Examination of Witnesses (Questions 76
- 79)
MONDAY 24 MARCH 2003
MR BARNABY
SHAW, MISS
ANNABEL BURNS
AND MR
ANDREW MCCULLY
Chairman
76. Can I welcome Barnaby Shaw, Andrew McCully and
Annabel Burns to this session of our investigation into secondary
education and particularly pupil achievement. It is very good
of you to appear before the Committee. As I said outside, we are
keen to unravel some of the questions that have started to emerge.
How we play these things is we tend to have a seminar where we
try and get our head round these things, and then have a group
of academics, who appeared before the Committee last week, and
now it seems only fair for those of you who deal with this hard
work in the Department should come before the Committee to tell
us about your experience. I am going to ask you if you want to
open, but do you meet often, the three of you?
(Mr Shaw) We work pretty closely together,
so we regard ourselves as part of a fairly large team at DfES.
77. So you are not working in isolated pods?
(Mr Shaw) We try to be as unisolated and as joined
up as we can. It is not easy.
78. So you meet most weeks?
(Mr McCully) Indeed, we have all met for different
reasons this morning. I think that is a pretty common occurrence
across the group where we are from.
79. Just learning how people manage their responsibilities
is useful. Okay. Fine. Andrew, Barnaby, Annabel, anybody want
to say anything to kick us off?
(Mr McCully) We want to say a word about where our
respective responsibilities fit in and why we think that helps
the Committee.
| 
