Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
WEDNESDAY 15 OCTOBER 2003
DR PHILIP
HUNTER
Q160 Jonathan Shaw: You are just
advising us that you do not know of any aptitude tests for humanities,
and so one could conclude that is why the DfES made that decision.
That would be very cerebral of them, would it not?
Dr Hunter: Sorry; just thinking
this out. I would guess, if you are looking for an aptitude test
in maths, clearly that is going to be very, very difficult to
distinguish from an ability test, that is what ability tests do,
is it not? Humanities, I would need some notice of that. I have
not come across those, I have not looked.
Jonathan Shaw: No, well we get a bit
baffled by it as well, and why science but not information technology?
Q161 Chairman: What is coming out
of your remarks though, Dr Hunter, is that you recognise these
things exist, they are described as tests of not ability but of
aptitude, they are there, so they are legal, but there is a deep
note of scepticism in what you have told this Committee about
how you rate these tests?
Dr Hunter: Yes. I would not want
to be too sceptical about all of them. I think they have their
uses, I guess all of them have their uses, and I would guess that
some of them are better than others at picking out kids that later
are going to demonstrate some aptitude for these things. As Chief
Adjudicator, I am asked the question "Are these things legal?"
and my answer is, clearly, they are, they were designed as aptitude
tests, they are recognised, they have been designed by people
of repute, respect, and there they are.
Chairman: Let us draw a line under that
for the moment. Let us go on to the last couple of sections. I
am sorry to keep you here so long but we are getting great value
out of this, so we are grateful. We would like to look at the
admissions process.
Q162 Mr Chaytor: Can I just come
back to this question of the overall objective of admissions policy.
Do you think our system actually is characterised by parental
choice?
Dr Hunter: Yes, I think it is.
I think that whenever you talk about parental choice in questions
of admissions you have to qualify it by saying that parental choice
is choice where there is choice available, and that wherever you
get an oversubscribed school it is not the parents choosing, it
is the school choosing, or the admissions authority choosing,
and that is the fact that people have got to recognise. You get
people who tend to go on about parental choice, "Isn't parental
choice a wonderful thing?" Of course it is a wonderful thing,
but you run up constantly against this point, that it can operate
only in schools where there is choice.
Q163 Mr Chaytor: Is it more accurate
to describe it as a system of parental preference?
Dr Hunter: Yes, I think that is
right.
Q164 Mr Chaytor: Coming back to the
Audit Commission/Ofsted report yesterday, another of their conclusions
is that allowing popular schools to expand actually has severe
consequences on other schools in the immediate area. My question
is, how do you reconcile the maximisation of parental preference
with the implications for social exclusion?
Dr Hunter: My answer to that is
that all these are very difficult questions. Not only does an
expanding school have a consequence on other schools around it,
it has a consequence on itself. Often you get popular schools
which are popular because they are not too big, and clearly it
operates against itself if you expand it constantly. Questions
like that, the answer is complex and it is local, and in my view
that is what local education authorities are for, and that is
what they are good at. They are local groups of politicians and
officers who are considering all of these very complex balances,
and it really is better if you have got a system where they are
in a position to make these decisions.
Q165 Mr Chaytor: Where the issue
comes before you, and this is what we are concerned about, do
you take into account the consequences of allowing popular schools
to expand with the impact of social exclusion on neighbouring
schools and neighbouring communities?
Dr Hunter: Yes, indeed, of course
we do, much more so in our work on statutory proposals, actually,
than admissions, but even in admissions we look at future numbers
and decide how far they go, and the rest of it.
Q166 Mr Chaytor: Was that a factor
in the recent adjudication on North Yorkshire, on Skipton?
Dr Hunter: That was a statutory
proposal, was it not; that was a school closure?
Q167 Mr Chaytor: No, it is an expansion
of a school?
Dr Hunter: Yes, of course. I am
sorry, I could not tell you that.
Q168 Mr Chaytor: Could you write
to the Committee about that, because I am just interested in if
you are saying the impact on social exclusion in the surrounding
area is a factor, in your judgment?
Dr Hunter: Yes, it is.
Q169 Mr Chaytor: I think it would
be interesting for us to see the Skipton judgment?
Dr Hunter: I shall send you the
full determination.[6]
Q170 Mr Chaytor: That will be very
helpful. Could I ask about conurbations, and earlier you did hint
that you thought there was a need not only for a stronger role
for many areas but greater co-ordination between LEAs. What is
your view on the idea that there should be an all-London admissions
system?
Dr Hunter: I think that the all-London
system is probably right. There are a number of problems in London
and I think that Ian Birnbaum and his colleagues are doing a good
job in sorting that out. I think that they, you, and everyone
else should bear some things in mind about it, and Ian himself
describes that as one of the biggest and most complex systems
that there are around. It will go wrong, in five years, ten years,
seven years, whatever, probably an election year, it will go wrong,
and it is possible probably that in London there are enough people
with pencils and paper to be able to sort that out when it goes
wrong, and it will go wrong. It will cost twice as much as they
think it will and it will go wrong. That will happen. To expand
that into a national system would be barmy, because you can have
things going wrong in London, you cannot have it going wrong all
over the country.
Q171 Mr Chaytor: Is there an argument
for extending it to the other conurbations? Would you see an all-Birmingham
or an all-Manchester or an all-Bradford admissions system?
Dr Hunter: Let us see how the
London one goes first. May I say, I do not think the needs are
so great in Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester, and so on, as
they are in London. The need in London has arisen particularly
because there are so many small ones around. I think it was needed
in London and I do hope it works, and I am sure it will for 95%
of the time.
Q172 Chairman: So you think it might
work in London, you think it is necessary?
Dr Hunter: I think it is necessary
in London.
Q173 Chairman: You think at some
stage it will go wrong and it will be barmy to have a national
system?
Dr Hunter: Yes.
Q174 Chairman: I thought you were
going to use only very cautious words in front of the Committee.
Dr Hunter: Perhaps I have been
here too long, actually.
Chairman: Dr Hunter, you are a breath
of fresh air as a witness, I have to tell you this.
Q175 Jonathan Shaw: The City Academies
and the CTCs are outside?
Dr Hunter: Yes. The City Academies
are sort of semi-outside, they have got funding agreements, which
means they have got to have regard to what admissions forums,
and so on, say. The CTCs are completely outside, and if you want
to know what I think about that, I think that is wrong.
Q176 Chairman: Can we talk just for
a moment about admissions and the satisfaction of parents. It
seems to me there still is a message going back to parents. I
was looking at the statistics. It is 96% of parents nationally
are offered a place in a school for which they have expressed
a preference. If that is true, how do you account for only 91%
expressing satisfaction with the outcome of the admissions processes?
It seems a bit daft, does it not?
Dr Hunter: I read that, I think
it was in the Department's submission, and I questioned that myself.
I guess it is because the first figure was about people given
a preference that they had listed, and often there is a big difference
between their first preference and their third, and I think the
second one was about "Are you generally satisfied with what
happened to you?" and people tend to say "No" to
that. I am sorry, I cannot explain that.
Q177 Chairman: It goes on to say,
if 98% of parents are offered places at schools for which they
have expressed a preference, how come 10% of parents then appeal?
Dr Hunter: Yes; a good question,
and I have not got the answer.
Q178 Chairman: The truth is, there
are a lot of quite unhappy parents out there?
Dr Hunter: Yes. I return to the
principal point I think I am making, which is that an admissions system
is extraordinarily complex and extraordinarily difficult, because
inevitably it leads to a position where a small number of parents
do not get what they want, and what they want they want passionately
for their children, for very obvious reasons. That is inevitable.
In whatever system we have got, you are going to have that. In
order for the system to survive, generally people have got to
have faith in it, they have got to believe that the general system
is run by people who are trying to do their best to be fair, objective
and reasonable. That means that a lot of local people have got
to be involved, have got to have some ownership of what is going
on. If you have got that then, if you like, you can put up with
the fact that there are a number of very unhappy people around,
and having unhappy people around is going to be inevitable.
Q179 Chairman: There is a bit of
a confidence trick really, in preference, is there not? When a
parent is given three choices, the second preference is not the
school that a parent wants?
Dr Hunter: It depends who they
are, it depends where they are, frankly. I was the worst parent
out of hell, and I took these decisions for my own children. We
were offered a school for our two children, we said, "No,
we don't want that one, we want another one." We were offered
the other one, by which time we had changed our minds and wanted
the first one back. These things happen, and sometimes you can
have two schools you cannot make up your mind about, and sometimes
for very bad reasons parents want this school instead of that
school.
6 Note: See www.schoolsadjudicator.gov.uk/decisions_all.cfm Back
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