Memorandum by the Secondary Heads Association
(CVP 22)
1. The Secondary Heads Association represents
over 11,000 members of leadership teams in maintained and independent
schools and colleges throughout the UK. This is an area that is
of great interest to many of our members both in relation to the
operation of their own schools and colleges and out of their concern
for the education system as a whole.
GENERAL
2. Consumer choice is well established in
some parts of education but less prevalent in others. Reflecting
the interest of our members much of this paper is about choice
in secondary education but there are more general remarks about
choice and about other sectors first.
3. Choice of institution, of secondary school
in particular, is what makes headlines, but there are other choices
arguably as important if not as prominent. Chief amongst these
is the choice of what is to be studied; the subject(s), topics,
skills and knowledge, and the route through learning that follows—this
is referred to here as the programme of study. Location is an
important choice, it may follow from the choice of institution
but not always directly; and traditional correspondence courses
and more recent e-learning allow for study of a structured course
at home. Teachers are very important to learners, who rarely have
much choice over who is their teacher. Mode of attendance (full
or part time) is a significant choice in some contexts, and timing
(whether to study now, or next month, or next year). There are
cost factors associated with many of these choices, both to the
individual and the public purse.
4. The state has decided not to allow parents
the choice of withdrawing their children from education between
the ages of five and 16. SHA supports this. It does mean that
such children are effectively compelled to attend school and choices
about their education are made in a very different context than
those made by older students. (The 1944 Education Act allows for
education otherwise than by attending school, but cost and the
difficulty of providing a broad education mean that this is not
a choice that many parents are able to make.)
FURTHER EDUCATION
AND HIGHER
EDUCATION
5. There is no compulsion to engage in further
or higher education, though there are considerable incentives.
Parts of higher education operate in a national or even international
market, and it is understood that students are voluntary, and
have a free choice of course and of institution to which to apply.
Further education and the part-time and more vocational courses
in higher education are more locally based, and this may limit
choice to a single institution or course.
6. The Committee will be aware of the recent
report of a group led by Professor Schwartz into higher education
admissions, which found the system to be inefficient, wasteful,
unscientific and sometimes unfair. (DfES, September 2004). There
are lessons to be learnt not only in relation to higher education,
but also when considering extending choice in other parts of education.
7. SHA would also commend the report of
its own commission that has recently looked at higher education
admissions with a view to moving to post qualification application.
(SHA, November 2004).
8. It is in further and higher education
that examples of choice over location, mode of attendance and
timing can most readily be found. Even in HE there is little opportunity
for students to choose their teachers, and a frequent complaint
of university students at elite universities is that the "star"
professors who sold the course do little or none of the teaching.
CHOICE OF
SCHOOL
9. This section is largely about parental
choice of state secondary schools. Some of the considerations
apply to the primary sector, but primary admissions are generally
less vexed than secondary, and primary schools retain to a greater
degree their local character.
10. Independent schools represent extra
choices for those families that can afford them. HMC and GSA schools
provide a generally high quality service but at too high a price
for most families. Many of the same considerations apply as for
state schools, but in a very different context, as the relationship
is essentially commercial, and voluntary on both sides. Boarding
schools obviously have less of a local character and operate in
a national or regional market.
11. In considering admissions to state secondary
schools, the Committee will be aware of the report of the Education
and Skills Committee (House of Commons, July 2004), with which
SHA very largely concurs.
12. A completely free choice of schools
(like any other untrammelled freedom) can never be possible, and
one of the reasons why this has become such a problem is that
politicians of all parties have raised expectations of choice
that cannot be fulfilled.
13. At present, parents do not have a choice
so much as an opportunity to express a preference. It is of concern
that as many as 10% of parents now appeal against the outcome
of the admissions system to secondary school. This must reflect
a wider sense of dissatisfaction.
14. Having said that, it should be noted
that secondary school choice is a metropolitan, or at least urban,
obsession. In rural areas and small towns there often is no choice.
15. In urban areas where there are several
schools available we might consider how parents (or students)
can effectively exercise choice. They clearly need good information
about the schools concerned; but schooling, like any other complex
process, is hard to understand, and it is difficult to extract
the relevant from a mass of information of very different kinds.
There is often a received wisdom about which is the "best"
school, but this may be out of date and based on trivial factors
or aspects of education that are not of concern to a particular
parent. A consumer guide might assist the process, but a decision
over education is more important that what restaurant to visit,
and there are different perspectives on what factors are of particular
relevance. Education has in recent years also become more politicised,
which may distort commentators' judgements.
16. The atmosphere of denigration of state
education that has prevailed for much of the past 15 years has
given the impression that most schools are poor and that parents
need to shop around very widely to achieve a decent education
for their children. There are poor schools, but the vast majority
are in fact good—and surveys of parents with children at
school show that the great majority use a local school and are
satisfied with the education their children receive.
17. Publishing school league tables has
been very unhelpful and damaging: they focus on one or two very
specific measures that can actually mislead parents looking for
the best school for their child, and their apparent precision
is largely spurious.
INCREASING CHOICE
MAKES PLANNING
MORE DIFFICULT
18. If a parent is to have a real choice
between two schools there must be a place available at each, this
means that for there to be real choice there must be spare capacity
in the system.
19. Ideally the system would reflect the
choices that are made, but this is inherently difficult in education.
Schools are large capital items that cannot be changed quickly
to reflect changes in fashion. The climate mentioned in paragraph
16 above means that there will often be a general demand for certain
schools which cannot be met. The growth of successful schools
may undermine their success.
20. If parents do not choose the nearest
school children have longer journeys, which has implications not
only for the individual family but also for planning of school
buses and traffic planning in general. There are also ecological
considerations of increased travel. These issues are explored
in the recent report of the Transport Committee (House of Commons,
March 2004) and in the SHA memorandum appended to it.
21. The present system of school admissions
creates conflict between schools (strictly, between admissions
authorities), making collaboration difficult. Again, see the report
of the Education and Skills Committee (op cit). This is
exacerbated by weakness of planning and uncertainty of direction.
22. Examples can be found in the recent
DfES five-year strategy in proposals for city academies, foundation
schools, expansion of popular schools, new schools, and new sixth
forms. In SHA's view these are unbalanced in the direction of
the autonomy of individual schools to the detriment of planning
for effective provision for all children. These points are developed
in the SHA response to a DfES consultation of December 2004 (appended
as annex A).[1]
23. Where a wide choice of secondary schools
is exercised it creates extra problems for children's transition
from primary to secondary. In metropolitan areas it is not unusual
for children to leave a primary school to 20 destinations, and
join a secondary school from 50. This is not only a problem for
schools but also for the children themselves at an already difficult
time.
THE CASE
AGAINST PLANNING
24. The extra efficiency promised by planning
bodies is not always delivered, and comes at a price. The last
25 years have seen a move towards competition and the market in
many aspects of education. SHA is not convinced that competition
is the best way for education, and any education market needs
to be highly regulated. The experience of schools when encouraged
to compete by the previous government was less than encouraging,
and that of FE colleges (incorporated in 1993) still less so.
Conflicting messages have come from this government too—there
has been an emphasis on collaboration between schools, but increased
diversity and a tendency to favour elite institutions.
25. Administrative boundaries may distort
choice if authorities favour their own institutions (when planning
transport for example).
26. Many secondary school leaders see local
authorities as bureaucratic consumers of resources better deployed
at the school level, more wasteful than any duplication and lack
of coherent planning in a less regulated system. In general, subsidiarity
is a principle that SHA favours.
27. Most school leaders are happy with the
decision-making shift from LEA to school that has taken place,
but still see themselves as part of the public service and are
less comfortable with outright competition between schools.
WHO MAKES
THE CHOICE?
28. As resources and hence places are always
limited popular schools may actually be choosing their students
rather than parents choosing schools. For many parents, having
been told that they have a choice, this is infuriating. The situation
is similar to that in HE, where elite universities choosing their
students is quite explicit and long established, but still not
uncontroversial.
29. Selection to grammar schools is also
explicit, reasonably objective and generally accepted where it
happens, at least by those whose children pass the entrance test.
It clearly does reduce the choice for those whose children are
not selected.
30. Other selection may be less overt, and
this clearly increases the danger that it will be unfair. On the
whole SHA welcomes the extra regulation of admissions recently
introduced by the present government.
31. SHA does not welcome, however, the tendency
to increase the number of types of school for parents to choose
between. School leaders, including those of specialist schools,
report that many such choices are spurious and are really parents
"playing the system" to gain access to a school seen
as better for reasons often not related to its specialism or status.
This tends to disadvantage less knowledgeable and well-educated
parents, and to allow more scope for covert selection.
32. The effect of these changes has been
to exaggerate an existing tendency for the most able, most motivated
and best supported students to concentrate in a few institutions.
This clearly benefits those institutions, but there is no reason
to suppose that the performance of all students (or even of the
elite students) is thereby improved.
33. The government should concentrate less
on reforming the system, and spend less time in creating elite
schools. It should concentrate instead on improving all schools
and celebrating their success so that more parents will want to
choose their local school.
34. Schools organisation committees, schools
admissions forums and the Schools Adjudicator for admissions all
have limited powers but provide valuable safeguards against some
schools working against the interests of other schools and the
education system as a whole. As schools gain greater autonomy,
and parents have more choice of and influence on schools, it is
important that these and other bodies are strengthened.
CONFLICTS WITH
OTHER PRIORITIES
35. Choice of school (and hence school's
choice of students) conflicts with the inclusion agenda aimed
at bringing disadvantaged students of various types into mainstream
education. Schools that embrace this agenda are frequently punished
by simplistic league table results and simplistic inspections.
Those that covertly (or even overtly) reject inclusion are frequently
rewarded.
36. Choice of school conflicts with equality
of opportunity. Though one may argue that the opportunity is there
for all, in practice admissions systems penalise less articulate
and knowledgeable parents and less well-prepared students. Changes
made to accommodate to the loudly expressed needs of the middle
classes need to be balanced with support for the choice of those
less fortunate.
37. There is a danger that choice of school
(and diversity of schools) will increase social polarisation,
and religious and ethnic separation. This has the potential to
damage social cohesion in future—religious conflict in Northern
Ireland and ethnic tensions in some cities in northern England
have been exacerbated and sustained by such divisions.
38. Increased choice in one aspect may limit
it in another. An example is the proposal to make easier the opening
of new sixth forms in 11-16 schools. This would present students
with extra choices for where to get their 16-19 education, and
in some areas may be beneficial. But if the result were to be
a plethora of small, uneconomic sixth forms offering a poor selection
of courses then student choice would actually be diminished.
39. SHA does not advocate an abandonment
of parental or student choice, but rather a balance between that
and other policy objectives.
PROGRAMME OF
STUDY
40. Although interest is focused on choice
of school, as already noted choice of programme of study is really
the more important. Young people are strongly motivated by the
opportunity to study their preferred subject or to follow their
preferred vocational pathway, and correspondingly demotivated
when that choice is not allowed.
41. At the same time that organisational
and financial matters have been increasingly deregulated and devolved
to schools the curriculum has largely been centralised and subjected
to increased bureaucracy. SHA welcomes the recent move to allow
schools to vary the national curriculum in key stage four (14-16)
to allow more choice to students, and for such students to have
the opportunity to choose more vocational routes, and even to
attend college to do so.
42. Likewise SHA welcomes the recommendations
of the Tomlinson Committee (14-19 Curriculum and Qualifications
Reform, DfES, October 2004). Its model allows students the opportunity
to follow different strands, take different modules, specialise
to an extent, and progress at different speeds.
43. Young people, and even their parents,
have arguably never had much choice over what is studied between
the ages of five and 13. That may be right in terms of large decisions—there
is an advantage in all citizens having a core of knowledge and
skills in common. When more detailed curricular decisions are
made at one's own school and by one's own teacher, however, there
is scope to at least influence them. When they are made in minute
detail by national committees or national government, there is
much less chance to do so. SHA would therefore also favour more
flexibility in key stage three, which would give more effective
choice to young people and their parents.
CONCLUSION
44. SHA would like to see a balance between
choice and planning in school organisation, and an emphasis on
choice (and diversity) within, rather than between, schools.
Martin Ward
Deputy General Secretary
Secondary Heads Association
January 2005
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