Abysmal exam results – the deeper causes

Almost 40% of students in the UK failed to pass English and Maths GCSE this year. The pass rates were even worse for those over 17.There was strong regional variation. Why?

Opinions vary. The fall-out from the Covid pandemic? The failure of the previous government’s Levelling Up Policy? A shortage of maths teachers? The absence of job prospects in the underperforming? regions?

I find this range of answers narrow.

Our policy? discussions often seem to run along parallel and unconnected tracks. We have one discussion about migration; one about inequality and social mobility; one about skills and apprenticeships; one about teaching methods. ?Yet some problems are systemic in nature; or to put it another way, those recurring headaches may actually be a symptom of something else in the body – or mind.

Our headache may be the abysmal exam performance of many 16 year-olds. Perhaps the underlying problem is all the circumstances and life experiences – or lack of them – through ?which our 16 year-olds are expected to grow up. This is what the French call ‘formation’ – the entire process by which we shape the adult citizens of tomorrow.

There are some simple principles to follow if we are improve educational attainment in sixteen year-olds, especially among those who may lack encouragement at home, and those whose? feel like a fish out of water in the conventional classroom.

First, the student ?needs to have some understanding of where all this is leading and some early sense that it is their life and they need to be taking charge of its direction. ?

This means that someone, somewhere, has engaged them in an individual? dialogue about their enthusiasms, their capabilities, their potential.

Secondly it means that inside and outside school, they find themselves exposed to a variety of subject areas in which they have the potential to excel – allowing some experience of art, design, drama, sport, music, nature, science and electronics as part of or as a complement to the defined? core.

As Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma said recently to the World Economic Forum.

?‘if we don’t change the way we teach our children, we will be in big trouble soon……A lot of what we're teaching our kids is based on stuff that's been around for the past 200 years. We need to focus on teaching our kids skills that machines can't replicate. Stuff like having confidence in themselves, thinking outside the box, working with others, and caring for people. ‘These are all things that can't just be learned from a textbook. That's why it's so important to encourage kids to explore their interests in things like music, art, and other creative areas. By doing that, they can really develop their own unique personalities and stand out as individuals. ‘Let's make sure we're teaching things that machines can't do better, and that we're helping our kids become well-rounded human beings.’

Third, the word experience is important. There are very few students for whom learning takes place in an academic vacuum. For most of us it is experience that alerts us to the importance of study. A field trip may bring geography to life for some. The experience I had of helping recent Asian migrants to learn English alerted me to life skills I didn’t know I had. That Young Enterprise? experience of working with others to start a business may have alerted someone to their entrepreneurial potential, or perhaps simply their flair for finance.

Fourth, before leaving school, there are some lessons of life and personal effectiveness which cannot be gained from studying for exams. Yet it is vital students leave school having learned them. For example that curiosity matters more than knowledge; success and achievement is not all about individuals; teams and groups achieve things that individuals never will; happiness for oneself may better be achieved by thinking about the wellbeing of others.

Finally, if we are motivate students to achieve in exams, we need to understand the importance of feeling worthwhile through being a positive contributor. Alec Dickson, founder of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) called it ‘the biological need to give’. He was describing the excitement, the challenge, the vast personal growth that is offered to young people when suddenly they discover they are needed, when they walk into a world uninfected by the ‘diploma disease' and are allowed to get on with the job of helping others.

It is demoralising to feel that one may only become a valued member of society after school or university. Consider this paradox. Before the industrial revolution, physical maturity – the ability to have children – came something like three years later than it comes today. Yet for most of the population social and economic maturity – being a contributor to the economy – came much earlier. By the age of seven a child would be playing a part in the family economy. The economy was interwoven with the life of the family, whether it was through growing food or keeping animals or weaving or making things. No-one wants go back to that world. Yet? in designing our education today, we should recognise that while physical adulthood is arriving three years earlier, we have pushed social and economic adulthood back by between five and ten years.

Until we make changes that deal with the phenomenon of deferred adulthood, we will continue to breed dissatisfied and under-achieving sixteen year-olds and be disappointed by the scores they achieve in Maths and English.

Mark Goyder is the Founder of Tomorrow’s Company which since its foundation in 1996 has worked to inspire and enable business to be a force for good in society. Tomorrow’s Company has now developed a ‘Future Skills’ programme for 14/15 year olds centred around a journey of innovation, curiosity and enterprise, to run in over 15 English academies and schools. The programme introduces a range of career paths and learning opportunities, raising aspirations and inspiring? students to discover their own purpose. ???