Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-193)
MR MIKE
CURTIS, MS
TINA EVANS,
MR PAUL
RANSON AND
MR DEREK
JONES
24 APRIL 2006
Q180 Mr Crausby: I want to give Tina
Evans and Mike Curtis the opportunity to say a bit more about
the Service Children in State Schools working group. I know there
have been some submissions but, for the record, what are the current
priorities of the SCISS working group and what progress has the
group made since its establishment early last year?
Mr Curtis: I had hoped you might
ask that question. Certainly the Service Children in State Schools
group was formed at the request of the DfES to look into the views
of schools in the UK that had Service children in them. I know
that Olivia Denson's group, CEAS, have held some regional meetings
around the country. They have done that twice in the last couple
of years to gauge views from schools all around the country to
ensure that as a group we are being representative in what we
are trying to push. We have got a number of issues which I can
lead to in a second or two. The disappointing part of this is
having been a group that has been working for two years, there
has not been any movement on any of the issues whatsoever. We
have still got an action plan and we are still trying to work
towards those issues. Some of the issues I have raised in my submission.
I would like to say that I think one of the first things that
needs to be done is to identify in the UK where these children
are. For the moment nobody has any idea where these children are
or who they are. I think the first thing we need to do is to recognise
what is a Forces child. Does a child who is a Forces child suddenly
not become a Forces child if their parents leave the Forces or
their parents have become divorced. We have got lots of issues
in Brize Norton where families have split up and there are two
or three children who have been through three or four different
schools, they have got all the same issues but are no longer in
the Forces. One of the things we need to do, and we are trying
to do this in the group at the moment, is establish what a Forces
child is. Then we need to try to persuade the Government that
we need to have these children identified. It is a very, very
simple task. The very simple task is that our PLASC data that
we give every year in January needs to have a flag on it for Forces
children and overnight the Government would know where the children
are and they would be able to track progress. That simple thing
is something that we would all like. From our point of view we
would be able to say with some certainty that "My school
has got this number of children and if there is additional funding
these are the children who deserve that". We think that is
an important part. The funding bit is something that the group
itself feels is a very important factor. We have managed to persuade
my authority not only to give the mobility factor, all schools
have got that mobility factor—it could be an inner city
school that has got some turnover—but they also get a Forces
factor and they recognise some of the things that have been said
here today, some additional factors I have put in my submission.
Our local authority, and I know Wiltshire to some degree, has
put those factors in. Around the country there is inconsistency.
There are some Service schools that do not get any additional
funding for that. We would like some commonality throughout the
country as far as funding is concerned. Those are a couple of
issues. We are also looking at issues around the way in which
Ofsted inspects schools. We have written to David Bell to get
him to understand that it is important that when inspection teams
come into schools that have got a large number of Service children
they look at that. I will give you a particular example. They
could be coming to judge my school and a lot of judgments that
are made by Ofsted are about pupil progress and pupil progress
is reflective of my school. In the year before last in Year 6
there was a cohort of 56 children, 14 of those children arrived
in the spring term and my school was going to be judged on those
results. Do you see the dilemma there? Actually what happened,
which I could not tell the inspectors when they came in last January,
was that we put our results up because we have some really talented
children coming through the Forces' scheme. This is not just about
these special needs children, it is about some really talented
children coming through who might even do better than they are
doing at the moment if we gave a bit of additional support. Our
concern is not just about the children at the bottom end, it is
about the whole spectrum of children, and there are some really
talented children coming through. There are issues around that.
One of my local inspectors came in and said to me, "We need
to see where your children are going to be in two years' time.
The Government requires us to put a target for your school in
two years' time". I have no idea, we have a 30% turnover
every year. I know Tina had an 89% turnover. How can we judge
what children we will have in two years' time? Target setting
for schools like ours is a nonsense.
Q181 Mr Crausby: I looked at some
of the indicators for Alderman Blaxill School, and for the purpose
of this inquiry I am interested in the third of the Service children
who attend it, but it did not tell me anything about the Service
children, they could be better or worse. Are you saying that information
is not available at all? I am sure that the school knows.
Mr Curtis: Yes, the schools know.
Q182 Mr Crausby: You know the details
of how that affects the figures as far as your school is concerned
but is that not being passed on to the MoD or DfES?
Mr Curtis: There is no requirement
for me to submit to anybody the information I take which is about
how well the Service children do.
Q183 Mr Crausby: They only need to
ask, do they not?
Mr Curtis: When the inspectors
came in—I was inspected in January—I gave them the
information which said "This is how well the Service children
are doing in our school. This is how well they have been doing
over the last few years", because I have been keeping that,
but nobody has ever required me to give that information out.
Q184 Mr Crausby: Does the DfES understand
the issues?
Mr Curtis: No, I do not think
they do.
Mr Jenkins: Of course they understand
the issues and they love you, the Civil Service love you. You
are the ideal person to go along to and say, "We cannot decide
what we would like, it is a bit of a moving feast." You have
got to nail it down. It does not matter if it is not 100% right,
it might be 80% right, you have got to nail it down so they cannot
walk away from it. If a person is a member of a serving Force
of this country and they have got a child at school, it is a Service
child, let us start from there. If a person has been gone from
the Service for 10 years or whatever, that child remains a Service
child because that will have had an imprint on that child. Until
you nail them down they are going to keep wandering away and avoiding
it. It is important we do get these children recognised. It is
important that we then run a trial scheme, and we could probably
fund a trial scheme, to see what difference we could make if we
can identify them, invest some money and make sure they get back
into the mainstream of schools as much as possible. I think the
answer is yes and yes.
Q185 Chairman: The answer is yes?
Mr Curtis: Definitely.
Chairman: That, if you did not spot it,
was a question!
Q186 Mr Lancaster: This is to touch
on how your relationships with your local garrisons work in your
school. For example, do you have a good relationship with the
local Garrison Commander or Commanding Officer? Do you manage
to get Service parents on the Board of Governors or is the turnover
so high that it is very difficult to get them to come on? I am
interested in aspects like that if you can touch on some of them.
Ms Evans: It is very difficult
to get consistent governors who stay with the school for the same
reason as the children, they move on every few years. That is
a problem. The relationship with our garrison is good because
somebody has made it so. I would guess it is not consistent across
the country.
Mr Curtis: Currently I have got
seven serving members on my governing body. The frustrating thing
is in my present school not a year has gone by since I started
when there have not been vacancies. The problem with vacancies
in governing bodies is that whenever you start a new year, a new
term, you end up having to go through some of the same issues
again and explain what is going on. Consistency of members on
the governing body is difficult. Currently the chair of my finance
and staffing committee is doing a really good job, he has been
in the post for 18 months but he is going in the summer and that
is really frustrating. He is doing a really good job and has nailed
down a number of things which previous chairs have found difficult.
There are difficulties around governing bodies.
Q187 Chairman: Mr Ranson, what do
you feel about it?
Mr Ranson: Obviously we want as
close a relationship as possible but they do oscillate as you
build up contacts and if they move on there is a gap. I would
echo exactly what has been said on the governing body and the
PTA. We try to bring in people for assemblies and use the Army
for team building exercises. We do as much as we can but all of
a sudden the contact goes because they have been redeployed and
it has to be built up again.
Mr Jones: The same challenges
which meet the children in that detachment and the child making
new friends, new productive contacts, face the adults as professionals
running the organisations and the quality of relationships can
go up and down depending on who is in the position. Some of the
best family officers working with our families are very innovative,
allow the wives of the families to play a part and take some control
of their own destiny, run events for children, others have been
less innovative and families have benefited less as a result but
you work with who you can. We do get support but as it changes
you constantly have to revive and refresh things. That returning
and going over the basics means you cannot advance as fast as
you would like to perhaps.
Q188 Chairman: Thank you. We have
been very generous with everybody today because we have given
them a wish, although we are not necessarily going to fulfil that
wish. Can we give each of you a wish. Starting with you, Tina
Evans, may I say that you have already expressed your wish, which
was for £220 extra per head. What would you spend it on?
Ms Evans: I would spend it on
the staff and the resources to allow me to do the job properly.
Q189 Chairman: Would it be contracted
in staff or contracted out staff?
Ms Evans: It would be more teachers,
more support staff, a counsellor on site, somebody the children
could talk to. It is more hands.
Q190 Chairman: Thank you. What would
your wish be?
Mr Curtis: My wish would be that
the actions that the SCISS working group are working on would
be recognised and some action taken by the DfES.
Q191 Chairman: Thank you. Mr Jones?
Mr Jones: Nothing new really,
just that some of the good things coming out of the Committee
were taken seriously, as this is an indication of them today,
and they were acted upon. Perhaps schools like ours which work
between civilian and Army, cater for both, are not seen as second
best but doing a very valuable job and resourced accordingly.
Q192 Chairman: Can I correct you
on one thing and that is this: we are not an arm of government,
we are the Select Committee that scrutinises the government, so
we may well make recommendations with which you would entirely
agree and we hope, like you hope, the government will listen to
what we say in exactly the same way as you hope the government
will to what you say.
Mr Jones: The fulfilment of one
wish is to be listened to and that has happened today, so thank
you for listening.
Q193 Chairman: Your wish, Mr Ranson?
Mr Ranson: I would like to see
reserved places for Service students and some funding to follow
them as they move into the school.
Chairman: Thank you. Are there any other
questions? May I say thank you very much. We intended to finish
at five o'clock, I did not realise quite how spot-on we would
get it. Thank you very much indeed for your evidence. As a way
of rounding off a fascinating and very valuable day, it has been
perfect. We are most grateful to you. You have travelled a long
way in at least two cases, in two other cases not at all, but
thank you very much indeed for very helpful evidence, we are most
grateful.
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