And that's how I kind of drifted into education writing and drifted into the political thing. So I have done lots of different things in my life. So I can see that you've all got great opportunities ahead of you. But I'm not sure this education system necessarily prepares people for the future that our kids are going to have to face,

which is going to be not a job for life, but it's going to have to be a lot of thinking on your feet, short-term contracts, you know, taking opportunities where they come, a lot more flexibility. It's very, very rigid. And I think, you know, you talk about the pressure on young people. I think the problem with the pressure on young people is there's so much pressure on parents i think parents a lot of parents feel very judged by how their children perform

which wasn't the case when i was at school or even when our children started primary school and so parents are putting kids under a lot of pressure too because there's it's like a you know david willett's the tory, once said it's like a parental arms race. Whose kids can get into the best school? Whose kids can get the best GCSE results? Whose kids can get into the best university? And that is a lot of pressure to put on young people. Meanwhile, the schools are putting them under a lot of pressure

because they're worried about their league tables and so on. It's just not necessary. But nobody really knows how to stop it. It's like we've unleashed this monster and nobody can turn around and take the heat out of the the situation my parents sent me to the school that i went to because i think they were just like we want the best for our children but my dad still hasn't recovered he's in debt so much debt from sending us there and that's really sad when you think of it that way that parents feel like they've almost got a like got no choice but to try and

find some find this money from somewhere in order to provide their children with an education that they think is suitable. It shouldn't have to be that way. But that's the conditioning now, though, isn't it? That is the conditioning. If you're not doing the best for your child, you're a failing parent. I mean, I had moments when I really did, when our kids were at this failing primary school and people used to say to me, how can you do it to them? You know, you're putting your politics in front of your principles in front of what's best for your children i mean i did have a few dark moments when i had to question myself and speak to friends who'd made the same decision and say are we all mad and i look back now i just think it was

absolutely crazy it was obvious our kids were going to be fine you know they were going to be fine i really believe that i think this is different this is a difficult thing to say but i think that if you're from a stable family home, I really think that academically, generally, you're going to do fine in any school. The sad thing is the children that have less stability at home are the ones that need to be at school like I was at. Absolutely. Because they could have got, they would have taken everything from it. I really didn't.

I really took it for granted. If I went back now, I would do every activity on the sun. I just wanted to run off and smoke behind bike sheds like I did. I really wasn't. I wasn't grateful for it and that's a real shame and and the truth is that I don't think that my I was going to be the same child at any school really there would have been slight differences but I don't think and it's an interesting thing to consider because I had someone message me when I said I was going to talk about this topic and they said but wouldn't you want to give your children a bit like you're what you're saying

you know the best opportunity is but I think that as you say you've got to if we can't say we believe in it how on earth can you campaign for it to change well I think you have to I mean I think the answer to that is is it the best education for them you've articulated in this conversation why you felt there were things you didn't learn which I feel my children have learned I mean they've honestly they've had, I remember the deputy head of the school once at the secondary school, they've got my sons went to saying to me, you know, we've had, we've had, we've got, we've got, I've got, I've seen an old boy from this school who's imprisoned during life for murder and one who's a Nobel scientist.

And that to me seems like that is the, I'm not saying anybody should be a criminal, but the great thing about the comprehensive education is, you know, it turns out people for all walks of life, and they've all had experience of mixing with each other at school. And if we want a society, which, as David Cameron said, he didn't want to see all this, he wanted social cohesion, he didn't want to see a sort of stratified society, the best way to do it, that is for young people of all backgrounds, all races, all faiths, to mix together from a very young age. So that

becomes the norm, I'm afraid. I think it's interesting what you said about your parents and wanting to sort of pay for all this stuff. I mean, it is totally understandable, but that is why we've got to get away from this idea that it's all the parents' fault in a way and make it the responsibility of society to create the sort of society that we want. Privilege is an interesting thing, which I've really come to understand. But the other sad side of things is that if you're at one of these state schools where one, you don't get given enough opportunities, but we were pushed to do everything you wanted to do.

And that's, I think what you get from a private school isn't that it's necessarily better education. People just have more time to focus on you because they're paid better in the smaller classes. And that's fundamentally what you're getting. So you would get, if you said, I want to do this, they'd be like, great, you can do that. That's fine. Whereas if someone from a state school wants to go to Oxford,

I've read horror stories, especially about black children and children of colour who kind of get told not to apply there because the school basically don't want the bad rating of the fact that that kid didn't get in. And also, there's a very good report last year by the Sutton Trust about access to Oxford and Cambridge I mean the truth is that it's dominated by a small number of schools and the reason those schools do it very very well is because they have the people they can afford to have the people on their staff to coach the kids from the age of you know year nine year ten through the sixth form about how to manage the whole interview process and you know if you don't have those resources in a state school,

in an area where nobody at your school has ever been to Oxford and Cambridge, none of the teachers have ever been there, you can't just sort of whistle it up out of nowhere. Although I did go and do a piece about Mansfield College at Oxford recently, which was very, very interesting, because they've actually got the same state private proportion in their intakes as exists in society. So they take over 93 percent of kids from state

schools and they've done it by a very sort of clever form of positive discrimination which doesn't you know it does pick the brightest kids but it looks for the brightest kids from certain socio-economic backgrounds and really tests them to destruction as well and what they found is that sometimes the kids in the private schools just so over prepared so they can't really compete so it can be done but you know I think society replicates itself, doesn't it? That's why, you know, basically white men are in all positions of power. They feel more comfortable when they create as, you know, recreate what they've always known. And I think that's true of a lot of elite institutions and the schools that are having

to battle against that. But hopefully, I think the Black Lives Matter protests will force a lot of really deep thinking about this. And then the second thing is what you said yourself about the kids who'd really have benefited from your education. That's got to be the way forward. If these private schools can have this elite position in society, they should be obliged to take in the pupils from the state sector who'd most benefit from what they've got to offer. But then doesn't it go back to what you were saying earlier, which I hadn't thought about and thought was a really interesting point where you said that the sad thing is that then those children that would have been amazing for that school are taken away from the school? Well, I'm not, no, but I'm not saying it's those, I'm not saying the private schools

should take in the bright, very motivated, you know, middle class kids or, you know, credit crunched middle class kids, which tends to be what happens with these bursaries. I'm saying they should, if a school has a child who cannot achieve, you know, is really struggling in a large class, who really needs a lot of one-to-one attention, who really needs the opportunity to do sport and music. So the most disadvantaged pupils who are the most challenging for the state

sector, they should be going into the private sector, should be be making room for them but of course they don't want them because that interferes with their market position what how do we combat the fact that there is such overcrowding in class i mean i was the my class ridiculous i did chinese gcse and there was four of us in a class so that is just mind-boggling and i know from i've got family members who teachers and you can have 30 sometimes 40 students in a class how would we what would your idea be but do we need to build more schools i don't think the evidence isn't as clear as people think i mean it's quite clear for sort of very very young children but as you get older it isn't necessarily the right thing i just

think it's something that people like to buy don't they because they like to buy that personal attention there is no reason why people can't do well in large classes. I mean, some of these Southeast Asian countries, you know, they have classes of 50, 60, and they're the top performers in the world. But they're basically doing a variety of rote learning and tutoring. And I think it's all the other facilities, isn't it? And the expertise of the teachers and the quality of the teachers, you know, the quality of the teachers. And the quality of the teachers and in some state schools it's very hard to get subject-specific graduates teaching a lot of places in this country and that's i mean you're not going to get children who are very very confidently taught in a subject

if they can't find the good enough teachers to do it and that is huge discrimination exists at that level so you go to some of these sort of left behind areas on the coastal communities blackpool and so on and that's the one thing they struggle with is getting good enough teachers and enough of them but what would you say that on so whether or not students can learn but would you say that for the well-being of the teacher that it's easier to have a slightly smaller class yeah i think obviously if we could have smaller classes that's what we'd have but you know you've got to look at the funding system, and the funding system needs massive reform,

and there needs to be a lot more money. And what's got to come out of this, I'm afraid, this pandemic is the government has got to give state schools a lot more money to help make up the gaps that will have emerged in the past six months, because you're wiping away the benefits of the last 10, 15 years

overnight, and there's no way that's going to be made up without extra resources, you're wiping away the benefits of the last 10, 15 years overnight. And there's no way that's going to be made up without extra resources, one-to-one tuition and so on. And the money that's been offered so far I don't think is good enough. And, you know, it's really going to be tragic. It's going to be very, very hard to put back the pieces with some of these kids. Yeah. And as you said, it has to be more holistic. There's so many more aspects of it that you need.

You're going to need counselling. And these children are going to need, know more attention on on all grounds and i guess the other problem is that with getting rid of youth clubs and things like that as well there's not really any places for children to be children outside of the home i know of kids who haven't left their homes and you may be and they may be an abusive home you don't know that with an abusive parent or domestic violence going on i think that all the stuff that kids can get away from when they come to school, they will have been trapped with that over the past three or four months. It's so much to think about.

But I think it is, I think it's really important to consider how much I think you're right to recognise that it has to be like legislation top down change. Because I think there is a lot of guilt for parents and children alike. And it feels like everyone's stressing and the only people that are sort of relaxed about it are the ones that are actually able to implement the change um i know that you've got 10 off so i just wanted to ask was there anything else that you wanted to bring up that we haven't touched on i mean i'd really be interested to talk to you again actually because i think i think we need people like you to be making these arguments no good me doing i've been doing for years nobody knows what i think but it needs to Ashley, because I think we need people like you to be making these arguments. No good me doing it.

I've been doing it for years and everybody knows what I think. But it needs to be a younger generation of people who are bringing their own people in their own social circles and their parents' generations and the parents of the future to show them a more rounded picture of how the education system works rather than the one that they've been conditioned to believe is the best one. Thank you so much for speaking about that. I'd like to have more in about what brought you to those conclusions, but maybe that's a conversation for another day. Thank you so much for chatting with me.

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