Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1020
- 1039)
THURSDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2004
MR SIMON
FLOWERS, MR
GRAHAM MYERS,
MR STUART
WILSON, MR
TERRY HALL
AND MR
JIM WINTER
Q1020 Mr Gibb: Is it?
Mr Flowers: Yes. This year we
are going to get nearly 30%, the following year we are going to
get over 30% and then the following year over 40%.
Q1021 Mr Gibb: Then what is your
problem?
Mr Flowers: The problem is that
the parents do not believe that. We cannot convince them until
we can say our school is full, we can deal with the budget, deal
with the staffing, I can appoint people and keep them, I can retain
and recruit and I can set a curriculum that is appropriate without
having to look over my shoulder at my budget. At the moment we
have too many surplus places and the parents view is that that
kind of bad year—which was a blip—will happen again.
They will always think that. This school is 10 years old, formed
out of a failing school before, we need a clear run at having
a chance to prove what we can do. We are doing it, but against
the odds. We have not been able to get specialist status because
we cannot get there because we are too busy doing other agendas.
We need some breathing space and it is round the admissions agenda
we could do with it.
Q1022 Mr Gibb: Given value-added
and taking into account the quality of the intake you are saying
that in two or three years' time people will send their children
to your school when your results do not show a value-added of
94%, you will find parents flocking to your school?
Mr Flowers: I really hope so but
I do not think so. I think what will happen is between then and
now we are going to have to go through Ofsted and we are at risk,
I will lose staff, and the ability to deliver what I know we can
deliver, which is the 30% and 40% potential, will not be realised.
I have six teachers in core missing, which is English and maths,
because I cannot actually recruit. That is the reality. What I
need is a chance to build success. What I am saying is that if
we had the chance to do it we could do it but whilst ever the
perception is, be it from the school, the parents or the potential
teachers coming to us we are going to struggle to attain what
we are capable of.
Q1023 Mr Gibb: If we conceal the
results of the school we would not ever be in a position to examine
what you are doing and improve the school, that is the alternative.
You are suggesting hide the results and do not allow parents to
choose their school, that is the alternative. Is that not a worse
alternative where poor performing schools continue to perform
below par and no one knows about it?
Mr Flowers: What do you mean below
par?
Q1024 Mr Gibb: 94% value-added is
below par.
Mr Flowers: Value-added is a score,
I do not think it is the score, it is a score. I do not think
it tells the whole story. We have a 20% turn-over of students,
between Year 7 and Year 11, we lose 20% of our students.
Q1025 Mr Gibb: I am not surprised.
Mr Flowers: We lose them because
they go to local schools and we get a back-fill of students who
are not fitting in to local schools so to use a value-added score
raw like that does not make sense, it does not tell the true story.
Children at Key Stage 2 do not come through to Key Stage 4.
Q1026 Chairman: What help do you
get from the LEA?
Mr Flowers: We get a lot of help.
I think their hands are tied. The problem is not with the LEA,
the problem is with the overall policy.
Q1027 Chairman: It seems to me some
of the problems you have in Wakefield are that you are not bad
enough, were you to get special measures or extra help or extra
resources that would have to be drawn down from different pots
of money, is that your problem?
Mr Flowers: I cannot speak for
Wakefield. I know if we were to be deemed a school requiring special
measures—which is a risk for us—that would knock parent
confidence even further.
Q1028 Chairman: Of course it would.
Mr Flowers: That is not a good
thing.
Q1029 Chairman: Can we share with
the rest of the panel what they feel about this dilemma?
Mr Wilson: I would like to say
that the key issue in terms of admissions and how it affects the
school's ability to move forward for Featherstone is mid-year
admissions. Taking last year as an example, we had 60 children
coming into the school mid-year, 40 of which stayed. If you are
asking a school to plan for improvement, improvement does not
happen, you have to take hard decisions based on your finances
and your staffing to support pupil learning. You have this unstabilising
effect on every class as these children keep coming in and out.
I would argue that when a school is facing challenges, and many
of us see that over a period of time lots of schools will face
challenges, they should not hide behind any statistics, they should
not have a magic wall put round to protect them. What I think
they should be given is a targeted amount of support. Your first
comment about everything seems happy, you were given very positive
comments earlier and the reason I am positive about mid-year admissions
is because I went to the local authority and said "this is
a problem, would you look at it?" They looked at that problem
and they invited a number of head teachers, five of us involved
from early on, to say, "what do you think? What is your way
of working this?" Now we have put something in place that
we are going to try for two years that will minimise the effect
on those schools with places. I think that is what I would call
intelligent accountability because when you are fighting against
the odds in many ways what you are looking at is you are not only
trying to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the
classroom but when you are looking over your shoulder at other
schools, the specialist status they get, the education action
zone they get, the leadership incentive grant they get we have
the capacity in these schools to apply for those add-ons. However,
that is the difficulty because each time myself or one of my staff
goes for any additional funding it is diverting me from the classroom
and teaching and learning. I think that is the danger, if you
want a school to improve then help them over that difficult time.
Ironically we have to succeed against the odds to get the better
money in where the task is slightly less challenging at that particular
point.
Q1030 Jonathan Shaw: I totally take
your point about the time it requires to raise this £50,000.
I know from the schools in my constituency the ones who seem to
get the money much more quickly are the ones with fewer problems
in the way that you have told us about your school, I know that
to be the case. Do the local authority help, Mr Winter? You know
that it is difficult for Mr Flowers' and Mr Wilson's schools spending
that time raising money, what are you doing in Wakefield to assist?
What are the schools doing to collaborate? Is it going to take
one person to go out and do that, an entrepreneur, and raise that
money? What are you doing?
Mr Winter: For us it is about
collaboration, about working together and sharing and learning
from each other, part of that additional money is coming. I can
give you lots of examples through Pathfinder-type work that is
bringing additional money into schools. Unfortunately it does
not affect all schools equally, there is not a perfect process.
We know that some of our schools in Wakefield which are less than
a mile away from schools in Leeds would be £300,000 better
off if they were funded under the Leeds formula rather than the
Wakefield formula. We accept that that is a fact of life, although
we do continue to press for better funding. We deliberately felt
it would be helpful to hear from schools that struggle with the
system so you see that not everything is perfect in Wakefield,
it is really to demonstrate to you about how the admissions process
can help or hinder. It is not a short-term issue. When you look
at simple figures about attainment, and I am not decrying them
at all, what we are trying to do is look at local schools in terms
of local children, which is really, really important to us. In
our view the admissions system is designed to try and facilitate
local youngsters going to local schools, it does take time and
in terms of Cathedral, the LEA and Cathedral are work closely
together and in terms of Cathedral trying to raise its profile
in the community. It is about what steps you take to turn that
round, some is about money, some is about reputation, some is
about culture within the school. We try to address all of those
issues with the school.
Q1031 Jonathan Shaw: What are you
doing to help Mr Wilson and Mr Flowers raise £50,000?
Mr Winter: We are working with
the school to identify sponsors where we can the bring money in.
There are not many sponsors round in the local area of Featherstone
and other schools are competing for money. You will see in Wakefield
that 11 out of 18 schools have—
Q1032 Jonathan Shaw: You have done
exceptionally well.
Mr Winter: In some areas it was
harder than others, for example in Featherstone.
Q1033 Jonathan Shaw: You are probably
top of the league tables in that respect.
Mr Winter: We would like to think
that as well.
Q1034 Chairman: That may be depressing
for Simon Flowers. Simon, with a name like "Cathedral School"
and a bishop who arrives for his enthronement on an Arriva bus
I am sure he has the energy to lead your school to raise £50,000?
Mr Flowers: No, he has not, no.
We have gone to the church and the diocese for their support but
there is no money in that sense to support the school. What we
are committed to doing is to make every effort we can without
having to tax the parents, which is illogical and unfair.
Q1035 Mr Chaytor: Can I pursue the
question of the excessive consequence of parental preference,
can I address this question to Mr Winter, if there were amendments
to the LEA's admissions policy and it prevented mid-year transfer,
other than those occurring from the consequences of parents moving
into a new catchment area, would this not help to even out the
distribution of children across schools in the area?
Mr Winter: We are not allowed
by law to stop mid-year transfers. What we can do, and I can talk
to you about the procedure, is we can swing parents strongly against
it. It is almost always not in a child's interest to transfer
mid-year unless there is a house move. We have youngsters who
want to transfer in Year 10 and Year 11 when the GCSE courses
have started so we give them things like boarding cards for buses
so they can continue to attend their existing school. Our education
welfare officers counsel very, very strongly against youngsters
moving. We require them to go back to the school they are leaving,
to see the head teacher of the leaving school and to talk about
things like bullying, we also ask them to see the head teacher
of the receiving school. We operate what we call a managed moves
procedure whereby the youngster is registered for eight weeks
between the two schools and if the move works out then the transfer
can take effect if it does not work out the youngster goes back,
and that has had some success.
Q1036 Mr Chaytor: Do you think it
would be useful to change the national legislation to rule out
these mid-year transfers—
Mr Winter: It is not possible,
no.
Q1037 Mr Chaytor:—other than
moving house?
Mr Winter: There are circumstances
where a fresh start is helpful. We have seen incidents where youngsters
have had significant concerns about the way they do or do not
get on with class mates, each case is looked at on its own merits.
We can help in some circumstances, it is about how you manage
the whole process, and that is why what we try to do is counsel
parents against mid-year transfers whenever possible.
Q1038 Mr Chaytor: Within an LEA where
you have two neighbouring schools and for whatever historical
reason they have diverged in their levels of attractiveness to
parents is the simple solution to merge the school into one?
Mr Winter: It depends how you
feel about schools and their community. We have consistently,
and I think rightly, taken the view that schools serve local communities.
Q1039 Mr Chaytor: It is not a question
of closing one site and shifting all of the kids, it is that you
have one institution, say with one management and two campuses.
Mr Winter: That would take the
view that the management of the existing school is defective.
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