What is a selective school?

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The Times newspaper continuing raising issues about education when most of those likely to be interested are away on holiday. Perhaps they think it makes for interesting reading on line when lazing by the pool. Today it points out that one in twenty secondary school pupils educated in state funded schools are in selective schools. Frankly, at this point in the demographic cycle that is not a very surprising fact. But, it begs the question that parents of pupils entering primary schools in those areas this September will no doubt be asking, ‘what does that mean for my offspring when they reach the decision point?’
We know that at present secondary school pupil numbers are low compared with the forecasts for the next decade. To continue with the present percentage in selective schools might require an extra 33,000 places in selective schools to be created by 2024. That number will be even higher once the growth in the secondary school population makes it through to the sixth form.

Assuming you think that the continuation of selective schools is a good idea, I don’t, the schools have two ways forwards. Either they increase the places on offer to cope with the increased school population or they do what has been the case in the past, raise the entry level so only the number of pupils needed to fill the places pass the entry tests. The test is presumably is one reason why many selective schools are single-sex. Separate schools doesn’t make the issue of pass marks between girls and boys anything to worry about. The notion presumably being that equal number of of boys and girls need access to the education provided in selective schools. However, it is interesting to wonder what would happen if a parent discovered it was easier for one sex than the other to enter such schools?

It seems likely that the sixteen or so areas with significant percentages of pupils in selective schools will face pressure from parents to create new schools to keep the percentage where it is at present. As a result, with all new schools having to be an academy of one sort or another, the government will soon have to declare its hand. This is where the issue of satellite schools becomes an interesting legal issue.
In the remaining authorities, with a small number of pupils attending selective schools, it seems likely that these will in some cases see the school as an academy just up the ante on entry levels, especially where they have little or no links to the local authority where they are located and they also serve pupils from a much wider area.
Either way, the lead time for new schools to be built means that the government cannot wait much longer before declaring its hand. Unless something happens soon parents will start to notice entry tests becoming harder and siblings of pupils already in selective schools may discover that they won’t be following their older brothers or sisters into the school.

Those with a knowledge of history will recall that it was the fate of the post-war baby boomers sent to secondary modern schools that fuelled the drive in the 1960s towards non-selective secondary education. This may well be one of the debates of this parliament. For you cannot expand selective schools without expanding secondary moderns as well when pupil number are on the increase.

The cost of schooling

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You can tell we are approaching the start of the new school year when education stories start to dominate the front pages of our newspapers once again. Yesterday, The Times; today The Daily Telegraph. The news that DfE data suggests some state schools outperform private fee-paying schools raises the issue of why do so many parents still pay for their children’s education?

There are, of course, some concerns with how the data was used in the comparison. Selective state schools based on choosing their pupils by academic ability should, by their very nature, do better than other schools, especially those where parents have to find around £18,000 per year for tuition alone, as they do in London. Nevertheless, the data does show how well some state school are beginning to preform, albeit in some cases perhaps because of a judicious entry policy for examinations that excludes those not likely to achieve good grades – compare either physics or further mathematics and media studies ‘A’ level outcomes to see what I mean – from taking the examination.

I wonder what Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction to the story would be. Is he in favour of closing down all private schools or letting parents use their income to continue to pay for them? No doubt someone will ask him at some point? After all, he want to give these parents and their offspring free university education. Closing all private schools would probably cost the tax payer several billions of pounds in educating the children not currently funded by the State. It would poses questions of whether the State would pay for specialist schools for foreign nationals and in areas such as sports, music, drama and the rest of the arts.
Private schools, especially boarding schools and some 16-19 colleges are now important export earners, both bringing in money to the country through the fees of overseas students and by exporting their brands overseas.

I am sure That the Daily Telegraph didn’t want to demolish this source of national wealth, but parents will no doubt start to question whether using the local state school plus topping up with private tutorial support and revision classes where that school is perhaps weaker than it could be might be a cheaper alternative to outright school fees. This might especially become the case if universities were school-blind in reviewing applications and looked just at the pupil and their profile.

No doubt there are those that use the private school sector to avoid mixing their offspring with children that attend state schools or because they think the non-academic facilities and outcomes are better at such schools. Those are the parents that also move house to find the best state school that suits their tastes.

Although the effectiveness of private education is an interesting issue for Daily Telegraph readers, the main concern for most of us in education must be to continue reducing the gap between the worst achieving and their peers in schools. Those under-achieving are frequently from the least well off sections of society. Living in poor housing or even bed and breakfast accommodation doesn’t aid learning and often leads to fractured schooling patterns. As we know this frequently means starting school at a disadvantage. The Pupil Premium has started to help close that gap in society. The present government needs to continue with that work. I am sure it can leave the value for money arguments about private schooling to the parents to decide what to do with their cash.

Maths teacher shortage

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The Association of Teachers of Mathematics has reported a shortage of qualified teachers of mathematics. According to some news reports they mention schools with several vacancies and schools drafting in teachers of subjects such as PE and geography to teach the subject. I couldn’t find any evidence on their web site http://www.atm.org.uk/ when I looked this morning so I cannot check out the evidence base.
When I looked at the TeachVac data http://www.teachvac.co.uk the number of trainees recorded by the DfE ITT census last November was 2,186 in 2014/15. This number was below the DfE Teacher Supply Model indicative number for trainees required, but not alarmingly so. However, that tells us nothing about the quality of those accepted into training through either school-based or higher education routes. A minimum level of mathematics in a degree, say two years of subject study post ‘A’ level, might help here.
As of yesterday, TeachVac had identified 2,538 advertisements for classroom teachers of mathematics. Two further pieces of data are key to understanding this number. Firstly, the number of adverts that either on the one hand contain multiple vacancies or on the other hand were re-advertisements because a vacancy could not be filled. Secondly, the percentage of vacancies filled by new entrants to the profession. The DfE rule of thumb over a recruitment cycle appears to be 50%, as discussed in other earlier posts on this blog.
Taking all this into account the 2,386 trainees, this translates into just under 5,000 vacancies across a whole year. The recruitment cycle can be considered to run from January to December. The TeachVac advert figure is still well short of that level. Now it may be that there are more multiple vacancies being advertised that we are picking up. Schools that enter vacancies directly can indicate the number of posts on offer. There may also be regional differences. London and the two regions adjacent to the capital have accounted for 52% of the recorded advertisements, so it is likely that any problem is greatest in and around London despite the higher pay rates on offer and the presence of Teach First in the capital. There are also vacancies for January to consider.
There are also some early murmuring in the media today about mathematics GCSE pass rates that are also out today. I don’t know whether there is a link between these two stories, but it might seem likely if qualifications matter in the teaching of a subject. In any event, we do need good management information on the recruitment cycle so that in future recruitment problems can be dealt with as they arise and not ducked by government. In addition, if there are two thirds of graduates in sub-optima careers and maths is the most popular’ A’ level, why are we having difficulty recruiting trainees into teaching? As regular readers know, I have suggested how we can make teaching as a career more attractive in several earlier posts.
One thing is certain is that if there are issues in teacher supply in mathematics now, then there are more severe problems in other subjects. Next week will see the publication by UCAS of applications for courses starting in less than month for the 2016 output of teachers. Any further shortfall against places will mean more problems in 2016, and not just in mathematics.

Back to the Future Part II

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There is a sense of déjà vu around this August. Will Labour opt for a return to Clause 4 and the re-nationalisation of key industries rather than a regulatory regime if Jeremy Corbyn becomes their new leader? If so, will they go the whole hog and re-nationalise freight services under the British Road Services logo, or is white van driver safe for now?

Even the Tories are getting in on the act, David Cameron wants to nationalise schools under the banner of creating freedom from local authority control by allowing all schools to become an academy controlled from Westminster. If he really believes this is the way forward, why doesn’t he add a clause into the Bill currently before parliament requiring all schools to become academies and create an orderly transfer of control? Does he lack the courage of his convictions or is this suggestion just a piece of political posturing?

If you believe in something then at least have the strength of will to seek to achieve it. The Tories in Oxfordshire are apparently set to do this by I believe proposing to encourage all schools – these days that effectively means primary schools – to become academies. At least this would stop the wasteful parallel systems that could emerge under the Prime Minister’s approach. A nation where Tory authorities are full of academies, but Labour authorities aren’t won’t be a national education system but a national muddle.

Personally, as those who have followed this blog for some time know, I am content to see all secondary schools as academies but not am not sure it is the correct approach for the primary sector. With local authorities now responsible for public health and most children attending a local primary schools there is much to be said for the same authority operating both services along with libraries and other services that support families and young children. Only a politician with no experience of local government could think primary schools operate in isolation from their communities.

The Tories other backward looking policy is talk of a revival of selective schools. Designed to meet a nineteenth century need these schools have no place in forging a modern inclusive society. Once again, if it happens, it will be interesting to see whether the Tories will mandate a national programme, thus effectively interfering with the very freedom of the academies they espouse or just let the areas with selective education increase the numbers of pupils in such schools. At what level will pupils be sent to secondary modern schools and with the expansion in pupil numbers to come over the next decade will the percentage of pupils allowed to pass the selection test remain constant or reduce as pupil numbers increase? Will selective free schools be permitted in areas that haven’t seen a selective school for nearly half a century and, if so, will local authorities have to pay the cost of transporting pupils to them or will parents have to pay?  Will places be kept for pupils that move into these areas during the year or will they be sent to secondary modern schools regardless of whether they would have passed the test?

We won’t achieve a world class education system by accident, but by design. That means proper national funding and a coherent and rational system. Such a policy would need a really courageous approach to policy.

A holiday tax

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The news from the Ministry of Justice, obtained be the Press Association under a FoI request, that there has been a steep rise in prosecutions for non-attendance at school is concerning. The increase has been linked variously to the increase in pupil numbers and to the stricter rules introduced last year about taking pupils away from school during term time to go on a family holiday. Commentators have noted that the current level of the fixed penalty fine is less than the savings a family can obtain by going on holiday in term time. To that extent it amounts to a tax on those earners who can afford to pay yet still make the savings.

However, there is a deeper issue here that relates to many of the rules established in order to run our school system; some still dating from the nineteenth century. For instance, the rules about pupils eligible for free transport and the nature of ‘safe routes’ pupils can walk date back into the mists of time. They are also not applied uniformly across the country, with parents in London receiving a much more generous deal that their rural counterparts. Maybe, the DfE should set up a Commission to review all these rules and how they help create an effective school system for the twenty-first century.

On the vexed question of holidays in term time, I have two suggestions to make. Firstly, no holiday should be allowed during the first year a pupil is at school. Based upon attendance during that year, pupils will good attendance records can be allowed up to two weeks in the following year. This provides an incentive for attendance and recognises that a child going on holiday one year would not be eligible the following year and would need to earn the opportunity in the subsequent year through continued good attendance.

Secondly, I would suggest to Mr Gove that trials for non-attendance are just the sort of cases that could be used to try out a scheme for magistrates’ court hearings in local buildings. The closure of so many courts, and the proposed closure of many more, mean both parents and officers prosecuting cases often now have to travel considerable distances and then wait around for the case to be heard. I am sure that this encourages ‘no shows’ on the part of parents that hope to drag out the proceedings for as long as possible.

As an incentive, trails for non-attendance held locally, in say town council offices, could be exempt from the bizarre Criminal Court Charge that apparently imposes a fee of £520 on a parent that turns up and pleads ‘not guilty’ but only imposes a fee of £150 if they don’t bother to attend and the prosecutions still has to prove the case in absence. This Charge is on top of court fines and costs.

There is no more risk in dealing with these cases in local public buildings that in hearing transport to school appeals. The alternative would be to removal the criminal sanction from a failure to send children to school, but since the courts apparently sent 18 parents to prison for the offence such a move might spark a wider debate about the use of custody.

Development Goals for 2030

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The United Nations has come up with some development goals for 2030. I thought I would reproduce the education goal and its constituent parts along with the key strategies for achievement. Many of the goals and strategies are worth testing our own system against. Indeed, there is plenty of room for debate around parity of esteem for vocational courses and parity of esteem for special education.

The goals are:
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
4.1 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes
4.2 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
4.3 By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
4.4 By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
4.6 By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
4.b By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries
4.c By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States

I do wonder on the last point whether if we cannot recruit sufficient teachers in developed countries, as with nurses, we will train more for a brain drain that will encourage teachers to move to more wealthy countries to increase their family income streams as remittance earners.

Still, more teachers will always be better than fewer and the other goals are worthy even if they lack the any numbers attached to them.

Farewell Mr Taylor

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So, Mr Taylor is following his mentor Michael Gove to the Ministry of Justice, presumably to head up the Youth Justice Board. The YJB was one of the success stories of the coalition, presiding over a dramatic fall in both the numbers in youth custody and in offending rates among young people. I hope that Mr Taylor, if indeed that is his new role, will help continue the trend towards both further reducing offending and the rehabilitation of those that do commit crimes. He might start by looking at the staffing challenges faced by the schools that produce the greatest numbers of young offenders.

Meanwhile The Secretary of State has the task of either finding a replacement or reorganising the whole training and professional development unit within the DfE. Could the name of the National College now disappear from sight as Mr Taylor’s job is handed to one or more civil servants to manage? This would take us back to the position last seen in the early 1990s before the Teacher Training Agency was created to oversee the reform of teacher training that took place under Kenneth Clarke.

Personally, I hope that there will still be an identifiable lead on teacher training and development. Sir Andrew Carter must be an obvious choice for the job after his report earlier this year. But, it might be good to have a woman in a senior position. Perhaps either an executive head or one of the CEOs of an academy chain might fit the bill, especially if it is a chain with a good record on both recruitment and professional development. Alternatively, someone running an organisation such as Teach First might be considered.

However, the salary level could be unattractive to many if the post falls within the new strict guidelines on public sector senior pay. No doubt a secondment could overcome even that problem.

Whoever takes over, whether an outsider or a career civil servant, will have less money to play with and will no doubt be expected to focus more on the recruitment and initial training part of the brief than on professional development that will no doubt be devolved to schools as a means of cutting costs? Such a dangerous move might really affect middle and senior leadership development over the next few years but probably won’t have any immediate impact on the political landscape.

Regular readers of this blog with know what my agenda is for whoever takes on the role. Convincing the Treasury that expecting trainee teachers to pay fees is not helpful would be my number one ambition for anyone taking on the job.

Human Rights

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There’s a great story in the Daily Mail today about a BBC programme to be shown on tuesday evening that follows a group of Chinese teachers when they spent four weeks teaching in a Hampshire comprehensive school. Result; teenagers need more discipline. That was pretty predicable.

But, the glorious line in the Daily Mail has the following quote from one of the teachers: ‘If the British Government really cut benefits down to force people to go to work they might see things in a different way.’ A Marxist Chinese teacher telling a Right Wing Tory government to cut benefits. I am indebted to LBC Radio for bringing this to my attention. Hopefully, they will also ask Jeremy Corbyn for his reaction. Does he support this Marxist line of ‘conform or lose benefits’?

At the heart of this debate that will no doubt make for great television in the same way as ‘tough young teachers’ and the Educating Children in various parts of England series did is the question of whether respect for authority is earned or implicit in our society? The great thing about selective schools and indeed, private schools is that a lack of respect for their values gets you slung out.

Even in the 1970s you had to earn the right to teach those teenagers that didn’t want to learn. There is a previous blog post I wrote two years ago in August 2013 celebrating the Newsom Report about secondary modern schools. This was a government report published over 60 years ago that recognised the need for teachers to acquire the skills necessary to teach in a culture where individualism is more important than uniformity.

I would also be interested to see the CBI’s reaction to the programme since they seem to want both intellectual ability and the softer skills of teamwork, personal confidence, leadership and other attributes that aren’t brought out easily by rote learning in large classes.

Perhaps at the heart of this debate is the classic British desire to look for the failures in our society and celebrate defeat rather than identify where our education system is doing well and consider how that success can be replicated.

There is certainly an issue with some aspects of authority in our school system as the DfE figures released last week on exclusions demonstrate with figures for the increase in exclusion of primary school pupils. So, will the next Tory announcement be, a loss of benefits if your child mis-behaves at school? I hope not because I suspect all that will happen is that parents of some of these children won’t send their children to school and they will fall further behind and then become even more troublesome on the days that they do attend.

Personally, I think we need to revisit the curriculum for teenagers and ensure we focus behaviour management strategies in training on dealing with teenagers that find singers more interesting that statistics and tablets more fun than tables.

Finally, I wonder what the Chinese word or symbol is for dumb insolence; perhaps they don’t have one.

Please Keep Recruiting

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The latest data on applications by graduates to train as a teacher was published earlier today by UCAS. The good news is the gap between the total number of applicants this year and the number recruited at this point last year is still being closed; it is down to just under 3,400. The gap closed by around 15% in the last month, but time is running out to eradicate it completely by the time courses start in just over a month from now and the total is still some eight per cent below the 2014 figure.

The more depressing news is that only physical education, history and languages among secondary subjects will probably manage to meet their target as set by the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model. All other subjects will probably fail to make the target number unless there are a significant number of last minute offers. In geography, music and business studies it looks as if the position is even worse than at this time last year. In several other subjects, an increase in the TSM number for last year means even with the improved offers the shortfall may be greater than experienced last year.

Of as much concern is that there are still a large number of conditional offers in the system. As most graduates should now know their degree class it may be that health, criminal checks or skill test results are still awaited. Even in history, the majority of offers are conditional, so the level of possible dropout is crucial.

The DfE has today also updated is key messages for School Direct – not please note for teacher preparation courses – to entice more graduates to be trainees. I thought that I would share the messages with readers;

Messages to use to recruit to School Direct Updated 30 July 2015

1. A great teacher can earn up to £65,000 as a leading practitioner
2. Get £25,000 tax-free to train to teach
3. Teachers start on a salary of between £22k and £27k
4. Teaching is a career for achievers. Three-quarters of new teachers now have a 1st or 2:1 degree
5. Teacher training is better than ever before
6. Good teachers are in demand, and there are excellent employment prospects
7. Get young people inspired by the subject you love
8. Inspire young people to fulfil their potential
9. Change a young person’s life for the better
10. Help young people to realise their ambitions
11. Go home each day knowing you’ve made a difference

All worthy sentiments, although I was told to avoid ‘get’ as it was considered slang. May be it isn’t so offensive nowadays.

The other interesting figure is the fate of the salaried route in School Direct where conversion rates remain much lower than for other routes into teaching. Indeed, the secondary salaried route may yield fewer trainees than the former Graduate Teacher Training Programme that it replaced did in some of the years when it was in operation.

Applications are still down in all regions and all age groups, with London some 600 applicants down on this point last year. Applicants from the over-40s seem to be holding up better than from any other age group.

So, please carry on recruiting through the holiday period: we need the applicants.

Responsible for NEETs

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Despite a general view that local authorities should no longer be in charge of schools, governments are quite happy to burden them with extra responsibilities regarding young people. The announcement of a scorecard of the level of NEETs, the 16-18 year olds not taking advantage of the political desire to see all teenagers up to the age of eighteen in some form of work or training, places yet another duty on local authorities. So far, I haven’t heard of any extra funding to support initiatives to help reduce the size of the NEET group: perhaps government thinks the cash is already there.

While the scorecard may tell us where the NEETs are located, I doubt it will change much else. A much better approach would be to find out what works and help spread good practice around. Does shifting dis-affected fourteen year-olds into UTCs and Studio Schools reduce the NEET problem at sixteen or make it worse. Should we not be looking at the curriculum and recognising that NEETs don’t just become NEETs at sixteen, but realistically drop out much earlier from school. Perhaps the next Sutton Trust review of academy chains can look into their NEET scores and see whether, like local authorities, there is a range of outcomes?

An early area for focus by scrutiny committees across local authorities might be whether there are differential rates of drop out after one year post sixteen between schools and the further education sector locally? This might raise the issue of pastoral care between the two sectors and indeed, whether sixth form colleges operate to different standards than general further education colleges. It is sometimes said that the more open and relaxed attitude of the further education sector serve some young people better than remaining at school. Is this the case or is it just a matter of passing the buck?
Local authorities act as corporate parents for young people in care. How well do they do this in relation to the FE sector? Indeed, how well do FE colleges interact with parents in general? Do they provide the same level of feedback as schools on issues of progress and matters such as careers guidance and can this affect a young person’s chance of becoming a NEET?

The move to a society where learning continues to eighteen has been introduced piecemeal in England without clear sets of responsibilities. If the NEET scorecard sheds light on one part of the policy change to educate all to eighteen that may not be working as well as hoped such exposure will be helpful as a first step. But, it will not be sufficient.

The issue of NEETs is as much a concern for rural areas as it is for our large towns and cities. Indeed, the job opportunities in many rural areas, especially for casual work, can be far less than in towns. It is just as easy for these teenagers to disappear off the official radar in a village as on a housing estate.
There may be fewer NEETs than a generation ago, but they remain an issue; scoring their numbers is a start, but not enough.