Memorandum submitted by Human Scale Education
INTRODUCTION
About Human Scale Education
Human Scale Education (HSE) was founded in 1985
as an educational reform movement. It aims to promote small, human
scale learning communities within the State maintained and alternative
independent sectors. Drawing on extensive evidence, HSE believes
that small, human scale learning communities can foster the positive
relationships that enable teachers to know their students well.
Evidence suggests that such communities make possible a more holistic
approach to learning that engages the whole person and raises
student attainment.
Human Scale Education is committed to the idea
that in a pluralistic democratic society diversity of educational
provision is fundamental to a healthy education system, and that
for many young people a small, human scale learning environment
can make the difference between success and failure.
Over the past 20 years HSE has sought to ensure
the continued existence of small schools in the State sector that
are under threat of closure. We have also supported groups of
parents and teachers who wish to set up a small school in their
own community. In collaboration with secondary schools, parents
and policy makers, HSE is actively promoting the principle of
restructuring large comprehensive schools into smaller learning
communities. Further information about HSE can be found at www.hse.org.uk.
White Paper: Higher Standards, Better Schools
For All
Human Scale Education welcomes the opportunity
to comment on the White Paper Higher Standards, Better Schools
For All. The proposals set down in the White Paper could,
if implemented, bring about significant changes to the school
system in England. It is therefore essential that the proposals
are subject to the widest possible scrutiny and debate before
they are laid before Parliament. This is particularly important
since there remains much confusion about the main policy objectives
at the heart of the White Paper. This confusion has been compounded
by the way in which the White Paper was deliberately but misleadingly
trailed, and by the fact that it has been drafted in such a way
that rhetoric, hyperbole and political imperatives take precedence
over serious policy issues. We therefore welcome this inquiry
into the White Paper, but view with very serious concern the intention
of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills to put the
White Paper proposals before Parliament early in 2006. The time
available for informed debate is woefully inadequate.
COMMENTARY
The central aim of the White Paper is to promote
higher standards and better schools for all. HSE's purpose in
submitting this commentary is to focus on three issues relating
to the Government's proposals that we believe would help achieve
these ends.
School Size and Scale
The policy of enabling "successful"
schools to expand their numbers and the omission of any mention
of the movement towards small learning communities is, in HSE's
view, regrettable. While it would be simplistic to assume that
the successful American public school experiment of smaller learning
communities in the form of small stand alone schools or small
learning communities within restructured large schools (the schools
within a school model) can be transplanted to the UK, there are
many lessons to be learnt from the American experience. The evidence
from the American experiment is well documented and highlights
the marked improvement in students' academic performance and behaviour
that takes place in smaller learning environments. HSE is committed
to the principle of small scale because of the difference it can
make to the students' experience of education—a difference
that springs from alternative approaches to pedagogy and assessment
and the organisation of learning.
It is increasingly recognised that large, uniform
institutions are failing to provide young people with the intimacy
and individual understanding that many need in order to thrive.
The progress at Bishops Park College in Clacton, Essex, demonstrates
to date that a purpose built school comprising three smaller learning
communities of 300 students aged 11-16 in each can foster the
positive relationships that give students the self confidence
and security needed for effective learning. Existing large schools
that lack the funds for a major redesign can nonetheless restructure
their buildings into smaller learning communities and HSE is involved
with secondary schools that are engaged in this task.
School design should be of paramount importance
in the radical new system of education envisaged by the White
Paper. Such a system should include smaller learning communities
which enable a more personalised approach to learning. In his
Foreword to the White Paper the Prime Minister refers to the diversity
that is available in other school systems in Europe. In HSE's
view smaller learning communities should form part of this diversity.
Learning, the Learner and the Curriculum
Structures and systems are, of course, important.
However, what goes on in the day-to-day practice of schools and
in classrooms is at the heart of improving standards and promoting
better schools for all. While noting the proposals for personalised
learning, HSE believes that the White Paper fails to give sufficient
weight to these issues. Our concerns are twofold.
Labelling Children and Young People by Ability
The White Paper is based on the controversial
and, in our view, completely counter-productive assumption that
right from the start, children and young people can be labelled
by ability. Setting and grouping by ability are given particular
priority in the White Paper (4.35, 4.36). However, of most concern
is the over-simplistic categorisation of pupils into three distinct
groups: "gifted and talented, struggling or just average"
[emphasis added] (1.28). HSE believes this limited view of ability
and potential will serve only to reinforce underachievement and
result in precisely the kind of educational failure the Government
is trying to eradicate.
Based upon our own experiences as professional
practitioners, and drawing on extensive research recently undertaken
by a team from the University of Cambridge (Hart et al,
2004), HSE believes that the very best learning that happens in
schools is free from the constraints imposed by judgements of
ability. Children learn very quickly about their standing in comparison
with their peers. Experience suggests that by deliberately classifying
pupils as "gifted and talented", "struggling"
or "just average", too many children and young people—and
particularly the socially disadvantaged—will be relegated
to ghettoes of ability from which they will never escape.
Rather than labelling children by ability, HSE
would prefer to see the Government place much greater emphasis
on developing practical alternatives to ability-based teaching
which in turn will transform young people's capacity to learn.
Cambridge University's Learning Without Limits project
referred to above more than adequately demonstrates that an alternative
improvement agenda is possible.
Curriculum and Assessment
Over the years, HSE has worked with many groups
of parents who want to set up their own schools. It is our experience
that these parents do not want or be elitist or exclusive, nor
do they want to run schools for financial profit. On the contrary,
many of the parent groups who have come to HSE for support are
prepared to make enormous financial sacrifices.
They want child-centred schools run on a human
scale. They want schools that offer a curriculum that is genuinely
broad and balanced, that is open and generous, beckoning the child
to revel in a learning environment rich in detail and extensive
in scope, and where play is taken seriously. Most important, they
want a learning environment that is less constrained by the limiting
boundaries of competition, SATs and school league tables.
HSE has yet to be convinced that the proposals
in the White Paper address these concerns. Schools and early years
providers remain under a statutory duty to "deliver"
the national curriculum and to administer baseline assessment
and the statutory assessments at key stages 1, 2 and 3. They remain
under a statutory duty to report their "performance data"
to the DfES. The data published by the DfES is then used by the
press to create league tables.
Aside from the proposals for 14-19 education
and training, there is little if anything in the White Paper that
leads us to believe that schools will be given the freedom and
the flexibilities to design a curriculum that is genuinely appropriate
to the needs and aspirations of children and young people in the
21st Century and one which nurtures and develops creativity. As
important, there is no suggestion that schools will be freed from
the continued use of the high stakes tests that, as evidence demonstrates,
are narrowing curriculum coverage and are having a detrimental
effect on the learning of a significant proportion of young people
in schools. In this respect, the White Paper fails to provide
an answer for the disaffected and disengaged young people in schools
who learn, very early on, that if they are not at the right "level",
they will fail.
Parents as Partners
As stated in the preceding section HSE has worked
with parents for many years and has supported parent founded and/or
parent run schools. These are mostly small schools because of
financial exigency and also as a matter of principle. We therefore
welcome the central place given to parents in the White Paper
(Chapters 2 and 5) and the intention to respond to their needs
and aspirations. We welcome the proposal to accede to parental
demands for new schools (2.31, 2.32) and the setting up of financial
arrangements proposed to support such a venture.
However, we view the proposals to give parents
the right to call in Ofsted (5.16) should they have complaints
about their children's school, an action which could lead to a
"possible change in school management" (5.16), with
misgiving. HSE has always worked collaboratively with parents
and would recommend that the guiding principle of school/parent
relationships is one of partnership rather than power.
HSE has been working with "hard to reach"
parents to find new ways of involving them in the life of their
children's schools in four primary and secondary schools over
the past year as part of a DfES funded project and it was gratifying
to read in the White Paper an account of our work at Ladybridge
High School, Bolton (5.19).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, HSE welcomes the Government's
commitment to social justice and to improving the life chances
of all children and young people, whatever their background. In
seeking to achieve these ends there are, we believe, three key
issues which are not properly addressed in the White Paper.
1. School Size and Scale: HSE would welcome
greater emphasis in the White Paper on issues concerning school
size and scale and on ways in which large secondary schools can
be restructured into smaller learning communities which foster
the positive relationships that give students the self confidence
and security needed for effective learning.
2. Learning, the Learner and the Curriculum:
HSE believes the assumption running throughout the White Paper
that children and young people can be labelled by ability ("gifted
and talented, struggling, or just average") will prove counter-productive.
Our greatest concern is that this policy will militate against
the socially disadvantaged. HSE remains concerned that the White
Paper offers insufficient scope for schools to develop alternative
approaches to the curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. We believe
the current curriculum and assessment regime has a detrimental
effect on the learning of too many children and young people.
3. Parents as Partners: HSE welcomes the
central place given to parents in the White Paper. We welcome
the proposal to accede to parental demands for new schools and
the proposed financial arrangements to support such ventures.
However, we are wary about the proposal regarding Ofsted (5.16)
and we would recommend that the guiding principle of school/parents
relationship should be one of partnership rather than power.
REFERENCE Hart,
S, Dixon, A, Drummond, M and McIntyre, D (2004) Learning Without
Limits. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
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