Sustaining the Comprehensive Ideal

The Robert Clack School

Trevor Male, Ioanna Palaiologou

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030341558
• eBook ISBN: 9783030341565
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book explores the development of educational leadership within difficult contexts via the lens of a previously failing English secondary school in an area of urban poverty. Based on extensive interview data from 2012-2016, the authors demonstrate that the fundamental ethos underpinning the school's improvement is a desire to meet the needs of young people in disadvantaged communities in order to equip them with the skills to allow them to transcend their situation. The authors posit that this school embodies the 'comprehensive ideal' of secondary education in England: that education should not be disadvantaged by background, and that the state should provide free and high quality education for all. This book will appeal to students and scholars of comprehensive education and schools in difficult contexts.

© The Author(s) 2019

T. Male, I. PalaiologouSustaining the Comprehensive Idealhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34156-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Trevor Male¹ and Ioanna Palaiologou¹

(1)

Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK

Trevor Male

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This chapter provides the background information for the story of the Robert Clack School, a state-funded secondary school in England in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, which went from being a well-respected school to one that was in a state of abject failure in the mid-1990s. The chapter initially details the history of the outer London borough which has experienced radical changes to the local population and economy in the current century. Throughout this time, the borough has experienced sustained high levels of poverty with a decline in the local manufacturing industry (notably the Ford Motor Company) and despite radical changes in the age and ethnicity of the local population. The local education authority (LEA) was committed to the notion of equal opportunity for all students and subscribed to the ‘comprehensive ideal’, the education of all local children in a single school. During the 1990s, however, the Robert Clack Comprehensive School (as it was named at the time) was exhibiting chronic levels of underperformance, highlighted in an inspection report of 1995, which ultimately led to a change in school leadership in 1997. The appointment of a new headteacher was surprising as the successful candidate, Paul Grant, was a radical choice as a head of department within the school with no previous senior leadership experience.

Keywords

Secondary educationComprehensive idealWorking-classCritical hopeImprovement

End Abstract

The Story Begins

This book tells the story of the Robert Clack School, a state-maintained comprehensive secondary school in England, and analyses how the school made the transition from failure to success and has managed to sustain and enhance that status over a period of 20 years (1997–2017) despite changes in local demographics which resulted in the school serving a significantly different ethnic community than was evident at the start of their journey of improvement.

The school is situated in the Becontree Estate in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, an area of in the extreme east of England’s capital city that has consistently featured as one of poverty. Unlike some other schools which changed their student population in search of success, the school continues to serve its immediate local community which comprises almost mainly working-class families. It is remarkable story of success based on a desire to confront disadvantage, particularly by the headteacher throughout this period. This approach bears resemblance to the concept of critical hope (Duncan-Andrade 2009) where the needs of young people in disadvantaged communities are recognised and addressed in order to provide them with ‘control of destiny’ whereby they learn ‘to deal with the forces that affect their lives, even if they decide not to deal with them’ (Syme 2004: 3).

The findings provided in this book are primarily based on data the authors collected from site-based interviews between 2012 and 2016 in the school with the headteacher, other senior leaders, governors, teaching staff, support staff, students, local authority officers and parents. The data set also includes reviews of secondary documentation such as Ofsted reports, internal documentation, press cuttings and correspondence between a parent governor and the previous headteacher. All interviews were audio recorded, professionally transcribed and subsequently analysed through a process of open coding, supplemented by axial coding into the thematic analysis which shapes the book.

Our analysis demonstrates that the ethos underpinning the school’s sustained improvement is a desire to meet the needs of young people in disadvantaged communities in a quest to allow them to transcend their situation. The consequence of the sustained effort we have seen is that that the school has exceeded its prescripted expectations, continues to improve and has lifted both the students and the community’s aspirations exponentially (Palaiologou and Male 2016). This is a school, we conclude, that epitomises the ‘comprehensive ideal’ of secondary education in England, a simple premise that affirms that children’s education should not be disadvantaged by their backgrounds and that the state should provide free, high-quality education for all (Pring and Walford 1997: 6).

The Comprehensive Ideal

The ideas and principles that underpin the notion of comprehensive schools seemed to first emerge in 1918 when a committee of the American teachers’ union, the National Education Association, met to consider the future character of the high school curriculum. Their report, ‘Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education’, rejected a class-based system and instead argued for an approach to secondary schooling that included provisions for ‘unifying youths with different backgrounds, abilities, and aspirations so that they would learn to live together in a diverse democratic society’ (Wraga 1999: 296). The pioneers of comprehensive education placed ‘new faith in human educability which took the place of the fatalism of the past [and to offer] a full, all-round education for all’ (Simon 1997: 26). In its purest form, ‘education should be accessible to all pupils regardless of capacity or background, and “worthwhileness”, in that the curriculum has to be of defensible value so that it enhances the future lives of its students’ (Holt 1999: 330).

The notion of comprehensive schools as an alternative to the organisation of secondary educ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Improvement Process
• 3. Being Part of the School Community
• 4. Leadership: Theory and Practice
• 5. A Shock to the System
• 6. The End of an Era
• Back Matter