Factors Within School That Affect School Achievement

Another issue is that school are middle class institutions that are run by the middle class. This then makes the forms of knowledge, values, ways of interacting and communicating ideas better suited to the middle class students. When working class pupils lack these qualities they tend to have less chances of succeeding in education. The curriculum is also connected to the middle class, for example in history it mainly deals with kings and queens and the ruling class and not the vast majority of ordinary people. Also in English at GCSE Shakespeare is still a compulsory piece of coursework, due to the nature of his plays and the language within them it would be harder for working class students to understand this and so they are less likely to do as well in this part of the exam. Middle class parents are also important here as they are more likely to be able to get their children into oversubscribed schools and private schools. Before they were banned in 2005 interviews with the head teacher were used as they told the head teacher what kind of parents they were and what class they were in. This meant that head teachers could exclude certain students from their school after they found out that their parents were working class or that they did not have much money. It is considered very unfair to working class students which was why they were banned as children who had a lot of potential and who could have been very clever were not allowed at the good schools because their parents did not have good enough jobs and that they were considered working class. It meant that many clever children were sent to bad schools and so they were less likely to do as well in school and more likely to underachieve. They would also be more likely to be around students who do not want to learn and who could be a bad influence on them.