children would do better than they did. Sometimes this determination was directed
internally within the family, sometimes externally towards the school or the system.
With this as background we can report the following. We stress that we were not
conducting an overall evaluation of schools and schooling, but tracing links between
people’s experience of schooling and their subsequent trajectories.
1. It is remarkable how often the example of a single good teacher was reported,
even or especially by those who had not enjoyed school. It must be encouraging
that such memories are retained, and have provided a lifeline back into
education for people whose initial experience was discouraging. This was not
necessarily linked to doing better in the particular subject that that teacher was
teaching; at its most basic, it was a matter of being in touch with someone who
struck a chord. Even then it was not always a question of actually liking the
teacher, but of respecting them and feeling respected by them.
2. School ethos is perhaps a nebulous concept, but it emerges as important for
students’ self-image and for their attitudes to education subsequently. Instilling
and developing a sense of social belonging and responsibility contrasts with
undermining and marginalizing students who do not fit in. Respect for others is
a significant distinguishing characteristic between the experiences of those
educated in England and elsewhere (elsewhere including other parts of the UK).
Almost all those who had been schooled in other countries referred to the
respect they had had for their teachers, whilst many who had attended schools
here, especially losers, referred explicitly to a lack of respect having
characterised relations with teachers.
3. Respect is linked to communication and confidence. The ability to communicate
effectively with other is something that many schoolchildren clearly lack. This
must to some extent be part of growing up, but respondents speak of the
difficulties they had, especially in speaking in front of others. Improved
communication, at a variety of levels, emerged strongly as a fundamental
general benefit, second only to confidence.
4. Relatedly, schools and colleges are important sites of basic socialisation. At one
level this is entirely predictable; it is where people first learn to get along with
others outside their families. But the importance of this function is easy to
overlook precisely because it is so fundamental, especially in a society of
increasing cultural diversity.
5. Guidance, whether on subsequent education or on careers, had often been
erratic, arbitrary or absent. This is somewhat age-related, since guidance has
only assumed prominence in school and post-school curricula relatively recently
(and Connexions will already have had an effect). Its absence was not always
detrimental, but it could be. And where it was poor it led to stereotyping (on
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