White working-class children have fallen behind because their families can “lack the aspiration and drive seen in many migrant communities,” according to Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools in England.
Spielman’s comments came as she sought to defend the Ofsted schools inspectorate against evidence showing it gives harsher judgments to schools in deprived areas with a high proportion of children from white, working-class backgrounds.
“We can’t pretend that Ofsted judgments are not lower in certain areas – many of them with a high proportion of white working-class children. But that shouldn’t surprise us,” Spielman told an audience at Wellington College in Berkshire.
“Over the past few years, there has been a long overdue debate about white working-class communities in England, and why they have fallen behind.
“We are having to grapple with the unhappy fact that many local working-class communities have felt the full brunt of economic dislocation in recent years, and, perhaps as a result, can lack the aspiration and drive seen in many migrant communities.”
Figures supplied by Ofsted earlier this month showed that schools with a high proportion of white working-class pupils in the most deprived parts of the country were far more likely to be judged as inadequate or requiring improvement, than those in other parts of England.
Nearly half of secondary schools with many pupils from white working-class backgrounds eligible for free school meals were given Ofsted’s lowest two ratings by inspectors, while only 4% received an “outstanding” grade.
In contrast, secondary schools with similar levels of disadvantaged pupils from ethnic minorities had fewer than one in five rated inadequate or requiring improvement, while 29% were rated as outstanding by Ofsted.
Spielman said that Ofsted was not “biased against certain schools” and that she admired the teachers who worked in them.
“What our inspection outcomes do is to act as a call for action in these areas – a call for the right kind of support and intervention. Part of the reason there is this welcome debate about neglected communities, Brexit and Trump aside, is because organisations like Ofsted have highlighted how national policies can fail to reach these communities,” she said.
Michael Wilshaw, Spielman’s predecessor as head of Ofsted, also weighed in with comments blaming parents in white working-class communities.
“The reason why London schools are doing so well, apart from good headteachers and good teachers, is because a lot of the immigrant families care about education, they value education, they support their children,” Wilshaw said.
“I’m working in parts of England with white British populations where the parents don’t care. Less than 50% turn up to parents evening. Now that’s outrageous.”
Wilshaw, a former headteacher in east London, described England’s education as “mediocre” and unable to match countries such as South Korea and Poland.
“We’re mediocre because we’re not doing enough about the long tail of underachievement, which is one of the worst in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development], made up mainly of poor children, mainly made up of white British children from low-income backgrounds,” Wilshaw said.