APPENDIX 15
Memorandum submitted by the National Union
of Teachers (T17)
INTRODUCTION
1. The National Union of Teachers (NUT)
is an independent trade union representing around 245,000 "in
service" qualified teachers in England and Wales. NUT members
work in a variety of settings, including special schools, nursery
schools, primary schools and secondary schools and sixth form
colleges, as well as in centrally co-ordinated LEA services.
2. The NUT welcomes the opportunity to make
a contribution to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee's
Inquiry into the Delivery of Education in Rural Areas.
3. In broad terms, the NUT supports the
aims, published in the Rural White Paper, to support rural schools.
The presumption against the closure of rural schools is of particular
importance within this context, as is the way in which the White
Paper was able to highlight the importance of schools as a focus
for rural communities.
SECONDARY EDUCATION:
COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION
AND "DIVERSITY"
4. The National Union of Teachers has long
supported the principle of a comprehensive system of secondary
education, and its policies in this area have been well documented
elsewhere. The NUT reaffirms this commitment to comprehensive
education to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee,
and in particular our belief that it brings clear benefits to
rural areas.
5. The NUT has noted with concern, and stood
in opposition to, the development of notions of increasing "diversity",
as the Government defines the term, within educational provision,
and the concept of moving towards a "post comprehensive"
era. The Government has been vociferous in its encouragement of
schools to apply for specialist status, in particular, and has
encouraged also the creation of new faith based schools.
6. While there is much scope for secondary
schools serving rural communities to work collaboratively, the
NUT has argued that the model of "diversity and choice"
which was outlined in the White Paper, Schools—Achieving
Success (DfES, 2001) was based upon an urban paradigm whereby
schools offer "specialist" provision and students, and
their parents, are presented with a "choice" of institutions
based upon their aptitudes and aspirations. The position of the
NUT is that such a model of "diversity" is not possible
within schools which serve more remote and sparsely populated
areas in particular, since, were a secondary school serving such
localities to provide "specialist" provision the element
of choice for students in rural areas would not realistically
be present in many areas.
7. The NUT would have similar reservations
related to any increase in the number of faith schools within
rural areas, in particular given the fact that in some rural communities,
families from minority ethnic and faith communities may in reality
feel more isolated than do their peers in more multicultural urban
areas and would have less access to alternative education which
does not have as part of its basis a faith which they do not share.
8. The White Paper made reference also to
the notion of Rural Academies. The NUT recognises and supports
the fact that schools must be empowered to play their part in
tackling social exclusion in rural communities, and recognises
also that there may again be benefits to collaborative working
between schools to this end. However, the NUT has serious reservations
regarding the establishment of Rural Academies, which would serve
to remove a degree of accountability to the wider community and
would remove also the degree to which local communities have ownership
of their schools by transferring publicly owned assets into the
hands of PFI sponsors.
9. The NUT believes that, for the reasons
outlined above, the Government's model of "diversity and
choice", risks undermining the potential for reinforcing
the important relationships between schools and communities in
rural areas, and indeed could undermine the aspirations for the
role of the school in rural communities identified by the Rural
White Paper.
10. The NUT would urge the Committee to
consider carefully whether the denigration of comprehensive education
by education Ministers may have the potential to undermine the
extent to which "the needs of rural communities are taken
into account in decisions relating to schools made by the Department
for Education and Skills and "the effectiveness of `rural
proofing' education policy" referred to in the Terms of Reference
for the Inquiry.
SHARED AND
COMMUNITY USE
OF SCHOOL
FACILITIES
11. The NUT welcomes the recognition of
the role for shared and community use of schools within the commitment
to supporting local schools in the Rural White Paper. The NUT
believes that schools and other local services could be supported
in siting health and social services in schools, and secondary
schools in particular, or in otherwise facilitating collaborative
working between agencies. We believe that this could be particularly
beneficial in areas of disadvantage. Such multi agency approaches
could facilitate access to services among local communities, and
could have the advantage also in freeing teachers in schools to
focus upon educational achievements rather than the wider social
needs of pupils which could be better met by others. Such approaches
would need to be based upon a presumption of a "joined up"
strategic approach at local authority level.
SUPPORT FOR
SMALL RURAL
SCHOOLS AND
FEDERATED SCHOOLS
12. The NUT has no specific objections to
the development of federations of small schools, in particular
where such arrangements will help small schools to better meet
the needs of their pupils and where such arrangements reduce the
risk of such schools facing closure. The NUT's support for such
arrangements, however, is based upon a presumption that teachers'
conditions of service arrangements are not adversely affected.
Any such detriment to teachers' conditions could impact negatively
upon the recruitment and retention of teachers in such areas.
13. Small schools serving rural areas need
particular support from LEAs in meeting the needs both of pupils
and of professionals working within schools. Examples include:
the ability of such schools to meet the needs of pupils with SEN
or disabilities, who speak English as an additional language,
or have other particular needs; and the provision of specialist
support to professionals in schools, such as technical support
for information and communication technology (ICT) or from qualified
librarians and library services. The ability to address particular
pupils' needs may be compounded by the fact that in some cases
teachers may not have had prior experience in meeting such needs
and hence have not had an opportunity to develop the relevant
expertise.
14. The NUT would wish to emphasise that
arrangements for collaboration between schools and the federation
of schools needs to include staff at all levels within schools
rather than merely being an arrangement between senior school
managers. Staff centrally employed by the LEA to support such
schools, including those involved in provision for children with
SEN or English language support, for example, should be included
also in such arrangements as appropriate.
15. Teachers in rural areas could benefit
also from targeted professional development opportunities which
are able to take account of their specific circumstances, including
the experience of working in very small schools where individual
teachers may have a greater range of responsibilities than their
colleagues in larger schools, where the burden of responsibilities
can be more readily distributed. An example is that teachers in
small primary schools may have responsibility for acting as co-ordinator
in a wider range of subject areas than would be the norm in other
primary schools.
16. Consideration should be given also to
facilitating teachers' access to appropriate professional development
opportunities in rural areas, for example by the encouragement
of "cluster" networks, rural teachers' centres or video
conferencing. The identification of ways to combat the feeling
of isolation many teachers working in small schools can feel,
at all stages of their career, should be priorities for national
and local Government.
ICT IN RURAL
SCHOOLS
17. The NUT acknowledges and welcomes the
fact that investment has been made in enhancing the provision
of ICT in schools, including towards meeting the aims of the Rural
White Paper such as the provision of access to the National Grid
for Learning, and including professional development for teachers
through the New Opportunities Fund.
18. While the NUT would support the notion
of the potential of ICT in enhancing teaching and learning, and
in particular its usefulness as a resource for small schools,
questions remain concerning the degree to which schools have an
equal grounding in terms of access to ICT. These questions go
beyond the issue of basic hardware and software, and include the
arrangements for technical support to small schools in particular,
differences between levels of access to ICT equipment outside
school for pupils, teachers' access to ICT equipment outside the
classroom teaching environment to assist planning and preparation,
and access to certain technologies, such as broadband connections,
which the NUT understands to be less likely to be available in
rural areas.
19. The NUT would urge that appropriate
monitoring and evaluation procedures be set up to investigate
the aforementioned areas of concern, and to establish examples
of excellent practice in the use of ICT in schools serving rural
communities and the support provided to schools for that purpose,
in order to disseminate that practice more widely.
LEARNING AND
SKILLS COUNCILS
(LSCS)
20. The Rural White Paper includes a reference
to an aspiration that LSCs will "take full account of rural
needs and the special problems of rural areas". This is a
welcome commitment. The role and work of LSCs is to some extent
still an emerging and developing picture, and perhaps more time
is needed to evaluate effectively the LSCs role in supporting
provision in rural areas. The NUT has had a long standing concern
regarding the future of small school sixth forms within the new
funding arrangements of LSCs, in particular given their powers
over provision within their regions. The NUT has urged LSCs not
to close small school sixth forms purely on the basis of cost,
but rather on the basis of quality and need, taking full account
of the views of the relevant School Organisation Committee, and
believes the case against such closure to be of particular importance
in rural areas. It is important that local LSCs consult with teacher
associations on such issues.
CURRICULUM
21. There may be scope for the production
of non statutory curriculum materials which could help to root
the content of the National Curriculum in the experience of those
who live in rural areas and contextualise that experience within
a national and international framework as appropriate. The Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs might give consideration
to collaborating with relevant bodies such as the Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority and other organisations, such as those
in the voluntary sector, on the production of such materials.
Such materials could be produced in relation to aspects of National
Curriculum subjects such as Science, History, Geography, Citizenship
or Design and Technology, or could relate to cross curricular
themes such as education for sustainable development or personal,
social and health education. The production of such materials
could help reinforce in schools some of the wider aims of the
Rural White Paper in identifying the specific needs of local communities
and the ways in which they might be met.
TRANSPORTATION
22. The NUT recognises and welcomes the
commitment within the White Paper's Rural White Services Standard
to the important role of LEAs providing transportation to attend
schools.
23. It is important to recognise that the
provision of such transportation can represent a significant pressure
upon the budgets of some LEAs, which inevitably needs to be weighed
against spending requirements in a range of other areas.
24. The difficulties which are experienced
by some schools serving rural communities go beyond the issue
of the distance pupils sometimes have to travel to attend school.
Inclement weather can sometimes mean that bus companies dictate
whether or not children are able to attend school on particular
days. Travel arrangements often dictate that schools within an
area become reliant upon each other with the result, for example,
that schools have to work closely on arrangements for the school
day to reflect the fact that primary and secondary pupils use
the same transport services.
25. As the White Paper has correctly recognised,
pupils' transport arrangements can also impact upon their ability
to engage in the wider opportunities offered by schools, notably
after school activities. The NUT therefore supports the view that
creative ways of collaboration and shared use of school facilities
can help extend pupils' entitlement to engage in school activities
in the wider sense.
26. The NUT would wish to re-emphasise that
collaborative working, including with regard to co-ordinating
arrangements for the school day, and involving shared use of school
facilities, needs to involve full consultation with all members
of school staff who would be affected.
21 January 2003
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