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Political matters
On March 11th Shadow Secretary of State Tristram Hunt
addressed the FASNA conference. He complimented
FASNA on its diligent and effective campaign of over
20 years for ‘autonomy with accountability’. He quoted PISA
evidence that the more autonomous schools systems around the
world were raising standards. He championed schools having
the freedom to innovate and the autonomy to lead and to
determine the curriculum within a system of robust structures
but with local oversight – and there’s the rub. What does this
mean? Mr Hunt was circumspect in answering this question
because of the soon-to-be-published report commissioned by
the Labour Party which will be the core of the Labour Manifesto
at the next election.
It was put to Tristram Hunt that LAs had a poor record for
‘school improvement’ and had neither the resource nor the skillset
to come back into this arena. Debbie Clinton (Nunthorpe
Academy) drew Mr Hunt’s attention to the appalling track
record of some LAs in the North East of England and made the
link that this was an area where there were few or no sponsored
academies or converter academies to raise standards.
Mr Hunt talked of ‘new entrants’ to the middle tier and the
value of ‘collaborative competition’ and ‘not going back to the
past’ but this would appear to be work in progress which did not
capture the imagination of confidence of delegates.
Mr Hunt was very sceptical about the emerging role of DfE
‘regional commissioners’ who would work with free schools
and academies.
In his address Tristram Hunt stated that he was proud of
‘Labour’s’ sponsored academies programme but cautious and
less open-minded about acknowledging the work of some
3000 converter academies – yet he seemed to be advocating
that all schools should have academy freedoms under a Labour
government. The question is will all schools in that scenario
have all the academy freedoms earned under this government?
Clearly opposed to free schools, he worried about free schools
like those in Derby and Bradford but he did not put that concern
into the context of the many successes of very many free schools
elsewhere in the country. He criticised the government for being
more concerned with the numbers of converters than with their
subsequent effectiveness, though organisations such as FASNA
are working hard to support schools after they have converted.
Subsequently there have been reports in the press that Labour
would give academies the option of returning to the LA.
In her vote of thanks Helen Hyde was forceful in making the
point that the sins of the few should not be used to punish the
many good schools through the creation of unnecessary structures
around school improvement which was being successfully led by
schools themselves in many parts of the country.
Other matters: Funding
Of course we are pleased with the announcement that £350
million is to be given to the 60 lowest funded LAs. This is a
small step towards getting more equity into school funding
but, though welcome, the gesture doesn’t go far enough and
will be compromised by the application of LA ‘averages’ and
the manipulation of the many labyrinths of the school forum.
No Minister or Shadow Minister we have met with thinks
the present arrangements can be defended or begin to be fair
not only between LAs but often within LAs. Add to this the
postcode lottery that is ‘high-needs’ funding and you have to
say that the reform of school funding has for too long sat in
the politically ‘too-difficult to do drawer’ and the common
factor in this unfairness is the application of LA managed
local arrangements. It’s time for more political courage which
will, presumably, have to wait until after the next election.
But fundamentally the issue has been ducked for the last 25
years because there will be ‘losers’ – although apparently it’s
acceptable for ‘losers’ of the last 25 years to go on ‘losing’. As
Tristram Hunt said to the FASNA conference, the problem is the
‘Vietnam syndrome where many have gone into this zone but
few have come out victorious’.
School meals
Meanwhile, there are silly ‘noises off’ like the provision of free
school meals in the first three years of statutory education.
No matter that some schools don’t have catering facilities; no
matter that some parents don’t want their children ‘force-fed’
during the day; no matter that in some schools teaching time
will be lost to stagger the provision of meals during the day in
accommodation that is not fit for purpose or in spaces needed
for lessons like PE or dance drama or assemblies; no matter that
in some schools it will some kind of ‘meals-on-wheels service’;
no matter that there is wholesale confusion about who has the
money (LAs or DfE ) to provide the kitchens and services that
some schools and parents don’t want; no matter that it is money
coming out of other parts of the schools’ budget as a whole; no
matter that the autonomy to make local decisions appropriate
to local circumstances is ignored; no matter that there was
no consultation about this with schools or even, according to
rumour, within government itself. It is government policy.
Governance
And so to governance. Schools cannot be deemed ‘outstanding’
unless there is ‘effective governance’ – at FASNA we feel that this
is a good thing. Yet we have a clunky Ofsted framework with bits
added on to paper-over the cracks. The cultural shift required
in governance is too important to get things wrong. Let’s get
all inspectors to understand the new landscape so that when
a school in a MAT is inspected it can’t be a stand-alone, single
school perspective which fails to acknowledge the profoundly
different local arrangements which may obtain for each school
within the MAT. The impact of the MAT and the place of the
school within it matters or it wouldn’t be an arrangement made
for the benefit of the students in the first place.
Summer 2014 | 31