Memorandum submitted by CfBT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CfBT Trust Schools will work with their local
community and within a strong partnership of all schools in the
area to raise aspirations, expectations and the educational achievement
of all members of the community.
Our overarching commitment is to supporting
the delivery of an education service, which will enable individuals,
schools and communities to achieve their maximum potential.
We firmly believe that the White Paper proposals
when viewed with those reforms envisaged in the Every Child Matters
and Youth Green Paper, will deliver more strategic influence to
local authorities, will assure accountability at different levels
will lead to greater choice for parents, better alignment of pupil
performance and pupil wellbeing and will protect the interests
of the most disadvantaged.
Indeed, CfBT is already actively engaged in
partnerships with local authorities in Lincolnshire, East Sussex
and Lambeth, which are significantly improving outcomes for learners,
including the disadvantaged.
No one type of school or one ethos alone can
serve every child's needs and interests whatever their background,
their abilities, circumstances or location. The most important
focus in any school is, and must be, the individual needs of its
pupils. Personalisation of services can only be achieved in a
system that achieves a proper balance of regulation and independence
and offers flexibility and choice, within and between schools,
with some freedom to innovate.
CfBT is keenly interested in being a provider
of Trust Schools. Our motivation is straightforward. CfBT's heart
has always been in teaching and learning. An education trust like
CfBT can currently only be involved in the provision of schooling
in the UK by charging fees or providing special schools. We regret
that fact and welcome the opportunity afforded by Trust Schools.
CfBT does not accept the argument that Trust
Schools will be disadvantageous for the most needy children. There
is ample evidence in other aspects of social and particularly
children's care that our society is blessed with an impressive
supply of organisations whose bias is firmly towards those most
in need. For example, looked after children, one of the categories
of concern to critics of the White Paper, are often looked after
by non-Government organisation. Such organisations are effectively
excluded from a system in which the state is a monopoly provider.
THE ROLE
OF LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
A purchaser/provider split allows the purchaser,
the local authority, to play a more focused role as the strategic
promoter of the community interest and the body that ensures that
all its citizens are well provided for. CfBT already works in
effective partnership with local authorities and welcomes the
clarity with which the White Paper identifies local government
as the commissioner of services provided by Trust Schools.
It is important to look at the White Paper in
the light of proposals in Every Child Matters and the Youth Green
Paper to understand fully the new and important role to be played
by local authorities across the young people's and children's
agendas, particularly as commissioner rather than provider of
services. At every level there is real accountability to local
authorities. The proposals in the White Paper strengthen the strategic
role of local authorities.
There has been a good deal of speculation about
admissions systems. CfBT's commitment to an inclusive approach
to education is not in doubt. We can demonstrate a track record
working with some of the most challenging young people in the
country. While we can see circumstances in which schools with
a specialist approach may need greater flexibility over admission
arrangements CfBT would expect to work within the current guidance
on admissions, which the White Paper proposals would leave in
place.
Any change to admissions policy and the introduction
of banding must be evidence-led and considerable weight should
be given to evidence provided by the independent adjudicator on
whether or not a change to the current system, in particular in
whether giving current guidance statutory backing, would improve
or reduce equity.
THE BENEFITS
OF INDEPENDENCE
Trust Schools offer two sorts of potential advantage,
first in terms of independence and secondly through the collaborative
opportunities.
There is evidence from other areas of social
policy over the last 20 years that the transfer from direct municipal
provision to not-for-profit providers has been broadly beneficial
for staff and customers alike. The more arms length relationship
with government will, over time, distance teachers from political
regulation of their day-to-day work. Provision by independent,
not-for-profit bodies will encourage innovation and diversity.
Although many of the most successful secondary
schools exercise the full extent of the autonomy which the present
system allows them, the concept of the stand alone, autonomous
school is neither the only, nor necessarily the best model for
school governance and management.
The new opportunity afforded by the White Paper
proposals is a larger Trust covering a number of schools. This
could encourage and formalise some of the collaborative arrangements,
which have begun to benefit schools in recent years. Trusts might
be based on a geographical area or on a shared approach to curricular
or pastoral issues.
CfBT believes that the development of such Trusts
will add diversity to the system and that, for some schools there
would be merit in joining a Trust which will provide them with
the security and strength of a forward looking large educational
charitable trust where educational expertise and the mutual benefit
of being a member of a larger Trust can be aligned for the benefit
of the young people in the school.
KEY FEATURES
OF CFBT
TRUST SCHOOLS
Autonomy, staff empowerment and accountability
CfBT schools will consciously seek to work in
partnership with their stakeholders and in a range of collaborative
activities with other schools.
A CfBT Trust School will exercise considerable
autonomy. It will be empowered to develop independently, working
within a community of knowledge and practice that is developed
by the leading practitioners within the Trust, found both from
within schools and from the core CfBT team. Leadership is a quality
we will encourage in a widely dispersed range of staff.
The educational offer of the Trust as a whole
will be driven forward by the Headteachers of the constituent
schools and their key colleagues acting together. The schools
will be able to draw on all the educational expertise and financial
resources that CfBT can offer, to support children's wellbeing
and learning. For example many schools find it difficult to get
access to the up front investment which would allow them to respond
innovatively to the workforce reform proposals.
Some schools within the Trust will be facing
particular challenges and an important part of the strategy for
school improvement will be the extension of the capacity of successful
schools to support those facing difficulties. The learning networks
CfBT will establish will become a key operational way of sharing
good practice, having peer assessments and building capacity.
Accountability will be exercised through rigorous
self-evaluation, self-improvement and resource allocation supported
through the framework of the CfBT Trust. All CfBT Trust Schools
will have a single school plan for improvement (SSIP), which will
guide the development of the school.
Partnership beyond the school
Partnership in the local community is also crucial.
The school's ability to succeed will be hugely enhanced if there
is a pro-education culture in the people served by the school,
if parents and others are supportive of the enterprise in which
the school is engaged. CfBT Trust Schools will develop an extensive
array of interventions designed to foster this community support.
In particular, CfBT schools will give top priority
to engagement with parents. In part this will be achieved through
formal mechanisms like Parents' Forums with clear terms of reference.
But personalisation applies to parents as well as pupils and the
real challenge is to engage with individual parents in such a
way as to ensure that school and parents are supporting each other
in the educational enterprise.
ABOUT CFBT
CfBT is a leading education charity. For 40
years the charity has employed, trained and supported teachers.
We currently work with governments on school improvement, curriculum
development and teacher and school leadership training and on
inspection. We are engaged directly with learners through projects
working with pupils excluded from mainstream schools, the provision
of education for young offenders, through the Connexions Service
and through direct ownership of a group of schools and nurseries.
CfBT's initial focus was overseas. We still have a strong international
dimension. We have designed and delivered an extremely successful
AIDS prevention programme for Kenyan schools and have a growing
programme supporting schools for the poor in India.
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