Alan Milburn suggests that primary schools should be asked to spot children at risk of future unemployment (Primary schools to be told to identify children at risk of future unemployment, 7 August). Intervening early makes sense. Children who miss a lot of school do tend to drift away from it later, and waiting until someone is 18 and out of work is obviously too late.
But there is a difference between spotting what a child needs and deciding what they will become. An 11-year-old should not end up with a label attached to their name – “likely future Neet” – because poverty, absence or a difficult home life puts them in the wrong council or government file. Use those signs to offer tutoring, mentoring and proper support, by all means. Just record the help a child needs, not the failure we expect from them.
I’m 16, and I’ve seen friends written off long before anyone bothered asking what was going on at home. Statistics are useful because they show governments where to act. They turn harmful when a probability about a group becomes a verdict on one child.
Emad Rehman
Wallington, London
Alan Milburn’s suggestion to spot pupils at risk of joblessness would be a start but, in itself, would be pointless and risk further alienating children and their families who are already marginalised and disadvantaged, socioeconomically and otherwise.
In order to ensure that all children and young people are able to gain from meaningful education, be equipped for work and avoid being pushed in the “school-to-prison pipeline” that is the fate of too many, we need to think systematically about nursery provision.
That it is possible to avert the multiple disasters of poor education, young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) and juvenile crime has been studied in the US since the 1970s.
Children who attended nursery settings based on the psychological theories of Piaget and others have been found, 50 years later, to be significantly more likely to have good health and employment than those who did not. Those subject to different modalities of early years provision were later more likely to be unemployed, imprisoned or experiencing drug and alcohol abuse.
Simon Gibbs
Emeritus professor of inclusive educational psychology and philosophy, Newcastle University
Alan Milburn is no doubt correct to suggest that we need to get “upstream” of the problem of Neets, but the answer is not to give schools yet another responsibility for which they are underfunded, and teachers and school leaders another responsibility in place of parents.
There used to be a highly effective provision for supporting families to set up their children to thrive in life, which intervened in the crucial early years: it was called Sure Start. Bringing this back would go a long way to tackling the problem, and many others downstream, in education and in society.
Jane Berridge
Secondary school teacher, Leatherhead, Surrey
I taught in state primary schools for 20 years. Asking primary teachers to address societal problems has always been seen as a solution, and clearly still is. It’s easier and cheaper to shift the responsibility rather than taking the wider view.
I once had a heartbreaking conversation with a little boy who told me that when he grew up he wanted to “get enough money to buy a job”. Hopefully, identifying and offering extra support to these children will help them, but it won’t solve the problem of Neets.
Secondary education in the Netherlands offers different pathways for children. I believe that adopting that system would offer a more holistic approach to solving the problem.
Stephanie Garrett
Brighton
