From the archive: ‘Parents are frightened for themselves and for their children’: an inspirational school in impossible times
Journalist Aida Damariam spent months at Rose Hill Primary School in Oxford during 2022, documenting how schools are dealing with the aftermath of austerity, pandemic, and cost of living crisis. The piece follows headteacher Sue Vermes' child-centered approach to education in a school where many students face significant challenges, ultimately leading to Vermes' resignation in protest over increasing government micromanagement.
Summary
This Guardian Long Read explores the state of British primary education through an in-depth look at Rose Hill Primary School in Oxford, one of the most deprived areas of the city. Author Aida Damariam spent several months in 2022 observing classes, interviewing staff and students, and documenting how schools are coping with what she describes as a 'perfect storm' of challenges: ten years of austerity, the pandemic's aftermath, cost of living crisis, and constant government policy changes.
Rose Hill serves 300 children, with half qualifying for funding for disadvantaged students, a third having special educational needs, and nearly half speaking English as a second language. When headteacher Sue Vermes arrived in 2014, the school was in crisis with most teachers having quit and extreme behavioral problems. Rather than implementing zero-tolerance policies, Vermes chose a child-centered approach based on the principle that 'behavior is communication' and challenging behavior indicates distress.
The piece details the intensive work teachers do beyond traditional academics - managing trauma, hunger, housing instability, and family crises while trying to educate. During the pandemic, staff made hundreds of home visits, delivered food and supplies, and struggled with inadequate technology resources. The long-term effects on children included weakened immune systems, poor social skills, developmental delays, and significant learning gaps, particularly among the 'COVID kids' who missed crucial early education.
Vermes transformed the school's culture and attracted high-quality staff through her approach, but constantly battled against government mandates she felt were counterproductive, particularly the requirement to use only systematic synthetic phonics for reading instruction. Despite apparent success in creating a positive school environment, Rose Hill was rated 'inadequate' by Ofsted in 2015 and 'requires improvement' in 2017, leading to forced academization. Ultimately, Vermes resigned in July 2022, citing the phonics requirement as the final straw in her battle against increasing micromanagement that prevented her from protecting her staff and implementing what she believed was best for children.
About this episode
We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2022: Austerity, the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis have left many schools in a parlous state. How hard do staff have to work to give kids the chances they deserve? By Aida Edemariam. Read by Lucy Scott. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>
Key Insights
- Damariam argues that a whole cohort of children has been changed or failed by the combination of austerity, the cost of living crisis, the cutting of Sure Start centres, and pandemic responses, with damage that will persist throughout their lives
- Vermes believes that behavior is communication and that challenging behavior indicates distress, requiring adults to understand what is being communicated rather than simply punishing the behavior
- The author contends that children with the least resources to mitigate pandemic impacts suffered the most, intensifying pre-existing inequalities rather than creating new ones
- Teachers at Rose Hill work extensively beyond teaching hours, often arriving at 7am and staying until 6pm or later, contradicting assumptions that teachers have easy schedules with long holidays
- The school staff observed that the pandemic's impact on children included weakened immune systems, poor social skills, difficulties with play, increased behavioral incidents, and significant learning gaps particularly in early years students
- Damariam argues that society would benefit from better supporting the most vulnerable and youngest members, with data showing that early intervention reduces costs across prisons, healthcare, and other systems
- Vermes contends that the government curriculum has become too focused on 'pouring information into empty vessels' rather than enriching what children already possess, citing restrictive approaches to subjects like art and reading
- The author demonstrates that teachers must simultaneously manage academic instruction while tracking complex individual needs including trauma responses, hunger, family instability, and behavioral triggers, requiring extraordinary multitasking skills
Topics
Transcript
This is The Guardian. The Guardian Archive Long Read. Hi, my name's Aida Damariam. I'm the author of Parents are Frightened for Themselves and for Their Children, an inspirational school in impossible times, which was published in 2022. So this piece came out of the moment just after the pandemic when schools were opening and everybody was going back to work. There was a lot of talk about how children had been affected and it seemed like a good time to actually talk to some children and talk to people who worked with them all the time to see exactly what was going on. I also had a child in primary school and I was a child in primary school…
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