Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340
- 359)
TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2005
MR CHRIS
PALMER, MR
TONY HOWELL
AND MR
TIM BOYES
Q340 Mr Prentice: How many single-sex
girls' schools open their doors to boys?
Mr Howell: They tend to open their
doors to boys only for the sixth form and only when they are offering
courses that are appropriate to the boys applying. They do not
open their sixth forms up to boys simply to get boys or to keep
up numbers, because their views are that they can fill their sixth
forms with girls. I was in one last week, and they have done exactly
that. There are some boys accessing courses in their sixth form
but they do not usually do it in a lot of schools, but that is
for a different reason; it is because Muslim parents want their
girls to be educated separately.
Q341 Mrs Campbell: I do not detect
any great enthusiasm for choice amongst any of you. Tony asked
you a question that I would like to ask you in a slightly different
way. What effect does choice have on standards overall in the
City?
Mr Howell: The way in which choice
is operated is skewed because there is not freedom of choice;
there is choice for some people. You are familiar with the concept
that it is schools that choose pupils or schools that choose parents
and not the other way round. That has the effect that successful
and popular schools are over-subscribed and continue to perform
well, and the result of that is exactly what Tim has been talking
about; we end up with some schools with such a skewed population,
with children travelling such a distance to get there, that actually
for them to recover on their own is quite challenging. Part of
the challenge of making all schools good schools is affected by
having some idea of choice, because we will always end up with
some schools creaming off the highest performing children from
primary schools.
Q342 Mrs Campbell: Can I turn that
question on its head and ask this: if you were to reduce the ability
of some schools to choose their pupils—because we agree
that it is schools choosing parents rather than parents choosing
schools—what effect would that have on choice? What effect
would that have on standards?
Mr Howell: Clearly, it could have
the effect on standards that some of the commentaries around the
social engineering position of schooling can have on society;
that you are controlling the mix of different populations. I do
not think we will ever move to a situation where there is no choice,
but we have set up a spurious debate about the choice being the
choice of school. The choice has to be—and particularly
secondary age pupils, 14-19 year olds—about the choice of
the right courses. We have some children whose parents successfully
choose for them to get into a school, where they become demotivated
by the age of 13 and they drop out of school; then they are found
a place in a college where they are on a vocational course, and
they attend every day and they get vocational qualifications.
That is not a result of successful choice of school; that is the
result of inappropriate choice of course, and we have to look
at the range of offers for young people and work together to provide
the range of needs of young people, which are not all exactly
the same.
Mr Boyes: Can I offer a little
example, which is not one we talked about this morning. In the
schools that I have spent my teaching career in, I can think of
three schools where we have moved away from the idea of choice
for 13/14 year olds because we are using what we know about pupils
much more shrewdly to prescribe what is best for those pupils.
If we can recognise that that drives up standards, then as a principle
it is a useful starting point. We are saying that we have better
information on pupils and where they are coming from than ever,
and our hearts' desires for those pupils is that we maximise the
chances of success for them across the board. We recognise very
clearly that pupils that have not got anything approaching the
national average levels of literacy at Key Stage 3 are not going
to do very well in history GCSE.
Q343 Mrs Campbell: Clearly, there
are different kinds of choice. There may be choices that drive
up standards more effectively than the current system of choices,
but again, as Tony suggested, the system we saw in the States
amongst the charter schools was that any school that was over-subscribed
could not choose its pupils but the decision about which pupils
to admit was decided by a lottery. Have you considered that, and
do you think that it would be an appropriate method to use in
Birmingham?
Mr Howell: We have certainly considered
whether there are other ways to get a better distribution of students
into a range of schools. I have discussed these issues both with
the Prime Minister's delivery unit and with the DfES. Of course,
the overriding principles at the moment are school autonomy, so
that schools determine their own future; and the other is parental
choice. Those two issues mean that there would have to be a radical
acceptance that getting a mix of students in schools is good for
the school and good for all the students, which it could be; but
also there has to be an acknowledgment that different schools
do play to different strengths of pupils, and that pupils need
different things. Having the collaborations, and the way in which
students can have experience, or receive teachers coming into
their own school, because that is what some of our collaboratives
do—teachers are shared by the group of schools—enable
schools to provide a specialist set of courses that otherwise
the students would not get. The whole idea that simply moving
down the charter school route and still believing that one school
can meet all the needs of its pupils would create some difficulties,
unless we are willing to redefine the expectations of the National
Curriculum for certain age groups, much in the way that Tim has
described. Actually, we are dealing with the key skills that young
people need for the 21st century rather than a content-driven
National Curriculum, which is not necessarily what employers are
saying they are wanting and it is not necessarily what the MPs
have said they want.
Q344 Mrs Campbell: There are federations
of schools within Birmingham. Do you not see any danger that that
federation, which may be one super-head controlling a whole lot
of other schools, will become much more of a target school, which
will affect other schools in the area rather negatively? Do you
see that as a possibility?
Mr Howell: That would only be
a possibility if we had some federations of schools and some schools
which were simply operating on their own.
Q345 Mrs Campbell: Is that not the
case?
Mr Howell: The view at the moment
is that all schools are in a collaborative network. They are in
different stages of development. The schools that have a harder
level of federation, or where we have linked a poorly performing
school with a high performing school that has the capacity to
help a poorly performing school to improve—that is for a
different purpose. The schools that are joined together for collaborative
purposes in order to develop curriculum and offer a range of things
to students have a very different kind of collaborative function
to the ones where you have an executive head teacher who in effect
is pulling a school by building on the capacity that is already
there in a successful school. One of the characteristics of those
federations is that it is much easier to attract teachers, whereas
it was very difficult to attract teachers to failing schools.
It is very easy to attract teachers to a federation that has a
high profile. Then it is very easy to be able to share the expertise
across the group of schools to ensure that the areas that need
attacking are dealt with, because what Ofsted has noted is that
there is very rarely a school that is failing in totality, but
it fails in certain parts. That is what federations can do.
Mr Boyes: I mentioned this morning
that there are different kinds of collaborations going on, which
is interesting. I currently receive an advanced skills teacher
from a grammar school; I am working with a Catholic school in
the City. I have to say that I differ a little bit from Tony's
description, because wherever you in any way create a school that
becomes disproportionately powerful in the market place, without
checks and balances—and I say this because my catchment
is beginning to be affected by the super-head in the federation—then
you are skewing the system. My problem is competing in a market
place with teachers, and the scarce resources that I have to bid
for increasingly. If I do not have the capacity to bid for resources
and if I cannot attract those quality teachers, then the 600 young
people I am responsible for will suffer because they will end
up in a lesser place. That is what I am angry about. I am utterly
convinced that the answer is collaboration and that schools which
are stronger should help the weaker schools; but we have to have
a system which says that a weaker school will not remain a weaker
school. Then you have to ask hard questions about how you are
going to break through ceilings and equalise things, because as
long as I cannot recruit teachers of a quality that are in that
school which is offering all those additional opportunities for
its staff—I do not want my best six mathematicians to go
to the grammar school; I want excellent education and learning
happening in my school.
Q346 Mrs Campbell: Can you suggest
a way in which you could level the playing-field?
Mr Boyes: Anything that ensures
that outstanding teachers are encouraged to work in the most challenging
schools. A member of my staff made that point today—"you
will see fantastic learning in the most challenging and needy
school in the City". That was absolutely spot-on, but they
need to be outstanding teachers, and that is a resource question.
There needs to be a system. If you are going to give me a school
body, with 30%, as I have, with special needs, with 76% of my
kids coming from very, very deprived families, then I have got
to have the resources to give them excellence. That is justice.
Q347 Chairman: It seems to me that
we are still trying to deflect the central point here. We have
a choice of school system here that is now well established. We
can seek to make the consequences of that better by saying we
have to have more flexibility and attend to individual learning
needs, we have to set up collaborations and do partnerships—but
you are not very keen on some of these partnerships if it means
taking some of your bright kids out and putting them somewhere
else—you would not like to do it. None of that really seems
to me to get to the heart of the question, which is that these
are all wrestling with the consequences of a choice-based school
system. I do not see that we are going to move from that, whether
it is desirable or not. That is what we do. What is the obsessive
talk amongst virtually every parental household? It is about "where
my kid is going to go to school". It is such a part of the
culture, but the idea that somehow we are going to depart from
it—this is all valuable stuff, but is it not just all dealing
with the by-products of a system that is like it is, and will
continue to be like it is?
Mr Howell: For me, it is dealing
with the outcomes of a system that is complex. It is not simply
the skewing of parents choosing popular schools, it is then overlaid
with selective schools and with faith schools, which change the
population demographics for a locality as well.
Mr Boyes: And semi-selective foundation
schools.
Mr Howell: The whole issue about
whether some schools are selecting on aptitude or not again starts
to interfere with the system. The reality is that unless there
was an absolutely radical shift to saying that we will only have
community schools and every child in the country will go to their
local school, which would mean there would be more chance of getting
a better socio-economic mix in schools, not dissimilar to some
of the policies the Americans have tried—bussing by race,
bussing by wealth—then maybe we would change that. I do
not believe that that will happen. We have to deal with the outcomes
of a system where, for historical reasons and through reasons
of the historical placement of schools—the reality is that
we are looking at building schools for the future across the City.
We would not build all the schools where they are right now—they
have just grown there, but that is the legacy that we live with.
We do have some chances to re-jig building schools for the future,
but we do not have the reality of saying "let us wipe everything
away and start again". We are dealing with what we are dealing
with, and in that case we are looking for the best possible solution
for all our young people. Tim and I have a slight disagreement
on this issue because Tim wants the very best for his school and
I want the very best for all the young people in Birmingham.
Q348 Mr Heyes: I guess from what
you are saying that the LEA plays a real role in making sure that
these collaborative networks are in place and working as successfully
as you can make them work—policing, nurturing, supporting
and those kinds of things. Say something about how it works.
Mr Howell: It has grown through
several different externally funded initiatives, so Excellence
in Cities gave some kind of structure to build on the communications
network that was already there. Then Leadership Incentive Grants
came along, and again because they were universal schemes so that
all of our secondary schools were going to be involved, they have
become major ways of re-thinking the relationships between schools.
It was actually development of the collegiate academies which
moved beyond those previous purposes, because those other collaboratives
were for a very limited set of purposes. The collegiate academies
were to deliver a range of curriculum offers to young people,
in line with some of the current developments that are not signalled
in the DfES 5-year strategy. It builds on the fact that schools
in Birmingham have a history of both valuing the local authority—the
comments by head teachers to the Secretary of State were "we
like the role our local authority plays; they know what their
place is and their role, and we know what ours is, and we get
on and make that work"—and nurturing the way of working
with each other and supporting each other. People can see mutual
benefit in terms of the costs to your own school if you have failing
schools on your doorstep—because there are costs in society
and in difficulties between schools—but also the professional
pride that is taken in supporting schools to do well. A number
of our head teachers are not particularly keen on their schools
expanding, and they are saying "this is the scale at which
we can deliver a service and we do not want to expand, particularly
because it will be at the expense of a school in another neighbourhood".
One of the commitments that head teachers have within the city
is providing schools where people live.
Q349 Mr Heyes: Does it look like
that from the head teachers' point of view?
Mr Boyes: It does because there
is a lot of collaboration and support, and through the energy
that is created by Excellence in Cities funding and Leadership
Incentive Grants, generally people come together and a lot of
muttering from some heads when the grammar schools got the same
funding through LIG as other people got; but it did mean they
were brought into the collective forum, which has been very helpful.
The key for me is that people have to have some shared ownership.
One of the most positive things for me, as a deputy, was being
part of a collegiate that included a grammar school, where our
focus was a geographical area, and we were going to take responsibility
for the young people in that area. The more at Key Stage 4, you
can create courses, which means I am not losing my six priceless
kids to the grammar school, but there is genuine collaboration
which means that some of my staff are going to teach some more
rewarding, brighter youngsters, which means that there is some
quid pro quo that is sustainable and will benefit our school
community. That makes sense. I spoke to the head teacher of a
grammar school from Bury a little while ago who told me about
some very bright excluded pupils from the community schools ended
up doing two weeks in the grammar school and flourished. Sadly,
it went nowhere. The issue there is that we do not want crumbs
that fall from somebody's table; we want to make sure that those
who have more than their share of the cake in terms of social
capital as well as financial backing or history, will be brought
into equitable partnerships with us.
Q350 Mr Heyes: In this context, you
can see the LEA playing that role, but it is a counterweight to
the risk of aggressive competition among schools.
Mr Boyes: Yes.
Q351 Mr Heyes: I have some anxiety
about the future of LEAs, and I guess you have as well.
Mr Howell: It has been going on
for some time.
Q352 Mr Heyes: If you could be increasingly
disembowelled—some would say towards extinction. Talk to
me about that. It must be in your mind.
Mr Howell: We have spoken about
the whole threat to LEAs for some time, and it is interesting
that the 5-year strategy makes clear that there is a role for
LEAs not least with regard to children's services, and that the
local authority should become the champion of young people and
families, which we would welcome. I am absolutely sure, having
raised it with a few head teachers last week, that they would
welcome that too because the collaborative commitment that exists
within the schools, significantly in the secondary schools but
also within our primary schools, is now self-sustaining; it is
the schools that now drive that agenda forward. We help broker
new arrangements. We are going through some interesting somersaults
at the moment about the LSCs' entry into the collaborative arrangement
because the colleges have a critical part to play for certain
kinds of course. We help smooth out some of those difficulties.
Unless the schools sustain those networks for exactly the right
reasons that Tim has raised, which is the range of courses offered
to young people, and the opportunities offered to teachers—it
gives teachers who might otherwise only be in an 11-16 school
the chance to teach post-16 students—and they are committed
to that for that whole broader range of reasons—if that
means that the local authority can then take a smaller position
on some of these things, because our focus is now on every child
mattering and the services and the bits where the gap analysis
is saying there is not enough support to children with emotional/mental
health difficulties, there is not enough clear focus on children
looked after by the local authority, then that gives us the capacity
to do that. The schools can manage this business. The workforce
remodelling agenda in relation to the collaborative groups of
schools is that we want to put as much of the workforce that interacts
with schools into those collaborative networks. They should be
the places where the school improvement service, special needs
services and the behaviour support service are located for the
benefit of all people in that neighbourhood, not with me.
Mr Boyes: It does mean that wherever
you have a system where somebody can go direct to the DfES and
by-pass the LEA, it can skew the whole thing. I have come straight
from a meeting from an independent charitable trust, of people
who run a school that has applied independently, without the LEA's
backing, for academy status.
Q353 Mr Heyes: That is an argument
for a statutory basis for the LEA rather than—well, that
is probably drifting away from our brief. I just want to raise
a different topic with Tim. When we spoke informally this morning
you gave us your views on the distorting effects of faith schools
in this, but I want the opportunity for you to put that on record
because you said some fairly interesting things to us about it.
Mr Boyes: I do not think that
we can justify having faith schools for some faith communities
and not for others; but faith schools are a huge extra layer of
distortion. I spoke as a parent, because I have a child in year
6 who wants to go to a local community—ideally—but
local mixed ability co-educational school, and he has a choice
between my own school or an over-subscribed Catholic school, which,
because of its success, has become predominantly white. In a city
like Birmingham, where we desperately need racial harmony and
to achieve the difficult process of people really growing up together
and understanding one another, we cannot afford to have schools
that feed segregation and give us Burnley and Leeds and the horrors
of a few summers ago.
Q354 Mr Heyes: My home town is Oldham,
and I could not agree more strongly with you. We have, within
about 250 yards of each other in the town centre of Oldham an
almost entirely white faith school, and an almost entirely Bangladeshi
Muslim school—and this is four years after we had riots
on the street, in some way derived from that segregation.
Mr Boyes: Absolutely.
Q355 Mr Prentice: On this point,
it is difficult to square the circle, is it not; that Muslims
have exactly the same rights as separate religious education in
all the other faiths, then, two seconds later bemoaning the consequences
of this. If I were a Muslim parent and I had read in the paper
last week that a single-sex Muslim secondary school in Bradford
had the greatest added value of any secondary school in the country,
I think I would be arguing for single-sex Muslim schools here
in Birmingham. Should we have more single-sex Muslim schools
in Birmingham?
Mr Howell: I am lobbied on a regular
basis by a whole range of faith groups which use the historical
example that we have Roman Catholic schools and indeed we have
one Church of England secondary school, a number of Church of
England primary schools; so therefore why can we not have faith
schools for other groups? It is not just Muslims and Sikhs.
Q356 Mr Prentice: No, but we have
to grasp the nettle.
Mr Howell: We have to grasp the
nettle within one of the other statutory functions of a local
authority in making advice to the school organisation committee
about the whole system, because one of the issues is that you
could create additional faith schools. I am personally not in
favour of moving to a totally faith school-based system but the
question that I then have to ask is, which schools should we close
in order to create faith schools, because at the moment we do
not need additional school places. Any developments about further
developments of schools have to be planned as a whole system not
as a single solution.
Q357 Mr Prentice: We were talking
about building schools for the future a few moments ago, and in
the old days I remember reading countless articles about removing
surplus capacity, and yet we found out this morning in Tim's school
that there are 550 pupils there and it has a capacity of about
700. What are you doing about removing surplus capacity?
Mr Howell: We are removing surplus
capacity and adding capacity where the demographics say we should
do that, because we are not expecting everybody to have to travel
across the City to get into a school. We manage the individual
school changes on an annual basis, and we are planning over the
12-year strategy of building schools for the future exactly this
issue, where part of the discussion we are having with the DfES
and head teachers is: what is the optimum size of school; how
many schools should we have? This is a chance to re-define our
school system, not simply to replace old schools with new schools,
which are in the same place and of the same size.
Q358 Mr Prentice: Should good schools
be able to expand at the expense of other schools?
Mr Howell: In my view, no.
Q359 Mr Prentice: There should be
a cap.
Mr Howell: There should be a strategic
plan agreed by a school organisation committee which does not
allow the removal of a school from a neighbourhood simply because
another school was allowed to grow in an unplanned way, because
the additional value that schools bring to communities both through
the whole nature of extended schools but actually by being local
and providing a local service without insisting on travel arrangements,
means that—
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