Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520-526)

18 JANUARY 2005

DR IAN COLWILL AND MR JOHN WESTAWAY

  Q520 Mr Thomas: You mentioned web site again.

  Mr Westaway: That is what we do.

  Q521 Mr Thomas: If you are just going to put them on the web site, are they going to have any effect at all, whatever else you are going to do with them?

  Mr Westaway: The first stage is putting them on the web site. We mentioned when we appeared before this Sub-Committee before that we are very much dependent on resourcing from the Department for the work we do on ESD, and we do not have the remit or the funds to disseminate this more widely, much as we might like to do it. The web site is what we can do now.

  Q522 Mr Thomas: So you are saying you could not do anything else without further resources?

  Mr Westaway: Not on the sort of scale that would be needed.

  Dr Colwill: Can I just return to something I mentioned earlier which I hope is something that is proactive on our part as opposed to waiting to be asked and which is really trying to focus on the curriculum of the future. The five-year strategy talks about a review of key stage three. We have talked within our board about the value of looking at key stage three. We need also to look at key stages one and two. It is now, after all, something in the region of five years since we last reviewed the curriculum. We have therefore launched a fairly public debate designed to ask hard questions about what should the curriculum of the future be, and we have identified five particular dynamics of change—changes in society in its broader sense, changes in technology, the global dimension, personalisation, and also changes in our understanding of learning. We are challenging various subject communities and assessment communities to look at those areas and say what does this mean in terms of what students' needs should be in the future and how should they be addressed in the way in which we take the curriculum forward. We are doing this quite deliberately out of the context of a specific review because once you get into a specific review it becomes more about what changes do you make to programmes of study, et cetera, et cetera. This is trying to get to a much higher level of thinking before we start turning this into the mechanics of what we give to teachers in terms of a statutory curriculum. What should be driving the thinking behind it? How does it change? How are the aims and purposes that we set out in the last curriculum (which are very explicit about sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development) translated at the moment into what is and how should they be translated in the future to what is? I think there is a potential within that debate for us to re-visit a whole range of areas, one of which would be Education for Sustainable Development, and to ask that broader question about its role in a curriculum for the future. As I have said, we have commissioned a number of think pieces, one of which from the Department is looking at the global dimension and the international strategy. I have also referred to the particular think piece from Sara Parkin on sustainable development. There are similar think pieces from Tim Brighouse and Angela McFarlane on technology and such like. So the aim is really to have a broader debate and get people thinking about where should the curriculum be going before we suddenly get to a "we are now going to change it" and we get into the statutory consultation process. I see that as a proactive opportunity for us to be picking up on ESD again.

  Q523 Mr Thomas: I am sure you are right in that sense. One of the concerns I still have is how an opportunity like that actually delivers change. You yourself in your evidence have referred to the patchy support for Education for Sustainable Development at the regional and local level. We have had a lot of evidence this afternoon and indeed over the last couple of weeks about what to my mind boils down to a lack of leadership. We have compared and contrasted what happens in Wales and where it has come from is a statutory duty which is driving a different process which is to know it is going to be better and change people's attitudes. Of course we do not know that but it is a different process and it is a more observable process. Do you agree with the conclusion that there is a lack of sufficient leadership at present on this issue? I am not asking you to point the finger of blame.

  Mr Westaway: I think there needs to be more leadership on this issue.

  Dr Colwill: Again, you have to look at this in the context of something Brian Stevens said in that there is a whole range of initiatives which are all well-meaning which at the school become a whole series of competing initiatives where resource and time become important and also where there are different elements of leadership and sometimes the people leading on an initiative are somewhere along the line leading the other initiative.

  Q524 Mr Thomas: Until a school is told that this is as important as the literacy hour they will not react in terms of designing the curriculum around that. Whichever information regime Ofsted use, they will not inspect along those lines and the whole educational community will not respond in terms of delivering the support and materials necessary to deliver Education for Sustainable Development.

  Dr Colwill: And indeed strategies will not include this as a key element in their delivery mechanisms in changing schools.

  Q525 Chairman: On that note, I think we need to end the session. Thank you for coming along this afternoon. Can I just say that we did talk about consultation and we did talk about people taking the  initiative in response to consultation. You mentioned the consultation in respect of the future of the curriculum and it would be very helpful to   have the deadline and any supplementary information on that.

  Dr Colwill: It is not a consultation as such, it is an initiative, but I will certainly send you the materials. There is going to be a web site with materials on, which will invite people to comment on the material

  Q526 Chairman: Other than the informed, how will people know that they will have an opportunity to contribute?

  Dr Colwill: Ken made a speech at BETT last week at which he launched it, and we were hoping that there would be some press coverage. Unfortunately, the league tables for GSCE results came out the same day and cake-making was far more important than the Futures Challenge, it turned out.

  Chairman: Such is the way of the world. Thank you very much indeed.





 
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