Tag Archives: politics

Wasting money in a time of austerity is unforgivable

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In September 2010 I seconded a motion about Free Schools and Academies at the Lib Dem Conference in Liverpool. Peter Downes from Cambridgeshire drafted the motion and proposed it to Conference where it was accepted after a lively debate. I have reproduced part of my speech winding up the motion because the Public Accounts Committee have today published a report on the managing of the expansion of the academies programme that makes sobering reading and reflects some of my concerns in 2010.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmpubacc/787/78704.htm

I have also included some of the PAC’s remarks after the quotes from my speech.

This motion was carefully crafted to recognise that being in coalition should not require us to abandon our basic principles: 

As Lib Dems we believe in

  • good local schools for all, that are
  • supported and coordinated by democratically elected local bodies; and a
  • a system based upon fairness, that protects the most vulnerable.

What we don’t believe in is an expensive and wasteful free-for-all.

Many of you in this hall joined the Lib Dems because of our education campaigns,

‘a penny on income tax’,

better early years education,

and a Pupil Premium championed as long ago as 2001.

Education has always been important to Liberal Democrats.

As you know, the Coalition’s programme for government is based upon, Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility- that’s what it said in the Coalition Agreement. 

If you pass this motion, you send a message to the government that Lib Dem activists understand the challenge of government, but are not prepared to abandon all our principles. 

We believe that government, an especially a coalition government, is for the many, and not just the few; for the future, as well as the present, and founded upon real principles. 

But Lib Dems know it is to work with schools, to inspire staff and pupils, to demand high standards in return for investment in teaching and learning, to have an appropriate curriculum, and to manage provision locally, not from Whitehall, and above all not to waste money we cannot afford pandering to the demands of the few whilst ignoring the needs of the many.

I don’t care who runs schools, but I do care that those who do so recognise that public money is for the good of all, not the benefit of the few.

Extracts from the PAC Report published 23rd April 2013.

10.  Despite some improvements, academies’ governance is still not sufficiently transparent for parents to scrutinise how their child’s school is spending its money, and for communities to hold their local school to account. There are gaps in the availability of key information such as academy funding agreements and governing body minutes, with less than 20% of academies surveyed by the National Audit Office publishing this information on their websites.

21.  When schools become academies, responsibility for their academic and financial performance passes from the local authority to the Department and the EFA respectively. However, local authorities retain some overall statutory responsibilities for young people in their area. The Department suggested that, in addition to these specific responsibilities, it would expect local authorities to retain some detailed knowledge of all educational provision in their area, including academies. At the same time, the Department and other witnesses suggested that academy trusts, particularly multi-academy chains, should also play a key performance-monitoring and intervention role in between academies and the Department and EFA.

22.  We heard conflicting views about whether inconsistency or uncertainty in the roles of these various players had created an accountability gap.  We are not convinced it is clear who is accountable for performance monitoring and intervention in academies, nor how the Department can know whether the system is operating consistently, effectively and with minimum bureaucracy across different localities and academy structures. We expressed concern that interventions in failing academies may be delayed if roles and responsibilities are not clear, or if central oversight is too distant to identify school-level problems before young people’s futures are put at risk.

In reading the PAC Report I wonder why such a waste of money was allowed to happen in a time of grave austerity. To take just one example, the DfE spent an extra £92 million on insurance premiums for academies, monies that should have been available to spend on educational outcomes. A simple national scheme administered from Sanctuary Buildings would surely have released most of that money to be spent where parliament intended, on education not on insurance premiums. Then there is the £350 million paid to academies and not recovered from local authorities, presumably over-funding schools in areas with more academies compared with the parts of the country where there are fewer academies. And, as the PAC remarked, ‘some of the budgets the Department drew upon to fund the expansion had been previously earmarked for other purposes – most notably £95 million originally intended for improving underperforming schools. There is a risk that the Department’s decision to solely use this money to create academies—many of which were already high-performing—may have been at the expense of weaker non-academy schools which could potentially have benefitted from it more. This is a particular risk in the primary sector.’

With local government being forced to cut important services, and other government departments having taken a heavy hit on their budgets, this cavalier approach to department spending at the DfE on a flagship programme is exactly the sought of concerns that were voiced in the Liverpool Conference motion. One might have expected better from Conservative majority partners in a coalition, and maybe it is time for the Secretary of State to take responsibility for his actions. At the very least he should explain what steps he is taking to prevent the waste continuing while he considers the overall funding formula for schools of all types.

Mrs. Thatcher as Education Secretary

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When I left LSE in 1969 I cannot recall a single person who wanted to start their own business. Although I took over the running of AIESEC-UK the student organisation, most of my graduating class headed for the civil service; large companies or a period of further study. It was not until the advent of the Thatcher government that entrepreneurship once again became something for the new breed of graduates to consider or even aspire to achieve in large numbers.

In reflecting on that change in society; a change that may have done more to allow the development of new industries that have in part replaced the ‘smokestack’ industries of the first industrial revolution I recalled that Mrs. Thatcher’s time as Education Secretary in the Heath government has perhaps received less notice than her premiership. However, as it was on her watch that I first entered the profession as an un-trained graduate and temporary supply teacher, at Tottenham School, in January 1971 some six months after the election. Those years between 1970 and 1974 that Mrs Thatcher spent as Education Secretary may be worth a moment of reflection on the day of her funeral.

The legacy of Mrs. Thatcher is best remembered by the general public through the slogan ‘Mrs. Thatcher: milk snatcher,’ as she was responsible for removing the right to free school milk from many older pupils. But, is that a fair summing up of her time as education secretary? Interestingly, as an aside, at least two Labour controlled education authorities, of which one was the London Borough of Hillingdon, attempted to take the ruling as only applying to the provision of milk, and continued to supply a ‘nourishing beverage’ to replace the lost milk supply. This stopped in Hillingdon when Labour lost control at the next London council elections. So what else did her time as Education Secretary leave behind as a mark on the world of state education?

One of Mrs. Thatcher’s first actions as Education Secretary was to continue the plan to eradicate schools built before 1906, started under the former Labour minister. I am not sure why that date was chosen, and it was interesting that Mrs. Thatcher extend the plan to cover primary as well as secondary schools. Those who teach or were educated, and indeed still are being educated in schools built either substantially or completely before 1906 will know that the ambitious plan failed, and has never featured in any subsequent discussions about school building. Indeed, until Mr. Blair’s ‘Building Schools for the future’ programme there was a period of almost 30 years when there was no national plan for a replacement school building programme, and Mr. Blair was seemingly only interested in the secondary sector, like so many politicians both before and after him.

Perhaps Mrs Thatcher’s high point as Education Secretary came in December 1972 with the publication of the White Paper ‘Education: A Framework for Expansion’. Sadly, this document appeared just as the oil crisis was breaking, and the Barber Boom was collapsing, so its plan for a ten-year expansion programme largely disappeared in the economic turmoil of the following decade.

However, here are a few extracts from what was promised:

Nursery Education

Within the next 10 years nursery education should become available without charge to those children of three and four whose parents wish them to benefit from it. If demand reaches the estimates in the Plowden Report, some 700,000 full-time equivalent places may be needed by 1981–82. Some 300,000 are already available, half of them for children of rising five. As the extent of demand and its future growth are uncertain it will be necessary to watch the development of demand carefully in the early years. As a first step the Government propose to authorise earmarked building programmes of £15m each in 1974–75 and 1975–76. Total current expenditure on the under fives is expected to rise from nearly £42m in 1971–72 to nearly £65m in 1976–77.

Besides helping families in deprived areas—both urban and rural—in bringing up young children, the extension of nursery education will also provide an opportunity for the earlier identification of children with social, psychological or medical difficulties which if neglected may inhibit the child’s educational progress.[fo 2]

The provision of nursery education will be generally on a half-time basis but allowance has been made for about 15 per cent—as recommended in the Plowden and Gittins Reports—of three and four year olds to attend full-time for educational and social reasons. It is hoped that most of the extra nursery places will form part of primary schools to avoid a change of school when the child becomes five.

School Building

There should be a more systematic long-term approach to the renewal of school buildings, to prevent the accumulation of backlogs of obsolete buildings. But such a policy needs to be very flexible, not only between primary and secondary schools, but also to take account from year to year of variations in the level of basic needs and other factors.

The size of the Teaching Force and Pupil Teacher Ratios

School staffing standards should continue to improve progressively. The Government believe that local education authorities will welcome a broad policy objective of securing by 1981 a teaching force 10 per cent above the number needed to maintain 1971 standards. After allowing for the increase in school population and the increased proportion of older pupils, this will require about 110,000 extra teachers, bringing the total to about 465,000 qualified teachers for pupils aged 5 and over. With about 25,000 teachers needed to staff the expanded nursery programme, and another 20,000 to meet the needs of the Government’s policy for in-service training and the induction of new teachers, there would be some 510,000 (full-time equivalent) qualified teachers employed in maintained schools by 1981. The Government propose that this figure should be adopted as a basis for planning. This would represent an overall pupil/teacher ratio of about 18½:1 by that date compared with about 22½:1 in 1971.

Teacher Training and Professional Development

The Government propose to work towards the achievement of a graduate teaching profession. During probation teachers should receive the kind of help and support needed to make the induction process both more effective and less daunting than it has been in the past. Also they should be released for not less than one-fifth of their time for in-service training. For the remainder of their time probationer teachers would be serving in schools, but with a somewhat lightened timetable, so that altogether they might be expected to undertake three-quarters of a full teaching load. The Government propose to give effect to the James Committee’s recommendation that teachers should be released for in-service training for periods equivalent to one term in every 7 years of service. It is their aim that a substantial expansion of such training should begin in the school year 1974–75 and should continue progressively so that by 1981 3 per cent of teachers could be released on secondment at any one time. This involves a four-fold increase in present opportunity.

Some of these proposals have still not been achieved more than 40 years later, especially in respect to teachers’ professional development. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the lack of attention by successive governments to primary teachers, their training and professional development that includes the current coalition. With a primary sector facing many of the same issues as during Mrs Thatcher’s tenure at Elizabeth House, the home of the Department in the 1970s, especially in relation to rising pupil numbers and the pressure on places, and a young and relatively inexperienced teaching force, it is to be hoped that the current administration will find time to do more than just talk about creating a world class school system and take the steps to ensure it actually happens.

Finally, it is perhaps the supreme irony of Mrs Thatcher’s times as Education Secretary that she is also remembered for implementing two of Labour key education policies that were blown off course by the economic crisis of 1967: the raising of the school leaving age to 16, and the creation of a largely non-selective secondary school system. Both had a massive impact on the England and Wales of the Thatcher government, and will continue to do so when the coalition introduces the further raising of the learning leaving age to 18: again a proposal initiated by a Labour government.

Sir Christopher Wren’s inscription in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, the church where Mrs Thatcher’s funeral took place, finishes with the Latin words LECTOR SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE which translates as, ‘Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you.’ It is a thought that each and every education secretary might bear in mind when they contemplate their legacy.

Excluded should not mean forgotten

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Just before Easter the DfE published a research brief about a trial programme into dealing with school exclusions entitled: Evaluation of the School Exclusion Trial: Responsibility for Alternative Provision for Permanently Excluded Children – First Interim Report Brief. The report can be found at: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-RB284

Reducing the number of exclusions could have an impact on both schools and society in general since many of the young people who fall into criminal behaviour as teenagers were excluded from school at some point in their education: often during the last few years of formal education when exclusions are at their highest in relation to the school population.

Although the trial is relatively small scale and still in the early stages it has produced some interesting findings. However, the authors of the report suggest that most of the issues raised during the baseline research phase were not directly related to the trial but concerned issues related to Alternative Provision (AP) that is often used with pupils at risk of exclusion.

The issues included:

-the shrinking of the AP market currently underway;

– problems in rural areas where the possibilities for managed moves and AP were limited

because of geographical location;

-managing changes in demand and requests for increased flexibility when AP providers may

have limited capacity;

-providing AP providers with regular income, particularly when they are not operating in

highly populated urban areas, to ensure stability of provision and high quality staff;

-the current lack of AP at Key Stage 3; and

-the availability of AP at Level 2.

Some issues, which may impact on the trial, but are not directly related to it, concerned schools.

These included:

-the difficulty of engaging some parents;

-the need to improve intervention in primary schools to address underlying serious

behavioural problems early on; and

-ensuring that schools have sufficient accommodation to be able to provide a range of in school provision on and off-site.

Two issues were identified which directly relate to the implementation of the trial. These are:

-ensuring that schools have the capacity and expertise to commission, manage and monitor AP;

and

-increasing the extent of early intervention at the first sign of difficulties.

At their heart, many of these issues relate to the extent that the schools are separate entities or part of a system of schooling responsible for the education of all children whose parents want to trust the State with the education of their children. In the muddle that is our school system at present this issue is important to deal with if schools are to be able to feel confident about helping challenging pupils. One solution is to commission the market to provide AP services over a wide area, or even nationally, and leave the contractors to identify how to allocate resources and still make a profit while meeting service levels. Cash could be recouped from schools that made use of the service.

However, this doesn’t deal with the issue of prevention at the in-school level, especially at the primary school where these problems often first manifest themselves. As the research report identifies, finding a way of providing early intervention is important. Such early investment may be a good investment, but will require co-ordination and support for schools. Ministers might want to start thinking this through in time to have some policies ready when the final report appears around the time of the general election. One policy might be to ensure better professional development for primary teachers whose initial training is so crowded that at present it leaves scant room for more than basic behaviour management techniques. There is also the issue of how far parents can exploit their child’s rights to avoid facing up to difficulties when they arise in a school

This trial is an important look at an area too often neglected by policy-makers and it is to be hoped it will attract the attention of Ministers since behaviour is too often quoted as a reason teachers feel demoralised and want to leave the profession.

Babies and budgets

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In the week that the Chancellor delivered his 2013 budget the DfE published new projections for the size of the school population. The DfE now has some idea of what the school population is likely to look like into the early years of the next decade, taking us past the 2020 point for the first time. On present predictions, the birth rate is likely to peak in 2014, meaning that the total headcount of pupils aged less than 5 in maintained nursery and state-funded primary and secondary schools is projected to reach a peak of 1,086,000 million in 2019; a 14% increase since 2012.

In 2010, the number of pupils in primary schools began to increase as the birth rate upturn started to have an impact on schools. By 2016, there are projected to be 4,462,000 million pupils in state-funded primary schools, an increase of 9% from 2012. By 2021, the number is projected to increase to 4,808,000 million, 18% higher than in 2012, and a figure not seen since the early 1970s.

Secondary school pupil numbers aged up to and including 15 are projected to rise again from 2016 onwards. By 2018, they are likely to have recovered to 2012 levels. The total size of the secondary school population will depend upon where those extra young people remaining in education until eighteen after the leaving age is raised decide to continue their studies; many will no doubt opt for the further education sector as it offers a wider range of learning opportunities to that of many school sixth forms.

The education of all these extra pupils must be funded. Recent debates have been about school places, but soon it will switch to the additional costs of extra teachers and the other resources that will be required for their education. Assuming that the increase in primary school numbers will be around 700,000 by the end of the decade, such an increase will require an extra £2.1 billion per year, even if only £3,000 is spent on each new pupil. In practice, the average spend across England is nearer £4,500 per pupil, so that would mean more than £3 billion extra may be needed each year even before factoring in the regional differences in the growth in pupil numbers since the average spend per pupil is £1,000 higher in London than for England as a whole.

In the budget Red Book, the Chancellor estimated spending on Education as a whole would increase from £51.4 billion in 2012-13 to £53.8 billion in 2014-15, possibly more than might be required during that period to fund the extra primary pupils. But, don’t forget that there is general cost inflation to take into account; schools pay more for their energy bills just like the rest of us, and there is the salary bill to take into account. The one per cent increase on an average salary bill of say of £166 billion adds £166 million to the annual teaching wage bill, plus the net effect of salary progression for those teachers not yet at the top of their pay scales. Add the cost of support staff of around another £80 million, and the annual age bill increases annually by close to £250 million a year before any more staff are employed. If non-pay inflation is only 2% that can add a further £140 million to expenditure even in a mild winter, meaning close to half of the increase over the two years is absorbed in rising prices and wages. Add in the net effect of academies whose expenditure isn’t contained in most DfE figures and the margin for new spending on the extra pupils entering schools becomes even tighter.

This is one of those classic dilemmas where politicians at Westminster can happily say one thing about protecting spending on education while their activists at the grassroots level are experiencing a very different reality. In this case, protecting may not mean improving. It probably won’t protect expenditure per pupil while numbers are on the increase and that will be hard to understand at the school gates.

Personally, it seems like a time for humility. Education has done well compared with many other government departments in this age of austerity, but the increased demands on its services means that the benefit probably won’t be felt in many schools. There’s also a message here for the teacher unions, and their leaders, during this conference season: be realistic not dogmatic. 

Is Mr Gove a chauvinist?

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I suspect that Mr Gove doesn’t much like the Human Rights Act, but until his speech yesterday I wasn’t aware of his lack of feeling for equal opportunities. Addressing 700 school leaders on what the DfE seemed to think was a speech about training schools, the Secretary of State indulged in a spot of ‘hero’ worship.  After praising those he has appointed to lead both the Training Agency and Ofsted, both men, he dug deep into his own education to select a Scottish philosopher from the Victorian era; a Roman emperor; and the obligatory Greek for classical balance, as heroes for his audience to learn from. Throughout the whole of his 24 minute oration that was more peroration that speech about training schools he didn’t explicitly mention a heroine at any point. But, perhaps that’s not entirely surprising since, apart from Cleopatra and Helen of Troy, women don’t feature largely in much of classical literature. No doubt his comment would be that the praise he heaped on his talented audience of school leaders, included those women who were present.

In speaking to his audience of freedom and innovation Mr Gove best resembled the Roman God Janus, offering freedom to schools, including freedom to fail, but castigating higher education for straight jacketing how we train teachers. He curiously forgot to mention that it was one of his former colleagues who required all trainee primary teachers to be taught phonics as the mechanism for learning to read; with their compliance rigorously enforced by frequent Ofsted inspections.  Mr Gove also seemed to forget that the Graduate Teacher Scheme he abolished in favour of School Direct required no university involvement, so perhaps he was offering to make a rather veiled –U- turn despite the House of Commons Select Committee last year making it clear training schools could benefit from links to universities. Here’s what they said on the subject:

13. We welcome the creation of Teaching Schools, and note that they will be expected to work with universities, which we strongly support: we believe that a diminution of universities’ role in teacher training could bring considerable demerits, and would caution against it. We have seen substantial evidence in favour of universities’ continuing role in ITT, and recommend that school-centred and employment-based providers continue to work closely with universities, just as universities should make real efforts to involve schools in the design and content of their own courses. The evidence has left us in little doubt that partnership between schools and universities is likely to provide the highest-quality initial teacher education, the content of which will involve significant school experience but include theoretical and research elements as well, as in the best systems internationally and in much provision here. (Paragraph 78)      http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmeduc/524/52404.htm 

On School Direct, and the comments he made during his speech, it wasn’t clear where he obtained his numbers from, and how robust the data about applications to the programme actually are. What was clear is that either the DfE isn’t keeping their web site up to date or schools aren’t yet filling the places in the scheme despite little more than 14 weeks of schooling left to the end of the summer term. If they really need to fill 94% of Physics places in that time, then that is likely to be a challenge for some of them, especially as Teach First and higher education are also still recruiting.

Had he been speaking to a predominantly primary sector audience his lack of heroines might not have passed unchallenged. However, after praising the Chief inspector, Mr Gove must have been pleased to find an Ofsted press notice released a day later suitably critical of higher education and teacher training. The fact that it covered only four institutions training school teachers, all post-1992 universities, one of whom was linked with a school-based programme identified as outstanding, did seem to undermine the credibility of the announcement. Whether it was up to the standard of evidence acceptable to one of Mr Gove’s modern day heroes isn’t certain, but as an academic I would hesitate to make any sort of claims on such a small sample, especially when he inspector’s overall comments on the university programmes included the following remarks:

Liverpool Hope – Report issued 25th December 2012 (sic)

The partnership produces high-quality secondary school teachers, particularly in English and modern foreign languages. The majority of primary trainees become good or better teachers but the teaching skills of a minority require improvement

Bedford – Report issued 14th March 2013

The key strengths of the primary partnership are:

  • The good progress leaders have made since the last inspection in:

– removing previous weaknesses

– improving outcomes for trainees so they are now good

– setting the right priorities to improve training further.

  • The good quality mentoring in schools that:

– identifies well the progress trainees are making

– sets targets for trainees that is securing better outcomes for both trainees and the pupils they teach.

  • The good training in phonics and early reading and mathematics that is:

– identifying well where gaps or strengths in subject knowledge exist

– enabling trainees to teach these areas increasingly well.

  • The commitment of trainees to their chosen profession as demonstrated by their:

– high employment rates

– attention to meeting the different needs of pupils in their classes

– promotion of good behaviour and positive attitudes with the pupils they teach

– ability to reflect on their own teaching to being about improvement both to their own teaching and the learning of their pupils.

University of East London – Report issued January 2013

Key findings

The partnership is successful in supplying good teachers, from a diverse range of backgrounds, who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to raising standards and aspirations in the communities in which they work.

Trainees have good skills in facilitating a positive climate for learning and good behaviour and in ensuring that pupils and students make good progress in their lessons.

The teacher training team is skilled and experienced and provides very effective support for trainees, ensuring that they develop good practice as a result.

The recruitment and selection procedures are rigorous and effective in attracting trainees who become good teachers.

University of Cumbria – Report issued March 2013

Key findings January 2013

  • Schools and settings display strong commitment to the partnership and play a leading role in the training. This means trainees gain an effective range of experience which helps prepare them for teaching in schools.
  • Both primary and secondary trainees promote literacy very effectively. Primary trainees’ confidence and competence in teaching phonics (the linking of letters and the sounds they make) has improved. Secondary trainees promote accurate use of written and spoken language and focus on subject-specific vocabulary.
  • Trainees in both phases benefit from training that helps them promote good behaviour in pupils. Trainees understand the links between good behaviour and good learning.
  • Leaders in both phases have been successful in bringing about improvements that are reaping rewards in ensuring trainees are successfully prepared to teach.

Mr Gove may not like higher education’s involvement in training teachers, and here he follows in the path trodden by many of his predecessors, but this is hardly damming evidence from Ofsted. Now is the time for those who support the Select Committee in believing in the effectiveness of a partnership between schools and universities in training teachers to stand up and be counted.

Planning School Places: More than just about the numbers

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On Friday 15th March the National Audit Office issued what can be seen as a critical report about capital funding for primary school places in England http://media.nao.org.uk/uploads/2013/03/10089-001_Capital-funding-for-new-school-places.pdf

The media, as might be expected, latched on to the fact that 250,000 extra places will be needed by September 2014, with a further 400,000 required by 2018, rather than the more technical discussion about the manner in which places are funded, and the value for money associated with the process. The figures for pupil places required are not new, although the shortfall still remains too large, and until recently hasn’t been treated with any degree of urgency at Westminster.

More important than the numbers is what can be read into the Report about the two competing ideologies in British politics – on the one hand, the market as a mechanism for solving all problems; and on the other some form of state planning. The post-war period has been marked in many parts of the public sector by a shift from a planning-based approach to public policy to a more market-based approach. The current generation of think-tank and policy research probably don’t realise that in September 1939 when DORA was introduced overnight (Defence of the Realm Act), using the experiences gained during the first World War, Britain became one of the most controlled and planned societies in the world: today planning is a concept that often seems to have a bad name in public sector policy, especially in education. However, the NAO Report ought to mark a reappraisal if not a turning point in the debate.

In the private sector, future planning is an integral part of every successful business. Just consider the fate of either those retailers that didn’t plan for the effect of the internet on their customers or the train operators who have failed to cope with a record growth in passenger numbers. Without planning comes not just chaos, but also inefficiency and public disappointment that eventually can lead to a sense of dissatisfaction with politicians. Now of course, planning isn’t an exact science, and bad planning can result is poor outcomes for society. But, planning for school places ought to be a basic part of the management of our education service.

Part of the reason for the failure in dealing with provision for the current upswing in the birth rate is undoubtedly the breakdown of the arrangements for controlling schools that stared a quarter of a century ago with the Education Reform Act, and site-level  management of schools. When the Labour Government invented sponsored academies to take over failing schools they destroyed many of the remaining education planning frameworks without making clear what would replace them. With Westminster and Town Hall both either unable or unwilling to take on the responsibility, there has been a sense of drift and ‘passing the buck’ rather than of co-ordinated planning: hence the NAO’s concerns about both numbers and value for money.

One outcome will be that parents in many areas are now faced with Hobson’s choice over what school they can send their child to, and the notion of parental choice will become, like the red squirrel population, restricted to ever smaller areas of the country, at least for the next decade.

Those parents whose children are starting school in locations where selective education still divides children at eleven might also want to consider how their secondary school system will cope with the increased numbers, and whether a system designed in the Nineteenth century for the few fits the educational needs of the many in the Twenty First century, one where all students will be expected to remain in learning until they are eighteen, irrespective of parental income or status.

From my perspective, however we procure the school places, and that might be through a market based approach, the State has a duty to ensure all pupils have a school place available to them that is not an unreasonable distance away from their home and doesn’t demand they attend a school that has an ideology or teaching methodology objectionable to their parents. To fail in planning for this basic task, while still requiring parents to send children to school, if not educated elsewhere, under pain of the criminal law, is a basic failure of government that is unlikely to go unpunished at the ballot box; although whether the right tier of government will shoulder the blame only time will tell.

If the provision of school places isn’t at the top of Minister’s agendas at present then it ought to be. There may be more fun tasks, but concentrating on the basics must now be top of both Ministers and officials ‘to do’ lists. History will judge a Secretary of State harshly if he or she as steward of our state education system fails to provide enough school places during the next decade.

Good quality preparation equals good teachers equals good schools

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The Lib Dems are discussing a motion at their spring conference on Saturday that recognises the need for trained teachers and for continuing professional development once in the profession. Although not called to speak in the debate here is a draft of what I would have said to the conference:

There was a report in The Times this week that trainee teachers were to be required to spend time in top independent schools. In doing so they may help the UK export industry, and would no doubt come into contact with the children of Tory voters, but let me tell you that they won’t learn anything about teaching they could not find out just as easily by working in state schools.

A glance at figures from Mr Cameron’s own Oxfordshire constituency show it is the less advantaged that our education system is failing in large numbers –  in one school in West Oxfordshire, according to Ofsted, only 13% of disadvantaged pupils made the expected progress in 2012.

By all means show new teachers how to stretch the children of the richest in society; but that’s not the problem we need to solve in most of our schools.

Trainees tell us they need better behaviour management skills; again, not an issue in most private schools – so that can’t be the reason for sending trainees there. Ministers, you should read the evidence from Ofsted before trying to reorganise teacher preparation programmes yet again.

This motion supports our teachers, and recognises that one silly scheme after another emanating from Sanctuary Buildings won’t improve teaching one iota. Last year, Mr Gove said teachers didn’t need training at all. That would put them on a par with MPs – who some might say are just a bunch of mostly amateurs fumbling around at law making. Ofsted wants training for governors, is that a more demanding role than teaching? I doubt it.

This motion recognises the value of our teachers and what needs to be done to make them even more effective in the future.

And I warn ministers that unless they sort out the funding for trainees there won’t be any new teachers to send into Eton, Rugby or Roedean. Those who attend such schools may be able to repay more than £70,000 in student loans, but those who teach them, and especially those who dedicate their lives to teaching our most challenging children, certainly cannot. We should push for equal funding for all who are prepared to train as teachers.

Finally, let me end by saying to the Secretary of State, ‘Saranoya’, although no doubt he would prefer it if I had said ‘Ave atque vale’.

Who is in charge of our schools?

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A slightly amended version of this article appeared in the Oxford Times on 31st January 2013

Who is responsible for schools in Oxfordshire? This innocuous question reaches to the heart of the current debate about publicly funded schooling in England. Historically, there were three levels of responsibility: individual schools; local authorities, in our case Oxfordshire County Council; and the government at Westminster. Interestingly, this year, sees the 25th anniversary of the passing of the Education Reform Act. That legislation, by introducing local management of schools, started the process of delivering autonomy to individual schools while at the same time reserving power over the curriculum to the government at Westminster. During the following 25 years local authorities have steadily lost control of their local education service. New types of schools have been developed, ranging from Kenneth Baker’s City Technology Colleges through the grant maintained schools of the 1990s to the more recent sponsored academies of the Labour government, and finally the new converter academies, free schools and university technology colleges all managed from Westminster.

Of course, a range of different bodies running schools is not a new concept. The major churches have been a part of the education landscape since compulsory elementary education was introduced in 1870, and more recently these schools have been joined by those from other faiths. What needs to be resolved now is the chain of responsibility and accountability for publicly funded schools, and whether, as I believe they should, elected local authorities still have a central place in the organisation of schooling?

Since the funding for schools is now largely determined at Westminster, with little room for local political discretion, as is when and where new schools may open, councils have been left with responsibilities, but often no funds or powers to implement them.

The rhetoric from Whitehall has been that chains of academies are the way forward. Local authorities are nowadays pale shadows of such chains, without many of the powers conferred on these private sector chains by the Labour government that invented them. One solution is that councils become just a watch dog, with questions about school performance solved by Whitehall mandarins. This might work for the secondary sector, but with more than 18,000 primary schools across England the chain of command between each school and Whitehall is just too long. Last summer the RSA suggested unelected School Commissioners, along the lines of the Police & Crime Commissioners. That is a possible solution, but it takes away democratic control from a key publicly funded institution, and would create a system for schooling more akin to the NHS.

While the debate about who is responsible for our schools remains unresolved, the present system, especially for the primary sector, risks heading towards a complete collapse. Already, professional development services for schools, effective planning of school places, admission arrangements, and provision of services to children with special educational needs are either under threat or have been severely curtailed.

There is a ray of hope locally in the way that both the County and Oxford City responded when I revealed in November 2011 that KS1 results in the City were the worst for any district council in England. But, it shouldn’t have been up to me to start that debate.

I support local democratic responsibility for schools, directly so for the publically funded primary sector, regardless of who actually operates the schools, and as a watchdog for both the secondary and further education sectors where performance can be the key to the success of local communities. However, what really matters is that the government takes swift action to deal with the present lack of a viable control structure for our school system.

Professor John Howson is the director of dataforeducation.info and holds a visiting professorship at Oxford Brookes University and a visiting senior research fellowship at Oxford University’s Department of Education and has lived in Oxford for more than 30 years. He is a lifelong Liberal Democrat, and Vice President of the Liberal Democrat Education Association. These are his personal views

The curriculum for the primary (elementary) school

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The primary school curriculum

Earlier this week I was asked what I thought should be the essence of the curriculum for the primary school? In one way, defining the early stages of the primary curriculum is an easy process. Moving from gross to ever finer motor skills, developing competence in reading, writing, speaking and listening; learning the basics of numeracy; acquiring the ability to socialise and work with others; an understanding of the need for physical effort related to health; a sense of time, space and identity within a democratic society; an understanding that there is more than one language, and how others communicate using different languages; the basics or art, music and other cultural activities;  science and its approach to the problems of the world; faith and reasoning; the developing technological environment and how it works. And above all, perhaps as sense of wonder, awe and a desire to achieve.

I am sure there is even more. The task for governments is, how much to define and how much to leave to professionals, but to still monitor the outcomes through the political process. As a society we are impoverished in the modern world if children are not literate, numerate, technologically aware and able to appreciate the consequences of living together in society that is complex and based upon many different ideas, ideologies and faiths.

Politicians, on behalf of the learners they fund through schooling and their parents, have a right to expect educators to teach children, using whatever methods are appropriate, providing they meet ethical and moral standards, and achieve expected outcomes, without undue interference. Educators have a right to expect politicians to provide adequate resources for them to achieve these goals.

Universities, government, and the private sector must all play a part in helping develop new approaches to the curriculum, and its delivery, and also in appropriate assessment and recording mechanisms that are not overburdening but do allow the effective measurement of progress to be recorded and effectively disseminated to both the learner and their parents.

Of course, the school is no longer the only source of learning, and never was, but the school must be capable of ensuring that the curriculum for the gifted and talented can stretch beyond the school gates to ensure interests and abilities are not restricted by the need to teach large groups of children. Schools must also ensure that those who have special needs are recognised and treated accordingly and in a manner that doesn’t hinder their learning.

Robert Fulghum probably summed the curriculum up best in 1986 when he wrote ‘All I really need to know I learnt in kindergarten‘. Some things we can learn at any time of life; others we need to know from an early age. 

Mr Gove and the Triple A rating

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Mr Gove and the Triple A rating

Accident or design? That’s the question the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be asking the Secretary of State for Education about the £3 billion or so currently sitting in school’s bank accounts. A figure that has been steadily rising since the coalition came to power in 2010 with the promise that schools would largely protected from the current round of economic hardship facing the rest of the public sector.

Data published by the DfE earlier this year showed that by the end of the last financial year schools had reserves in excess of seven per cent of their annual revenue incomes. With a government fighting recession, and keen to find ways of spending more without raising taxes, urging schools to spend some the taxpayers cash held in their accounts might help unlock some local economic paralysis if the cash went to local projects employing local workers.

Not only might the effect of schools spending £500 million a year on job creation schemes across the country, targeted at the either the low paid and long-term unemployed or alternatively new graduates yet to find a job make good political sense, but it might also actually help the economy. However, Mr Gove has been strangely silent on this key issue of the moment, preferring to fiddle around with school structures and the curriculum which, whatever their value, are longer-term issues in the current economic crisis.

Ministers who are apparently not alert to the bigger picture in cabinet, and the contributions their department can make to solve it, either aren’t up to the job or want a quiet life. There is a third alternative; they recognise that economic failure might help their own career prospects. Now nobody would accuse Mr Gove of such a cynical approach to politics and he can claim to have limited authority over the primary sector, although with some many secondary schools now academies he has much more room for intervention with that group of schools.

Before the Labour Party starts calling for Mr Gove’s head over this issue, they will need to see what steps the local authorities controlled by them, and the many Labour Party members serving as school governors, have taken to challenge the strategy of local schools building up reserves for a rainy day. The recent Ofsted report on the pupil premium, and their earlier interim findings, should have alerted the DfE to this issue even if Mr Gove ignored the Statistical Bulletin when it appeared in his ministerial box.

Perhaps it is time for that the guardian of public expenditure, the Public Accounts Committee, to intervene. After all, its chairman isn’t exactly unfamiliar with education. It may also be time for David Laws to stamp his foot about school spending. After all, it won’t help the Lib Dems if all that pupil premium and catch-up cash they have secured for schools has just made its way straight into the school’s saving account. As a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, albeit briefly, he cannot be blind to the financial figures that cross his desk and that of his even more economically literate adviser.

The inclination by schools to save is laudable, but surely if there was ever a time to for schools to spend, it is now.