Examination of Witnesses (Questions 349-359)
18 JANUARY 2005
MR LESZEK
IWASKOW AND
MR PETER
DAW
Q349 Chairman: Could I welcome both of
you, Mr Iwaskow and Mr Daw, to our session this afternoon. I think,
if I recall correctly, you did give evidence previously.
Mr Iwaskow: I did, yes, last year.
Q350 Chairman: That is right; I remember.
Just to kick off, is there anything in the light of what happened
and the evidence that you gave previously and where we are now
that you would like to bring to our attention at the very outset
of your evidence this afternoon?
Mr Iwaskow: I think essentially
that statement was actually in our memorandum to the Committee,
and I think that really covers many of the main points that we
would like to draw to your attention. So, no real additions to
that.
Q351 Chairman: I would like to start
by really trying to get your views as to where we are with the
DfES, because they told us that a lot has been done to raise the
profile of education for sustainable development in schools, and
that there is a huge amount of enthusiasm and a huge amount of
activity around this whole subject of education for sustainable
development in schools. I am not quite sure how that links in
with what you said to us in your memo, so just for the record
it would be interesting to have your view on this, really: what
is the real state of education for sustainable development in
schools in England?
Mr Iwaskow: In reality I think
there is a general lack of awareness still in the greater majority
of schools. That is quite noticeable when I visit schools and
I ask head teachers about ESD. There is a general lack of understanding
of what that actually means. When I then start talking about some
of the things that can be done in a school they will say "Oh,
yes, we do that", and I think that gives you an idea, perhaps,
of the flavour that perhaps there is some good practice in schools,
but in the majority of schools it is not recognised as being part
of the ESD issue in that sort of sense. As a result, very often
there is a lack of coordination of actually developing this whole
ethos of ESD so it becomes a whole-school approach. If I were
to say "Is it happening in schools?", I do not think
the situation has changed very much from a year ago when I issued
my report. If you were to look down on England from above you
would probably see a relative desert for ESD. If you homed in
there would be some oases of some excellent practice. Overall
I think it has a very limited profile in English schools and it
is probably better understood in primary schools than in secondary
schools, where there is a greater awareness of the cross-curricular
aspects of ESD and what it can bring to the school.
Q352 Chairman: I wanted to press you
on that a little bit, because your report was a year ago and we
are a year on. I am wondering how you can make the comment you
have just made. Is it based on research that you have done, or
just on the feel that you get when you go into schools?
Mr Iwaskow: There is no specific
monitoring of ESD, but as part of my role as a geography specialist
adviser—it is within the geography curriculum—I do
make a point of asking teachers about it, and I do actually make
a point of asking most head teachers I talk to: "By the way,
is there anything going on about ESD?", and I often get rather
quizzical looks as to what it means. When I start talking about
schools councils with real responsibility for children, developing
the learning environment and all the other social aspects of ESD,
they say "Yes, we have this, we have this", and I do
not think they are fully aware of what ESD is. But it is not from
actual formal monitoring; it is from anecdotal visits and from
general discussions with head teachers, and from when I ring up
head teachers and ask "Is there anything going on?"
I usually get a negative answer. Not always; and especially in
primary schools I find it is better developed and there is more
awareness, perhaps, in primary schools; but overall I would say
the situation has not changed much at all.
Q353 Chairman: I think we will be coming
on to issues like self-evaluation and assessment later, but without
going into the detail of that now, in respect of the monitoring,
which you say is not happening—or formal monitoring—whose
responsibility would you say that formal monitoring should be?
Should it be yours or should it be the Department's? Where would
you see that responsibility lying?
Mr Daw: Obviously there is a responsibility
for us, alongside others, to monitor this agenda. We would not
normally repeat a survey of the kind that Leszek led on ESD last
year. We would not repeat that every year; we would usually wait
a number of years to see whether changes had taken place. Clearly
activity is taking place, advice is going into schools, and so
on, from various sources. What we have at the moment in our plans
is to return to a larger-scale survey in a couple of years' time,
so in our agreed plan for surveys with the Department this is
scheduled to come back for a more detailed look in a couple of
years' time. In the meantime there is some monitoring going on,
which Leszek can tell you about as part of his geography inspection
programme. So there is some monitoring, but as for a larger-scale
survey we are not planning that immediately.
Q354 Chairman: Given that we are at a
sensitive time in respect of DfES taking leadership away from
Defra on this whole subject, and given the status that there is
to climate change and the European Union presidency, do you think
we can afford to wait for a further two years in respect of Ofsted's
return to some more formal monitoring and the take-up of ESD in
schools?
Mr Iwaskow: I have initiated and
liaised with DfES to start a new project, literally from Easter
time, which is going to look at the value of ESD in terms of school
improvement. The essence of that has actually been put in the
memorandum. Peter is quite right: to go back and repeat the exercise
that we had would actually not really add very much to the present
debate. What we need to do is to look forward and see how ESD
impacts on school improvement, and certainly there is research
being carried out in the United States, particularly California,
which has shown that schools which develop an environmentally-focused
ESD approach, there is an overall improvement in effectiveness
in terms of measures of academic achievement; there are reduced
discipline and classroom management problems; there is often very
much increased engagement; children's ability to reason has been
improved. With that in mind I approached DfES last year and actually
proposed that Ofsted does a parallel monitoring visit linked to
research from the university researcher who would actually look
at pupils' attitude change while we look at the general leadership,
management and ethos of the school. That proposal is taking place,
and the first monitoring visits will start next term.
Q355 Chairman: I think it would be helpful
if it were possible for the Sub-Committee to have a supplementary
bit of information about that, because I think that is very pertinent,
if that would be possible.
Mr Iwaskow: Right. I am just devising
the inspection structure, and in the next couple of weeks I will
get that to you.
Q356 Mr Challen: It would help me a lot,
just looking at the survey referred to in your memo, Learning
for Sustainability, if you could say whether or not the six
bullet points that are listed there are in a way your definition
of sustainable development or is it simply the fact that the last
bullet point is there, that you then talk about sustainability,
because some of these things are not necessarily immediately obviously
what I would describe as ESD. Others might disagree. Discipline,
for example.
Mr Iwaskow: It is the impact of
ethos. If you are looking at the seven key concepts of ESD and
if you look at personal responsibility, equality, respect for
others, which come through those seven key concepts, we are talking
about the development of a whole school culture and ethos. That
has been seen to have actually impacted on overall school effectiveness,
so the impact of a positive ESD culture within a school as part
of that whole-school approach has actually led to improvements
in these key areas. The whole object of the survey is to look
at how the ethos of the school can drive forward school improvement;
and if ESD is the focus of that, how does that impact on changing
pupils' attitudes for the better, so the whole learning environment
actually improves.
Q357 Mr Challen: That is a description
of means, is it not? What is the end?—if you see what I
mean. Something seems to be slightly missing from it.
Mr Iwaskow: The end is to show
over a number of years that in fact children's attitudes and values
improve and that also has an impact on their attainment and achievement
in that particular school. That is why it has to be a survey that
is being carried out over a number of years, to actually baseline
the cohort of children that we are going to look at, and look
at the attitudinal change over a number of years; but also to
look at the change in the school culture. One or two schools are
using this as a whole-school approach to school improvement. For
example, there is a school opening in Merseyside which is going
to be an academy school. They are actually using ESD as the driver
for the ethos of that school, and that will be an interesting
school to monitor to see if it actually has an impact on improving
the quality of education for these pupils in an area which is
very disadvantaged in the centre of Merseyside.
Q358 Mr Thomas: Can I just follow up
on that, for clarity for myself as well. We have had evidence
from Estyn in Wales, where they talk very much about ESD and
global citizenship as two distinct but linked concepts or values
within the school. From what you have just said, I take it that
from your perspective ESD actually includes the global citizenship
part. Is that correct?
Mr Iwaskow: Yes.
Q359 Mr Ainsworth: I think the difficulty
you are going to have is in disentangling the ESD agenda from
all the other things that well-managed, properly-motivated schools
are doing, and finding a causal link between the two is going
to be quite hard, because you will tend to find within a well-managed
school with a vibrant head who is motivating all sorts of people
that everything will get better, including, obviously, an understanding
of the global environment and other smaller local environmental
issues. To what extent are you confident that you will be able
to disentangle the particular from the general?
Mr Iwaskow: It is something that
we have struggled with and looked at, but essentially the basis
of each school will be their own self-evaluation in terms of ESD,
and over a number of years the schools will baseline themselves
in terms of self-assessment, which actually will link in very
well with the Ofsted model on self-assessment, and that should
generate an action plan which should point forward ways in which
they can develop this, whether it is through the social side,
whether it is through the academic side or whether it is going
to be from both. It is a very complex issue, I agree, but certainly,
because schools will be developing this through an action plan,
we will be able to mark the improvements against the actions and
against the baseline, and that is the whole intention. It is linked
in with the guidelines that DfES is working on at the moment in
terms of self-evaluation, but they are not necessarily the only
ones that are available to schools.
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