School advice? Be wary of tunnel vision
A school recommendation that is too low just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so don't be too careful. “Don't let your children lose opportunities so early.”
Image: Nino Maissouradze
How do you give all children the opportunities they deserve? That's what good school advice is all about, says educational sociologist Herman van de Werfhorst of the University of Amsterdam. In practice, it appears that teachers often underestimate the abilities of children. Almost one in three children makes the final test so much better that an upward adjustment of the school advice would be justified. However, this only happens in 10 percent of the recommendations. When no central final test was taken in 2020 due to corona, the advice given was not reconsidered. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular were the victims of this. Van de Werfhorst: “Making that final test less important is therefore unwise, because it has a neutralizing effect. Especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
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Teachers naturally want the best for their students, emphasizes the educational sociologist. “But they weigh all sorts of things, which it is not said to be righteous to weigh. They not only look at test performance, but also at motivation and whether children are helped at home. That is understandable and it is done in good faith, but it is better to look at how you can support those children than to give them a lower recommendation.”
Image: Nino Maissouradze
In the Netherlands, teachers are forced to categorize and sort very early on, says Van de Werfhorst. “There is a lot of test information, there is the student tracking system. We think that with the data from XNUMX-year-old children you can already predict what they can ultimately achieve in education.” A comparison between teachers from New York, Oslo and Amsterdam showed that in the United States and Norway there is much more confidence in the developmental capacity of children. “They do not believe that when you are eleven it is already determined what you can handle later. They are more naive in the positive sense of the word.”
Stacking
Rather cautious advice, you can always stack later, is the Dutch reasoning. But that is happening less and less due to the rigid structure of our education system, says Van de Werfhorst. “The school communities are only getting smaller and every research shows that changing levels is becoming less common.” In this way, teachers' expectations ultimately become a self fulfilling prophecy: a child starting VMBO rarely moves to HAVO after one or two years.
Sara Geven conducts research into inequality in school advice at the University of Amsterdam. She says: “Children from lower social backgrounds receive lower advice, even if they perform the same or achieve the same final scores.” This may be due to, among other things, unconscious biases, says Geven. “Teachers sometimes see the home situation as a barrier. I would advise to ensure a warm transfer in those cases. Make sure they know how to support this student in high school.” It is also not only about the recommended level, she believes: “It is sometimes also important which school it will be: perhaps a somewhat smaller school or a school with a broad first year class, so that a pupil can progress more easily. Don't let your children lose opportunities so early.”
How can teachers advise more honestly and better? By talking about it as a team, Geven advises. “Collect information from various sources. Look for alternative explanations for disappointing performance. Ask someone who does not know the child to look at it with fresh eyes. Be wary of tunnel vision.”
Do not only recommend a level, but also a school: perhaps one with a broad first grade or smaller classes
Mutual tuning
Niels de Ruig is a teacher for groups 6, 7 and 8 at the 5th Montessori School in Amsterdam. He is also a research coordinator for higher education at STAIJ, which includes eighteen public primary schools in Amsterdam. Recently he talked to a group of colleagues about the school advice. De Ruig knows that the assessment is done carefully, together with internal supervisors, management and colleagues. But he also notices that every school deals with the advice differently and that it is sometimes viewed differently within one school. “As a school, we now want to coordinate what we pay attention to, how we approach it. For example, when it comes to the weighting of test results, or the attitude to work. If that is on paper, everyone can fall back on it.”
Collect information from various sources. Look for alternative explanations for disappointing performance
De Ruig: “Children of highly educated parents often learn better planning at home, for example, which we believe is part of a good attitude to work. You have to realize that such a good attitude to work is not always a coincidence and that you can also teach students in skills that go with it, such as self-regulated learning.” It has now been agreed at his school that the home situation of children only counts if it has a soothing effect. “So not 'this child might be able to do havo, but it's such a mess at home, so VMBO-t is better', but: 'despite the difficulties at home, this is going quite well. We will turn it into a havo recommendation.”
Skills that belong to a good working attitude, such as planning, can be learned
In the seven years that De Ruig has been teaching, he has given about fifty to seventy pieces of advice. Has he gotten better at it? "Yes. I look at it differently now.” He knows the studies out there and has done his best to get rid of his own biases, he says. “I myself attended pre-university education and university. I had stereotypical ideas about what a HAVO student is, or what a VMBO school looks like. I now go to secondary schools a lot and talk to teachers, score teaching materials and try to understand: what kind of school is this, how do they work here, what can you do with them? Then you also know better where to send a child.”
Doubt
Another important insight: “When in doubt, always advise higher. I hear from the educational field that teachers are inclined not to do this, but research shows that a student who performs high in VMBO is cognitively equal to a low-performing HAVO student. A higher intake means: more opportunities, more choices.” De Ruig argues in favor of realism: “There are teachers who say to a child with basic VMBO advice: 'Ultimately you can end up at university via VMBO-TL and HAVO and VWO'. It's possible, but it's not very likely. If a child wants to become a veterinarian and has basic pre-vocational secondary education advice, it will probably never make that growth. Give a realistic story about what a child can do with that.”
When in doubt, always advise higher
Researcher Sara Geven: “I see that there is a momentum to change things. Everyone sees that our early selection leads to more inequality and fewer opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Also through a book like Be invisible by Murat Isik, or the docuseries classes. The Education Council recently recommended abolishing the advice in group 8 and opting for a three-year bridging period. This may not be widely implemented very soon, but it will have many consequences for the educational landscape and the schools as they exist today. But it is widely recognized that the first years of secondary education must become more flexible and that students must be able to change level more easily.”
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