Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540
- 559)
WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2003
DR SHEILA
LAWLOR, MR
MARTIN JOHNSON
AND MR
NICK SEATON
Q540 Jeff Ennis: On the London paper
that the IPPR presented—so this question is addressed to
Martin—they are advocating the return of the middle schools
to resolve the problem: schools should admit pupils from 13 to
14. Speaking as an ex-middle school teacher, the reason why the
middle schools disappeared was because of SATs, level 2. Are you
advocating that we do away with SATs at level 2 and just have
level 3?
Mr Johnson: We did not say that!
Q541 Jeff Ennis: Do you think there
might be a return back to middle schools?
Mr Johnson: In practice, I think
a lot depends on population changes. If we have areas of London
where the school population is rising and school building needs
to take place, then there might be a case for rethinking. I know
it goes against the grain, because I know the few LEAs which still
retain the schooling are under some pressure; Devon is getting
rid of the middle schools in Exeter at the moment, for example.
But I myself have been a proponent of middle schools because I
feel that the ones I have seen are pretty successful.
Chairman: I want to move to the second
on banding. David wants to ask a question on that area.
Q542 Mr Chaytor: Thanks, Chairman.
Mr Seaton, in your submission to the Committee you described banding
as "totalitarian socialism," a miniature step towards
the "Marxian ideal" and you go on to rail against political
correctness and talk about a "mish-mash of Third-Way fudge".
Some people might think you have a political agenda!
Mr Seaton: Yes, Chairman.
Q543 Chairman: You have every right
to have a political agenda at this Committee.
Mr Seaton: I based that on A
Dictionary of Marxist Thought edited by Tom Bottomore, Laurence
Harris, V G Kiernan and Ralph Miliband—who I guess is the
father of our current schools minister.
Q544 Chairman: He is the father,
and he taught me at the London School of Economics.
Mr Seaton: Right. Anyway, it says
that the main components of Marxist educational theory are: "Free
public education, compulsory and uniform for all children, assuring
the abolition of cultural or knowledge monopolies and of privileged
forms of schooling . . . Later, other objectives were made explicit,
such as the necessity to weaken the role of the family"—which
is what Sheila was talking about earlier, taking away the responsibility
from parents and giving it to the State. It also says, "The
community is assigned a new and vast role in the educational process"
and there is to be "a switch from competitiveness to cooperation
. . ." This seems to me to almost mirror many of the educational
policies that are going on at the moment. When we talk about banding,
if you are going to put a mix of academic ability, social class,
religious affiliation and so on into a school, what are you aiming
for? Is it equality of results? Is it so that all the schools
are all the same and all the youngsters come out exactly the same?
Q545 Mr Chaytor: So the head of the
Church of England boys' school from whom we heard earlier, who
operates the banding system, is a Marxist.
Mr Seaton: No, I am not saying
that at all. Do you mean banding within the school? I am talking
about banding in admissions. Are we on two different things here?
Maybe I did not make that clear.
Q546 Mr Chaytor: We are talking about
banding as a criterion for admitting pupils to the school.
Mr Seaton: Yes, okay.
Q547 Mr Chaytor: It is what happens
in the Church of England school. Is this totalitarian?
Mr Seaton: It seems to me to be
a dangerous path. It is leading not to equality of opportunity
(giving all youngsters the best possible opportunity to do well
whatever their background or race or culture or anything else);
it is using the system to produce equality of results.
Q548 Chairman: If I may intervene,
the head who actually expressed these views and had this school
was one who was most favourable towards selective education, and
the reason he had introduced it was that he was in a school in
very challenging circumstances and he wanted to raise the ability
range that were coming into the school—so 40% were above
average ability, 40% were average and 20% below. A very selective
principle, which, in one sense, Mr Seaton, you would have agreed
with.
Mr Seaton: No, because you are
not measuring it really. Are you measuring it on any objective
criteria? Do the youngsters do a test for social class?
Chairman: No.
Q549 Jonathan Shaw: On ability.
Mr Seaton: Academic ability, fine.
But if they are a Muslim and the school has too many Muslims,
do they get refused a place or what? It seems to me a dangerous
concept.
Q550 Mr Chaytor: Mr Seaton, the way
banding has always operated in the former Inner London Authorities,
and still in some Inner London Authorities and in other parts
of the country, is entirely on academic ability or alleged academic
ability. What is your objection to having a balanced distribution
of ability within a given school?
Mr Seaton: I think most teachers,
if they are honest, and most of the research, suggests that youngsters
learn better with other youngsters of similar ability.[5]
Q551 Mr Chaytor: Which research?
Mr Seaton: Well, Dr John Marks.
He did a campaign for us actually, for the Campaign for Real Education,
a good few years ago which was well documented. I can produce
that for you.[6]
Q552 Mr Chaytor: I am looking at
your pamphlets here. Of the last ten pamphlets, your name appears
as the author of three of them, Fred Naylor as the author of four,
and someone called David Marsland as the author of another three.
It is not exactly a broad spread authorship, is it?
Mr Seaton: No. It is just that
we have been so busy over recent years with lots of other things.
We are a voluntary organisation, not publicly funded or highly
staffed or anything, and we have tended to take what has come
rather than actually go out and commission work.
Q553 Mr Chaytor: You started in 1987
with 14 members. How many members do you have now?
Mr Seaton: We do not have members,
we have supporters, but round about 3,000. I mean, it goes up
and down all the time. As people's children go through school,
they drop out and so on.
Q554 Mr Chaytor: Could I ask Dr Lawlor
about the issue of banding. What is your objection to banding?
Dr Lawlor: I did not say I had
an objection or I did not. What I have an objection to is an admissions
authority determining for a school the banding. The Code of Practice
as it is coming out—the most recent, with the section on
banding which I had a look at—is quite prescriptive. If
a school chooses to exercise banding, and many schools do, their
heads and teachers and governing bodies decide: "This is
the best way. We want a comprehensive intake. We can cope with
setting or streaming children for lessons in individual subjects
according to ability, top 25%, bottom 25%, middle range, 50%,"
if you like. They know their applicants, they know how they can
organise it and they feel that is how they will get the best out
of the children and the teachers. That in itself would be a school
decision. We have a grey area with the Codes of Practice as you
are suggesting, because the grey area suggests that for schools
who are proposing a banding procedure there are quite prescriptive
guidelines. I think you really do need in any system to be clear.
Is banding something which is a preference by an admissions authority?
Is banding something which schools will be encouraged to follow?
Or is banding something, if they do choose to have a banding admissions
policy, where they must follow the guidelines? I just think you
have to get it clear. I myself would rather leave it to the school
because I think the school is best placed to say how best to teach
the children in its educational and pastoral care.
Q555 Mr Chaytor: Your preference
is that all schools ought to be their own admission authorities.
Dr Lawlor: I would prefer. I did
speak to a head about this yesterday. He was his own admissions
authority. It was not a school I know—I will say where it
was, but I do not know whether it should be repeated. It was in
Enfield. He said he thought that most schools could run their
own admissions policy pretty sensibly and would resolve, in the
interests of the children and the teaching staff, how to do it.
He thought 80% of schools could cope with that, and maybe 20%
was the figure who at the moment could not. That figure has been
. . . mentioned by many heads from different areas, and not people
by any means who would think very carefully about the kind of
system they operate; they simply think of the problems they have
to deal with. It would make life easier, more sensible, give them
a direct relationship with the parents—because they have
found that if they can explain to a parent why your child will
not suit our school but another school and so on, parents are
more willing to take things from heads and teachers whom they
see as professionals, rather than an anonymous appeals procedure.
I would urge the Committee to consider whether all schools could
be their own admissions authority. Then it would be for the law
of the land to decide what framework they would operate under,
but the schools could be their own admissions authority. It would
help to restore the responsibility which I think schools would
welcome and I think it would give a direct face to a system which
parents feel very often lost in.
Q556 Mr Chaytor: You want to see
a fully fledged market in secondary education.
Dr Lawlor: The word "market"
nowadays is often seen, I am afraid, as a dirty word. I would
say free system. I think there is a lot in Britain and in the
history of this country . . .[7]
Even in countries where you have had a much more centrally controlled
system, such as in Germany or in France (for the Länder in
Germany, or in France, as we all know about what every French
child has to do at certain times) nonetheless, though you have
in theory quite a planned system, in practice there is a great
deal more freedom for parents and, indeed, for schools. 25% of
French children are educated in non-state schools but funded principally
by public money. In Germany, for instance, in the nursery sector
a Land may not set up a Land nursery school unless there is no
independent or voluntary school there, and the funding must follow.
So every country has found ways of decentralising what in practice
is a centralised system, and they find it works.
Q557 Mr Chaytor: How do you reconcile
on the one hand your concern with maximising parental choice and
on the other hand with giving power to individual schools as their
own admissions authority? Within the market model, exactly who
are the buyers and who are the sellers? Who are the producers
and who are the consumers?
Dr Lawlor: It is a very fair question.
I would answer that we have two systems and neither will be perfect.
Some people will feel it is a fairer system to take out the parents
and the school from the equation and try to run the system as
a system for everybody. Others will say, as I would say, that
it is better to have a free system with direct accountability
and responsibility between the professional party involved, the
teachers and the school, and the parents. Yes, there will be some
differences, but I would ask: Would there be more differences
and more problems and more unhappy people and fewer bad schools
in such a system than at present? I think that unless Parliament
in the end can put its hand on its heart and say, "Another
system will work better in the interests of everybody, including
disadvantaged children,"[8]
it is worth considering, because we have not tried it and it is
worth trying. Other countries have tried it and it works.
Q558 Mr Chaytor: How can it be a
free system if parents are actually denied their right of choice
by the decision of an individual school?
Dr Lawlor: Parents are now denied
their right of choice.
Q559 Mr Chaytor: Surely, but you
are arguing for greater choice. The proposal you are putting forward
would actually reduce choice.
Dr Lawlor: I am saying that the
system we have essentially now is dishonest. This whole idea of
preference which the code of admissions really does go into quite
a lot, and all the many, many papers on the idea that "parental
preference must be met unless . . ." and then there are certain
criteria, this, I understand from local authorities and head teachers,
is taken very often as meaning that parents have choice. They
do not have choice. I think the people in this country must be
treated as grown up people—schools as well. I might apply
to a school, I might be turned down—as I have been, indeed.
This can happen. All right. You can live with the choices you
make yourself and fail. What we have now is a system where people
are expressing preferences, not making choices, and there is nobody
to whom they can really bring their case, make it and either be
accepted or rejected. I am not sure that the system as we have
under the Code of Practice as now intended will make for greater
choice. It will not make for greater choice than a free system.
5 See Ev 145 Back
6
See Ev 145 Back
7
Note by Witness: Its cultural attitudes which led to such
a system evolving until the mid 20th century, that is until the
mixed system was expressly terminated, often for reasons, not
of education but of ideology and politics in the post war decades. Back
8
Note by Witness: Another system would not work
better in the interests of everybody, including disadvantaged
children. Back
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