The Exclusive Pursuit of Social Inclusion

Conclusion

The underpinning prioritisation of academic school subjects effectively strangled new attempts to develop a more inclusive curriculum in comprehensive schools. This pattern of social prioritising was finally consolidated in the new ‘National Curriculum’ of 1988 which almost exactly re-established Morants Secondary Regulations of 1904 – The Public School and Grammar School Curriculum was firmly re-instated. A pattern of subject knowledge based on selective exclusion became the lynchpin of the curricula to be offered in comprehensive schools.

Into this stratified and exclusionary terrain came the New Labour government preaching social inclusion and missionary morality. Their focus was on tightening up delivery on targets, tests and tables. But they never even questioned the exclusionary foundations on which their policies were to be built. In Britain there were the leading researchers in the world on the history of school subjects and on the patterns described above. Not one of these researchers was ever consulted by the government. They pursued social inclusion employing a wide range of well-honed exclusionary devices. The results were precisely as Ruth Kelly recorded – the pronouncements in favour of social inclusion produced results that further extended social exclusion. Tony Blair of Fettes College and Durham Cathedral and his offspring at the Oratory School should take a moment to listen to an earlier Labour leader often pilloried because he stood firm on his principles and understood the complexity of the task of pursuing social inclusion in the face of elite opposition:

We are not here in the world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiatives I would answer “to hell with them. The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do” (Michael Foot, 2001).

Certainly under New Labour education policies the top have done well and the bottom have suffered. It is not a legacy any of us can take pride in.