|
UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 58iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE EDUCATION AND SKILLS COMMITTEE
Secondary Education: School Admissions Wakefield Town Hall, Wood Street, Wakefield, WF1 2NY
Thursday 5 February 2004 MR S FLOWERS, MR G MYERS, MR S WILSON, MR T HALL and MR J WINTER Evidence heard in Public Questions 1014 - 1119
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Education and Skills Committee on Thursday 5 February 2004 Members present Mr Barry Sheerman, in the Chair Mr David Chaytor Jeff Ennis Mr Nick Gibb Paul Holmes Mr Kerry Pollard Jonathan Shaw Mr Andrew Turner ________________ Witnesses: Mr Simon Flowers, Head Teacher, The Cathedral High School, Mr Graham Myers, Parent, Mr Stuart Wilson, Head Teacher, Featherstone High School, Mr Terry Hall, Chair, Wakefield Governors' Forum and Mr Jim Winter, Assistant Chief Education Officer, Education & Lifelong Learning, examined. Q1014 Chairman: Can I welcome our witnesses this afternoon to this formal meeting, it is very good to have Stewart Wilson, Simon Flowers, Jim Winter, Graham Myers and Terry Hall with us. Thank you for your time. We have had a very good informal session, this is a session for the record. No one can remember a select committee taking official evidence on record in Wakefield before so it is a first. Can we get you started by pointing out that in the informal session the only worrying thing about it was that it all seemed too good to be true, everyone seemed happy about it. Is that the case? Are there any improvements that you would like to see from where you are coming as two heads and as a parent of a pupil working in the system here? Mr Flowers: The main concern I have is the whole concept of parental preference and the way that that is understood by parents and the way that it affects my school's ability to be full and therefore to be able to manage the school effectively. I feel the parental preference issue is key, I know it is set down and I know it is accepted but it is the main concern for me. Q1015 Chairman: I would like to send you some evidence that was given to this Committee from Archbishop Tenison's School and the head said exactly that. He turned round a school in London only when he was given the ability to choose a different ability balance, he was in charge of the ability balance. We will send you what he said, however you can no longer do what he benefited from. Instead of parental preference, Simon, are you saying in a sense that that is what you would like? Would you like the sort of control where you could say I want 30% from the higher band and 30% from the lower band, do you want to be able to do that? Mr Flowers: No, that is not what I am interested in. What I am interested in is local children coming to my school, the community I serve filling the school I work in. Q1016 Jonathan Shaw: The local community will come to your school if it has confidence that their children are going to get a good education? I can think of examples in my constituency where parents did not send their children and things have now changed, they have turned the reputation round and now they are queuing up at the door, why can that not be the same for your school? Mr Flowers: I think it can be, I think that is possible. I think the parent preference agenda stands in the way of that. It will take an awful long time and a lot of children will suffer in the time scale between that being the case - and I believe we will get there - and where we are now. I think it can be solved a lot quicker if we can change the way that parents preference schools. Q1017 Jonathan Shaw: It would be quite Stalinist to say, "that is your area, you have to come to this school" and there will be no choice about it. You will come to this school, you will have one choice, that is it, that will effectively be what you are advocating. Mr Flowers: What I am advocating is a community school. What I am advocating is a school and a community identifying with each other and then a project in that community to regenerate that community. The communities I serve, where my children come from, are some of the most deprived communities in the area and they need help. The best source of help can come through the education that children receive locally. Too many of my students, potentially my students, leave to go to schools else where, it dilutes the issue, creates the ghetto and we are trying to get away from that ghetto idea and say, "this is a community school we are going to do this together". Q1018 Jonathan Shaw: Surely what you are saying is that it will take too long in order for the community to get to that position in a voluntary way rather than a forced way, the way that you are subscribing it is a very difficult thing to implement. Mr Flowers: We were there before with catchments. The idea is that you have consistency over a significant length of time, you do not have this trend idea of people looking at league tables and not really understanding what they are saying and parents making parental preference on limited information. There is a predictability about it, there is an expectation and accountability and the community and the school are working together to provide that. Chairman: It is interesting that my colleague is describing a Stalinist approach, we have just come from a Schwarzenegger --- Jonathan Shaw: Governator! Chairman: Indeed you have to go to school in your local district. That is a very interesting contrast. Post the Greenwich decision you can move across the boundaries in counties. We have had evidence to the Committee that it is almost impossible to run a community school because hardly any of the children come from the local community, so we understand your position. Q1019 Mr Gibb: I know you have only been the head for two years, you are the new head, so this is not an attack on you, to be brutally frank the Cathedral School has 960 pupils, 16% of them manage to achieve five or more GCSEs, 11% get no GCSEs at all. If you talk about the intake, let us look at the value-added, you get 94.3, which is in the bottom of the bottom quartile. Frankly these are hideous excuses, why would anybody want to send their children to your school with those kind of statistics? This is not a false picture, this is a brutally --- Mr Flowers: That is a false picture, this is the point. 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 ten 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 exemptive 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 300 or 400 yards 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 Ossett 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 admissions 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 counter 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. Q1040 Mr Chaytor: Not necessarily. It does not mean that the management of the school that is more attractive would become the management of the new combined school. Is this not a structural, organisational way of mitigating the worst effects of parental preference? You are calling the bluff of the parental preference policy. Mr Winter: I think it is a sledgehammer approach. You heard earlier on about the history of some mergers and changes that have been made over time and the way that people perceive schools. Thorne Park, which was the school that was there before Cathedral, was not popular at the time, a whole new campus was developed and a whole new building was developed. I do not think changing the name over the door of the senior management is necessarily the right way to go. I accept in some circumstances that might be the best solution for the school but I do not think we are in that position in Wakefield. Mr Hall: I would like to support what Mr Winter has said. I would also like to draw your attention to what was said at the pre-meeting by Jeff Ennis, MP that parent accountability is needed in this area in that ten years ago the parents of the children of today went to either one of those schools under question. They did not like it, they did not want it and therefore their children will not have it. Until we get the parents accountable to their children to say, "you are going to that school and you will learn", I think we are still going to be struggling for the next generation at least. That is echoed by many of my colleagues on the Wakefield Association of Governors. Q1041 Paul Holmes: There are two points arising out of that, first of all, Stuart, you were saying that you have 60 mid-year transfers a year, in general are they parents moving in and out of the area or children who are being persuaded to leave for the more popular schools round you? Mr Wilson: The vast majority of children come with some form of complex difficulty, it may be they have moved home, in some cases part of their family is not aware where they have moved to for safety reasons, we have children with special educational needs and we have some children who have genuinely moved house to the Wakefield area joining the school. With the admissions consent what tends to happen then is that a family may have moved into the catchment area of a local school, the catchment area is full and therefore they are given Featherstone as a second choice because there happens to be a place at Featherstone. My argument previously was in terms of planning. We are pleased to work with all children at Featherstone High School. In terms of planning and the best provision of it you clearly need some sort of handle on that. I am hoping that situation is improving. Early indications of a policy we are trialling this year are positive but we will review that in a couple of years. Q1042 Paul Holmes: Out of the 60 how many are the children of parents who have moved into your catchment and how many are re-located from else where? Mr Wilson: I would say less than a quarter would be people who would be coming naturally due to their position. Q1043 Paul Holmes: 45 out of 60 are being dumped on you. Mr Wilson: Or they have not been able to get into their local school and this is their nearest school. Q1044 Paul Holmes: How true is that of your school, Mr Flowers? Mr Flowers: A very similar story. I will give you an example of another type of problem, a student from our catchment who preferenced else where had gone to another school and the student is having difficulties but because the student lives in our catchment but attends a different school the parents preferenced us so we have to receive this student who is struggling at the other school because they live in our catchment. That is illogical, that means that I am picking up a child who is on the verge of permanent exclusion from another school because they cannot handle that child. Because they are living in my catchment they should have come to me in the first place or they should stay at the school they are in. The system does not allow for that. That is just one example. We have a similar story, about 60 children. Q1045 Paul Holmes: Out of the four schools that serve the most deprived areas how many have specialist status? Mr Winter: What do you mean by specialist status? You have Cathedral and Featherstone who do not have specialist status, you have Airdale which does have specialist status and we have City High that is a beacon school that does not have specialist status. Paul Holmes: 11 out of 18 have specialist status but only one out of four of the most deprived, which reinforces the point we were making. Q1046 Chairman: Can we bring our parent in on this. Graham, how do you view the dilemma the two heads have expressed to the Committee, they are worried about the ability of parents to have choice or schools to choose their pupils, whichever way you look at it it runs against what they would like at a community school, where all of the talents in that community came to the local school and they build something in the heart of the community, do you have any sympathy there? Mr Myers: I certainly have. There are three things I have noted down while people have about speaking round the table, if I can go through them. I will go through the preference of choice bit, from your point of view, if I may ask, was it the intention to give parents preference or choice? Which way was that round? We all have preference, I can preference whichever schools I wish and I could do whatever I want but that does not mean to say I have a choice at the end of the day. What was the intention behind the policies that were put forward? Q1047 Chairman: As you know, Graham, our job is to check the Government, the executive, we are not the executive, there have been a number of administrations in this country who have talked the language of parental choice, part of what we are trying to uncover is is this genuine parental choice or do schools choose pupils. I have to say that the evidence that we have received is, to say the very least - and not pre-judging today's session - very interesting. Mr Myers: I appreciate that. Yes, I can preference as many as I wish but I have not seriously got a choice at the end of the day, it is down to the admissions policy of the school or the authorities that send my child to a particular location. I do not seriously have that choice at this moment in time. I am not sure what I can do about it if I am honest because it is very difficult if a school becomes mightily popular either through reading league tables or word of mouth or whatever it may be and it would be very difficult to put everyone into that particular school save expanding the school at the expense of another school within a particular authority. I do not believe as parents we have any more choice than we have always had. You were talking about this Stalinist approach, I think it is still there, it is just under another terminology. We were saying that we have a choice when in actual fact we have not. Q1048 Jonathan Shaw: You were not able to cross the borough boundary before the Greenwich ruling. Mr Myers: You cannot necessarily now. Q1049 Jonathan Shaw: You can. Mr Myers: We have preference to.
Q1050 Jonathan Shaw: If there is an available place in Timbuktu you can go there. Mr Myers: At the moment there is no space available. The push I see as a parent is to close a lot of the smaller schools down and have limited pupils within community schools and ensure that places that are available in other schools are used up. We have been driven away from the community approach and moved into bigger schools, if you will, to ensure there is cost savings and all that goes with that. I am not sure that is necessarily good from an educational point of view but it does save money, but it still means there are less places in those other popular schools at the end of the day. Q1051 Mr Pollard: It is a dichotomy. Mr Myers: I am not sure there is an easy answer to that. Q1052 Mr Pollard: Simon, you suggested that ten years ago the school you now lead was a failing school and was closed down, lessons were learned from that experience and transposed to make sure you did not go down the same route again, Nick's analysis was that results were not as good as they might be, can you take us through that? I got the feeling that student aspiration was the difficulty, it is surely down to teachers to inspire so that students aspire and succeed? Mr Flowers: On the second point I think parents have a key role there. As a single teacher we see a child a very small amount of time. Q1053 Mr Pollard: We have all had teachers that really inspired us. Mr Flowers: That is why we do the job but the reality is that parental support makes that vital bit of difference. As for the history of the school, I was not there but my understanding of the situation is that the school is performing better. Q1054 Mr Pollard: I was not pointing a finger, I am genuinely interested. Mr Flowers: There is a story to tell, which we will not go into, to do with the school over the last ten years and to do with leadership and a lack of consistency. There is also a story to tell about where we are now compared to where the school was ten or 11 years ago, we are on the threshold of something very strong. Your second point is key to it all, it is about having the right number of quality staff in front of children on a consistent basis, in the end that is what makes the difference in the school, and that is what we do not have because we are under so much pressure with recruitment and retention of staff, which is again related to all of the other issues. Mr Wilson: Regarding the parental role, one of the things I would like to share with the Committee is when I was interviewing at my school I would ask everyone I met, the pupils, the staff and the governors the same question, and it had two parts: "Tell me something you would like to improve about the school?" I got the usual you find in almost every parental questionnaire, the litter, the smoking, the bullying, not enough homework and too much homework - it is rare not to find both of those in the same school. I expected that from a wide group of people. What shocked me is when I asked everybody to tell me something they were proud of about the school, and I actually had a tally, I wrote it down on a piece of paper as I was going round and out of 22 people that I asked only four respondents could tell me something positive about the school. In terms of parental information that is why we started what I have brought with me today, a newsletter, to tell them how well their children do and to make sure we get into the community and they can see their children succeeding. I think that is one of the things that has allowed parents to come into the school more, an increasing number of parents come into the school, and as they walk in they can see photographs of their children succeeding. I agree, we have to raise the children's aspirations. One of the factors I find very difficult is that we only have one in 40 of our local families - and we do get most of our local children, which is why the normal admission period does not cause us the problems, it is mid-year that is our challenge - who have had experience of further education. We are still struggling to say, "I know you did not stay on at school, things have changed, this is the proportion of children wanting to go there, there are other things than working at the local shop, have a look". We took some of our pupils to Cambridge University and arranged for them to go on a trip and we nearly lost one pupil because the parents were not willing to fund the bus fare for three miles down the road. One of my colleague drove them there. That is what we have to break, generation after generation saying "this type of education is not for us". It does take time and I think we need to go at that issue as powerfully and quickly as we can. Mr Winter: Just to add to that, it is as much about family and community aspirations as it is about good teaching. Children will be inspired if they want to be inspired, if they are able to be inspired. If they come from a history where there is no value-added attached to education and training, possibly because of historical situations - and I can give you an example of the mining industry, where men went down the mines and the mine looked after them. There was no need for education and training - it is difficult to break into that cycle. It is not just about teaching and learning, it is about families and learning family skills, intervention, working with families to develop community confidence and expertise. I suggest if you are talking about aspiration you need to look broader than what goes on in schools. Q1055 Jonathan Shaw: Do you have an educational maintenance allowance? Mr Winter: We pilot it at £30 a week. It is not just about money, it is about those aspirations and valuing that. We still have very low stay-on rates but at the same time our GCSE scores have gone up significantly over the last six or seven years but there has been no significant shift in the number of youngsters staying on beyond 16. You ask yourself why that is the case. As I say that is why in terms of 14 to 19 provision we are looking at the learning community again. There is a history in Wakefield that people tend not to travel outside of their community, or significantly travel. Wakefield is in the corner of a district and someway away from people who live down in Hemsworth and they will not look elsewhere and move out of their community, it is about travel and things like that. Q1056 Jonathan Shaw: We understand that the evidence is that EMAs have given 5% to 6% for recruitment and retention to education. Mr Winter: We would struggle to meet that. I would say it is 3% to 4%. Q1057 Mr Pollard: You suggested earlier on that on your application form there was a written bit for parents to fill in, many authorities have done away with the written bit believing that it aids the better educated, more middle-class families, some would argue it is an aid to the middle classes having a better choice than others, have you thought about that? Mr Winter: It is not, if you like, so that people can state their case in an academic or learning sense, it is to demonstrate to us --- Q1058 Mr Pollard: Like my child only has one leg. Mr Winter: It is a simple form. If the child has particular medical or special needs that means that the child needs to go to another school. I would like to think that is not about intellect or ability to present yourself it is about demonstrating particular reasons why you should go to that school rather than another school. Q1059 Chairman: When we went to Birmingham and when we went to Slough we touched on a problem that you do not have, there was a very large single sex girls school in Birmingham, one of the largest, a little larger than your largest high school, that put the whole intake out of balance for all of the other schools. If you wanted to send your son to a school that was 50/50 you could not do it, in Birmingham you had an enormous girls' school, Slough was similar. Is it not slightly hypocritical of us all when we look at the same situation in terms of the more talented and less talented child, is there not an ability, as in the school I mentioned in London, to have a sort of banding so you can get a fair balance of the different kinds of talent and then if you get a system that delivers the most over-generous supply of the most talented youngsters in a few schools and the less talented children in other schools this system is always going to be unfair unless you have some kind of system that gives everyone a fair shot. On the one hand it could be through community schools, as Simon Flowers wants, on the other hand you could equally say you have to have a mixed ability intake. Mr Winter: I would say that communities are different. If you look at what schools are about, which is developing well-rounded individuals, capable of working in teams, speaking for themselves and making rational choices I am not sure that is much of an issue, it is where you degenerate into a simple discussion about academic attainment, which is important, that is when I think the difference between schools and parental preference sharpens the work that Cathedral and Featherstone and other schools in disadvantaged areas do in terms of developing well-grounded individuals, it is not recognised in any of the schools. Very often, as we were saying earlier on, when parents look to see what school they want they place as much emphasis on how other youngsters behave within the school, about whether or not there is a view about bullying, those are things that parents feel are important, and so do we. Just to take a narrow view that all schools ought to be equal in terms of attainment I think is to miss the point in a sense because it is about developing well-rounded, rational and capable young people. Q1060 Chairman: I take that point. Simon wants to deliver a community school, he says a lot of the talented children leave his community, leave his catchment area and go elsewhere with the necessary problems for his school. If you as an LEA were able to say there has to be a balance here - as we said it worked in the past in other communities - would that be helpful rather than less helpful because you have a whole range of schools with a fairer chance of delivering what you said to more pupils? Mr Winter: I think it would. What you are arguing for is a move towards a Stalinist system, whereby youngsters are designated to go a local school and they have to go there. I think the way forward for a school like Cathedral is very much along the lines of its reputation within the community, its relevance within the community, letting the community see what goes on in Cathedral not just during the school day but in the evenings, at weekends, it is a focal point of the community so they are happy to send youngsters there. I think the alternative, which is to say that all children must go to Cathedral in all circumstances, is probably not the right way forward, although I can see its attractions in a simple academic sense. Q1061 Mr Chaytor: Pursuing the question of the reasons for parental preference, on the basis of parental preference and the information that parents have what do you think is the most powerful information available to parents in exercising their preference over schools? Is it the league tables? Is it word of mouth? Is it Ofsted reports or is it some vague perception that is impossible to describe? Mr Wilson: Mine is very simple, it is to come and look round. What we say to parents is --- Q1062 Mr Chaytor: I am not saying what parents should do, what is your judgment of how most parents do form that opinion? Mr Wilson: What tends to happen with us is by the time that children are in Year 6 they have made their mind up as a family which secondary school they are going to. Then there are issues about admissions where they are not sure whether they want to come to a particular school. We simply say, "choose a day, come and have a look at us". We find that is very powerful because you are then taking away from the text, from the data, because the data is valuable and can be interpreted in different ways, "come and look for yourself and see how your child would fit in with the expertise here". The most powerful message is we invite the children to take them round on the trip because children will tell parents what it is really like. We find that is very powerful with parents. Q1063 Mr Chaytor: Are you saying that that is what the overwhelming majority of your parents do, they form their opinion on the basis of a personal visit to the school? Mr Wilson: The overwhelming majority is by local reputation. Q1064 Mr Chaytor: Where has this come from, is it based on league tables statistics, is it based on word of mouth and gossip amongst neighbours, is it based on an Ofsted Report? Ofsted, as far as we were told, seriously believe that a huge amount of parents log on to the Ofsted website and read the report before they make a judgment. Mr Wilson: In our case it tends to be based on what is talked about outside the primary school gates, many of their children's brothers or sisters are at the school, it is that type of reputation, and that certainly works well for us in most cases. If they are not sure then it is "come and have a look". It is the general impression locally. Q1065 Mr Chaytor: Do league tables form any part of that? Mr Wilson: I am sure it will nationally. In the case of Featherstone High School we asked our parents when they came to see us and they were working on what they had heard about the school from their friends, Auntie Nellie or Uncle John, whoever it happened to be. Mr Flowers: It is not the same for us. It is the same but it is a different proportion. When I have talked to parents en masse and taken questions and answers and from having individual conversations with parents the league tables feature much higher in the discussion. The press has an influence, luckily we have had some very good press for the last two years, before we had a lot of negative press. The school is still regarded as a new school. The point made earlier is absolutely right, the parents are the children who went to the previous school, and also conversations round the primary school gates. For us the impression I get from parents is that with their amount of understanding they study the league tables and Ofsted Report to some degree. A lot of our parents do not have access to the internet so they do not get the Ofsted Report that way. Q1066 Mr Chaytor: As a parent how familiar or how much time have you spent considering league tables? Mr Myers: Quite a lot of time has been spent on all of the areas that you have discussed so far. With regard to league tables Ofsted visited four schools in my particular youngster's case. There is a growing number, whilst it might be a minority, who are utilising all the available information to try and give them a chance to make a better preference, shall I say from my point of view. Q1067 Mr Chaytor: What weight do you give or do you think parents, friends or neighbours of yours give to the statistics and league tables? Mr Myers: It is an indicator. My biggest weight is actually given to visiting the school and looking at the teachers, the classrooms and the children as they are walking round that school and basically how they behave in that school and what their discipline is or lack of discipline is as the case may be, that is my biggest drive. To get me to those particular schools in the first instance it has to be the league tables or Ofsted Report that I will look at in all particular cases. Q1068 Mr Chaytor: Do you think in the existing format of the league tables the information contained is appropriate or are there improvements that could be made or should there be more indicators included or should it be less detailed? Mr Flowers: Personally I think the effect of the league tables is enormously damaging. Q1069 Mr Gibb: You would conceal all of the information. Mr Flowers: I think the information should be there but we need to shake it up and start again. Q1070 Mr Chaytor: What single change could be made that would improve it from your prospectus? Mr Flowers: I think you have to get away from the raw scores because it does not tell the context of the school at all. Value-added is a move in the right direction, it has to tell a story of what we are dealing with, we are not comparing like with like in the league tables. It puts enormous pressure on Key Stage 2 and the results agenda and all of the damage that does to primary school kids in Year Five and Year Six and it puts enormous pressure on Key Stage 3 because of the hot-housing of Key Stage 2. In my opinion it is ever so, ever so damaging. Q1071 Mr Turner: Mr Myers, correct me if I am wrong but in the earlier session you suggested that it would be selfish if your child was able to be selected because of his good performance, why is that more inappropriate than your child being selected because of his Catholic upbringing? Mr Myers: I will give two answers to that, one with my selfish head on and one without my selfish head. If I am being purely selfish, driven for my child then great I will go and try pick what I believe to be the best school, and I may be wrong in that as schools can change over a small amount of time in some cases. If it is based on an aptitude test then fine I will let my child do the appititude test with the best of children and have a really good idea that he has a good shot of getting into a particular school. If I come away from that and think from a community point of view I do not necessarily think that is fair. If you or anybody pushed me into that, fine, I will go with that challenge. Myself and my wife work very hard with our children at home to try and get them to a particular standard and not everyone necessarily has the opportunity to do that. We do put a lot of hours in with them not just with school work but with their other activities. We have decided to do that and we have decided to push that from our point of view. Yes, if people want to make it challenging we will do that, I will happily go along with that. I do not have to agree with that but if that is going to get the best answer for my child I will go that way. I do not think that it is the best thing to do. Q1072 Mr Turner: I accept that. Of those two approaches, the selfish and the unselfish, how would you describe the decision you have taken to apply for your child to go Catholic school which is not open to every child? Mr Myers: We happen to be a Catholic family so that is why we are choosing to go to a Catholic school because he is already in a Catholic primary school and I want to continue in that ethos. Q1073 Mr Turner: Is that a selfish decision or is that unselfish? Mr Myers: That is a Catholic decision, it is keeping the same religion, continuing on that basis. Q1074 Mr Turner: There are three options, there is selfish, there is unselfish and there is Catholic. Mr Myers: In that particular instance. Q1075 Mr Turner: Why can there not be a fourth option like academic excellence? Mr Myers: I believe the St Thomas a Becket is on that particular basis. That particular aspect does not need to sway me because I am already swayed by the fact I believe that it is. That may well be a critical factor in some people's opinion. Q1076 Mr Turner: If you lived in the catchment area of Mr Flowers' school would you go to Mr Flowers school or apply to a different school? Mr Myers: I think the answer is no if I am totally honest. I have a lot of sympathy because I believe all of the evidence is stacked against the two heads represented at the moment. I cannot understand that if we are agreed on one side, as Mr Gibb pointed out, with the low scores and all that goes with it that the school that Simon represents has to be under special measures to get additional assistance, I do not follow that. If we are accepting that looking at the league tables that suggests that there is a potential problem why not accept there has to be help given to those particular schools rather than having to justify it. The other one is that I cannot quite follow the 50,000 limit, some schools are brilliant at raising money, they walk out the door, they send a leaflet out, "can we raise £50,000" and the next day it is there, other schools have no chance of raising that over a good period of time. Why impose a limit that is impossible for the ones who probably need to raise it? Q1077 Mr Turner: Thankfully I do not have to defend the Government's policy on that. Can I move on to Mr Winter, first of all can I ask you to put on the record the answer you gave me earlier about why you moved from a system where a first preference had a higher value than a second preference, and so on, to a system where each preference has equal value? Mr Winter: For two reasons, one is that we believe that local children should as far as possible go to local schools, we think an equal preference system is likely to achieve that. Secondly, under our previous arrangements a youngster could opt for a voluntary added Catholic school and the local authority combined school and be given two bites of the cherry, whereas we are concerned if we were to perpetuate a system of preferencing and priority based on preferencing the young person who could not get into the voluntary aided Catholic school may not get into his or her local school if that was their second choice and equally the preference system gets round that problem. Q1078 Mr Turner: Thank you very much. Finally, again during to the earlier session it was suggested that there were pupils who were having to travel a long way to primary schools because of the class size rule, how many exceptions to the class size rule have you sought? Mr Winter: I do not have that information, we can provide that information separately if that would be helpful. Q1079 Mr Turner: You are not unwilling to do so. Mr Flowers: I just want to make the point with respect to what Graham is saying, if I use this cohort that is going through Year 11 now, according to the external data, not the school data, we are on track with our current Year 11 to get what they are capable of. If Graham's son came to our school with the ability to get seven A-Cs we could deliver that. Q1080 Mr Gibb: What about nine? Mr Flowers: If he has the ability for seven, if he has the ability for nine, if he has the ability for 13, some of our children do 13, we can deliver with the children that have the ability, we just do not have very many of them. We are perceived in the league tables as being under-performing because we do not have many children who are very bright. Mr Myers: That was the point I was trying to make, it does influence you. I was asked a straight question. Chairman: You were being even-handed.
Q1081 Jeff Ennis: It is really a supplementary question along the lines of the diversity agenda in terms of the secondary education model and the schools model and the fact that Wakefield has taken advantage of that in that nearly 11 schools out of 18 are specialist schools, we have a situation in Wakefield where we have Catholic schools open to people such as yourself, Graham, of Catholic persuasion but when it comes to primary schools a lot of the areas have Church of England schools and Catholic schools and yet when we get to the secondary sector we still have a predominance of Catholic schools, we have very few Church of England assisted secondary schools and my question is directed towards you, Graham, do you think it is better from a diversity point of view if authorities like Wakefield ought to look at establishing a Church of England or ecumenical secondary school to balance up that level of diverse division? Mr Myers: A straightforward answer would be, yes, to equalise the situation. My perception is to integrate people of colour, creed, faith and all that goes with it, the more we keep establishing different religious schools or whatever the case may be --- Q1082 Jeff Ennis: You would prefer the Catholic schools to become ecumenical? Mr Myers: Very probably. Again it is back to confidence and a perception of how those schools may perform if it goes that way, that is the worry from my point of view. What I am seeing in Catholic schools at the moment is there is very good discipline, and I do not dispute there may be in other schools as well, but I have seen others schools that do not have that. I do not know if that is tied to religion or not. Certainly the Catholic schools that I have visited have been very good on that aspect. Q1083 Jeff Ennis: I do not know if you want to comment on my strategy for Wakefield. Mr Winter: It is an interesting point to make. I would say that Catholicity or adherence to the Church of England is not so much about aiding the status or the community status, I think the ethos as far as we can is about maintenance of discipline. We have a Church of England controlled school that delivers if you like a Church of England ethos, so I am not sure it is about aiding the community status. We recognise that all schools have a different flavour and have different things to offer. I said earlier on they reflect their community and I think that is as true of church schools as it is of specialist technology colleges. It is important to remember we do not select by aptitude in Wakefield, that was a deliberate decision. In that sense our schools are still community schools and the only admissions criteria are the ones that you see in your handbook that you have. We are not moving children in to those areas of specialism, what we are doing is trying to ensure that the schools do deliver distinctive flavours that can then be made available to the wider community, art college expertise would be made available right across the piece, there is evidence of us doing that within Wakefield. Q1084 Chairman: This Committee looked at diversity and the Government's plan for diversity and enthusiasm for diverse academies, foundation schools and specialist schools and all of that - that is a separate inquiry - do you not think that people like Simon and his colleague deserve a level playing field? On the one hand they do not have a level playing field because of the whole system of admissions you cannot have a community school and on the other hand all the time you have 11 out of 18 schools with £50,000, however it is raised, it is not only not a level playing field, it is getting less level by the minute. When we had your briefing paper you had nine specialist schools now you have 11, my heart goes out to Simon and Stuart, it is getting more tilted all of the time. Mr Winter: If that is an argument for fairer funding I would certainly agree. I see no reason why a school cannot deliver a distinct ethos, I see no problem with that at all. The issue for all of us is about having a fairer funding regime. If you are saying that you do not believe that the funding regime in the UK for secondly schools is fair then I would find that difficult to disagree with. Q1085 Chairman: What I am saying is that these two guys and their schools are the ones that seem to me to need the extra help, support and resources for staff and equipment and everything else yet they seem because they are not special category to miss out on everything and at the same time down the road, across the authorities others are getting much more. Mr Winter: In one sense I would agree with that because that is true. In another sense in terms of other streams of funding and support that schools are receiving there are other factors that you need to take into account, it is not simply a matter of saying this is a specialist school or not. There is other funding coming into the authority for other types of work, some of which will benefit Simon and Stewart and others will not. The funding system is complex and it does not treat all schools fairly. Q1086 Chairman: We have done a report on school funding and we noticed how complex it is and I think the Secretary of State is about to find out how complex it is. Mr Wilson: I would just like to make two points, if I may, when we look at averages in terms of the data it can sometimes hide how well individuals and groups of pupils perform within that school. I have been quite stunned by the quality of work, academic and otherwise, national awards have been won against very strong competition, national technology awards and in other areas. In many schools there is a lot of success. What I want to emphasise and one thing I want to acknowledge is that at the moment our school Featherstone has a journey to make and I see that, the statistics are available to identify that journey. The first thing that you do when you become a new head teacher is recognise that and then address it. I would not want to hide behind that challenge, I think it is a challenge that we are ready and able to face and one that we will succeed with over time. The issue is that however you present the data - and I would agree that the move to a value-added data is positive, that makes the situation better - that again does not tell the whole story, as was mentioned earlier. Chairman: What I am getting at is here we have two recent reports from Ofsted that urban schools are not doing well, they are finding it tough to lift themselves, that is what the data shows. In one sense we are here and we are hearing evidence that there are some very good reasons, in terms of admissions, that that might be the case. It is what I described as an uphill struggle on an uneven playing field. One of the startling things we saw was - it was a school that was in special measures - the George Dickson School in Birmingham, that had been rock-bottom and a charismatic head with a lot of assistance and Excellence in Cities money and he just turned that round - he got a knighthood for his efforts. There is hope for both of you - arise, arise! He had the Excellence in Cities capability as well as a great deal of backing from Tim Brinkhouse, the LEA and also Tim Brinkhouse's cross-matching of schools and collegiate system. We also - we will send both of you both lots of evidence - interviewed a head teacher in Slough who took over a school I think which in a very short time had four heads in two years and she had arrived and again I think made a magnificent job of turning the school round. Both of them had the resources behind them whereas I think you are just in the category which does not. Q1087 Paul Holmes: One of the big items of education spending in some LEASs can be school transport. When we were taking evidence in London the Norfolk LEAs talked about a big chunk of their budget being used, Wakefield covers a fairly big geographical area how much money is spent on transport funding? Mr Winter: The cost of transport funding is significant, we spend just getting on for £2.5 million on transport. What we found over the last couple of years is the cost of individual transport contracts have gone up significantly, and I think that has been reflected nationally. There are some issues round a shortage of specialist transport and the cost of that. I think also the move towards inclusion in mainstream schools has meant that there have been more journeys to get youngsters into mainstream schools rather than to take them to a special school. The issue round mainstream schools in terms of accessibility is one that we are involved with at the moment because it is not just about transport, it is about how you get to school, it is about local transport plans, it is about travel to school and walking to school plans. We are involved in some review of our transport policy and we are trying to encourage more young people to travel independently and also to walk to school wherever possible. Q1088 Paul Holmes: Two particular things come out of transport in relation to admissions and in relation to preference and choice, one is to do with faith schools, one third of LEAs have stopped funding transport on the grounds of faith, what do you do here? Mr Winter: We still provide transport and we have no immediate plans to stop it. Q1089 Paul Holmes: If a parent wants to choose a school on the grounds of faith 15 miles away they have to pay transport and that skews the admissions to the parents who can afford it. If you have specialist school policy, and you have for 11 out of 18, and if a parent said "I want to send my kid ten miles away but I cannot afford the transport" would you pay for that? Mr Winter: No. Paul Holmes: That works against specialist schools and against parental preference unless you can afford it. Q1090 Mr Turner: Why did you make that decision not to provide the transport that Paul referred to? Mr Winter: A question of cost, the costs would be enormous and we also believe that schools that are specialist schools and also comprehensive schools provide local provision for local youngsters. Remember our schools do not select by aptitude, we believe for youngsters the local school will provide that well-rounded education. The way which we address special issues is to share that speciality and there are schools and colleges which will share their expertise with other schools within the area without the need for youngsters to travel. What is happening in terms of the 14 to 19 year olds is that teachers will travel to where the youngsters are. Where you talk about a collegiate approach in the North East and Wakefield I think staff will increasingly travel to provide that specialist teaching to youngsters rather than expecting youngsters to all get on a bus or coach and travel to the provision. Q1091 Mr Turner: None of that answer applies to the Catholic schools? Mr Winter: As far as Catholic schools are concerned we continue to provide transport, we always have done. We believe that youngsters' parents ought to be able to select on the basis of religious belief without being prejudiced. Q1092 Chairman: What about the Church of England schools? Mr Winter: We do not have any LEA Church of England schools. Q1093 Paul Holmes: On the grounds of equity and parental preference you will pay for a child to go ten miles to a Catholic school on the grounds of faith, what if you have a parent in some area where their local school has a pretty strong religious ethos and they are atheist, would you pay to transport their child 10 miles down the road to a school that has a much less religious ethos, would you fund that? Mr Winter: The way I read it is that community schools are there for local children and local children are expected to attend their local schools because all schools are ecumenical, they educate all children equally. I would expect children to go to the local school. Q1094 Chairman: What about Muslim girls, would you provide their transport? Mr Winter: No, we would not. Q1095 Chairman: Why not? Mr Winter: First of all the Muslim girls school is not within the state sector and therefore different rules apply. As things stand at the moment we would not provide transport in that circumstance. Mr Chaytor: Can I clarify this, I understand there is a voluntary aided Catholic school within Wakefield, on the borders of Wakefield, if I wish to send my child to a voluntary aided Anglican school two minutes away in Barnsley --- Jeff Ennis: There are not any, that is the point I was making earlier. Q1096 Mr Chaytor: The issue is that if there were - Mr Winter: We cannot answer hypotheticalals Q1097 Mr Chaytor: - you would not provide travel costs to go to a faith school outside of the LEA? Mr Winter: It has not arisen to my knowledge in the recent past. Q1098 Mr Chaytor: It could arise. Mr Winter: We will consider our policy if it does arise. Q1099 Chairman: It is very interesting about the Church of England, there is Simon sitting there with all of the problems he has, with a name like that, right next door to where the Bishop lives. Simon, the money that you are looking for could it not come from that sort of focus? Mr Flowers: I have thought about it. Q1100 Mr Chaytor: On the diversity issue is there any evidence that the growth of a more diverse range of specialist schools has increased the number of parents choosing on the basis of the specialism or does it have no effect whatsoever? What I am trying to say is there is evidence parents choose on the basis of diversity rather than on the basis of perceived quality. Mr Winter: From my perspective it is very difficult to say because it is not one of our criteria, we do not ask parents to give reasons why they choose, other than special needs. Our policy would not allow parents to travel huge distances to a special school because of the distance criteria. We do not have evidence one way or the other. Q1101 Mr Chaytor: For parents who are mobile it would not be an issue if they travelled ten or 15 miles and trooped their children off. Mr Winter: If they could get into the school, they would not be able to get in because of the distance criteria. Mr Chaytor: There is no evidence that it has really made a difference.
Q1102 Mr Gibb: Can I go to Graham Myers' point about choice versus preference, the theory used was there should be choice and the theory was good schools would expand and less popular schools would contract and ultimately close or become good schools. I just want to know from Jim Winter, if the Catholic school has hugely expanded itself, they have expanded to cope with that demand, what are you doing to help the popular schools on your list of 18 schools to expand are or you not letting them because you have surplus places? Mr Winter: We do not have much in the way of surplus places. We have allowed St Wilfrid's to expand, we have supported their request because we are short of places in that area so therefore has been some expansion. Remember, of course, the Catholic schools can take non-Catholic children even though 75% or 80% must be Catholic children. St Wilfrid's will soak up some of the demand in that area. If you look at the schools in the area you will see that pretty well all of them are full. Q1103 Mr Gibb: What about Ossett? Mr Winter: There has been some expansion but it is on a very tight site and there is not a lot scope to expand that school. Q1104 Mr Gibb: If there was a request from a school that had the physical capacity to expand would you allow it to expand even though there are surplus places in Featherstone and Cathedral? Mr Winter: It depends very much on circumstances but as a general answer I would say no because it is about school place planning. We are not in the business of sucking children out of schools to go to more popular schools. We want local schools to serve local children well and to meet their needs well. We are not generally in the business of expanding popular schools to meet demand. Q1105 Mr Gibb: Does that not undermine the whole ethos behind the 1988 Education Act? Mr Winter: I do not think so. Q1106 Chairman: Terry, you have been waiting patiently to get in. Mr Hall: I would like to go back to your suggestion that we saw the Bishop of Wakefield, being a strong Church of England member I know that Wakefield suffers through the church exactly like we do through the schools, we have no money. The parish share is absolutely nil, so I think the idea of going to the Bishop and asking him for a gift will not be met. Chairman: The Church of England nationally in a recent report suggested it wanted to expand the number of secondary schools that were in its remit, it has less than it wants, if nationally it looks for more schools I merely suggested it could be a marriage made in heaven between Simon and the bishop! He could be a conduit. I am meeting him next week, some of my colleagues have been invited to come to my room and meet him. Q1107 Jeff Ennis: For the sake of the record I was going to ask our witnesses who should set the admissions policy, Central Government, the LEAs or should it be up to individual schools to determine their own individual admissions policy? We discussed this in the earlier session of course. Mr Winter: I believe it should be the LEA, not just because I work for the LEA, but I believe there needs to be consistency in a defined geographical area. I think local education authorities are best placed to know the local needs and provisions in the area and are therefore best placed to set the admissions policy. Q1108 Jeff Ennis: I would like to hear from the other witnesses as well. Mr Wilson: I would agree that the LEA should set the admissions policy because I think the principle of getting as close to a decision as possible is a sound starting principle. There are dangers of a school setting its own admissions policy across the area. The LEA seems to be as close as is manageable, and I appreciate others views on that. Mr Flowers: I agree. Personally I think the Government need to have a look at what their role is in this and give the LEA more freedom to adapt to the local conditions. Q1109 Chairman: Do you have a local parish council in your patch? Mr Flowers: No. Mr Winter: No. Q1110 Chairman: There are no grass-roots in that way. Mr Myers: It is very difficult. I am back to the previous place I was at before, it depends what benefits there are going to be attached to that particular school if they have their own admissions policy and can run it themselves and whether by cherry-picking the best candidates they are going to get additional funding from central government to promote their own ideals. Back to the unselfish bit, that would be very unfair on everybody else if that was the case and that would lead to an "us" and "them" situation. Mr Hall: My relationship with the LEA as Chairman of the governors, representing the governors of Wakefield is very good. Providing that we meet with Mr McLeod on a regular basis I have no fear about leaving it to the LEA because he would tell the governors what he was doing and that is of paramount importance. Chairman: A very sound point. Q1111 Paul Holmes: Returning to the final part of my question, I am not picking on Wakefield, the point I want to make is about what I see as institutional bias in terms of parental preference, it would be interesting to have a comment from Terry from a Church of England point of view and from Graham from a Catholic point of view. If a parents said "because of my religious belief I do not want my child to go to my local junior school", in this case a Church of England school in Sheffield, but to go a few miles down the road in the Peak District, you have to go some miles down the road and that means transport and there is no LEA. On the grounds of your belief you do not want your child to go to a strong religious school yet they pay for transport costs to go to a Catholic school, to go to a Church of England school, to go to a Muslim school or to go to a Jewish school yet it seems to me institutional bias within our state system in favour of one group of parents preference on faith grounds against another group of parents on non-faith grounds. I would be interested in your comments. Mr Myers: I think I can understand where you are coming from on that one. From my children's point of view they are happy with the day and how it works within their current school, a Catholic school in Barnsley. It is a good belief for them and a strong discipline for them to be brought up in that environment because I think it helps them with other subjects, the discipline is there through the faith and that carries them through other subjects accordingly. I do not know what the outcome would be if I was told they had to go to a school that was possibly not as religious - and I do not want to go down that track as such - without that strong desire for something that drives the school on, if you will. It is finding that strength in other schools to ensure that children get behind something. In a Catholic school it is pretty easy to get behind the religious faith and go down that track, that seems to carry them through. It is finding that strength in some other quarter in other schools that do not have that belief which is hard. Q1112 Paul Holmes: The taxpayer would fund your transport costs for your preference based on your faith but for another parent who would not want their child to be in a local faith junior school they would not get their transport costs funded. Mr Myers: It is not fair, that would not be fair, it could not be fair in its own right. Then again I suspect local authority hands are tied in different areas and the amount of cash they have available to them and they will have a policy they follow. It is like the admissions policy, it is a strict, laid down criteria and you follow that and if you have more cash you can widen the criteria. Mr Hall: My children went to a Church of England school, I moved house so that they could, but that suited me as well as the children. That faith, as Graham said, that was given to them builds not only their spiritual side but their cultural side as well and I can see now that my children's children, my grandchildren, have the same belief, they go to this school. I do not see it as being fair or unfair. What I see is the fact that my children went to a Church of England school, they received the education I wanted them to receive and it stood them in excellent stead, as two of them have gone to Cambridge and one decided to join the police. Q1113 Chairman: I agree there is one successful person there! Mr Hall: Probably. Mr Winter: Is the school a voluntary aided school or a community school? Q1114 Paul Holmes: I am not sure in either case. Mr Winter: Catholic secondary schools do not have geographical catchment areas so in that sense there is always a community school close by, a defined community school. It may well be the same in your case, the problem is where you have a single school in an isolated village and there is little choice and it is difficult to go elsewhere. If it was a community school the governors have a responsibility to ensure that the school reflects the needs of the local community as far as they can. There will always be schools that emphasise sport or art or religion more. In one sense if you accept that you have to accept the rough with the smooth. If it is a voluntary aided school that is a different issue, there is an argument to say there should be a geographical catchment area in the same way there is for community schools. Q1115 Mr Turner: Jim, in answer to Jeff you implied it was necessary to have consistency across the authority as a reason why the LEA should be in charge, why is it necessary to have consistency? Mr Winter: I think you will find that most local authorities up down the country have relatively consistent policies. With the code of practice what is happening is nationally it is driving local authorities towards greater consistency about certainty for parent. I think it is about ensuring that people are treated well. I would be concerned if one of our schools gave priority to the children of staff at the school, I know it happens in some local authorities, over other children who live locally. Therefore I think the policy we have, which is quite indiscriminate, is the right way. I feel all our schools should have that otherwise, first of all, there is no fairness and perceived bias in respect of the children of staff of the school but just as importantly to ensure that local children can go to local schools. That is why I would be concerned if there was an inconsistency across the district. I will not talk about selection, you are not asking about selection today. Selection means that some local children cannot go to local schools. Some would argue that is a good thing, the converse to that is I have seen it happen to children who live two or three doors away from a high school, a grammar school and they are not able to go to their local school. I have real difficulties with that. Q1116 Mr Pollard: I wanted to come out of the closet and admit I am Roman Catholic. We were in California recently and one of the universities had a specialist teacher training college that gave a two year qualification to teachers teaching in difficult schools and difficult areas, have you thought about doing anything like that? If you get the best teachers you stand a better chance of raising standards because you will inspire that? Mr Flowers: That is a good point. We do a lot of work with ITT and GTP students in school, a lot more than any school I have ever seen, apart from one up the road. We find that the calibre of students through GTP is particularly strong and through ITT when they come into an inner-city agenda they find it very, very tough. Maybe we have had a bad run recently but we have had several give up the profession because the workload and the pressures of job were so tough. If there was a different way of training them so they can be brought into it more--- Q1117 Mr Pollard: Recognise it is a career progression. Mr Flowers: There is a fast track teaching system. What I am saying is if the teacher training was to b invested in in a slightly different way we could secure these teachers and that would make all of the difference to our type of schools. Mr Wilson: I would like to argue to support working with not only teachers when they join the profession but also with student teachers. Again, like Simon, we see that as a big part of our role. I think we sometimes underestimate the gift of the teachers that are in all of our schools, what we tend to find is that people are differentiated in their giftedness, in a sense, some teachers work extremely well in one context, some in another. I have certainly got experience of different authorities where a number of identified gifted teachers were moved into a different school that was having a difficult time and they all left within a month. It is not a simple situation, it is not the individual it is the interaction between the individuals, be those teachers, managers, leaders, pupils and parents, et cetera. The point that the teacher is key I would agree with totally, the teacher and the pupil and the relationship between them. Mr Pollard: The view in this system was that you could not just send one teacher, you had to send half a dozen and therefore you felt they were a community themselves and they bring their expertise and raise standards. Chairman: That is a very good point, we did find that. We also found mentoring afterwards was so important. That gave commitment and mentoring later and they had 82% rate of retention that year compared to 60% normally. Q1118 Jonathan Shaw: Jim, you said to me earlier informally that you read our session at Slough and the issue that we have pursued about children in public care and you said that is a top priority for Wakefield, as it is for Barnsley, as it is for Thomas a Becket, I do not see that in the list of Ossetts? Mr Winter: We choose for all of our Catholic LEA schools but not explicitly this year. There is a time lag in terms of amending the policy. We have met with them very recently and I have spoken to the diocese just a couple of days ago in preparation for it and they are absolutely clear children in public care will be the top priority. Jonathan Shaw: Thank you.
Q1119 Chairman: That was the last question. It leaves me to say what a good session it has been, both the informal and formal, we really got to the heart of the matter. We were delighted by the reception, we were delighted the West Yorkshire Police were kind enough to make sure we were secure and safe, I hope the lady sitting at the back has learned a great deal from our deliberations. Thank very much to Jenny Price and Kevin Swift and the five people who have given us their time. Mr Winter: On behalf of the LEA thank you very much for coming, you are very welcome any time. |