Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-279)
WEDNESDAY 15 JANUARY 2003
MRS MARGARET-ANNE
BARNETT, MR
RON JACOBS
AND MR
RAY SHOSTAK
260. Of course there is, but that is avoiding
my question, is it not? My question really is, do parents put
a higher premium on difference or quality?
(Mr Shostak) Bearing in mind that the specialist schools
programme does not create a specialism uniquely, so if you go
to a science specialist school, all you get is science because
there is the national curriculum because all schools are delivering
that entitlement, what you have, which your previous witnesses
said before Christmas, is that the specialism itself is additionality
in terms of what is happening within the school, so in fact the
stark choice you are creating would never really exist in this
system. At the end of the day, what parents want is high quality
local schools.
Mr Chaytor: Let me put it again. Do parents
put a higher premium on quality or additionality?
Chairman
261. Let Mr Shostak have a rest and allow Mr
Jacobs to come in here.
(Mr Jacobs) Mr Shostak seems reticent on this but,
from the Department's point of view, I have no difficulty in answering
Mr Chaytor's question directly. We are aware that parents place
a higher premium on high quality than on difference as such. What
we believe is that this programme offering difference enhances
the quality of any individual school.
Mr Chaytor
262. Can I just pursue the questions that Ms
Munn was raising about the impact of competition on the pathfinder
projects. In each of the six pathfinder areas, there will be schools
competing with each other for students but there will also be
schools who have different admission policies and are their own
admission authorities. What I would like to ask is, what is your
evidence about the development of the projects in those areas
where there are a larger number of schools that are their own
admission authorities because if the thesis is that the purpose
of the projects is to develop collaboration which focuses all
schools' attention on the needs of all children, how can that
be compatible with some schools in their own admission authorities
and therefore, by definition, intending to keep out certain kinds
of children?
(Mrs Barnett) I could say something about that but
I think that Mr Shostak, being in an authority with a high number
of schools that are their own admissions authority, would have
something to say about it as well. I think it would be true to
say that all of our projects have started from a different basis
in terms of the level of collaboration, in terms of the level
of competition and the degree to which admissions are an issue
in their particular areas and so on, from some such as in Birmingham
where it is a fairly level playing field among those schools that
are in the Oaks Academy to Hertfordshire where there are some
real differences to Middlesbrough where there are issues around
pupil numbers and so on. I guess that what is encouraging about
the project is the willingness of head teachers to grapple with
some of these issues and to take them head on and that varies
too, of course. What these clusters of schools are doing, for
example in Hertfordshire, are beginning with where the collaboration
is going to be most helpful to them. So, where they can get the
benefits from working together. In some cases, that will mean
not tackling some of the more vexed issues about admissions and
so on and just getting on with how they can share best practice,
how they can challenge poor performance, how they can help support
their teachers and so on. In other cases, it means taking a really
good look at admissions arrangements and looking at how they can
make sure that children do not slip through the net. It will be
an interesting evaluation of this project to see the extent to
which issues such as inclusion can be addressed through collaborative
means.
263. Of the six projects, which areas have started
to take a good look at the issue of admissions policies?
(Mrs Barnett) Certainly in Portsmouth, that is part
of what they are looking at. Mr Shostak will be answer as to what
extent they are looking at it in Hertfordshire. In Birmingham,
the Oaks Academy, this is not something they have decided yet;
they have other things that they are looking at at the moment,
but they are thinking that potentially they may have a joint admissions
policy across these six schools and that children will be admitted
into the collegiate and state a preference for a school rather
than be admitted into individual schools. So, that would be our
tightest model. In other areas, it is going to be different. Of
course, in Cornwall, it is quite different again because you go
to your local school in Cornwall because of the nature of the
authority.
(Mr Shostak) Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding
here. Collaboration is not some soft, wishy-washy blurring of
accountability or merging or avoidance of standards. It is actually
about building upon the autonomy of individual institutions in
a way that enhances learning for youngsters. It is not some sort
of soft option. Within Hertfordshire, in respect of admissions,
as Margaret-Anne says, we do have a very large number of admitting
authorities in a very wide pattern of admissions. It is one which
includes aspects of selection, both by aptitude and by ability,
in some of our schools. It is an extremely complex set of circumstances.
We have evened the playing field, so that community schools are
able, should their governors wish, to exercise their right in
terms of the selective element of the current legislation. No
school has yet chosen to do so, but we have levelled the playing
field so that that would be the case. All the schools across the
authority have the same opportunities. Within our collaborative
clusters, they have not yet looked at those sorts of issues, but
they would be one of those drivers which ultimately, depending
upon where the Government goes in terms of this direction of travel,
almost certainly needs to be considered.
Mr Pollard: I am a Hertfordshire parent—in
fact, with seven children now grown up with grandchildren, I am
probably your best customer!—and I have to say that Hertfordshire
is a cracking authority and very well led by you—I want
to put that on record as well—and your team at County House.
You have excellent schools. I do not know of any schools that
are not good, and they are also well led. In Hertfordshire we
have a great diversity of provision, from grammar schools, fee-paying
schools, special schools, standard comprehensive schools—I
have to be very careful how I describe those—to Steiner
schools even. Is that enough, and is that model working well in
our county?
Chairman
264. I hope this is not going to become a sort
of love-in between you!
(Mr Shostak) I will try to avoid that. Thank you for
your comments, by the way. We are trying to create, within the
authority, the capacity for people to learn from each other, to
identify where best practice is, wherever it is—within the
state system, within the independent system, within industry—so
that we can actually learn the lessons of best practice wherever
that happens to be. We are trying to celebrate the diversity that
exists within our schools. We may now begin to tag it as diversity,
but schools have been different. They have different sets of expertise
within them and we are trying to develop structures and mechanisms
that facilitate learning across those various institutions.
Mr Pollard
265. Each year in February my surgery is full
with people who do not get their choice. One of the reasons that
they cite is that because of the grammar schools, the fee-paying
schools, schools like Parmiter's, for example, people are putting
in multi-applications. Is this not a disadvantage, a great disadvantage
of the school diversity system?
(Mr Shostak) It is certainly the case that parents
within the county do have a challenge in terms of working their
way through the various admissions' details. We have actually
been extremely successful in serving parents by coordinating the
admission arrangements, so that there are single applications.
We have coordinated the way in which we have worked with all the
admitting authorities. All youngsters now get an offer of a place
on the same day, so that we have avoided those difficulties. But
it would be true to say that there are competing policies. We
would want nothing more than for as many parents as possible to
get their school of preference. In all of our policies, year by
year, we have tried to ensure that we are meeting that objective.
But it is worth your Committee just remembering that that policy
sits alongside a set of other legislative requirements, in terms
of school place planning, surplus places, the effective use of
resources within a locality, which cuts across that. We are trying
to maximise the number of parents who do get the school of their
preference. But, you are absolutely right, Hertfordshire parents
have high aspirations for their young people and want to do the
best by them, and long may that continue.
266. Does the funding for the Diversity of Pathfinders
cover the full costs in Hertfordshire?
(Mr Shostak) The answer to that is no. It is a particular
worry for us, partly because many of the Government policies do
target additional resource for this sort of work within urban
areas which Hertfordshire as a county has not actually been able
to access. But also in the light of our most recent local government
finance settlement which is going to leave us with some serious
challenges in terms of financing. Again that will need to be looked
at if this is the sort of direction of travel the Government wishes.
The main money that we get as part of the Diversity Pathfinder,
not surprisingly, goes into the coordination of what we call "clusters",
in terms of our groups of schools, so that they have been able
to release staff for leading that work. We have also employed
a professional fund-raiser to try to reduce the amount of time
that seeps out of the system in schools chasing the additional
funding, which in itself is a major issue the programme needs
to look at and which we have some questions about. So we have
basically used the central funding to try to add value, to reduce
the bureaucracy and increase the learning for schools at school
level.
Jonathan Shaw
267. Would it assist you if there was one admissions'
authority? Would it deal with the type of problems referred to
by Kerry Pollard?
(Mr Shostak) I think the question you need to ask
is not whether it would assist me but whether or not it would
it assist the parents.
268. Yes, I think that is right.
(Mr Shostak) There is no question that the admissions'
round for parents is a huge thing for young people and is a hugely
stressful time. The lack of certainty is very, very severe for
many parents and young people. We also have to ask ourselves the
question, in school improvement terms, whether or not a parent
not knowing which secondary school they are going to go to until
this time of the year before they get there, is really the best
mechanism of harnessing the interests of parents in terms of supporting
school development. Because many parents will not know until a
couple of months before the youngsters are going to transfer and
the uncertainty is really quite severe for parents.
Mr Simmonds
269. If we all accept local accountability and
we also accept—although some of us would challenge—that
historically LEAs have been a good idea in Hertfordshire and other
areas, why has it been left to the Department to instigate the
Diversity Pathfinder project? Why did not LEAs do it themselves?
What additional benefits, other than funding, did the Department
actually bring to the process? In my particular constituency I
have grammar schools and secondary modern schools that are linked
together, collaborating off their own bat, so what additional
processes and support can the Department bring to that process
that is not already in place?
(Mr Shostak) I think you will find that in the best
LEAs they have been doing it and have been doing it for some time.
I hope I have been effective in communicating to you this morning
that we have used the Diversity Pathfinder as a method of supporting
the direction of travel and the work that we have been doing as
part of our clear and unambiguous school improvement strategy.
I think you will find that in many LEAs; although it is worth
reminding ourselves that there have been a good number of years
where the LEAs have been downsizing and there have been questions
about whether or not LEAs have a role to play within the system.
270. If I may interrupt you there—and
I apologise for interrupting you—if you were doing it already,
are you just not getting involved with the Diversity Pathfinder
process to access a greater number of funds?
(Mr Shostak) The Diversity pathfinder is, as you have
outlined in Ron and Margaret-Anne's early interventions, a new
direction of travel, so you have the local authority working now
with the Government in terms of supporting that change process,
going back to Andrew's question, at local level. Although within
Hertfordshire it is the direction in which we have been moving,
we find that for other local authorities, because of their education
development plans and because of the work we have been doing in
recent years in building capacity or rebuilding capacity, going
back to Valerie's comment, actually to support school improvement,
school development—and there has been a need to rebuild
that capacity. The Diversity Pathfinder creates a policy context
in which we can support our schools in moving in that direction.
In Hertfordshire's case the Diversity Pathfinder actually give
us a very small amount of resource to work with the Department,
identifying what the policy issues will need to be as we move
down this direction of travel.
271. Could I ask a representative from the Department
to answer that question?
(Mrs Barnett) I think that the partnership that we
have with those Pathfinder LEAs is an important aspect of what
we are doing. I think it is quite right that it gives us a chance
to look very closely at some of the issues that are arising out
of the diversity agenda and some of the opportunities that are
there for us to build on in a way that we could not do with 150
authorities in the same way. I think that the expansion of the
diversity agenda, the expansion of specialist schools, does present
us with some opportunities that are worth really putting under
the microscope in the way that we are able to do it through this
kind of project. And it is not a hugely funded project in the
great scheme of things. I think that when you look at the funding
that will go into schools, and, consequently, if you look across
an authority as a result of the specialist schools' expansion,
that is considerable funding. That is where the real funding is
going to go into the education system. The Pathfinder funding
provides a bit of extra capacity for LEAs to look at how they
can be much more strategic about planning the development of diversity
across their authorities and how they can facilitate much stronger
links between schools to ensure that benefits are gained by all
the students.
272. The Department's role is merely one of
obviously providing funding but, secondly, of evaluation and an
analysis rather than any sort of controlling role, which to my
mind may provide, if this is rolled out, a system which has uniformity
and conformity in it rather than the diversity that each particular
geographical area may desire.
(Mrs Barnett) I would agree that that is the case,
that this is not a controlling role at all; this is a role where
we work in partnership, looking together at the issues, and also,
as the project develops, being prepared to see those projects
change and move as they go through. So it is certainly not something
that is prescribed.
273. Is there any evidence in any of the areas
that have been piloted so far that the collaboration has actually
raised educational standards in those schools that are within
specific areas? Is there any statistical evidence to show that
standards have been increased?
(Mrs Barnett) It is too early for us to measure. We
can say—and I guess this is where accurate measures and
sort of qualitative anecdotal evidence come into play—that
there is a great deal of enthusiasm, excitement and commitment
from head teachers and subject leaders in these Pathfinder LEAs.
For example, in Birmingham, with subject leaders coming together
now on a regular basis and teachers meeting together, we have
teachers and subject leaders saying that this is the first time
that they have had such an opportunity to work with colleagues
at this sort of level. It would seem quite fair to say that the
likelihood is that is going to have an impact on raising the quality
of teaching and learning, which is what this is about.
274. How long will it be before you have that
information?
(Mrs Barnett) You could ask the researchers that.
Our final report, the evaluation report, will be published in
October 2005 but we have interim reports. They will be reporting
to us annually on the project.
Paul Holmes
275. A lot of the advantages you have talked
about in the cooperative clusters and various Pathfinders have
been to do not with schools offering specialisms like science
or whatever but to do with the collaborative work you are doing
to the benefit of the community in general. If we must go down
the road of specialist schools, are the Government not missing
out on a trick in not allowing schools to become specialist in
other things like, for example, good community schools or comprehensives?
(Mr Jacobs) I have two things to say about that. I
will address the community school issue specifically in a moment,
but the first is to say that ministers are currently considering
whether there are further additions that should be made to the
offer to schools on specialisms, and so I cannot anticipate that
in any way. That is under discussion at present and I understand
an announcement will be made in due course on that. Community
schools as an option: certainly the view taken throughout the
campaign for this—and a lot of schools have expressed a
lot of interest in it, particularly schools that have badged themselves
as community schools for many years—is that this programme
has always been about curriculum specialism and that that is at
the core of it. But that is not in any way an obstacle to a badged
community school becoming a specialist school—indeed, there
are well over 50 community schools that are specialist schools.
The feeling has been that, since the programme has been based
on curriculum specialism and since all the evidence that has been
looked at in relation to it has been about curriculum specialism,
something called "community as a specialism" would be
a different programme rather than part of this programme. That
is the view taken.
276. When the Committee visited Birmingham,
we looked at a number of schools involved in some of the collegiate
groups. When we had an open evidence session at the City Hall,
a group of parents from one of those areas came to the meeting
and said, "The problem is that all our kids go to the local
junior schools, and that is great. Then we come to age 11, and
we have two local schools. One is a grammar school, and most of
us can't get into that, and the other one is, you know, a sink
school, and we don't want the kids to go there." They are
then looking at schools five,10, 15 miles away into which they
are desperately trying to get their kids, most of them do not
get their first choice and so they end up coming back to what
they regard as a poor local school. One of the mothers actually
said, "We do not want excellent schools that we are chasing
all over the city for, we want a good local school," which
comes back to what we were talking about earlier: Where is the
evidence for this choice and diversity, or do parents just want
a good local school? If choice is really going to work—and
the Government emphasise choice an awful lot—would the Government
not have to, for example, re-write a lot of the rules on school
travel? At the moment you can only get subsidised free school
travel if there is a certain reason why you have to go so many
miles away to a school, like going to a faith school. If you look
at that choice, of parents in Birmingham going from this side
of the city over there to the science school and from that side
of the city over here to the language school and so forth, are
the Government not going to have to re-write all the rules on
free school travel?
(Mr Jacobs) It would only have to do so if it was
going down the road of actively encouraging parents to make those
choices over distances that were relatively difficult for pupils
in attending those schools, and that is not the current position.
We are not actively encouraging people to travel unreasonable
distances to school. I would answer it in terms of: only if there
were a change of policy would those issues come in
277. The area in which I taught in Derbyshire,
most of which is very rural, if specialist schools and choice
is to mean anything at all—all the things that the Minister
in November last year was praising: the choice that is available—it
must mean parents moving their kids who are very good at languages
here, or at science over there, but miles down the road, to the
specialist school of their choice that fits the specialism for
their child. Otherwise the whole specialist thing is meaningless,
is it not?
(Mr Jacobs) No, the Secretary of State has made clear
that the programme is primarily about school improvement and we
certainly do not see it as a programme where people should think,
particularly in rural areas, in terms of travelling great distances
in order to attend an arts college, say. Each individual specialist
school will continue to provide the National Curriculum, each
individual school will continue to provide for all its pupils
whatever their particular talents. So they are about "additionality"
in the specialism; they are not about subtracting from other parts
of the curriculum.
278. In November 2001, the former Education
Secretary said, "We have achieved significant diversity over
the last four years . . . This greater diversity is good for pupils
and parents and will ensure there is more choice and innovation
in the school system." More choice.
(Mr Jacobs) Yes.
279. But what choice, if you are actually moving
to get the so-called benefit of the specialism?
(Mr Jacobs) You may, I suppose, feel it is semantic
but there is more choice because some parents, because of the
particular location they live in, will be able to see this as
providing more choice. But the Department does not intend to disguise
the fact that that is something that does not apply uniformly
across the country; it is something that is meaningful in certain
situations. It will have some meaning in some small towns but
there are many situations in which it will not in practical terms
enhance choice, but it does provide more choice rather than no
change or less choice.
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