Examination of Witnesses (Questions 342
- 359)
MONDAY 12 DECEMBER 2005
MR DAVID
BUTLER, PROFESSOR
JOHN ADAMS
AND MS
GILLIAN WINDASS
Q342 Chairman: Can I welcome Gillian
Windass, Professor John Adams and David Butler to our proceedings.
We are very grateful when witnesses can appear before the Committee
at relatively short notice. You will know we are in something
of a hurry to get an evaluation of the Education White Paper because
it seems to us that we want to produce our report in time to have
some influence on the eventual Bill that will come before the
House. We will be winding up our evidence next Monday with the
Secretary of State coming before the Committee. It is very timely.
We have two sessions today, I think you are aware of that, so
we will rattle through the questions. I get my team to ask brief
penetrating questions and I would ask you to answer fully but
not too lengthily so we can get through as much as possible. Can
I remind my team, if you ask a lead question you do not have to
ask all three witnesses to come back. Professor Adams, you are
sitting in the centre so I am looking at you, do you want to say
anything to open or do you want to go straight into questions?
Professor Adams: It is entirely
up to you, Chairman. Are you comfortable with who we are and who
we represent?
Q343 Chairman: Why do you not say
who you are. We have been very well briefed, we do know who you
are, that is why we invited you, for your long experience and
great knowledge. Can you give me two minutes of what you think
the big challenge is in the White Paper?
Professor Adams: My name is John
Adams and I represent the National Association of School Governors
which was formerly called NAGM, which you might know from that
name. We have been in existence since 1970. We are an entirely
apolitical and voluntary body. My immediate feeling about the
White Paper, having read it carefully more than once, is that
there are a number of things which we would welcome in the Paper.
There is a continuation of a number of reforms in education which
we have supported and some of the early information given in the
White Paper is very much to the point. There have been dramatic
changes over the last decade or so. We welcome the emphasis on
parental involvement, and particularly on parental responsibility
which is in the White Paper. We see the governing body as the
natural vehicle for the expression of parental concerns about
their school and we welcome that. We welcome particularly the
emphasis on personalised learning, the whole area of individual
attention and the recognition that the dispersion between the
performance of the best and the worst schools, using that shorthand,
has narrowed but the dispersion between the best and worst pupils,
using again a very particular shorthand, has not. A personalisation
agenda, trying to attack that, I think is extremely important.
We welcome some additional funding, I do not know if it is going
to be enough for the personalisation. We are delighted with the
six paragraphs devoted to governance. We are very pleased with
our six paragraphs, not much out of a paper of 110 pages but there
we are. We are also pleased—and in a sense this is a slightly
strange thing to say—that the White Paper does not quite
live up to some of the hype which was around shortly after the
election, in particular we were anxious that no additional organisation
or institution was set up within schools to represent parents.
While the invitation to establish parents' councils is there,
and of course they exist in many schools anyway, there is not
I hope, an intentional clash, between the aspirations of parents
on councils and parents who are school governors. Those are things
which we welcome. There are some fairly well documented contradictions
in the paper—and they have been discussed in the press and
elsewhere—particularly concerns about the emphasis on parent
power and things like, within trust schools, a reduction in the
number of elected parents, there seems to be some dissonance between
them, the emphasis on the importance of community and a number
of proposals, like bussing, which seem to be antipathetic to the
community. Finally, I would say, I do not think we are naïve,
one would expect a White Paper to be polemical but it does seem
to read as a research-free zone. There is a great deal of assertion
and perhaps even anecdote masquerading as case study. When we
read things like "parents will welcome proposals for schools
to acquire trusts" my thought is: is that an aspiration or
an injunction? "You will . . . ". There are a number
of things like that which appear to be entirely unsubstantiated
and give a flavour of an aspirational document and nothing else.
Q344 Chairman: Gillian Windass, would
you like to introduce yourself and give us a thumbnail sketch?
Ms Windass: Of course. I represent
the National Governors' Council which is the other main governors'
organisation although shortly in to the New Year we will be joining
to become one governors' organisation.
Q345 Chairman: You are merging?
Ms Windass: We are merging, yes.
Our main concerns, not surprisingly, are very similar to those
John has outlined. Again, we welcome the emphasis on personalised
learning and the teaching and learning aspects of the document,
and the statements on school discipline and behaviour. We do have
concerns that much of the document has very little evidence in
terms of the idea that every school would wish to become self-governing
or become a trust school and that this would improve teaching
and learning. There is no evidence provided in the document to
substantiate that fact. Trust schools would not necessarily improve
things and they would definitely reduce the elected parental representation
on the governing body where in the rest of the document we are
talking about increasing parental influence. We are quite happy
that governing bodies should be engaging and consulting with their
parental bodies and that should have been happening already. The
fact that is going to be a new statutory duty, I do not think
particularly worries us one way or the other because we think
effective governing bodies should be doing that already. We also
welcome the fact that in the six paragraphs which we talked about
where governors were mentioned, specifically, governors will be
encouraged to undertake induction training. We think it should
go further. There are some very serious responsibilities that
governing bodies have and we think that all governors should undertake
mandatory induction training as a start.
Q346 Chairman: Thank you for that.
David Butler?
Mr Butler: I represent the National
Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations. I think John's opening
remarks were very germane and I will add a couple of points to
that rather than rehearse many of the similar responses. Not surprisingly,
there is a lot in the White Paper that we would welcome and we
are certainly very pleased to see a substantial amount of discussion
on parental involvement in education. I feel slightly like a second
class citizen in respect of my two colleagues here who managed
six paragraphs, we managed one, in terms of mention of PTAs. I
think the thing that gives us a cause for concern in the White
Paper is that there is a great deal of talk about parental involvement
in education and there is research evidence to substantiate the
effect that can have on attainment. What we are concerned about
is the substantial mention in the paper of parental authority
over the managerial process of education. I am not aware of there
being research evidence to support that.
Q347 Chairman: Can I ask you, to
open up the questioning, in terms of how you are finding recruitment
to become a school governor it seems to me over a short number
of years the role of the governor has become far more demanding
than ever before. I speak to governors who tell me what an enormous
commitment it now is in time—not just time in meetings but
time outside of meetings—because they play quite a substantial
role, a very important role, in the management of the school.
Are you finding it difficult, across a range of schools, to get
governors who can give that sort of time and commitment?
Professor Adams: We, as organisations,
do not recruit.
Q348 Chairman: No, but you know.
Professor Adams: I think the pattern
varies a great deal across the country. In some areas it is not
at all problematic. In the area where my school is based there
is not a problem at all in getting school governors.
Q349 Chairman: That is where?
Professor Adams: In the City of
York.
Q350 Chairman: There are very intelligent
people in Yorkshire.
Professor Adams: I am sure you
are right. In other parts of the country it is difficult and there
is, for example, a government agency tasked specifically with
recruiting, in particular, business governors to governing bodies
in schools where they find it hard to recruit. You are quite right,
I have been involved in school governance now for eight years
and, indeed, I did speak to this Select Committee looking at governance
under a previous chairman. Then I think I said the biggest issue
in my mailbag was the additional workload and responsibilities,
and that was in something like 1999. It has not diminished, quite
the reverse. It is a major issue. My real concern is how little
school governors are willing, for obvious reasons, to pay for
professional advice and support when in a large secondary school
they are managing a very substantial business.
Q351 Chairman: With this greater
emphasis on professionalism of the role, has there been a widening
of the gap? When the duties were lighter I have a feeling, but
I have no evidence of this, that the cross-section of people who
were attracted to becoming governors was broader in terms of social
dimensions. With these greater responsibilities, is there not
a tendency for you always to be looking for pretty much middle-class
professional types and you are getting rather further away from
your average parent, for example?
Professor Adams: There is a school
of thought out there that says what we need on our governing body
is a solicitor, an accountant, et cetera. I think that has always
been the case. I do not know of any research evidence—and
since I made remarks about the White Paper I should not slip into
anecdote myself—to suggest that trend or view.
Q352 Chairman: Does anybody else
want to come in on that?
Ms Windass: I would reiterate
what John said. I do not know of any research evidence which suggests
the governing body representation is now being skewed in a particular
fashion. Again, I think it depends where you are in the country
potentially and how effective, in some cases, your school is at
engaging with its local community and parental body. That has
a big impact. The better the school is at engaging with its local
community the more people are likely, from all walks of life,
to want to be on the governing body and involved. I think that
has the biggest impact.
Q353 Chairman: Professor Adams, in
terms of the range, you have mentioned eight years a couple of
times, in terms of the drift of the number of green papers and
white papers we have had in education, where do you place this
one? Is this the continuation of a trend or did it come out of
the blue? Where do you see it in terms of building on previous
white papers and previous policies the government has put before
you?
Professor Adams: Certainly it
did not come out of the blue, we did know about this. Clearly,
a white paper was going to emerge after the General Election.
What I think it has been extremely useful for both organisations
have been discussions with ministers and senior civil servants
prior to the White Paper being drafted, that was very useful.
If you want a candid answer to your question, my feeling is that
this White Paper will not change very much. The vast majority
of schools will just carry on much as they are and they will not
opt for trust status they have not up to now.
Q354 Chairman: What do you mean they
have not up to now?
Professor Adams: They could have
adopted a trust, they have not done so.
Q355 Chairman: They could have become
foundation schools?
Professor Adams: Yes. My guess
is there will not be any dramatic changes as a result of this.
One or two individual schools, of course, in particular circumstances
but I do not think it will be a seismic shock to school governing
bodies around the country.
Q356 Chairman: Do you go along with
that, David?
Mr Butler: I think I would agree
with that. There is a clear aspiration in the White Paper, and
it is an aspiration which we have seen in a number of comments
which have come out from DfES ministers about the desire and wish
to involve parents more and more in various educational processes
but I am not so sure this will lead to this overwhelming rise
in parental involvement.
Q357 Chairman: You can see the Government
trying to find a dynamic, something that will drive on change.
Heaven forbid that there should be a change in the global party
governing the country. You can see here is a political party in
Government wanting some dynamic that will carry on in terms of
promoting change. It seems to be coming through the White Paper
as much from my reading as that should be individualisation of
learning, individual schools with greater freedoms. You do not
think that is working or will work?
Ms Windass: I do not think the
White Paper provides trust schools with particularly more freedoms
than many schools have already. Becoming an admissions authority,
becoming an employer, they already exist for foundation and voluntary-aided
schools so there are no great new freedoms which are offered in
the White Paper, those freedoms were available already to schools.
As John said, schools could already become foundation even before
streamline route to foundation was introduced in September. Schools
could have gone down that route if they had wanted to, and not
very many did. I do not think there is very much in the White
Paper from our point of view that will persuade schools that they
want to adopt those freedoms.
Q358 Chairman: Here you are, commenting
on a White Paper passaging as a Bill, many people are getting
extremely excited about it, and you do not think it is going to
make much difference in the long run.
Ms Windass: In terms of the structures
of schools, as we said at the beginning, there is no evidence
provided in the White Paper that changing your structure is going
to improve the standards of teaching and learning which is the
most important thing.
Q359 Chairman: What did you say to
the Secretary of State when you were consulted by the Department?
Did you say "Look, Secretary of State, we share your problem
that 25-30% of children in this country do not get the education
they deserve but you will not get it this way, we know how to
reach those 25-30%"? Did you give her a positive steer on
that?
Ms Windass: We reiterated what
we are saying here: structures will not necessarily make a good
school.
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