Mark Andrews: Making school nicer is not the way to tackle truancy epidemic
My abiding memory was how dark it was. I was convinced it was the dead of the night, but my mother assured me it was just early in the morning. After months of delays, it was finally my first day at school.
During my wait for a school place, I had nurtured the notion that I was missing out on something really exciting and fun. Then, having been put in a drab, grey classroom, shouted at for talking, and ordered to sit on cold, hard floor for assembly – and then being told my handwriting wasn't up to scratch – I promptly came to the conclusion that school wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
And then the news was broken to me that it would be like this day in, day out, until, well, when I was grown up.
Outlining her plans to tackle the truly appalling levels of truancy in Britain since lockdown, Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, says schools have a responsibility to create 'welcoming, engaging and inclusive spaces'. She is wrong.
I don't think there was such a thing as 'inclusivity' when I started school, but it certainly didn't feel very welcoming or engaging. At the time, it felt like a prison for five-year-olds.
But school was also the making of me. It taught me that life is very often about doing things we don't like, wearing clothes we find ridiculous, and complying with irksome rules. That life isn't always fair, and that sometimes it is more pragmatic to accept injustice with a sense of humour rather fight battles you are always going to lose. I didn't go to school because it was welcoming, inclusive, or engaging, I went there because it was the law and because my parents made sure I did.
The Education Secretary is right to crack down on the truancy epidemic, but mollycoddling errant kids and indulging deadbeat parents with talk of 'inclusivity' is only storing up trouble for the future. It needs to be all about the stick, not the carrot.
Because education is not just about learning academic subjects, important though those are. It is also about learning to conform, to fit in with a wider society, and taking responsibility for your own decisions.
If children go through life believing grown-ups have a duty to make them feel good about themselves, they are going to be in for a shock when they enter the real world.
Which is sometimes not very welcoming, inclusive or engaging at all.
