Author Archives: John Howson

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About John Howson

Former county councillor in Oxfordshire and sometime cabinet member for children services, education and youth.

Fewer children in secure units

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Data from the DfE shows a fall in the number of children held in secure units at the end of March 2015 (SRF 15/2015). Now one must always be wary of figures for a single date because there may have been fluctuations during the year in the overall numbers. However, by comparing the same date over time it is clear that the number of children being held in secure units, especially as a result of an interaction with the criminal justice system, is on a downward trend. In 2010, 161 children were detailed after coming into contact with the criminal justice system in one way or another. By 2015 that number was down to 117 with a further 88 children placed in secure accommodation on welfare grounds. Of these 82 were children from England and six were children from Wales.

An encouraging sign is that the number of young children below the age of sixteen in secure accommodation at the census date has fallen over recent years. Although this number is still too high, it does seem to be going in the right direction. The number of 16 and 17 year olds in secure accommodation has increased. There needs to be some understanding of whether this is because of the actions of the courts, and the Youth Court in particular, or whether it is due to some local authorities resorting to a short period in secure accommodation for young people at risk of exploitation.

Indeed, the use of secure accommodation on welfare grounds may well be worth re-visiting. Is there any evidence that it can actually make a difference to lock up a teenager for say a month. Does it break their habits or do they return to the behaviour that caused concern as soon as they leave the secure accommodation?

Of course, these are figures for young people in secure accommodation as a result of the actions of the State. There are others that find themselves in confinement as a result of being trafficked by adults that have no concerns for their welfare, but merely see them as objects with a commercial value. Even after the recent series of trials in the courts it seems unlikely that the exploitation of young people, both girls and boys, for commercial gain through sexual activities has stopped.

Indeed, the prosecution of historic cases must not deny the resources of both the police and local authorities to following up current cases. In this respect schools have a vital part to play in identifying patterns of behaviour that may lead to a child becoming at risk of exploitation. Whatever academies and their sponsors may think of local authorities, they have a duty to cooperate in monitoring and reporting pupils at risk. There is a concern that some of these children are regarded as a nuisance by some schools and placed on an alternative education programme that may have far less hours of tuition than a normal school day. If that is the case then, out of sight must not mean out of mind.

Sword of Damocles

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I assume the government knows what a coasting school is, but it seemingly just doesn’t want to tell the rest of us until it has seen the new Education and Adoption Bill pass through parliament. The alternative view is that the government is keen not to reveal its hand even then and that the definition will be changeable depending upon circumstances.

My starting point for a discussion about a definition might be something like this:

a) Any school that is two or more quintiles below similar schools in reading, writing and mathematics if a primary school or English and mathematics if a secondary school, as measured by the ofsted dashboard or such similar measure as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State, shall be regarded as a coasting school once the school has been in such a position for a period covered by two sets of such measurements.

b) A school shall be able to challenge any classification of it as a coasting school, and the consequences for any such classification, if it can show that the staffing of any of the appropriate classes or subjects contributing to the measurement was hindered by a shortage of qualified staff. A school would need to demonstrate that it had been unable to recruit sufficient staff trained and qualified in the teaching of the relevant classes or subjects.

Trained and qualified staff means teachers both with Qualified Teacher Status as awarded by the DfE or such other awarding body as the DfE may licence to award such a qualification and with a subject or phase qualification appropriate to the teaching of the relevant pupils contributing to the assessment of performance or other measure on which the assessment of coasting is to be judged.

Any school that successfully challenges an assessment would have twelve months from the designation of it as a ‘coasting school’ to no longer be two or more quintiles below similar schools. If it failed to make such an improvement it would be confirmed as a ‘coasting school’. Any school whether community, voluntary or academy can be defined as a ‘coasting school’ if it meet the appropriate criteria cited above.

There might be a discussion as to whether or not a fund to help such schools improve could be established. This might, after all, be a more cost-effective way of improving standards than changing the administrative structure of the school when that has not proved to be at fault.

A more serious concern is whether such an ill-defined threat as the academisation of coasting schools may affect the labour market for teachers. Will teachers shun certain schools until the government makes clear what will happen to teachers in schools judged as coasting by the un-disclosed definition? Will it also affect recruitment into the profession?

I suppose that the churches will be content as long as any change of status for a voluntary church school allows it to remain within a mutli-academy trust led by the church. But, what if the bill fails to provide for such a guarantee and Regional Commissioners are granted a free hand as to where to assign control of schools judged to be coasting? The same question will no doubt be asked by governors of other voluntary schools, some established several hundred years ago, that could be taken over when the Bill become law.

I think the lack of a definition at the discussion stage is too serious an omission to be allowed to pass unchallenged because the consequences for the control of schools could be immense and needs to be properly thought through. That cannot happen if the parameters of what is a coasting school are not enshrined in primary legislation. .

Alice in Wonderland

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The Education and Adoption Bill has been published today. Its outcome, when passed, seems to be to further reduce the role of local authorities in both education and adoption. At least in the education part the bill seeks to honour a manifesto pledge about failing or even coasting schools.

As I have made clear in previous posts, the devil will be in the detail. But, a Bill that tackles only such schools not already academies of one description or another will be a deeply flawed Bill. It will in effect be the Queen of Hearts announcing ‘off with their heads’ or to be more accurate ‘take them away from local authorities and the churches’, for some of these schools will not be community schools but voluntary aided or controlled schools. In that respect it will be interesting to see the reaction of the Church of England and other faith groups. It would be ironic to say the least if  a failing church school could join a multi-academy trust run by the church, but a failing community school passed completely out of local control to an academic sponsor with no local affiliation at all. But, if faith schools are to retain their ethos it is difficult to see how they can do so if they are operated by a secular academy chain.

Of even more interest is how the Bill will deal with Tweedledum, the failing academy. After all, it really will be Wonderland if the government is prepared to create a whole section of the Bill to reform Tweedledee, the maintained sector, but not to acknowledge that  some academies may behave in the same manner that the government finds objectionable.

Since I suppose for many of us the education scene has increasingly come to look like the mad hatter’s tea party we should not be surprised if a political Bill speeds up academy conversions but ignores other ills such as failing academies and the increasing lack of local accountability or even consultation over how such schools are run.

In the end, the Bill begs the question of whether or not local politicians should try to hang onto the last vestiges of authority over schools in their locality or try to create a new order where all schools are academies of one form or another? Two years ago I advocated that all secondary schools should be academies, but that the primary sector should remain under local political control because of the strong links between such schools and their local communities. Personally, I still think that is the best way out of the current mess. After all, a failing local authority can be taken over by the government at Westminster and there is a clear span of control between central government and the individual school that is rooted in each local community.

However, what is really needed is a politician with the courage to craft a school system that everyone can understand in terms of governance and operation. Otherwise, it looks to me as if the Regional Commissioners are being cast in the role of the White Rabbit, forever running around on errands to prop up a system nobody understand and where lines of control are neither clear nor effective as we have seen over the question of academy closures.  Clearly a Wonderland.

A decent, honorable and likeable man

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The news yesterday of the death of Charles Kennedy, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, at the early age of only 55 came as a bolt from out of the blue. Charles was leader of the Lib Dems when I stood for parliament as the Lib Dem candidate in the 2005  general election in the Reading East constituency .

Charles was everything I am not. He was gregarious, knew instinctively how to work a crowd, lit up any room he entered and was the perfect  person to take on a walkabout. He was the heart and soul of the Party. Charles came into politics with the rise of the SDP, whereas although I was already a member of the Liberal Party long before the early 1980s and the days of the alliance and then the merger, on many issues we had similar views.

However, education in England was not always top of Charles’ agenda, probably because he was a product of the Scottish school and higher education systems. However, he was steadfast during his period as leader about supporting the abolition of tuition fees across the United kingdom.

The news is especially saddening since on Monday evening I had chaired a meeting of the Liberal Democrat Education Association. It was an extremely positive affair, already looking forward to the part the Association can play in helping develop policies for this parliament and beyond, hopefully of the very sort that Charles would have approved. After all, education is the key to progress and to deny education to any young person is to limit their opportunities. One challenge is still to reinforce this message to those in society that either don’t want to or don’t care to hear it.

One thing that being in politics helps you face up to is that life must go forward. After a period of mourning and reflection there are new challenges to face and political battles to fight. So, on the day the Liberal Democrats again passed the 60,000 member mark I celebrate the work of those that helped us shape the past, recognise the challenges of today and step out on the journey into the future taking with me the lessons learnt from those such as Charles Kennedy who had achieved so much, but still left those remaining with yet more to strive for.

Oops there goes …

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Earlier this year I reported on the summary closure of a state funded school. In that case it was an academy in Kent. That event followed closely the demise of an academy chain, but not the closure of its schools. Now we learn of the summary closure of another state funded school; The Black County UTC.

Following a second Ofsted inspection the school has decided to close at the end of this term.

Here’s the message on their web site;

Planned closure of Black Country University Technical College

The Governors of the Black Country University Technical College (BCUTC) based in Bloxwich, Walsall, regret to announce that it will close on August 31 2015.

The wellbeing and success of the students at the school is the priority for the Governors and sponsors and full support and guidance is being given to them all, in particular those undertaking exams this term.
This outcome has been reached following a recent disappointing inspection, a thorough assessment of actual and projected student numbers, financial challenges, staffing capacity and the impact these will have on standards of teaching and learning.

“This has been a difficult decision for all concerned. Our primary focus remains the wellbeing and success of the students at the school, not least of all those due to sit exams this term. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that all of our students can continue with their chosen learning outcomes.

“Support and guidance is being provided to students and their parents and carers both internally and through our local partners including the Walsall Connexions Centre, Walsall Council and our neighbouring authorities of Sandwell, Dudley, Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire, and our sponsors at Walsall College and the University of Wolverhampton.

“BCUTC will work closely with the Department for Education, Walsall College and other local education institutions over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition for all students.”

Now it was always the case that private schools could summarily close, in bad times some did the day after the end of the summer term, but state funded schools had to go through a process of consultation and approval. Indeed, a school in Oxfordshire having gained approval for a sixth form is now going through the consultation process to revert to its former 11-16 status because it believes a sixth form won’t be economically viable. Had it been an academy it could seemingly just have closed that part of the school down.

As I reported in an earlier post, there are some UTCs and studio schools that appear to be struggling. Whether closing them down is the answer is a moot point, but it does beg the question of who is really in charge of the education system in England. Presumably, since the Prime Minister was prepared to extol the virtues of UTCs in parliament last week, his Education Secretary hadn’t told him of the impending closure in Walsall. With so many UTCs and studio school heading the table of schools with high absence rates something needs to done; and quickly. Rules about closure also need to be made clear to academies, free schools and others in receipt of public money.

Some good news

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The May data for applications through the UCAS system by graduates seeking to become a teacher was published earlier today. There is some qualified good news for the government, but it is heavily qualified. Overall, the gap between applicant numbers has narrowed since April by some 640 applicants. However, it still stands at 4,640 and the clock is ticking down towards the end of the recruitment round.

That’s the sum of the good news. Total offers of all types for secondary courses in England, and all these figures are for courses in England, total around 11,100 against a DfE number set through the Teacher Supply Model of just under 18,000 graduates required to enter training as a secondary teacher in 2015, after allowing for the small number of remaining undergraduate places. So, we are about 6,500 trainees short of what is required or just under 40%. As a result, the secondary share of the 9,000 applications currently awaiting interview or a decision by a provider, will need to come up trumps if the gap is to reduce much further.

Secondary subjects fall into three groups. There are the three subjects: Languages, History and Physical Education where the DfE number of trainees required will be met easily, and there will probably be too many trainees for all the vacancies in 2016. The second group of subjects are those where offers are better than at this point last year but are still likely to be insufficient to meet the DfE number as identified by the Teach Supply Model. These include subjects such as Physics, Mathematics, English, Design & Technology, Chemistry, Biology and Art. Finally, there are five subjects where the DfE number required to enter training almost certainly won’t be reached and the current position over the number of offers appears worse than at this stage last year. These subjects are: Religious Education, Music, Geography, IT/Computer Science and Business Studies.

So, unless far more applicants can be converted into trainees in the period between May and the start of courses in the autumn than was the case last year, the training shortfall in the secondary sector is heading into a third year of under-recruitment against need. This begs the question of what happens to those shortfalls in reality. Returners or overseas teachers are the obvious alternatives along with re-designing the timetable to reduce teaching time in shortage subjects or ask less well qualified teachers to step into the breach and hope that Ofsted doesn’t come calling.

Schools with unexpected vacancies for September and especially for January 2016 are going to find recruiting qualified teachers of some subjects a real challenge. As schools that register classroom teacher vacancies through TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk already know from the update they receive when registering a vacancy, the 2015 pool of Business Studies, Social Studies and Design & Technology trainees has effectively been exhausted already. Subjects such as English, Geography and IT/Computer Science are likely to have only small numbers of trainees currently still looking for teaching vacancies; many in specific locations.

The position in relation to primary recruitment for 2015 is more complicated, not least because of the larger number of undergraduate places. There are around a 1,000 fewer places being held by graduate applicants but, as the DfE original number required was exceeded by a substantial amount in the allocations, this may be more of a problem for course providers struggling to operate financially viable courses than for trainees when they come to seek work in 2016.

There is still time for these numbers to change with an influx of late applicants wanting to train as a teacher. That would be more good news. The potential bad news would be if some of those holding offers were also chasing other careers and decided not to take up their place. Next month the picture will be much clearer, whether or not it is rosier.

Statesmen and Politicians

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The Education Bill announced today in the Queen’s Speech to parliament is first and foremost a politician’s Bill. It will probably lack the grandeur of spirit to be a Bill associated with a statesman – this word needs a gender free equivalent; suggestions please – as was say the 1944 Act or even the Education Reform Act of the Thatcher government that introduced the National Curriculum and local management of schools. Nevertheless, by accident, its outcome might be monumental in re-shaping the landscape of school governance.

Much will depend upon how rigorous the DfE and its henchmen the Regional Commissioners are at taking over coasting schools. (How redolent with male gendered words education still is despite such a large proportion of those that work in schools being of the female gender.) Where will the threshold be set? What will be the attitude of the voluntary controlled sector be to forced academisation? Will the churches and other faith groups feel they have enough control over their schools taken over in such a way that when they stop coasting control once again rests with the diocese? Frankly, on the basis of the academy programme to date that looks unlikely. Even though the Roman Catholics have been adapt in some diocese in establishing multi-academy trusts of Roman Catholic schools what happens if one schools is regarded as coasting; will it be taken out of the Trust and nationalised with leaders with no experience of faith schools put in charge?

We have already seen academies closing without consultation; operating illegal admission arrangements and generally behaving in a manner that ignores the need for any understanding of local priorities. A badly worded Bill could finally spell the end of local government’s involvement in formal schooling. Indeed, after reading Ofsted’s recent letter to Suffolk, I wonder what, apart from a loss of civic pride, is now the consequence for a Council of an inadequate rating for its education section of Children’s Services? With even more cuts to come in local government many Tory authorities will no doubt see the abandonment of responsibility for schools as a means of saving money, assuming that they can hand over pupil place planning and home to school transport to the Regional Commissioner’s Office once all their schools are academies; and why not?

A Bill designed by a Statesman with an eye on history will tackle the governance issues head on and craft a piece of legislation that will shape the landscape of schools for a generation. However, a rushed Bill, designed mainly to satisfy a manifesto pledge, will lead to a further decline in the state of education.

The OECD pointed out today how poor many graduates from universities in England are at maths. Taking a stand on the 16-19 curriculum and making maths and a language compulsory for all ought to find its way into the Bill ahead of worrying about coasting schools that don’t need legislation to improve, but rather good teachers and effective leaders. Sadly, I fear politics will win the day.

New class of challenging schools?

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The DfE today released the latest data for absence during the autumn term of the current school-year. As ever, there is a mass of interesting data in the figures that those with responsibility for school outcomes will want to consider in detail.

When the data for the same term last year was published I commented about the relatively large number of UTCs and Studio Schools with significant numbers of pupils that past the threshold where they would be considered as persistent absentees. This year, the threshold is set at 10% absence – for whatever reason, down from a previous level of 15%. It is interesting to see that 19 of the 50 secondary schools with the largest percentages either at or above the 10% level are UTCs (7) or Studio Schools (12). A further three are Free Schools. So, almost half the schools filling the top 50 places are new categories of schools. The next largest group are sponsored academies (16), followed by maintained schools (8) and convertor academies (4).

Some 40 local authority areas are represented by these 50 schools. Liverpool, has the largest number with 5 schools in the list. Other authority areas with more than one include, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Essex and, a surprise to me, Oxfordshire which has two schools in the list – an academy and a maintained school currently seeking to become an academy. Both are in the north of the county.

Another surprising fact is the relative absence of London schools from the list. There are only two London schools in the 50, and one is a UTC. There are also relatively few schools located in the Home Counties, so that makes the Oxfordshire schools stand out even more.

From the data it seems that around a quarter of local authority areas have at least one school where absence is potentially a serious issue for some reason. Some of the UTCs and studio Schools are relatively new and it may be that local schools used the opportunity of their opening to steer some of their challenging Year 9 pupils towards the new provision in the hope that a new environment would provide a new start for the teenagers. Seemingly this works in some cases, but not in all.

I am not sure whether the Secretary of State will want to investigate the leadership at these 50 schools, and those just below them in the rankings, ahead of coasting schools or whether they should be offered more time to improve attendance. Certainly, if Ofsted aren’t monitoring the situation already, then I am sure that the schools can expect a visit in the near future.

The publication earlier this week of Ofsted’s letter to Suffolk means that local authority officers and members need to accept some responsibility for challenging schools as a part of their responsibility for all pupils, regardless of the type of school that they attend. A failure to do so might well lead to the Authority being regarded as inadequate. Perhaps the new Education Bill will recognise this duty and offer new powers to local government; perhaps it won’t, preferring instead to hand responsibility to regional commissioners.

Message to schools: please don’t close down teacher training yet

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I don’t normally pay as much attention to the state of primary intakes to teacher training as perhaps I should. This is because the main focus has been on shortages in secondary. However, the latest National College newsletter for those involved in School Direct – is there such as publication for other routes – contains the following:

‘If you have filled, or are close to filling, your allocation in English, and you have evidence from your application data that you have sufficient demand to take on more trainees, you can now request additional places. Additionally, if you have filled your primary cohort, then you can now request additional primary places.

We can also confirm that we are accepting requests for new courses (where there was no initial allocation) in all subjects apart from English, primary, PE and history.’

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-direct-bulletin/initial-teacher-training-itt-recruitment-bulletin-april-2015 Publication date 19th May 2015

This seems to suggest that there are still primary places available as well as places in English. The second paragraph doesn’t make it clear whether the new courses can be for 2015 entry or are in anticipation of 2016 allocations. If the former, then some higher education providers will no doubt be asking whether they can also open new courses.

Of interest, is whether the places available are as a result of schools returning allocated School Direct places and, if so, whether they are salaried or training places? With so many vacancies located in and around London I am not sure of the wisdom of spending money re-allocating places from that part of the country to say either the North West or South West where, at least in the secondary sector, vacancies for main scale teachers are at a much lower level.

Elsewhere in this bulletin the National College acknowledges that schools may close down the application process as early as the end of May and reminds those schools to let UCAS know so that others can handle any late applications. The implications are that the system lost some of the 2,000 plus applicants arriving over the summer last year because they applied to schools that had stopped recruiting but handn’t made that fact clear. Personally, as we need as many applicants as possible, I believe that the funding agreement for School Direct should require schools to recruit throughout the summer, as higher education courses have always sought to do when there are unfilled places.

In a period of teacher shortage those operating teacher preparation programmes should all be doing everything possible to fill as many of the available places as possible, especially when these places are in areas of high need for teachers. The alternative will be to deepen the teacher recruitment crisis in 2016; surely that cannot be government policy?

The UCAS web site should also identify separately courses closed because they are full and those courses closed because the provider has decided not to accept any more applications, but has places still available. It may be that this information is already available to Ministers, but it should also be available to others so that the use of public money can be scrutinised.

Careless Talk

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The Secretary of State’s first media outing of this parliament might not have had the outcome planned. A visit to the Andrew Marr shown and an article in the Sunday Times guaranteed plenty of media exposure, plus comment elsewhere. Tackling coasting schools may play well with the Tory faithful, but might be guaranteed to upset the teacher associations, even were it to be a valid argument.

Just imagine a company with 20,000 branches that announces on national television that every branch where sales don’t increase by the national average will be taken over by a manager working in a branch with above average sales. Now the branch in leafy Surrey where the fall in sales is due to customers switching to the internet to make their purchases rather than driving to the shop might still find plenty of people wanting to be a manager. But, the branch in a rundown shopping mall in an area of relatively high unemployment might seem less attractive, especially if it was finding it difficult to recruit staff despite the high unemployment. Of course, the company could offer incentives to relocate staff as it is one big organisation and any employee keen for promotion would recognise the need to relocate.

Schooling in England isn’t yet like that. It suffers from a chronic lack of attention to governance and management that sees local authorities clinging on to their remnants of their former power in some areas; more successfully in some places than others. Then there are the churches, with lots of schools, but for too long no obvious plan for improving standards across all their schools, but a loyal workforce. Since many teachers, especially primary school teachers, train in their local area and aim to work there for their whole careers, the idea of a mobile leadership force, especially in the primary sector is quite possibly fanciful. Indeed, one wonders if the DfE has undertaken any research into the mobility of the teaching force and its leadership, let alone into how many school leaders would need to relocate to tackle the coasting school issue. If none, then the Secretary of State really was guilty of careless talk.

Perhaps it was just a shot across the bows. After all both Nick Clegg and David Laws had proposed plans when in government to create a national cadre of school leaders – see previous posts discussing the idea – so may be this was just an extension of those ideas, but less well articulated. For there are schools that need encouragement to do better, if not for all their pupils, but for some groups whether the least able or the middle attainers or even the most able if their results are being supported by the parents that pay for private tuition and revision classes.

However, until we have an understanding of the shape and lines of control of our school system and whether it is a collaborative or competitive system, it is difficult to see how parachuting leaders into schools on the basis of external assessments will bring improvement to the system as a whole.

Indeed, it might make matters worse if it both dissuades teachers from taking on leadership roles and makes teaching look an unattractive career to new entrants, where the rewards don’t match the risks. We need to get the best from those that work in schools, Michael Gove didn’t, and it is unlikely Nicky Morgan will if she doesn’t balance the waved stick with some sensible use of the carrot.