Amy Winehouse, Adele and Jessie J are no reason for new grammar schools | Laura McInerney
If some children attend specialist performing arts schools, why shouldn’t smart kids attend grammar schools?
That’s a useful question for politicians who want more selective schools. After all, if there’s no data to suggest grammar schools improve educational outcomes (and on grammars there isn’t), and no logical reason for your idea (why would a separate building make smart kids smarter?), then the simplest way to win people over is point to another kind of specialist schooling and shout: “Doesn’t your child deserve special treatment too?”
Hence, last week the government approved several new specialist schools, including one with a film specialism.
The Working Title School, named after the company that made hits such as Love Actually and Billy Elliot, which is sponsoring the school, will join a small group of state-funded performing arts schools, such as the Brit school in Croydon, famous for producing musical talent such as Adele, Amy Winehouse and Jessie J, and Birmingham Ormiston academy.
Creating schools such as these is a handy way for the government to point out that parents like choice and, lo, if some kids with a creative bent can have an artsy education, why not give clever-clogs kids a specially academic one? But the two school types aren’t the same.
First, attending stage school is not necessary for success. In last week’s Bafta award nominations, none of the nominees for best actor or actress attended a specialist secondary school.
Contrary to popular belief, the main argument for these schools isn’t that you have to pick out the talent and give them training early – an argument that would suit the pro-grammar school crowd. The reality is more pragmatic.
Kids cannot sweep chimneys any more, but they are allowed to take paid work gallivanting around West End stages or acting in movies, which can conflict with school hours. The training is also often gruelling. Wannabe ballet dancers put in hours before and after school, plus attending competitions on the weekend, which involve travelling long distances and brutally long days. Up and coming musicians must practise daily, attend concerts, often returning late, and without a chance to do overnight homework.
One student I taught was an international Irish dancing champion – if he wasn’t practising or competing, he was working at weddings and festivals to earn money to afford to practise and compete. He wanted more medals. I wanted him to turn up to sociology A-level. You can see the impasse.
Performing arts schools therefore help solve two problems: squeezed time, by having training on site, and a flexible leadership team that understands the strain pupils are under. A performing arts school principal can easily explain to inspectors that absences are due to Hollywood schedules, not so the head of your average comp.
None of these practical constraints is analogous for academically top-performing kids, as they are good at the very thing schools are forced to focus on: academic attainment. In the past, the way schools were measured did focus teacher attention on middling children – those expected to get C or D grades. But a shakeup of metrics has changed all that. Now, teachers must focus on everyone.
And while it is true that some bright kids stand out as different to their peers, and so have a tough time, that’s true for lots of children. But unless we are going to create schools for tall or short or ginger or gangly kids, then standing out doesn’t seem a sufficient reason to siphon off children. Far better to tackle issues of bullying head on.
What we can learn from the performing arts school system is the benefits of specialist tutors. Luckily, this can be replicated in comprehensive schools, even where the numbers of high-attaining pupils is low. Last year, The Brilliant Club, a social enterprise, sent PhD students into 450 schools to stretch pupils’ thinking. The United Learning Trust, which runs private and state-funded schools, has a rocket scientist teaching its top science pupils via video link. The Further Mathematics Support Programme arranges extra tuition for highly able A-level students if their schools can’t provide it.
When Justine Greening says “every single child” should be helped “however different their talents are” she is absolutely right. But for the academically able this can be done within a comprehensive setting and the existence of performing arts schools does not prove otherwise.
