This last few months really has given lie to the myth that the difference between schools in affluent areas and deprived areas is just curriculum and if you make the latter more like the former then outcomes will improve.

Needless to say Ofsted have jumped on that simplistic, populist bandwagon too.

The issue is the deprivation. That is the the gap. And schools in the most deprived areas are having to battle that and also pick up the slack of an emasculated care services sector

And then have Ofsted come in and publicly shame them for the crime of serving the most deprived.

'We've huge FSM, massive social care needs, there are no services available left to work with us, speech and language a huge issue, SEN is massive, barriers to learning are a norm not an exception, we have no budget...'
'Yes yes but tell me about progress in Y3 Geography.'

All swept away with that tiresome phrase 'the soft bigotry of low expectations' as if schools working their socks off supporting our poorest communities lacked ambition. Nonsense. Just a convenient way of whitewashing the confortable, middle-class bias of the education revolution

That's the tragedy. What could have been a noble desire to ensure all children had access to a rich curriculum instead became justification of shaming and questioning the moral rectitude of those in our toughest schools battling just to create the conditions for its reception.

You don't overcome the effects of deprivation by pretending it doesn't exist. You don't magic away the real life impact of poverty by muttering some slogan about no excuses. You can't just fingerwag and bootstrap out of poverty. And only those in ivory towers ever think you can.

Stoicism, ambition, determination, aspiration, resilience, dedication, commitment are all virtues we should encourage and that can help an individual. None of them are solutions to deprivation, to systemic disadvantage. They're just a way of making the victim pick up the tab.

And it's not just about the school. This is about the whole community https://twitter.com/michael_merrick/status/1255397459708317704?s=19