Peter Gale Nonsuch

Peter Gale discusses culture views towards race in the education system in the below blog.Peter Gale is a Surrey-based educational professional. Skilled in various areas across the field of education, he has established his expertise over a career that has spanned more than 20 years in the field. Having served in a variety of roles in the various educational institutions that he has had the pleasure of being a part of, he is a passionate educator whose main vision is to always affect positive changes in country’s educational system.

The phrase white working class is an odd one. Thanks to its commonplace use though, a lot of people seem to pay attention to the fact to this oddness. In most cases, it denotes both contempt and pity.  On one hand, it is a phrase describing the section of the population that has been left behind and have been lost through deindustrialisation and globalisation. It is also used to describe the bigoted and the uneducated, especially those that support Brexit and Donald Trump, and have a rather hostile attitude against foreigners and immigration.

This particular discussion gives us an insight on how populations between whites and non-whites are regarded. Whites seem to have a class division. Meanwhile, the non-whites are often lumped together as classless communities. This is a perspective that does not only ignore the social divisions present within minority groups, but also racialises class distinctions.

At present, the focus seems to be on women’s agendas and ethnic minorities. This has caused some negative impact on the boys belonging to the white working class. This is because they are not really being told to learn or to aspire. According to statistics, boys from the white working class do tend to perform the worst when compared to other groups in any British school. This has been an alarm that has been raised by numerous organisations across the country.

Undoubtedly, racisms have indeed played a part in how some children in certain minority groups were performing poorly. Class differences are doing the same thing too. However, the academics and the policymakers have become way too fixated by ethnic categories that they ended up ignoring class differences as a result. This is despite the fact that an Ofsted report in  2000 highlighted the impact that social class has over the performance of kids in school- in this case, it was shown to be more than double that of the impact of ethnicity. For some reason, the data was just ignored.

Class differences do persist. In secondary schools alone, children who have a Caribbean or Bangladeshi background are three times likely to get free meals from the school compared to those pupils who are Indian or Chinese. They are twice as likely to receive these free meals too compared to the white ones. While the performance of pupils who belong to the disadvantaged minority has dramatically improved over the years, that of the children from the white working class has just stagnated.

This growing marginalisation has shaped the way that children of the working class have looked upon themselves, and the way that they were looked upon not just by their teachers but by the authorities too. These days, the working class seems to be just an object of contempt and derision, and are referred to as chavs. The social organisations that used to give the lives of the working class the solidarity, dignity, and identify have since disappeared. This is why if people are really serious about addressing the problems that are faced by both the minority groups and the white working class, it is time to address the relationship between class and race differently. Read more about Peter Gale who previously worked for Nonsuch School here, Follow Peter Gale on Twitter here and Read Peter Gale other blogs here to learn more about the education system in the UK.  Watch Peter Gale Nonsuch Video below. 

Read Peter Gale Nonsuch new blog post about the growing problem of students suffering from underdeveloped vocabulary. 

Teachers in the UK are encountering an increased number of children that are suffering from stunted vocabularies. This seems to be a situation that is haunting not only primary schools but secondary ones as well. Teachers also fear that such deficiency in vocabulary might hold these students back not only educationally but socially as well.

In response to this growing problem, there are schools that have chosen to adopt certain approaches such as highlighting the use of informal words and encouraging pupils to widen and improve their use of the English language.

A survey consisting of 1,300 secondary and primary school teachers across the country revealed that over 60% of the respondents saw a rise in the incidents of pupils from all ages that show underdeveloped vocabulary. This often leads to negative behaviour, lower self-esteem, as well as difficulty in gaining new friends in some cases.

The report also revealed that this word gap among many students even remained quite high during their secondary years. According to experienced educational professional Peter Gale, this can present a problem since teachers tend to have lesser time and even fewer resources that will allow them to tackle this issue head-on.

These findings are quite significant especially since language development is a very important focus in the first few years of education. There has been relatively little research conducted when it comes to language deficit among children and as they progress to secondary education.

Teachers from secondary schools have also asserted that deficiency on vocabulary among students often holds back their progress not only in the English subject but also across a number of other subjects such as geography and history. Students that tend to have low vocabulary are also not likely to do well in terms of national tests. They also tend to have a hard time understanding questions and instructions that are included in the papers.

In addition, about a third of teachers from secondary schools have reported that there is also a widening gap in vocabulary between the first and the last years of secondary study. Majority of those that have been surveyed blame this to the declining number of students that read for pleasure, which is especially true among older students.

Both teachers in the secondary and primary schools also agreed that the impact that this will have on students will likely be severe. About 80% agree that children who have vocabulary efficiency are likely to suffer from lower self-esteem. In addition, teachers that come from schools have a higher number of children that are eligible to get free school meals are also likely to encounter more students that have low vocabularies. Greater involvement among parents may be a good way to help the children improve their vocabulary in the process.