Supplementary Memorandum by Minister of
State for School Standards to Support Joint Memorandum from Minister
of State (Health) at the Department of Health, Minister of State
for Local and Regional Government and Minister of State for School
Standards (CVP 24 (c))
THE CASE FOR USER CHOICE IN PUBLIC SERVICES
1. The DfES is proud of the way it has placed
choice and voice at the heart of its policy making and service
delivery. The recently published "Five Year Strategy for
Children and Learners" (www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/5yearstrategy/)
sets out the Department's plans to radically reshape the system
for delivering education and children's services so that its central
characteristic will be personalisation—a system that fits
the individual rather than the individual fitting the system.
2. We want to continue to mould our services
around the needs of individuals as they learn and develop through
life. The system of the future will pivot on:
— Empowered learners: a strong confident
voice for children, young people and adults to articulate their
personal learning needs.
— Responsive providers: schools, colleges
and universities that are uniformly excellent but can design their
offering around the needs of individual learners.
— Engaged communities: a role for parents,
employers, experts and volunteers to work together in support
of children's learning.
3. For learners, empowerment will mean more
diversity, greater choice and a decisive shift toward personalisation.
People learn in different ways and at different paces, so their
learning experience should be bespoke: with individual assessment,
tailored teaching and learning and personal tracking of performance.
And alongside this commitment must go another to personalised
support—the essentials that put education within everyone's
reach, from protection for the vulnerable child to career advice
for teenagers and financial packages for adults wishing to acquire
new skills.
4. For the many thousands of separate providers
up and down the country there can be no centrally dispensed prescription.
But the strongest institutions and services are already acutely
alert to the needs of users, and they have important characteristics
in common. They are strongly, imaginatively and sensitively led,
with a powerful sense of mission to serve the public. And they
exploit the freedom to re-think their services in response to
changing needs.
5. The wish to harness a wider range of
people and resources again reflects the example of the best schools
and colleges. These are institutions at the heart of their communities,
engaging parents and families in their children's education; linking
with health, housing and other organisations to influence and
improve life chances; drawing in sports stars and coaches, local
broadcasters and artists to enrich the process of learning and
development.
6. The Department will apply the same principles
across the system as a whole, while recognising that each part
of the system is at a different stage of evolution, and each institution
different to the next. Our aim throughout is services that are
fair for all, personal to each.
7. For example, in response to broadening
choice and personalisation, the Department:
— is developing Children's Trusts
which bring together local partners—education, social
care, health, Connexions, Sure Start, Youth Offending Teams, and
the voluntary and community sector—so that they can work
better to meet the needs of children, young people and families,
and at the same time, responding to the current fragmentation
of responsibilities for children's services;
— revolutionised the early years provision
in deprived areas by introducing Sure Start which brings
together health, learning and parenting support to meet the need
of local parents, their children, and the community they live
in;
— has begun to engage with individual
families and communities through the promotion and development
of extended schools (before and after school hours, at
weekends and during school holidays, helping parents to juggle
their busy lives). Schools that have already adopted this approach
have found that extended schools impact positively on pupil attainment,
behaviour and attendance, offering activities and facilities to
increase engagement and motivation. Involvement in extended activities
may also have a positive impact on the culture of schools and
their communities, particularly in terms of how learning is viewed.
There are currently 119 "full service" extended schools
in England. There will be 240 "full service" extended
school models by 2005-06, offering a prescribed core range of
services;
— has increased diversity in the secondary
school system by expanding the number of specialist schools.
Over half of all maintained secondary schools now have specialist
status. Their plans reflect key principles for personalised and
effective teaching and learning;
— provides targeted capital funding
that faith communities can bid for via their LEA, in response
to parental demand for places. The Code of Practice on School
Admissions allows faith schools to admit pupils on the
basis of religious affiliation but it also encourages them to
give priority for at least some places to local children of other
faiths or none;
— has included, in its Five Year
Strategy for Children and Learners, proposals (for secondary
schools only) for increasing the number of places in popular
and successful schools; allowing high-performing specialist
schools to add sixth forms; and making it easier for new promoters,
including parents' groups, to open schools in response to local
demand. This should allow schools to strengthen their individual
ethos and develop in the direction they think appropriate, and
to better meet local needs as part of the drive for higher performance
in the local system;
— has extended the arrangements (via
the Education Bill currently before Parliament) for inviting proposals
for new secondary schools so that it is easier for new promoters,
including parents' groups, to open schools in response to local
demand;
— has allowed schools, through improvements
in performance data, to compare individual pupil results against
expectations—pinpointing areas for improvement and allowing
more targeted teaching;
— has empowered young people to help
to design the Connexions Service so that it responds to
their needs and from which they can access information, advice
and guidance in a variety of ways, at times and places that suit
them;
— has initiated a fundamental review
of 14-19 education, with the ambition of creating a system
of personalised learning for every student, with the opportunities
for the less able and underachievers to enter the national framework
of qualifications. Sir Mike Tomlinson's report constitutes a substantial
longer term agenda which will not distract from medium term objectives
to introduce greater flexibility into the current system. Delivery
of a future 14-19 curriculum and qualification structure will
need to address the issues of too much assessment, a poor vocational
offering, and being sufficiently challenging for the most able;
— has implemented 14-19 pathfinders
which led to the development of broader curricula, offering
greater choice add flexibility, especially for 14-16 year olds;
— has planned, in the context of the
Skills Strategy, for a reform of qualifications which will
create a more flexible framework for recognising achievement:
one which measures and values learning, welcomes diversity in
provision and equips individuals for work and life; and
— has developed a package of reform
of higher education that will lead to a financially secure
and diverse system which is more responsive to the rising demands
of students and business. Raising achievement in schools and colleges
will lead to more students from non-traditional backgrounds aspiring
to enter higher education. The reform will also abolish up-front
payment of tuition fees and allow every full-time student to defer
their contribution to the cost of their course until after they
have graduated.
8. In terms of voice, the Department:
— has extended the opportunities
for young people to shape policy. A young person's version
of the two consultations: 14-19: extending opportunities, raising
standards (www.dfes.gov.uk/14-19) and Every Child Matters
(www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/) were created. Both consultations
were extensive and inclusive, including events to discuss proposals
with young people face to face with Ministers and senior officials;
— is involving key stakeholders in
various ways: the use of critical friends (such as the
Implementation Review Unit), particularly in shaping secondary
school policies, wider qualitative involvement in key dimensions
of policy formulation and the execution of communications and
regular quantitative surveys of stakeholder opinion;
— has implemented a national programme
of strategic area reviews over the past two years that has
engaged many stakeholders in discussion about the further education
and training in their local areas;
— moved its service personalisation
beyond a focus on an individual making complaints or having an
involvement in formal governance arrangements, to learners
having a key and active role in helping to design their provision.
This gives them more say in how they use services once they
access them by making them co-producers of services. A good example
of this is the Connexions Service;
— promotes the representation of parents
and other members of the community on the Governing bodies
of schools. For 16-19 provision governing bodies involve representatives
of the local community, parents and young people themselves in
the management of their institutions;
— has developed a strategy for increasing
parental involvement in children's education. This includes
an element of "giving parents a voice" for example through
the introduction of home-school agreements. A study, carried out
by the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) and published by
the Department in 2002, found that 85% of parents say they
are either very involved or fairly involved in their child's education;
— has promoted citizenship as
part of the school curriculum. This helps to develop pupils' formal
knowledge of how political processes work, how decisions are made
and how individuals can play a part. It also provides opportunities
for pupils to take responsibility and action in their neighbourhoods
and communities to change things for the better.
— has encouraged the setting up of
school councils to give pupils a greater voice in the running
of their schools;
— has set up the participation programme
which ensures that children and young people have more say
by engaging them in decision-making, influencing Government departments,
supporting mechanisms through which their voices can be heard,
encouraging their participation as full members of society, modelling
good practice and funding the development of innovative approaches
to participation.
— Sector Skills Councils are
being established in each major sector to provide a voice for
employers. These Councils will develop Sector Skills Agreements
in consultation with the employers in their industries. They will
provide a means by which the Learning and Skills Council, Regional
Skills Partnerships and Learning providers can focus their resources
and energies on delivering the skills that employers and the economy
really need.
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