Tag Archives: schools

Side show attracts more attention than main event

Posted on by
1

Labour’s thoughts on the subject of private education received more coverage this week than their announcement on teacher supply issues put out the day before. Public fee-paying schools are a part of the political agenda and Labour’s call to remove business rate relief from such schools not prepared to go further in cooperating with schools in the state-funded sector avoided the thorny question of charitable status, but no doubt played well to voters that would prefer to see all children educated by the State.

My view has always been that the State in England lays the obligation on parents to educate their offspring. It has never mandated where or how that should be achieved. In an unequal society some parents can buy schooling. If they were forced to send their child to a local state school they would still buy tutoring, as many parents do at present, to improve the educational outcomes of their children. Preventing parents from spending money on education while allowing them to spend money on cigarettes, gambling and other potentially bad habits would seem illogical. However, we know that private schools produce better results than many state funded schools, just as selective state schools do. Interestingly, Tristram Hunt didn’t appear to say that such schools should share teachers with other state schools.

Labour’s carrot and stick approach to the private schools, ‘either help or pay more tax’ probably does recognise that with a teacher supply crisis looming in some subjects, and some parts of the country, private schools may be in a better position to recruit not just better teachers but actually enough teachers. The fundamental question is, therefore, as ever, how will schools that cannot recruit enough teachers effectively teach their pupils? Sharing a scare resource sounds fine in principle as a solution but is fraught with practical difficulties. I assume that private schools don’t have spare teaching capacity just waiting to be redeployed, so to use their teachers to help state schools they either have to employ more of them, potentially making the situation worse or create larger teaching groups – the very thing some parents are paying to avoid – or perhaps offer spare places in ‘A’ level groups where an additional one or two students might make no difference. But, that is no solution for the small private primary school.

The Conservative Party’s solution to the education problems around improving quality seems to be a discussion of more grammar schools. This suffers from the Oxbridge dilemma. How do you stop parents with money paying to secure entrance by improving the learning opportunities of their children before the test? This takes us back to where this piece started. Do parents have a right to pay for education if by doing so they advantage their children over others?

Finally, as Tristram Hunt failed to acknowledge, private schools are now a large export earning industry.  Id that something we wish to encourage or does it risk educating the children of our competitors in the global market place as the expense of children brought up in England?  Of course, one solution to the teacher shortage is to recruit more teachers from overseas, but how does that play in the present debate over immigration?

Gradgrind was wrong

Posted on by
3

The peak period for diagnosis of metal health problems is between the ages of about ten and thirty. For the first third of that time schools play an import part in the life of young people. However, whether they are as responsive to mental health issues as to physical health matters is worthy of scrutiny as the Fooks lecture I attended recently in Oxford made clear.

Dr Ian Goodyer from Cambridge suggested in the lecture that we all have a checklist of what to do if we encounter a cut finger; stop the bleeding, prevent infection and find a sticking plaster. But, there isn’t the same level of immediate in-house steps to dealing with mental health matters. Of course, if the cut is deep or otherwise problematic, you seek expert help. The same is true for diseases of the mind. But, how much do we offer simple suggestions to teachers and others to look for signs of an unwell mind? Thirty years ago Sir Keith Joseph as Secretary of State for Education started the assault on universities rather than schools preparing teachers with an attack on the study of the ‘ologies. I think he especially disliked sociology, but psychology became caught up in the general attack along with philosophy and the history and governance of education. He may have had a point. However, taken to extreme the cure is sometimes perhaps worse than the disease.

As we now teach children in classes, not just the class as a whole, there is a need to know pupils as individuals and not just en-masse. This is challenging for secondary school teachers with many different groups to teach each week. I am sure that trying to do the best for every child has added to stress levels of teachers, as it is much more demanding than teaching to the average of the class.

Teachers are the only group in society working day in and day out with young people going through profound physical, emotional and psychological changes, especially during their teenage years, yet how well do we prepare them for this task?

It would be interesting to see how the different routes into the profession deal with these challenges at the present time? How far do trainees meet with school nurses and counsellors to discuss the challenges young people face during adolescence and how they respond to them. Do we tell teachers to look for self-harming, for eating disorders, and for isolation and failure to engage in class? These are arguably as important as other child safety issues, but while these receive headline attention Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services have languished as the poor relation of an under-funded part of the National Health Service. Fortunately, the Health Select Committee at Westminster has recently illuminated this dark space and Ministers in the Health Department, if not yet in education, have taken some notice.

As a man interested in numbers, I could look at the loss of productivity or the absence figures cited by Ian Goodyer in his lecture, but as a human being I see the tragedy behind the numbers and some of the effects on individuals and their families. If restoring the ‘ologies to teacher preparation saved one young person from self-harm, an eating disorder or a suicide it will have been well worth doing.

Should trainees bring benefits as well as costs?

Posted on by
5

The IFS Report on The Costs and Benefits of Different Initial Teacher Training Routes published on Monday makes for interesting reading. On the face of it, paying all trainees a salary might be less expensive for government than paying bursaries to some but not others and trying to reclaim the fees that the government used to pay anyway, from some, but not all, trainees.

The IFS study has shown that the costs of training differs according to the route chosen and the nature of the trainee, but that many costs are not fixed but rather variable in outcome, dependent upon factors such as the quality of the trainee and how much input they require during their preparation period as well as how much government must pay to attract them into the teaching profession.

Generally, the costs of preparing a teacher can be divided into student support (fees and bursaries on some routes and salaries on others); training costs, and finally marketing and recruitment costs.

On the other side of the ledger is the benefit a trainee can bring, especially towards the end of their course when they may require less supervision. However, since they could acquire more skills if the training cost was regarded as a fixed cost this might push up standards rather than trying to quantify a benefit from a trainee. Herein lays the issue at the heart of the IFS research; should schools be expecting to reap benefits from trainees?

I am sure that those that think teaching is a profession where you don’t need training will regard the cost of some routes as too high and will try and focus on the benefits of early immersion in the classroom. However, as anyone that has watched the recent spy on the wall documentaries about schools will know some teachers need more help than others at the start of their careers and that such help comes at a price.

The other part of the IFS study that concerns me is the manner in which views of teachers about trainees are turned into numbers. Although the responses aren’t large for the different routes I would have liked to know, if this approach is going to be used, whether trainees in subjects where recruitment is easy returned more positive feedback from the schools than subjects where trainees were more of a challenge to find. In relation to School Direct I am not sure at this stage whether there has been any attempt to quantify the cost to the school of an unfilled place and to set this off against an overall sum for the route.

Traditional higher education providers may set the threshold for entry into training at a lower level than schools offering the newer routes. This will undoubtedly increase the cost of their training, but if taking risks provides sufficient teachers and only recruiting certainties doesn’t then, although the cost of training may be lower, the cost to education may be higher unless, for instance, teachers were prepared to teach larger classes.

At first glance the IFS study provides a good basis for further thinking by policy makers, but there is still a great deal of work left to do. For instance, what are the longer-term costs of programmes with lower retention rates in the profession; and are different routes better at attracting future leaders?

Free Schools but not Free Education

Posted on by
1

The report from The Children’s Commission on Poverty saying that the cost of basics, such as uniforms, school trips, materials and computer access can amount to £800 per child each year in state schools raises fundamental questions about what should be paid for by the State in terms of schooling.

https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/At%20What%20Cost%20Exposing%20the%20impact%20of%20poverty%20on%20school%20life%20-%20Full%20Report.pdf

I have long been aware of schools identifying specific textbooks and expecting pupils to have access to them and also in some cases in the past even expecting parents to donate to a fund for the school. Over the years these practices seem to have been growing as local democratic control has been eroded by successive central governments of all political persuasions. The Pupil Premium and free school meals for infants are at least a step in recognising there is a balance that needs restoring and these pupils with extra funding should not be asked to pay for items that are part of the basic life of the school.

Of course, different schools have always had access to different fund-raising abilities. When I worked in Haringey, at the start of my career, schools at the Highgate end of the borough made many more times profit at their summer fete than did schools at the Tottenham end of the borough.  Indeed, one school always seemed to be able to pull in a TV personality that guaranteed good attendance regardless of the weather.

I do think schools should be compelled to publish on their web site what they charge for each year. Where schools have reserves above the generally accepted norms then they must explain to parents why they are not providing the items they charge for from school funds. Perhaps someone might like to complain to the Secretary of State that a school is acting unreasonably by not spending its own money on a basic item.

Taking a cut of uniform sales through suppliers puts up the cost to parents as does having uniforms that cannot be easily bought from high street retailers, perhaps because the blazer is an unusual colour or has piping around the edges. Whether or not these are devices designed to exclude certain children from a particular schools, especially once the cost of sports kit has been added to the basic uniform cost, they do create a burden on less well off parents that should be prevented in state-funded schools.

The issue of internet connections at home has been one that has raised concerns ever since IT became so important in homework. Schools need to monitor whether this is a problem and follow best practice in ensuring all pupils can use the internet to complete homework tasks regardless of where they live. This is especially true for less well off families in rural areas where access to broadband may be partial or even non-excitant at reasonable costs.

I hope Lib Dem ministers will take up the cause outlined in the Commission’s report and not shelter behind the notion of schools being free to decide their own policies. I would also like to hear from the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches a clear statement that their schools will be expected to provide an education that doesn’t cause hardship to some families and exclude pupils from some important activities. Free should mean free in all respects and not free, but only if you can afford it.

Youth parliament debates

Posted on by
1

Yesterday afternoon I attended a debate held by Oxfordshire’s youth parliament. This body is the local arm of a national organisation and eventually elects representative to the national youth parliament that is provided with an opportunity to debate in the House of Commons chamber. The youth parliament creates an opportunity for young people to receive their first taste of that part of the democratic process in action. During the day they discuss topics in groups, creating arguments for and against policies that allow them to see and understand how the debating process operates.

The topic for debate yesterday was around the issue of young carers and the responsibilities schools have to this group of young people.

The debate was surprisingly balanced between those that felt schools had a key role to play in helping young carers and others that felt school was a place to escape the burden of care and be yourself. This group was afraid of the stigma other pupils might attach to young carers if their role was too clearly known at school. Most contributors on both sides of the debate made single points that were rather more in the form of interventions than speeches although the opposition closing argument was an impassioned speech that may have swayed a few votes in his direction.

Four county councillors, including the Council Leader, along with a group of senior officers, turned up to listen to the debate and support the young people.  Each councillor was able to express their support for the scheme and encourage the young people in their actions. After all, the teenagers had taken a day out of their half-term holiday to be at the youth parliament.

It was good to see the level of support and it is important that young people don’t take democracy too lightly, especially if England were to follow Scotland’s actions in the referendum and reduce the voting age for some if not all elections from eighteen to sixteen.

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the introduction of state education in England, in 2020, it is important to remember the part education has played in helping shape our democracy. One important change I have mentioned before is that the emphasis is now on educating children as individuals and not as classes. This makes more work for teachers, but creates more opportunities for children. How the rest of society handles that in terms of its effects on social mobility is another matter. But, we still struggle as a service to help those, whether young carers, pupils suffering from childhood illnesses and diseases, or children with parents that don’t appreciate the importance of school attendance. Unlocking the potential in all is a good phrase for an election slogan on education as it shows what we have still to do, but in a positive manner.

There is far more to a democratic state than the skill of debating, but to make at least that aspect of parliament real to young people might be to awaken the interest of the next generation of politicians.

Owning what is ours

Posted on by
1

Last week I was sent a copy of this manifesto for education produced by the NAHT in July. It contains a number of eminently sensible recommendations as might be expected from an association whose general secretary was a management consultant before taking up his present role some years ago. Indeed, a longer time ago than I care to remember, we were both part of the same team on a leadership project.

There are a couple of things that I would add to the manifesto. Firstly, what works in the secondary sector might not work in the primary sector; and secondly, there is a crying need to sort out the 16-18 sector including deciding where it belongs: with the skills or the education department of government?

I would also put more emphasis on the need to sort out the control mechanisms while recognising the truth eloquently stated in the manifesto that you cannot really run the detail of education from Whitehall. We do need a Secretary of State that can lift the spirits of the profession and tackle the workload issue if only because the boom in pupil numbers is going to require future Ministers to put recruitment at the top of their agenda for at least the next decade if we are going to maximise the educational opportunities for all children and continue to create a successful economy. I would have liked to have seen a bit more about the relationship between schools and parents and how we motivate the disaffected and disillusioned not to damage the education of their families by failing to make the most of the opportunities on offer.

All the technical issues; qualified teachers based on an agreed preparation programme regardless of how it is delivered; preparation for headship; a Royal College; the re-introduction of a proper professional development programme based upon the needs of both the teachers’ current school and their own career development; local authorities as the admissions appeal body for all publicly funded schools and with the central role in planning pupil places and commissioning both the expansion of existing schools and new schools where necessary all seem sensible policies to me both as a Lib Dem politician and a councillor.

If the NAHT wants a national funding formula then it must ask its members why they so many of them are not spending the money that they already receive. Using some of the reserves to find ways to cut workloads would be a sensible approach to a problem that is now generally acknowledged to be something that needs tackling. I was told yesterday of an experienced teacher whose sleep patterns are disturbed by being unable to switch off from thinking of the workload and I am sure that she is not alone.

The four core priorities of the manifesto; returning the focus and pride to teaching; refining accountability; rebuilding relationships; and strengthening the bonds between schools suggest education as a common purpose rather than a battleground between warring factions. Indeed, it may be that a study of the OECD reports, rather than just a quick look at the numbers, would reveal how important these qualities are for successful systems.

De Facto if not De Jure

Posted on by
1

The difference of opinion between the Secretary of State, a lawyer, and the Chief inspector, a former head teacher, over the inspection of academy chains that was played out in front of the Education Select Committee this morning is interesting. In this case I am on the side of the Secretary of State. The post on this blog of 27th March this year showed that Ofsted inspectors didn’t shy away from the issue when the use of Pupil Premium money was concerned. Indeed, Mr Gove’s answer to the PQ detailed in that blog surely offered support to current the Secretary of State’s view. My reading of the legislation on the functions of the HMCI is that he has the power to enter any location relevant to the powers of inspection and he can be directed by the Secretary of State under her own powers.

A long time ago in the early 1990s, when Ofsted be first formed, the issue arose as to whether HMIs had the power to inspect teacher training in pre-1992 universities that were bodies not under government’s direct control being corporations of one type or another in their own right. The universities lost that battle. Academy chains would lose the same battle in my judgement. If necessary it would only need a short clause inserted in a Bill currently before parliament to make the position absolutely clear. However, it would be a brave academy chain that might stand out against a Secretary of State knowing she believes she has the power to inspect either directly or through an inspection of all or some of the schools within the chain.

As this is the exercise of public money it also raises other interesting questions where functions ancillary to the direct provision of education are concerned. How far does the remit of Ofsted run in this increasingly devolved world of education?

Then there is the issue of diocese and academies. Can Ofsted look at the working of the diocesan office where it is partner in an academy trust in the way that it might not have done in the days when church schools were in the voluntary category? If so, it might wish to start by considering the efficiency of leadership appointments in the schools under the control of the Roman Catholic Church and whether there was any room for improvement in some dioceses through learning from the best practice elsewhere in the country.

No doubt the next issue will be who will inspect the work of the regional school commissioners?

Will they, like the local authorities before them, want their own advisory services to complement the work of Ofsted or will they rely upon a mixture of data provided by schools and inspections by Ofsted for the intelligence about the performance of the schools that are their responsibility. Either way, it seems likely that yet another bureaucracy will be established.

In that respect this government is following the path of its predecessors: cut the number of civil servants when entering office and then find reasons for appointing new ones to support the policies it develops.

25,000 not out

Posted on by
2

My thanks to everyone that helped this blog reach the total of 25,000 views in less than two years and with just over 200 posts. It took just one year eight months and eighteen days to be precise to reach the 25,000 figure if anyone other than me is interested. There has been at least one visitor from each of around 100 different countries during that time, although the bulk of visitors, over 22,000 views, have been from the United Kingdom. Still thank you to my local followers in Kazakhstan, Australia, Thailand, Canada, and across much of Europe as well as the rest of the world. I guess that the power of the State is the reason I am still waiting for my first viewing from the People’s Republic of China and from Tibet. Much of Francophile Africa is another area where there have been no views, but that may be less surprising given the language barrier and internet penetration in the region. My especial thanks to the more than 150 regular followers and to those that re-blog the most interesting posts to others.

Over the course of the last year the issue of teacher supply and the associated issue of training have together come to be a dominant theme in the posts on this blog. In view of the changes to training with the government in England preferring school-based preparation to higher education courses this is probably not a surprise. What started as a continuation of my column about facts and issues behind the numbers has progressed to consider some wider educational issues. No doubt that trend will continue as the UK general election looms ever larger. Indeed, the 2015 general election looks like joining those of 1906; 1945; 1979 and 1997 in the annuls of political history as one when seismic changes takes place at Westminster.

I originally started writing about education statistics in the Times Educational Supplement in 1998 in a column called ‘hot data’. In one form or another that run until 2011 when I retired from the TES. For a period it then ran in the on-line Education Journal, and many those columns can still be accessed on Amazon in the e-book ‘Please Miss- can pigs fly?’ For various reasons I eventually became attracted to the greater freedom that a blog can provide where editorial decisions and what to write are entirely within the compass of the author: hence this blog.

Do I have a favourite post? I am not sure that I do. As I only write what I want to, in one sense every post is a favourite. Certainly the post of early August 2013 on School Direct and teacher training recruitment generated the most consequences at the time. One of the most distressing to have to write was my tribute to Andrew Bridgwater after his untimely death; liberalism and special education lost a great friend that day. My submission to the Carter Review has been one of the most viewed of recent posts.

Most posts aim for around the 500 word mark, but as usual this one is slightly over-length as I am not good with the red pen. So, let me close by once again thanking everyone for reading and for the many comments I have received. The next challenges, 50,000 views and 500 posts.

How many rural primary schools are there in England?

Posted on by
1

This is the sort of pub quiz question that can only be answered by those that follow the DfE website and the many detailed updates to our knowledge about the education system that appear from time to time. According to the DfE’s latest announcement, there are 4,673 primary schools that qualify for the designation ‘rural’ under the annual order published as a Statutory Instrument this year on the 29th September and that came into force on the 1st October. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rural-primary-schools-designation Unlike most SIs this one is signed not by a Minister but by a DfE official.

For those of you that thought London was an entirely urban area, there are six primary schools in London boroughs designated as ‘rural’ schools. One of these is the Forty Hill Church of England Primary School in the north of the Borough of Enfield. Located within the M25 it sits in an area of green belt adjacent to its parish church on a very restricted site just nine miles from the centre of London.  Originally built as an all-age elementary school in 1851, some 20 years before the advent of formal state education, it now has 238 primary age pupils wanting a church school education.

According to the DfE Forty Hill School is classified as  being located in a category defined as ‘Hamlet and Isolated Dwelling – less sparse’ as opposed to one of the other categories such as ‘Town and Village – less sparse’ and ‘Village – sparse’ as well as the really rural ‘Hamlet and Isolated Dwelling – sparse’.

Of course, compared with Kielder First School in Northumberland, Forty Hill might be considered quite an urban school. According to the DfE, Kielder has but 13 pupils aged between 5-9 with three teachers and two classes and a unit cost of over £14,000 per pupil. Earlier this year Ofsted reported that it was ‘outstanding’ having improved since its previous inspection. Schools like this one exist because, especially in winter, it would be challenging or even impossible to transport the pupils from the adjacent area to the next nearest school.

For many rural schools this isn’t the case, and from time to time local authorities have had various degrees of success in amalgamating rural schools into larger units. However, such is the love of all schools threatened with closure that apart from amalgamating separate infant and junior schools into a single  primary school there have been relatively few  large-scale schemes of amalgamation except where authorities have removed a three tier system and reverted to the ‘normal’ two-tier system with a transfer age at eleven.

Now that the smallest school can convert to an academy the geography of primary schools in rural England is likely to remain much as it currently is until a policy change forces a re-think. However, with ever younger children in schools, and a growing school population, this isn’t likely to be an issue high up anyone’s agenda for the next decade. As a result, perhaps the DfE can stop this annual exercise and save some more cash.

 

 

 

Hawks, doves and the art of leadership

Posted on by
1

Watching the TV programme ‘Educating the East End’ on the day that Ofsted published its well trailed views on discipline in schools was illuminating, not so much for what happened on camera as for what was happening around the framed shots. If you put together that evidence with other programmes such as ‘tough young teachers’ and both ‘Educating Essex’ and Educating Yorkshire’ a pattern begins to emerge of what it is like teaching in these schools, especially for some teachers.

Overall one has to say that edited highlights of hours of filming that are needed to fill a brief to entertain, inform and educate in that order may not be entirely reflective of the norms of a school. Nevertheless, the lack of graffiti, clean, mostly litter free corridors, and open spaces and classroom where displays can exist without being totally trashed suggest that there is an overall sense of order in these schools, with leaders having a clear sense of direction and teachers and pupils having an understanding what is expected of them. These are not ‘blackboard jungles’ in the fictional sense of the term or as depicted in the 1960s and 1970s by TV series and films such as ‘Please Sir’ and the St Trinians films. But, they are places with large numbers of adolescents starting the change from childhood to adulthood in a society where respect for authority is rarely a feature of everyday life outside of school.

Each lesson witnesses the battle of the soap opera that exists in many classrooms and this is evident in the TV programmes. The average pupil still too often tunes in at the start, tunes out once they know the plot of the lesson that continues to run in the background and only tunes back in at the end, especially if homework is being set. In the meantime whether they participate effectively or do their own thing depends upon how well the teacher handles the most disaffected elements in the class.

What I hope the Chief Inspector is saying is that time on task, and hence learning, is closely related to the classroom environment and that in turn is set by the level of control over the lesson that the teacher exercises. In a school, the tone is set from the top. This is especially important in those parts of the country where we now have large numbers of relatively inexperienced teachers. The number of such teachers will grow over the next few years as pupil numbers expand and assuming funding remains stable.

Creating learning environments for all pupils took me five years to achieve as an untrained teacher in the 1970s. These days we should expect better results from the preparation courses as we know so much more about learning and society than in the 1970s when teachers were coping with the new world of non-selective secondary schools. My field these days is not teacher preparation, so I don’t feel qualified to say how we should prepare our teachers or even really how we would run schools on a daily basis, but I suspect the moving line between authority and anarchy still exists in many schools. Creating learning for all while not stifling individualism is a tough ask and I respect those leaders that achieve it whether by being hawks or doves.