Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better .....

 

Although this blog does not consider private/prep/public schools, this 100 year old photo still  sums up social inequality in Britain

Earlier this week, a U3A group which I have joined had an interesting discussion on the Attainment Gap in U.K. education. This refers to the inherent inequality in British education which contributes to the reduced academic, achievement experienced by children and young people in the poorest or most dysfunctional families. This educational inequality in fact echoes, and is caused by, the social inequality in British society.

Pre-School.

Published in 2016 though applicable 2023.

A research project, the Millennium Cohort Study, showed differences in cognitive development between children from richer and poorer backgrounds by the early age of three and demonstrated the widening of that gap by the age of five. Children from poorer backgrounds often face less advantageous early childhood caring/life-enhancing environments. This research found for example there might be lower birth weight; lack of breast feeding; maternal depression; less family interaction with possibly less mother/child closeness; less effective home/learning environment such as daily reading or mother/baby communication; parenting styles and routines such as bed times and meals.

Primary School

In Primary School by the age of 11, 75% of poorer children had reached the level of Key Stage 2 compared with 97% of children from more advantaged backgrounds. Poorer children who had performed well in Key Stage 2 at age 7/8 were more likely than their wealthier peers to fall behind by 11 while poorer children who had performed badly at 7 were less likely than their peers to improve their ranking. Some of the factors which might explain this important, widening gap were found to be:

a) Parental aspirations for higher education.

b) How far parents and children believe their own actions can affect their lives.

c) The presence of children’s behavioural problems such as levels of hyperactivity; conduct issues and problems relating to peer relationships.

Parental aspirations and attitudes to education varied strongly, according to socio-economic position with 81% of wealthier mothers of nine year olds saying they hoped their child would go to university, compared with 37% of the poorest mothers. It is believed that such adverse attitudes to education held by the poorer mothers are one of the single most important factors associated with lower educational standards at eleven. But it also suggests that government policies aimed at changing mothers’ and children’s attitudes and behaviours during primary schooling could be effective in reducing the growth of the rich-poor gap during this time.

Secondary School.

The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England found evidence of a slower widening of the gap during the secondary years though, by the time GCSEs were taken, the gap between privileged and deprived youngsters was large. Only 21% of the poorest obtained five good GCSEs at grades A*-C including Maths and English against 75% of the top quintile. It is also more difficult to reverse patterns of under-achievement by the teenage years.

The research suggested that young people are more likely to do well in their GCSEs if their parents:

a) expect their children to go on to university.

b) can devote material resources towards education such as computers; private tuition.

c) spend time sharing family meals and outings,

d) quarrel with their children infrequently.

While a young person can improve his chances of GCSE success if he

a) has a greater belief in his own ability at school;

b) believes that consequences result from his own behaviour;

c) thinks it likely he will successfully apply to get into higher education;

d) avoids risky behaviour such as frequent smoking; use of cannabis; anti-social behaviour;

e) does not experience bullying.

An Intergenerational Picture.

Analysis in the British Cohort Study found that children’s test scores were lowest when poverty had persisted across generations and highest when material advantage was long-lasting. Parents’ cognitive abilities play a very important role in explaining the gap between test scores of the richer and poorer children. Almost one fifth of this gap can be explained by an apparent direct link between the childhood cognitive ability of parents and their children. This was found even after controlling for a wide range of environmental factors and taking into account various factors through which cognitive ability might operate, such as parents’ subsequent educational achievements, adult socio-economic position and attitudes to education. There was also a strong inter-generational correlation between a wide variety of other behaviours and attitudes such as whether a parent regularly reads to a child and parental expectations for advanced education. This passing of such traits across generations also helps to explain the persistent disadvantage that children from poorer backgrounds face in their educational achievement.

The research project, An Unfair Start, focussed on educational inequalities in 41 of the world’s richest countries all of which are members of OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and/or the E.U. European Union. In this rich club, Britain ranks 16. Clearly, Britain needs to improve the life chances of all its children and further, sustained academic and financial support are required for those young people who need it. It is somewhat depressing that this attainment gap and the contingent social problems, have been known about, both informally and through research projects, for decades. So far, efforts to change the status quo have had some small successes but there is far to go.

An interesting comment on educational inequality in the U.K. appears in the title of a new report [Sept 2022] issued by the Institute for Fiscal Studies:

The report is entitled:           The U.K. Education System Preserves Inequality.

Populations that have attained, at least, secondary education. 2006

P

At Sixes and Sevens.

 

En route from Polpo to Six

My title indicates a state of utter confusion which describes my condition after the family theatre outing to see Six last Saturday. I think we were 13 at the Vaudeville Theatre [after a lunch party of 17] all in a state of pleasant anticipation. We have been going on annual outings for lunch in Soho followed by a West End musical since Tom was seven; he will be 30 in one month’s time! During that time, I have enjoyed and often loved, the musicals we saw. My latter confusion, plus stunned amazement, stems from the fact that I really hated the show while two others, shared my reaction. Most of the group thought it was fantastic while three, possibly four, flinched from the maximum volume pop singing and accompanying music. Physically, painful; visually, bright, sparkling, fast-moving, non-stop pop concert-style, gyrating attractive chorus girls-turned- solo singers/dancers/ twerkers who Never Left The Stage, did not use dialogue nor deviate from max pace and volume. Unsurprisingly, I later discovered online that the show’s originators had been students at Cambridge when they composed it. That explains the youthful concept and the ultra-confidence in pursuing it.

The Musical

Two of the Queens

Catherine of Aragon

To be fair, the mixed reactions may be generational; and partly, perhaps, a reflection of musical taste. Also it must be reported that the audience last Saturday, rose as one, to its feet in hommage at the end! Seated,

I felt stunned by the ear-splitting assault of the performance having longed for it to be over.

I have since found online opinions ranging from:

“The energy in the show is amazing. Such fun, great woman empowerment, got a standing ovation. I have seen at least 50 shows in the west end and this is in the top 5, real feel good.”

“Really good fun musical/Quite short but fantastic/We should see it again/All the performers were great

Geoffrey Chaucer
See below!

 “Saw this in Woking, it was like being in a big nightclub. One of the girls in the audience had an epileptic seizure probably all the flashing lights and loud music. No warnings anywhere about this.”

 “ With the gyrating and dubious lyrics not really one for the kids; with the lack of content not one for historians; and with poor diction, shambolic choreography, lacklustre performance and under whelming costumes; not even one for theatre goers. It totally missed the point of the significance of the wifes and how they changed history.”

Meanwhile Critics’ Reviews opined:

“SIX: HOLD ON TO YOUR HEADS, WITH CHEERS AND HUZZAHS! It has mass appeal, immediacy, enthusiasm, and an incredibly high sense of style: and it revels in what used to be called ‘girl power’ but can now more properly be described as simply, or not so simply, power.”

Mediaeval dice games like Hazard

There seems little to add though an explanation of the title might be of interest! We already know that ‘to be at sixes or sevens’ signifies complete confusion about some situation or topic. Interestingly, in use since the 1300s when originally it referred to a popular dice game, Hazard, where throwing a 6 or 7 meant risking one’s entire fortune. By the early 1600s it had come to mean “to take a careless risk” though by the mid to late 1600s, ‘to be at 6s and 7s’ was to be in a state of confusion.

A similar phrase, “to set the world on six and seven” is used by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Troilus and Criseyde, dating from the mid 1380s and seems to mean “to hazard the world” or “to risk one’s life.” William Shakespeare uses a similar phrase in Richard 11, around 1595:

“But time will not permit: all is uneven,

Gilbert and Sullivan

And every thing is left at six and seven.”

The phrase is also used in Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera, HMS Pinafore, 1878, when Captain Corcoran, the ship’s Commander, is confused as to what choices to make in his life, and exclaims in the opening song of Act 11,

“Fair moon, to thee I sing, bright regent of the heavens,

Say, why is everything either at sixes or at sevens?”

And from the sublime to the ridiculous; the debut studio album of the Norwegian Gothic Metal band, Sirenia, was called, “At Sixes and Sevens” and was produced in Norway in 2001.

William Shakespeare

Example of the elaborate footwear
worn by the Queens in SIX.

Sirenia.

Beginnings and Endings.

 

Festive Fun

 It is January 2^nd and I am alone all day after spending lots of time with my local daughter, two grand-daughters and one wife-of-grand-daughter over Christmas and then for lunch on New Year’s Day when a hungover friend and her daughter were also there to enrich the meal with truly magnificent Yorkshire Puddings! A superb meal, as it happens, the like of which I used to cook myself but no longer do since I have become a Cook-follower and stopped any thought of actual cooking myself, or catering or feeding others from my kitchen! This chosen non-culinary course affords me much gratification and enables me to spin the stamina a little further every day, energy having become a rare and valuable commodity!

+

It is the time of year for talk of New Year Resolutions and my present welcome quietude enables me to think about resolutions and my intention to make none. New Year Resolutions are for those

Robert Frost

younger than I; for those earnestly wanting to lose weight; stop smoking; go to the gym more often; give up alcohol, etc Pondering this I am reminded of the blessings of growing old. Gone are the unrealistic, possibly unreachable hopes/ dreams/ aspirations/ resolutions. I no longer want to slim, quit smoking, follow this or that trend. Chiefly, these illusions cluster together on a multi-factorial road not taken! Thank you Robert Frost for painting that particular image in 

The Road Not Taken!

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood and I-

I took the one less travelled by

And that has made all the difference.

Though whether that makes much difference, I doubt, beyond the surface satisfaction of not having to try to do that which no longer interests me. Another grateful nod to the philosophy of ageing; one really does not have to do anything much which does not interest or appeal! No wonder that the upper slopes of ageing, despite the obvious drawbacks, can be tranquil and satisfying.

It is from the above musings that the words Beginnings and Endings have emerged into focus. For almost a year my acquaintance with Bury St Edmunds has begun and grown, the beginning last February, certainly obscured by a persistent feeling of bewilderment and an almost physical feeling of a lack of mooring. I felt slightly, but unmistakably, adrift. So many of my lovely family giving cheerful and valuable help during the early weeks while I tried hard to help sort out, to decide what I might keep but also what I could, and must, give away or sell. My present apartment is perhaps one quarter the size of my Bruges flat and my 

View of my Kentish garden

earlier Kentish house and I had a persistent sensation of mental claustrophobia as books were stacked on the floor, and excess furniture and other belongings piled up, lending a sales-room atmosphere to the every-day. I was pleased to have arrived here, hugely grateful for all the help received but I missed Bruges more than I had anticipated and it took an astonishing length of time and continuing effort before I began to feel that this was home. It was not the facing up to giving away items I had loved for forty years or more; I could do that. The challenge was finding places, people, charities to whom precious objects should be given. It all seemed an enormous, sustained effort, bigger than the actual move! There was a giant chessboard before me with no clearly defined rules or routes.

Some of the Abbey ruins in the Abbey Gardens where
my daily walk occurs.

Eventually, gradually, slowly, all was done and I began to build a life; I felt positive about doing that and positive about my new flat but I didn’t find that spontaneous feeling of joy always present in Beloved Brugge. I recently found a quote from T. S. Eliot which I like.

Little Gidding.

“For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning."

View from the Bonifacius Bridge in Bruges.

It occurs to me now that leaving Bruges [which I didn’t want to do] was an ending, not only to a well-loved location and home, but to that natural stage of growing older, gladly accepted in its comfortable inevitability. I suddenly felt significantly older around a year ago, without any medical reason to account for that, and my decision to move back here, made alone, was the right one; I wanted to be nearer to family, an inchoate feeling at first but gradually came the realisation that it was because of my emerging but unexpected vulnerability. Not quite recognised or acknowledged but intuited. No one can know the future but then again, no one is helpless in the face of any problem whether defined or vague. I decided not to wait, passively, but to create change by design; engineer an ending, unwelcome though that might be! The sense of moving in to action a response to what was a sensation both indistinct and uneasy, rather energised me and it may have been then that the possibility of another beginning in my life began to take shape. As Maya Angelou wrote in

A mature Maya Angelou.

On the Pulse of Morning

“The horizon leans forward

Offering you space to place 

new steps of change.”

And so, to live in Bury near my daughter and grand-daughter, and a beginning to the next phase of life. I am growing accustomed to walking more slowly and clumsily; with a walking pole without which I already feel lost; to slower reactions, both physical and mental; to the occasional memory lapse. But the phrase, "Could be worse" comes to mind quite frequently and I am blessed with an iron will which takes me through the beautiful Abbey Gardens on an early morning walk each day and sees me through two separate hours of personal training each week designed to help my balance, keep me relatively flexible and generally delay, if possible, further depredation. Yes indeed; could be worse!

Part of my Bury terrace with the little 
Bruges boy smiling in his new home.

Farmers' Market in Bury with the listed 
Market Cross building in the background.
That is where we play Mah Jong twice a week.

Longer shot showing the stone pelican from
Waingroves Hall where we lived in the 70s.