Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340-359)

MONDAY 20 JANUARY 2003

SIR CYRIL TAYLOR AND PROFESSOR DAVID JESSON

  340. One of the things you said right at the start was that this kind of diversity and the options were popular with parents. I know one of the concerns which was always around in Nottingham was that the school was there plonk in the middle of an inner city area on the old John Player's factory site. There it was and initially drawing in children from that area, but would those children start to get pushed out by other people opting or trying to get their children in from areas. As we know, in some cities you get deprived areas sitting right next to well-off areas, so in terms of catchment area those children in well-off areas are not necessarily seen as coming from out of catchment.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) I am very familiar with Djanogly and its selection procedures. They have very high free school meals eligibility, I think the highest of all the 15 CTCs, and perhaps not surprisingly their results have not been in the stratosphere of 90%. They have got up to roughly 60% now. They actually give preference to under-privileged areas of Nottingham which are given a proportion of the admissions. They give an NFER test and they absolutely guarantee that the ability intake of each year matches the local average. They believe very strongly that their mission is to provide a good education for schools from disadvantaged families.

  341. What you are saying there is that they are achieving value added for those children as they are coming in, but those children are still not among the top performing ones.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) Absolutely not. If you look at the free school meals, which some people say is not that accurate an indication, I think it is quite good as an indicator, from memory, Djanogly CTC has a 31% free school meals eligibility, which is roughly double what the national average is, which is 15%.

  342. We are talking about value added. Ultimately what we should like to see is children with ability from more backgrounds able to achieve. I am not criticising the specialist school programme because obviously it is what children are coming into at that stage and we would need to go further back. The other important point on this section is this issue about the motivation of pupils and parents and what impact that is having. If there are fewer specialist schools around, if not all the secondary schools are specialist, if the City Technology College which perhaps has been there for a long time is seen as being a good option, are the children there doing better because their parents are motivated because they are pushing their kids to go there in the first place? Do you have a sense or any information on that which you can give us?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) We do not have any data on motivation. There are 10 specialist schools in Sheffield, which I believe you represent, and all their admission arrangements are done by the LEA. I believe that proximity is the major criterion. Clearly in a place like Sheffield that can work. I personally think it is right to have some possibility, if you live just outside the immediate catchment area, for at least some proportion of places to be available for parents with a child who is especially keen on that type of education. But the fact is that 60% of specialist schools are community schools and the admission decisions are taken by the LEA.

  343. Would your view be that it is preferable to have a situation where admissions are by the LEA rather than to have schools able to choose themselves because of the distortion that might have on their intake?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) There are lots of arguments on the other side. I personally think free-for-alls on admissions do not work. It was tried in Bromley and it was a disaster. The answer in the long run is to have many more good schools and as we get 2,000 specialist schools we hope that we will deliver that objective.

Chairman

  344. We went to New Zealand recently and looked at their school system. One of the things we picked up on very strongly was the similarity with this country and many others. We have a strategy and a system of giving reasonable education to two thirds of the population and it is the tail which is extremely vital to get right. Both in New Zealand and here, as I hear you talk, Sir Cyril and Professor Jesson, we have yet to get to that stage and here you are in a sense reinforcing this. Is the specialist school system still going to leave that third of under-achievement? Are specialist schools going to work for the third of the most under-performing schools?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) That is an extremely important question. There are 420 schools in this country which perform at less than 25% and they have 325,000 children in them. Each year about 50,000 of them reach the age of 16, many of them getting very poor results, probably a large proportion of them not even being able to read and write properly. Sadly a lot of those go straight onto the welfare rolls and some of them become young offenders or substance abusers. It is a major, major issue for this country. While I do not think we have the only answer, our schools, especially the ones which are doing very well, are divided into three clubs. We have the 70% club, the ones who get 70% more, we have the most value added group, those which have added more than 10 points of value and the ones which have improved the most. There are about 250 head teachers in that group. They have all raised their hands and said they are willing to partner with an under-performing school. We have a recent initiative where we are going to write to the head teachers of the 420 under-performing schools—I do not even want to use that word because it might not be under-performing bearing in mind their intake—the schools with less than 25%. We are going to inform them that there is a group of head teachers who would be willing to partner with them and help in any way that they can. We do not want to be prescriptive because the issue is very sensitive. Who knows which two head teachers are going to get on, which chairs of governors? You cannot prescribe how it is going to happen, but we think there is a strong possibility that there will be lots of partnerships. We already have around 60 who are existing specialist schools. We now want to move into the ones which are not specialist. One idea we have is that each partner school which a new specialist school has to name should be one of these under-performing schools and one of their objectives should be to bring them up to a stage so that they can get specialist status. If we can achieve that, we really will have made a difference.

Paul Holmes

  345. One of the flaws we have heard about the evidence which is given on specialist schools and Professor Jesson's statistics is that they only look at pupils with five A to Cs. Why do you not give us the figures for the over half of the school population who get lower than grade C? Do they not count? How do you assess the impact of specialist schools on slightly over half of the school population?
  (Professor Jesson) An interesting question about what is the measure which is most current in popular parlance. When you look at the way the performance tables are published, you will find two measures. One of these is the point score which pupils achieve, which is across all the subjects which they take. The other is the five or more A* to C percentage, the one you are questioning me about now. The issue is that the point score, in spite of its introduction seven or eight years ago, is still misunderstood as a means of evaluating the performance of a school. I find it still very difficult to understand what it means when I find a point score, which is identified as being the reference point for a school, but it bears no relation to the public debate about how well that school has done. We have just been talking about schools which are low performing, under 25%. Almost all the criteria for target setting which the government sets are expressed in terms of these special percentages. It would have been perverse for the work which I do to have taken the less well understood measure and used that in preference to one which I have to say is very current, appears to be well understood and even though it relates at the moment to only half the population is something we wish to see increased.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) We do do both though.
  (Professor Jesson) We do both.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) I can read you what the score was last year—we have not done it yet for this year. There were 510 schools in operation in the year 2001: specialist schools averaged 42 points per pupil, the non-specialist comprehensive schools averaged 37 points. David also did a value added on both point count and on both sets of data and specialist schools are doing well.

  346. One way of assessing how well specialist schools are really doing would be to take a look at what effect they have on the other schools within the area. Last week the grammar schools in Kent were in the news because the Secretary of State has just published an inspection report showing that although the grammar schools do well, because they are selective, the effect on all the pupils in Kent is that they are doing less well than an equivalent county in other parts of England because of the selective system distorting what happens to the two thirds of the pupils who are in non-selective schools. How can we assess whether the specialist schools which you represent are having the same distorting effect on the schools in their neighbourhood that the grammar schools are in a county like Kent?
  (Professor Jesson) I do not know that we can at the moment. It seems to me that the crucial point here is what happens to pupils in similar categories. It is here that the framework of analysis is quite clear. When we group pupils in the way that the government's department does into five groups with low intake, high intake and two or three other groups in between, in each one of those grouping, individual pupils who are in specialist schools do better. I do understand your point that it could be the case that because these schools supposedly select pupils it has a dire impact on the other schools. I do not think the evidence is anywhere near to hand that that happens. It seems to me that the important thing is to look at what happens to pupils who have the good fortune to be in specialist schools, to celebrate their success and to wonder how we might extend that through all other schools who have the perfect right to apply.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) One or two studies have been done by individual city CTCs, for example the Corby CTC has analysed the results of all the schools in the Corby area since they started in 1990. They claim—I have not actually verified the data—that the rate of improvement in the other schools is actually better than the rest of the schools within Northamptonshire. Their thesis is that the presence of a high performing school pulls up performance generally, especially if it is a comprehensive school in its intake, because the other schools start to say "If they can do it, why can't we do it?". The collaboration which specialist schools have with the other schools in their area helps that.

  347. When you are comparing the five A to C scores between specialist schools and non-specialist and you are saying that they are doing better in the specialist schools, do you include in your table of figures intermediate GNVQ, which is worth four C and above passes and would tend to be studied more in the non-specialist schools than the specialist schools in my experience as a teacher?
  (Professor Jesson) But of course. Yes, the extension of the curriculum to embrace vocational subjects has been one of the great successes of the specialist school movement. I was quite surprised when I looked into this in this year's results to find that in fact the total number of entries in GNVQ across the nation is only just something under 60,000. That does quite surprise me because sometimes pupils might take two of the shorter courses, so 60,000 is not the number of pupils and that is less than one in 10 of the whole pupil population. It is more extensive in specialist schools, but it is clearly not the key to the improvement which specialist schools have made. It is one point of importance and I would hope that the issue of specialist schools and vocational qualifications is quite important. We want to see that kind of opportunity for pupils who perhaps find the total academic curriculum not quite to their taste, offering them something which is more appropriate, both to themselves and to the society of which I hope they will become a fruitful and productive part.

  348. May I just pursue a point which was raised a little bit earlier around a free school meals comparison? Evidence we have been given in previous meetings, including that from Ofsted, has said that on balance, across the country, the figures do show that specialist schools and faith schools take fewer children with special educational needs and fewer children who qualify for free school meals than non-specialist and non-faith schools do. Whatever might be the case for one particular one which you quoted, across the country the figures do show that you take fewer children with special educational needs and free school meals.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) I would dispute that.

  349. The Ofsted figures show that.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) We have verified data from analytical services which say that the total national free school meals eligibility for the current year is 14.9 and specialist schools is 14.6. That is the entire cohort of 550,000 secondary school pupils in each year group multiplied by five for the five years.

  350. The most current Ofsted figures were last year's which they gave to us about three Wednesdays ago. The Djanogly College in Nottingham have 31% free school meals which is twice the national average. What do the other schools in that surrounding city area take? Talking about faith schools brings to mind Canon Hall who quoted two schools next door to each other in one northern city and he said that the faith school did very well and one did really badly and was not a faith school. When you analysed it you found that the faith school took about 18% free school meals and the failing school next door took 71% with free school meals. What percentage of free school meals are the schools in the inner city around specialist colleges taking?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) I think Djanogly is 31%, a very high level. I do not know all the other schools, but the average for Nottingham is much lower than 31%.

  351. For Nottingham inner city or the whole city including very leafy suburbs?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) It is a very interesting point. The point has been raised about whether GNVQ IT, which is equivalent to four A to Cs, accounts for the better performance overall. David Jesson is going to break out the numbers this year, excluding GNVQ IT so they will be interesting to see. We do have this preliminary data which we are happy to give to you. We personally think that maths, science and English, the core subjects, are very important and we are somewhat astonished that none of the league tables focuses at age 16, although they do at Key Stage 1, two and three, on maths, science and English. If you take the 650 specialist schools in operation this last summer, they average close to 41% good grades in maths, science and English; the other schools were about 34%, something like that. We are not proud of 41%, or slightly less than 41% but it is better than for other schools.

  Chairman: We had better move on, otherwise we are not going to give due time to the Secondary Heads Association's evidence. Let us look at evaluating the impact of school specialisation.

Valerie Davey

  352. One area I am particularly interested in is the impact on primary schools. You rightly said that the specialist schools now, as opposed or by contrast to the earlier City Technology Colleges, have a remit to involve their feeder primary schools. I think that is a huge and important development. Do you have any evidence yet of the impact on primary schools which the specialist school movement is making?
  (Professor Jesson) I personally do not. This perhaps is one of the areas where the kinds of data we collect could be more informative, because we do need to look back at the primary course from which pupils come. It would be a very valuable thing to do and it is something which perhaps needs to be on the agendas for the future. I do not have any evidence on that at the moment.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) Anecdotally we have some head teachers who have said that whereas five years ago the number of pupils who had severe reading problems when they arrived at school could have been approaching 50%, for example, the John Kelly Girls' School in Brent had a figure like that, they think now, partly as a result of their efforts with the group of 15 primary schools they work with, that number has improved dramatically. Whether it is anything to do with their work, nobody knows, but the fact is that it has improved, as the key stage two results have gone up. They have gone up dramatically this last year. It was an average of 25 and is now almost a 26 point count.

  353. I have just one detailed piece of evidence from my own constituency where I was delighted to find a primary school within a specialist grouping now a beacon school in the same area of work which is the arts. This was encouraging, but I should like to hear it happening more widely and to see that work going on. The key word coming out, and I am delighted to hear it, particularly from Sir Cyril is collaboration. My background is that I come as a councillor from the area where you set up the last of the City Technology Colleges, John Cabot, which was brand new, which had more capital going into it than the whole of the Avon County Council put together, so it was a bitter experience, I have to admit, from that point of view. The fact that it is now collaboration, the fact that things are moving on, I am delighted. Can you tell us whether you think it is that process of designation, becoming a specialist, which is providing the impact, the impetus for improvement or is it the specialism itself?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) It is very hard to assign one reason. NFER just did a major piece of research for us and I have a copy if you would like to look at it. They identify about 10 reasons. We think the bidding process is very important, because many schools are not successful in their first bid; they bid twice or even three times and some even four or five times. The process of really identifying how to improve standards is a very difficult one and the process of bidding helps the schools in that. Certainly there is huge pride in getting the status and there is also a high motivation to keep their status. Even though comparatively few schools lose their designation, a lot of head teachers keep a wary eye out that they are not going to lose their status.

  354. So it is a bit like some of the medical things where a catalyst is going on, things are improving, but you cannot quite put your finger on why. Is that what you are telling us?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) NFER found 10 sources of improvement: leadership, crucial; character of the head teacher; being able to attract and retain good teachers, very important; individual targets for each pupil by year group, by subject; data, databases so that you know what is going on; training of teachers in the use of ICT, very important. It is a very interesting report.

  355. I am sure we will look at that. Having said all that, is the fact that the sports schools do not seem to be achieving the same level of improvement academically significant or not?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) You must look at David's value-added results. On the value-added basis they are doing just fine, if you look at the intake of ability. Their absolute level of performance is behind the other eight specialisms but if you look at the intake ability . . .
  (Professor Jesson) This is really the key point and just emphasises the importance of value added studies in general. I would just say one further thing, if I may, about the role of the kind of data we are talking about in helping schools not simply rest on their laurels, but look critically, use the kind of data which the department kindly provides to help schools look critically at their performance in each of the subject areas that they take and help them identify those areas of weakness which then become the focus for further improvement. That should be something which should be available to all schools, certainly if the trustees take it up and major on it.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) We are going to do subject break-outs this year because we think it is very important.

Mr Chaytor

  356. My recollection of the NFER report and the Ofsted report on specialist schools was that the characteristics, some of which you have listed, were described as characteristics which apply to all good schools. Really that was a description of the characteristics of the school, not an explanation of the reasons for any given school developing those characteristics. What the Committee would be interested to hear is whether there has been an evaluation by anyone which separates out the different constituent factors, the nature of the specialism itself, the concept of status, the additional funding, the pre-existing performance of the school, nature of the head teacher, the support from the parents. My recollection is also that Professor Jesson's submission to the Committee said that it is not possible to say that the specialism itself is the cause of good performance in specialist schools.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) This is an important area. I believe James Tooley wrote a paper on the seven habits of effective schools. He came up with the same conclusion as the NFER people which was that the interesting point about the schools they looked at was that they were using all of the improvement techniques, not just one, and that these improvement techniques were together creating this ethos of achievement. That was the end result of it. You cannot just go out and say you are now going to create a high ethos of achievement; it is the end result of lots of years of hard work. We ought to do more research on the importance of the specialist subject and maybe David could come up with a proposal on it. I have some anecdotal evidence of what we describe as the locomotive effect. If you look at St Paul's Way school in Tower Hamlets, an extremely disadvantaged area, 85% free school meals, mainly Bangladeshi, non-English speaking at home, they had a fantastic graphic arts department and they persuaded the outstanding head teacher they should make a graphic arts specialist bid. Their overall results are now broadly double where they were before they started. The head teacher will say to you that being able to tell the other teachers, the maths, science, English teachers, to look at the graphic arts department who is getting 100% As and starred As amongst pupils taking graphic arts, that locomotive effect of pulling performance up in the other subjects, once they believe they can do it and get into specialist status, makes them very proud. We think there is some evidence but we do not have any analytical statistical data. What we do know is that results in the specialist subject are very, very good, much higher than the overall results are. We think that the possibility of pulling is important.

  357. You are saying that there has been no systematic evaluation as to exactly which ingredients of the whole process.
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) No.

  358. I suppose the follow-up question is: had the school in Tower Hamlets not had the additional funding, would the head have been able to drive the graphic arts forward as a motivator for the rest of the curriculum?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) Obviously extra money is always helpful, but nowadays we are getting rumbles from some of our schools that the specialist school funding has not been increased; it has only been increased once since1994. It is much easier to get additional money which does not have all this extra work attached: Leadership incentive grant of £125,000 for example has no requirement. It depends just on location.

  359. Do you think the performance of specialist schools would have been at the level it now is without the additional funding, had there simply been the process, the designation?
  (Sir Cyril Taylor) I do not think people would have done the work without getting at least some extra money. It is important to be able to invest in IT equipment and to hire an extra couple of science teachers. Although as a proportion of the current funding it is now only 3 or 4%, nevertheless it is discretionary and it would be silly to say it was not important. Of course it is important, but whether it is of critical importance, I do not know. I do not think so. It is one of the factors.
  (Professor Jesson) May I just make one point here? This is the third study we have done of value added in specialist schools and when it turns out that you get a particular positive result on one occasion, they may say it was a straw in the wind; twice may be two straws in the wind. The scripture has a word, does it not, that a threefold cord is not easily broken? I wonder how long it is before we actually identify not simply that this is happening, but celebrate it and begin then to take up the issues about what it is that the schools themselves are saying about what helps them improve. I think that is really an important part of the dialogue which schools have with those around them.


 
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