Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-284)
WEDNESDAY 15 JANUARY 2003
MRS MARGARET-ANNE
BARNETT, MR
RON JACOBS
AND MR
RAY SHOSTAK
280. So the choice and the ability to select
10% of pupils by aptitude or ability, you do not see applying
in the country area at all. Even in a relatively small town like
my constituency, Chesterfield, there are still a number of parents
who, for various reasons over the years, have wanted their child
or have been told their child has to go a certain number of miles
away, they have found it is beyond the limit where they will get
free school transport and yet if they come from a poor family,
which a lot of people in Chesterfield do, they cannot afford that.
Therefore, even in a pretty compact area like Chesterfield, the
choice will be pretty curtailed unless you provide free school
transport. There are two questions there: the choice in the10%
selection by aptitude you do not envisage applying in rural areas
at all, and, even in fairly small areas like Chesterfield, such
choice as there is is so little if free school transport is not
available.
(Mr Jacobs) We have no plans to change the transport
rules, no.
281. So a lot of backtracking on what we have
heard about choice in the last five years.
(Mr Jacobs) I think the Government now says less about
choice than it did five years ago. I think that is valid comment.
It also says a great deal more about Specialist Schools Programme
being about school improvement rather than about specialism, which
was the case in 1997. At that stage the programme was mainly about
specialism rather than about school improvement.
(Mrs Barnett) Choice could be said to be as much about
choice of subject and choices within schools as it is choices
between schools—probably more so. I think what we are most
interested in is making sure that students can go to their local
school and feel that they can have their own aspirations, their
own talents, their own educational needs met. It goes back to
what Ray was saying about schools developing some additionality,
but that not being the focus for parents making the choice. Parents
will make a choice for a number of different reasons. Primarily
they want their children to go to a good school, and they may
want their children to go the school that their brothers and sisters
go to, that is closest to them. There is a range of different
reasons why they would make that choice. We do not envisage that
the expansion of the Specialist Schools Programme will necessarily
give parents a greater choice between schools; we do hope that
the way that the programme is developed, with closer links between
schools and a sensible geographical spread of specialisms, with
those schools working together, will mean that any child going
to any school should be able to access the subjects in which they
are most interested. For example, if you look at Stevenage in
Hertfordshire, they are looking at a very interesting plan to
develop themselves as a "specialist town", with every
school taking a different specialist subject and those schools
working together so that they are, in effect, sort of centres
of excellence for their subject but sharing that expertise across
all of those schools. And Cornwall, of course, sees immediately
that that is the way they are going to have to operate because
it is quite impractical to go to the sports college if you are
a keen sports person. In Cornwall they have quite strategically
placed their three sports colleges as a spine along the authority,
along the county, and they have a hub and spoke model so that
each of those three sports colleges has a slightly different area
of expertise and they have coordinators who work right across
the authority to make sure that the excellence is spread. That
is the kind of model that I think we are most interested in looking
at in the future as the model develops.
(Mr Jacobs) On that point which Margaret-Anne was
making, that particular model in relation to sports colleges is
in fact a national strategy. That is how all sports colleges are
intended to operate.
David Chaytor
282. If Stevenage pursues the model of having
every school a specialist school, strategically located through
the town, will Stevenage change its transport policy to enable
poor parents to exercise a preference for any of those schools?
Or will some pupils be prevented from attending the school of
their choice because of the school transport rule?
(Mr Shostak) Remember the current legislation allows
for 10%, which is a very small number of youngsters within any
cohort. We have five-form/six-form entry schools generally within
the county, so that is 15 kids. In fact Stevenage would not have
to change its transport. That just happens to be the geography
of Stevenage. I have no doubt that, as this policy unfolds, the
issue you are looking at now will need to be looked at and considered.
I think they are very real issues. I do not think there are very
easy answers to them but they are very real issues. This matter
is partly dependent upon the objectives in terms of the policy.
The legislation, if there is new legislation or regulations, will
have consequences and so it will be something one needs to look
at.
Chairman
283. Ray Shostak, you have been involved in
this for some time and you have given the indication that you
have read some of the evidence we have taken from various academics
in earlier sessions of this Committee. Are you content, in your
position in Hertfordshire, that this diversity programme, that
has really been across parties and across administrations, is
actually working in improving standards in the schools with which
you are familiar?
(Mr Shostak) It is too early to say. I have absolutely
no doubt from the previous work we have done post-16 that the
approach we have taken in terms of raising standards is making
an impact. I am clear that the Diversity Pathfinder has the potential
to support a further enhancement of standards within the county—we
would not have expressed an interest unless we did—but it
has all of the tensions and issues that you have rightly touched
upon in your previous evidence and now. There is no quick-win
within aspects of what we are talking about of the continued development
of standards within schools. The Diversity Pathfinder provides
our next step in terms of change in culture, change of relationships,
and an opening in terms of the sharing that we have described
today. But in itself has consequences. I would not want the Committee
to go away thinking everybody out there thinks this is the bees'
knees. There are tensions within it all. Not all schools are keen
on it because of these tensions. One point that you were making
earlier on, Paul, is in respect of the very restricted number
of specialisms. Bearing in mind that if diversity is a school
improvement device you are talking about the processes of planning,
defining, sharing and collaboration. It is not actually very relevant,
not hugely important what the specialism is; it is actually about
those processes. As this begins to unfold I certainly hope that
the Government will be looking at the bureaucracy, will be looking
at the barriers that exist in terms of the funding regimes, the
additional money that schools need to raise, the community links,
the relationships not only across secondary schools but between
secondary schools and their local primary schools; and their local
communities. But the simple answer is that I have no doubt that
it will be helpful to us.
284. Is there any last word you would like to
give the Committee, Margaret-Anne, Ron? Is there anything which
you think we have missed out, which you would like to tell the
Committee on this programme?
(Mr Jacobs) No. There are some
awkward questions you have not asked but I do not want to go into
that at this stage.
Chairman: I think you have talked yourself
into a second visit!
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