Memorandum submitted by Lynne Jones MP
One of the key issues in the White Paper is
"fair admissions". However, the Government has not yet
analysed responses to its consultation on School Admissions[104]
which closed in October. It is very disappointing that the Government
launched its White Paper before producing this analysis, given
the central importance of the admissions issue. I enclose a copy
of my submission to the consultation on the Draft Code for the
Committee's consideration/information.
Evidence-based policy should lead ministers
to look at the success of comprehensive systems such as that in
Finland which did exceptionally well in PISA (the OECD programme
for student assessment). Finland has a system of comprehensive,
non-selective basic education and the teaching profession is highly
respected and teachers given trust and a lot of autonomy. They
have no testing or ranking lists and a co-operative way of working
in contrast to the competitive model underpinning the Government's
White Paper. I attach a briefing note prepared for me by the House
of Commons Library on the Finish system, which I hope is of interest
to the Committee.
CONSULTATION RESPONSE
OCTOBER 2005
School Admissions: Consultation on the
draft School Admissions Code of Practice, School Admission Appeals
Code of Practice and assorted regulations.
NOTE ON
THE CONSULTATION
I was disappointed that the 12 week consultation
was launched just before the summer holidays on 26 July and without
a press release. Point 1.4 of the Cabinet Office Code of Conduct
on Consultation states that "Departments should consider
the specific circumstances of their stakeholders and consider
longer consultation periods at certain times, for example during
the summer holiday period". I request that a four week extension
be given to the consultation and that this be publicised including
via a press release.
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Para 4
The Code should be made mandatory so that allocations
policy is not left to the discretion of schools that are under
pressure to keep up their reputation. The legislation necessary
for a mandatory code could be included in the forthcoming Education
Bill.
Para 13
Assessment of whether a particular looked-after
child should be treated as being of their particular faith should
be waived and faith schools should be required to give looked-after
children priority irrespective of faith.
Para 14
Selection on religious grounds should be phased
out. In the interim it should be restricted and there should be
a nationally fixed quota of places in faith schools available
to children of other/no faith.
Para 16
The original requirement in the Code which seeks
fairness for parents who are only seeking a place at a non-selective
school should be re-instated.
Para 21
I am very attracted to the idea of a lottery
but it needs further testing and exploration to check that it
can, in practice, work both fairly and maintain schools with a
local connection. The idea has not been sufficiently explored
in the Draft Code.
Para 29
The facility for state-funded schools to admit
pupils on the basis of aptitude tests should be withdrawn. This
would also assist with reducing the burden of testing on children.
Para 31
It should be explicit that interviewing of parents
or children should not take place rather than just describing
this as poor practice (except for boarding schools interviewing
solely for the purpose of assessing the suitability of the child
for a boarding place).
END ACADEMIC,
APTITUDE AND
FAITH SELECTION
1. The School Standards and Framework Act
1998 prohibits the introduction of new academic selection except
for fair banding. It is logical to extend the assumptions behind
this prohibition to existing academic selection. We need a national,
fair and objective admissions policy which does not permit schools
to be wholly or partially selective on grounds of faith, academic
ability or aptitude (except for fair banding by Local Education
Authority). Given that Government is unlikely to take the logical
step of ending all such selection, I would like to submit the
following comments:
MANDATORY CODE
OF PRACTICE
TO CREATE
A UNIFORM,
FAIR NATIONAL
SYSTEM
2. The Code should be mandatory. All admission
authorities, including foundation schools and City Technology
Colleges should be required "to act in accordance with"
the Code, rather than simply have to "have regard to".
3. League tables provide a disincentive for
schools to allocate their fair share of places for children in
care, "hard to place" children and children with special
educational needs. A fair system, applied to all schools funded
by the state, would help the heads of less popular schools that
face the difficulty of raising standards while parents of pupils
who would be easiest to teach do all they can to try and ensure
their children go to favoured but oversubscribed schools, including
being willing to move house.
4. The Code should be made mandatory so
that allocations policy is not left to the discretion of schools
that are under pressure to keep up their reputation. The legislation
necessary for a mandatory code could be included in the forthcoming
Education Bill.
OPEN UP
THE ADMISSIONS
OF FAITH
SCHOOLS
5. In encouraging faith schools, the Government
believes that the distinct ethos and character of faith schools
helps them perform better. I would challenge this conclusion.
Any selective school can achieve better than average results,
and church schools are usually selective. They take less than
their share of deprived children and more than their share of
the children of more ambitious parents, a point the Government
should be well aware of, as Ofsted said at the time the Government
was expanding the number of faith schools in 2001 "Selection,
even on religious grounds, is likely to attract well behaved children
from stable backgrounds," [105]
This covert selection goes a long way towards explaining their
apparent academic success.
6. I do not accept the assertion that the
ethos of church schools is somehow superior to that of non-denominational
schools where staff show just as much love and professional dedication.
It is our comprehensive schools, genuinely open to applications
from all races and religions that have the authority to claim
that they have at heart the good of our whole society.
7. Religious schools discriminate against
everyone not of that faith—in their admissions and employment
policies, their curricula and their assumptions about their religion.
In my constituency, for example, there are two Catholic secondary
schools. One has not taken non-Catholics for many years and the
other until recently was admitting children from other faith groups
(though not of no faith) including many Muslim children. However,
this mixed intake was at a time when the school's reputation was
low (there having been a scandal involving a previous head teacher).
As their reputation has grown (for which the Head and staff are
to be congratulated), fewer and fewer non-Catholic children have
been accepted to the point that, this year, even Catholic pupils
living locally but who did not go to a Catholic primary school
have been excluded. Such schools cease to be a part of a local
community—as is also the case with grammar schools in my
constituency, a recent statistic I was given by the Head of a
grammar school in my constituency was that 59% of pupils came
from outside Birmingham.
8. Some faith-based schools will not even
try to serve the whole community and will divide children not
just by religion but also ethnically. Northern Ireland and Bradford
are examples of what happens to communities where children are
educated separately and grow up knowing little of each other.
In the wake of the 9/11 atrocity in New York and the 7/7 bombings
in London it is even more important that all groups in our society
feel included and are given every possible opportunity to integrate.
9. I uphold the right to freedom of belief
and understand the desire of parents to bring up their children
with the family's beliefs. However, it is not the job of publicly
funded schools to instil a religious faith in children and the
state is not obliged to provide schools catering for every shade
of belief or philosophy. The state has its own interest in ensuring
that children grow up to be responsible and capable citizens.
Schools should, of course, teach about religion and philosophy
but they should do so in an objective, critical, and pluralistic
manner.
10. We need to have all our children educated
in schools that believe that concern for others is not a Christian
virtue, or a Jewish or Islamic virtue, but a human virtue; and
where all the faiths are equally respected.
11. Of course, given the existence of so
many religious schools in this country, it would be naive to think
that these can be abolished overnight but we should be aiming
at admission policies that work towards reintegrating these schools
by requiring quotas for intakes to include a proportion of children
of other faiths and none. Admissions arrangements of faith schools
must be more open.
12. Paragraph 1.5 of the consultation particularly
welcomes comments on how the requirement to give priority to looked-after
children might apply in relation to faith schools.
13. Assessment of whether a particular looked-after
child should be treated as being of their particular faith should
be waived and faith schools should be required to give looked-after
children priority irrespective of faith.
14. Selection on religious grounds should
be phased out. In the interim it should be restricted and there
should be a nationally fixed quota of places in faith schools
available to children of other/no faith.
REMOVE THE
CHANGES THAT
GIVE DOUBLE
PREFERENCES TO
PARENTS WHO
WANT GRAMMAR
SCHOOLS
15. The current Code requires that, in areas
where there are grammar schools, parents should have to express
a preference as otherwise it is "unfair to parents who only
want a place at a non-selective school". It is very disappointing
that the Draft Code reverses this requirement when it says "it
is good practice for parents to be able to know the outcome of
selective tests before the closing dates for application to schools
under co-ordinated schemes". This effectively means that
parents who want grammar schools get two preferences if their
children fail the grammar school test. This is unfair.
16. The original requirement in the Code
which seeks fairness for parents who are only seeking a place
at a non-selective school should be re-instated.
17. The system is also unfair as parents
of those children who pass the grammar school test have the advantage
of knowing further in advance which school their children are
going to, unlike parents who have to rely on the later outcome
of co-ordinated schemes.
18. In selective areas such as Kent, schools
taking all abilities have required parents to put them as "first
preference first" so that they can give priority to parents
who want all ability schools. The draft refers to this as "not
working well where there is an element of selection by ability
or aptitude". If selection were ended there would be no need
for all ability schools to implement this policy and equal preference
throughout co-ordinated schemes would be fairer.
FAIR BANDING
19. Fair banding—placing applicants
into ability bands on the basis of non-verbal reasoning tests
and admitting a representative proportion from each band—is
a way of ensuring the intake of a school is genuinely comprehensive.
I understand this has been successful in the case of Thomas Telford
School but would only be possible in oversubscribed schools. However,
that would be precisely the place to start—but see below
on random allocation.
USE OF
A "LOTTERY"
OR "RANDOM
ALLOCATION" SYSTEM
FOR OVERSUBSCRIBED
SCHOOLS
20. The idea of adopting a lottery, or random
allocation, for heavily oversubscribed admissions is an interesting
one, that does have the good intention of trying to avoid social
segregation. Pulling names out of a hat overcomes the advantage
some pupils have over others. However, it can also mean that some
students do not get into their nearest school. Therefore any "lottery"
system would need to be within a catchment area that keeps the
intake fairly local but is wide enough to avoid the problem in
some areas of parents buying up the houses near the most desirable
schools. This idea might be less necessary if the concept of fair
banding were adopted for oversubscribed schools. Conversely, random
allocation would be less bureaucratic and not likely to be seen
as "social engineering".
21. I am very attracted to the idea of a
lottery but it needs further testing and exploration to check
that it can, in practice, work both fairly and maintain schools
with a local connection. The idea has not been sufficiently explored
in the Draft Code.
NEGATIVE IMPACT
OF "CHOICE"
POLICY ON
ADMISSIONS
22. The word "choice" is often
used by ministers. However, when the real meaning of the policy
behind this seductive word is unravelled (who wouldn't want to
be able to choose if something better is on offer?) it is not
compatible with an objective and fair national admissions policy.
Is it possible or desirable for there to be competition in state
education so that all people can have such a choice? To have choice
for everyone, you have to have spare capacity so that the "best"
schools don't become oversubscribed.
23. The dogma of choice conspicuously fails
to answer questions like "Who ends up going to the least
desirable schools?". In oversubscribed schools, the satisfaction
of one person's choice necessarily denies that of another. If
everyone is allowed to choose, schools would have to rapidly expand
and contract as they fell in and out of people's favour. In practical
terms this is certainly both wasteful and inefficient and probably
impossible which is why talk of choice for all is, in fact, illusory.
24. The impracticality of essential institutions
like schools operating at spare (and varying) capacity means that
some people won't get to choose as the most desired schools fill
up. The "choice agenda" is also incompatible with social
justice on the grounds that some people are better equipped to
make choices than others. What about the children who don't have
a savvy parent to negotiate the education market on their behalf?
25. Parents don't really want the anxiety
of trying to get their children into the "best" schools.
What they really want is for their local school to be of a high
standard. I am frequently contacted by anxious parents going through
the Local Education Authority appeal process, who rarely succeed.
It is a myth that the mirage of "choice" drives up standards.
26. People just want quality local schools
that they can rely on and as former Education Secretary Estelle
Morris recently said on the Today Programme[106]
this is what the extra investment in education should be going
towards.
END SELECTION
AT 11 AND
THE LOCAL
GRAMMAR SCHOOL
BALLOT SYSTEM
27. Government policy is that if local people
want to keep academic selection at age 11, then this justifies
or somehow makes acceptable its continued existence. However,
whatever the outcome of a local ballot, the existence of academic
selection at age 11 remains an unfair and unacceptable reality
for those children who are subsequently branded a failure at age
eleven.
28. Academic selection at 11 should be ended
because it is unfair and detrimental to the esteem of individual
children who fail the test and there is no evidence that it produces
better results overall.
WITHDRAW THE
FACILITY FOR
STATE FUNDED
SCHOOLS TO
ADMIT PUPILS
ON THE
BASIS OF
APTITUDE TESTS
29. In its response to the Education and
Skills Committee, the Government suggests that it is possible
to screen out any incidental "ability effect" of aptitude
tests by ensuring the pupils selected are spread across the whole
ability range.[107]
However, there is not an explanation of a means by which aptitude
can be assessed without reference to ability. The facility for
state funded schools to admit pupils on the basis of aptitude
tests should be withdrawn. This would also assist with reducing
the burden of testing on children.
STRENGTHEN THE
DRAFT CODE
ON INTERVIEWING
30. The current Code is very clear and states
that:
"no parents or children should be interviewed
as any part of the application or admission process, in any school
except a boarding school".
However, the Draft Code contains the potentially
weaker formulation:
"It is poor practice to interview parents
or children as any part of the application or admission process
in any school except a boarding school".
31. This change should be reversed and the
original formulation used. It should be explicit that interviewing
of parents or children should not take place rather than just
describing this as poor practice (except for boarding schools
interviewing solely for the purpose of assessing the suitability
of the child for a boarding place).
SCHOOLS IN
FINLAND
You asked for background information on the
school system in Finland, and whether it is comprehensive or selective.
You also wanted information on the status of teachers and their
pay. I have asked a researcher in the Parliament of Finland for
information about the status and pay of school teachers in Finland,
and I will forward any information I receive as soon as possible.
Finland operates a comprehensive education system
that provides free education for children between 7 and 16 years
of age. The Finnish National Board of Education website has an
English home page which describes the education system of Finland
as follows:
Basic education is general education provided
free of charge for entire age groups. Basic education is governed
by the Basic Education Act of 1998. According to the act, comprehensive
school lasts nine years and is intended for children between 7
and 16 years of age. Children are summoned to school in the year
that they become seven years of age. Within certain limits, pupils
are free to choose the comprehensive school of their preference.
If it is impossible for a pupil to attend school for medical or
other reasons, the municipality of residence is obligated to arrange
corresponding instruction in some other form.
The network of comprehensive schools covers
the entire country. Schools offering instruction in the first
six forms are particularly close-set in order to avoid unreasonably
long school journeys. For school journeys exceeding five kilometres,
transportation is provided free of charge.
All children permanently resident in Finland
are subject to compulsory education for a period of 10 years starting
in the year of their seventh birthday. Compulsory education ends
when the pupil reaches the age of 17 or when he or she has completed
the comprehensive school syllabus, whichever occurs first. Compulsory
education does not entail an obligation to attend school, but
pupils may also acquire the equivalent knowledge and skills in
some other way. In practice, however, almost all Finns go to nine-year
comprehensive school.
Teaching groups in basic education are formed
according to year classes, ie forms. During the first six years,
instruction is usually given by the class teacher, who teaches
all or most subjects. Instruction in the three highest forms is
usually in the form of subject teaching, where different subjects
are taught by subject teachers. Basic education also includes
pupil counselling and, if necessary, special education.
The basic education syllabus includes at least
the following subjects: mother tongue and literature (Finnish
or Swedish), the other national language (Swedish or Finnish),
foreign languages, environmental studies, civics, religion or
ethics, history, social studies, mathematics, physics, chemistry,
biology, geography, physical education, music, visual arts, craft
and home economics. The broad national objectives and the allocation
of teaching time to instruction in different subjects and subject
groups and to pupil counselling are decided by the Government.
The National Board of Education decides on the objectives and
core contents of instruction by confirming the core curriculum.
Based on these, each provider of education prepares the local
basic education curriculum.
Features of basic education:
— no admission requirements;
— a nine-year comprehensive school;
— may include voluntary one-year pre-school
education and voluntary one-year additional education (10th form);
— instruction arranged in schools near
the home;
— no official qualification; final
certificate granted for acceptable completion of the syllabus;
— provides eligibility for all upper
secondary education;
— almost all Finnish children complete
comprehensive school;
— interruption and repeating a form
is rare; and
— compulsory education is fulfilled
by completing the basic education syllabus.
Additional information is available on the website
at: http://www.edu.fi/english/frontpage.asp?path=500
A history of the Finnish education system notes
that it has been specifically developed on the comprehensive model:
The Finnish school system has been intentionally
developed towards the comprehensive model, which guarantees everybody
equal opportunities in education irrespective of sex, social status,
ethnic group, etc. according to the constitution. The old school
system has been replaced by a completely new one over a long period
of time (about 30 years). The first steps for setting up a new
system were taken in education policy decisions between 1964 and
1968. It was then decided that the parallel school system would
be replaced by national nine-year basic education. In practice,
the renewal was realised in Finland step by step between 1972
and 1977, starting from the north and ending up in the south.
At the same time responsibility for basic education was given
almost exclusively to the providers of education, ie in practice
to municipalities. Only a few special schools and university training
schools remained as state maintained schools. Schools continued
to follow the nationally accepted curriculum, and ability grouping
was introduced in the teaching of mathematics and languages. Teaching
at schools was inspected by the school inspection system.
In 1985 the ability group system was abolished
so that eligibility to further studies would be open to everyone.
At the same time, by giving extra resources to schools, the aim
was to guarantee the fairly small number of teaching groups in
the teaching of the whole age group. At the same time the providers
of education were given more and more opportunities to decide
on how to organise teaching. Ten years later many schools introduced
flexible groupings of pupils where pupils with different ability
grouping studied in their own groups. It was, however, possible
to move from one group to another also in the middle of the school
year. When evaluating pupils for school leaving certificates the
same criteria were applied irrespective of the group in which
they had studied.
1990S: THE
ROLE OF
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION
DIMINISHED
Ten years later in 1994 a large change was made
in order to diminish the role of central administration in deciding
on the contents and aims of teaching. The Finnish National Board
of Education gave only very broad aims and contents for the teaching
of different subjects. The providers of education and finally
schools set up their own curricula on the basis of the national
core curriculum. In these plans local needs could be taken into
consideration and special features of the school could be made
use of. At the beginning of the 1990s the system of inspecting
textbooks was discontinued. The central administration of education
trusted the providers of education and teachers more and more,
and their judgement to choose the best possible teaching materials
on the market. This procedure made possible free competition of
teaching materials and their development to correspond to the
curricula. By the beginning of the 1990s the system of school
inspection was discontinued. The realisation of national goals
was instead systematically evaluated by national and international
surveys of learning results.
During the whole of her independence Finland
has built up an education system whose characteristics consist
of uniformity, free education, school meals and special education
by using the principle of inclusion. Typical of Finland are very
small differences between schools, which may be explained by the
definition of admission areas and the lack of ranking lists and
thus by the even distribution of good teachers between schools.
Above all, one must remember that Finnish society has a very positive
attitude to education. 73 % of the 25-64-year olds have at least
gained a certificate from upper secondary level and 33 % (the
highest in the EU) have had a university or corresponding education.
The completion of basic education is a prerequisite for further
studies. Only slightly more than 1% of the age group does not
receive a comprehensive school leaving certificate. According
to research more than half of these drop-outs will later in one
way or another receive it and possibly also a further certificate.
In Finland school administrators very much cooperate
with teachers', subject teachers' and headmasters' associations.
In this way measures to develop education receive strong support.[108]
You sent me a press article about a particular
school and asked for further information about it. I'm afraid
I have not been able to find any source that would give me detailed
information about this particular school in Finland. The article
also mentioned an OECD survey and Finnish school success.
The Finnish National Board of Education sets
out the reasons for the success of Finnish education in PISA (the
OECD programme for student assessment). Comprehensive education
is one of the factors listed:
BACKGROUND FOR
FINNISH PISA SUCCESS
Why did Finland do so well in PISA? Some explanations
are found in the main principles for comprehensive education in
Finland:
— Equal opportunities for education
irrespective of domicile, sex, economic situation or mother tongue;
— Regional accessibility of education;
— No separation of sexes;
— Education totally free of charge;
— Comprehensive, non-selective basic
education;
— Supportive and flexible administration—centralised
steering of the whole, local implementation;
— Interactive, co-operative way of
working at all levels; idea of partnership;
— Individual support for learning and
welfare of pupils;
— Development-oriented evaluation and
pupil assessment—no testing, no ranking lists;
— Highly qualified, autonomous teachers;
and
— Socio-constructivist learning conception.
http://www.oph.fi/english/page.asp?path=447,488,36263
The website also has a page on the factors behind
the good literacy performance of the Finnish youth, for example:
http://www.oph.fi/english/pageLast.asp?path=447,488,36263,36266
I hope that this gives you sufficient information
for your purposes.
Christine Gillie
Social Policy Section
104 http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/conResults.cfm?consultationId=1336
SCHOOL ADMISSIONS: Consultation on the draft School Admissions
Code of Practice, School Admission Appeals Code of Practice and
assorted regulations. Closed 18 October 2005. Back
105
Times Educational Supplement, 16 February, 2001. Back
106
Today 28 September 2005 interviewed by John Humphries. Back
107
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/sacode/pdf/Cm6349.pdf Back
108
Dated 3.12 2004: http://www.oph.fi/english/pageLast.asp?path=447,488,36263,36274 Back
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