Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
MONDAY 22 JANUARY 2007
DR ELAINE
MCMAHON,
MR GODFREY
GLYN, MR
PAUL HAFREN,
MS LORRAINE
MCCARTHY,
MR PETER
HAWTHORNE AND
MR JOHN
BANGS
Q160 Mr Wilson: Do you think sharing
students at the age of 14 presents difficulties as well around
the schools and colleges?
Mr Hafren: Yes, absolutely. I
think there are all the systems issues and the institutional self-interest
issues, but equally for a 14-year-old to be thrust into a very
complex environment, where they could be wearing the school uniform
of one school and spending a lot of time in another and then off
to a college and spending time on buses. Actually it is quite
a complicated system, which we need to be careful we do not make
complicated to the client, or the pupil, because I think they
will find this really a hard pill to swallow.
Q161 Mr Wilson: Going back to the
National Association of Head Teachers, they say, in their submission
to us, that, co-operation and co-ordination, the range of readiness
ranges from what they say is hesitantly enthusiastic, maybe Wolverhampton
is ahead of the curve on that, to frighteningly unaware. Where
do you think the majority lie in that spectrum?
Dr McMahon: I think it depends
on the composition you have in your area. In Hull, mostly it is
two sixth form colleges and a general FE, with a whole plethora
of training providers, but not sixth forms in schools, so we will
have a different relationship, training providers and colleges,
with the schools, and I think that has been helpful. When I look
at collaboration, you have to have it because it has to be there
for 14-19 to work, whether we have got Specialised Diplomas or
not. What exists now, to make it work, you have to have a collaborative
approach, with a win-win approach, for the people who are existing
in that locality. However, in East Riding, where we also have
a college, we are making it work, it is perhaps more difficult
but we have got there equally working with local schools on post-16.
I think it is more of a challenge, where you have got sixth forms
in schools and you have got general FE and sixth form colleges;
where there is complexity in an area you have to work harder at
it.
Q162 Chairman: You are already working
hard. Godfrey, we have not given you a chance; he is in a different
part of the country. I think you were smarting when we said everybody
else was ahead of the curve?
Mr Glyn: Paul made the point that
there are very few drivers for collaboration and that is the key.
I am in a tertiary model in Hampshire, most of the post-16 provision
in the state sector is in colleges, and that has been interesting
since incorporation for us to work together and come up with a
way which allows us to function to the best needs of the students
and I think we have achieved that after a long period of time.
If I take my scenario of ten partner schools, all of which have
specialist college status, some of which are applying now for
their second specialism, they are being encouraged when they apply
to put down that they want a sixth form. My colleagues, working
with their teaching staff in order to deliver a programme 14-19,
come back to me and say, quite honestly, "They want a sixth
form; why are we doing ourselves out of a job?" That hardly
encourages the attitude that we need to deliver the 14-19 curriculum,
and there are a number of other factors which mitigate against
collaboration and I think they need to be looked at very carefully.
Q163 Mr Chaytor: Who is encouraging
them at the point of applying for the second specialism, as I
understand it; is it the Department or is it the colleges and
specialist schools?
Mr Glyn: As I understand it, it
is the Specialist Schools Trust adviser who was suggesting that
we ought to put down that we want a sixth form.
Q164 Mr Chaytor: Is this done formally,
in writing, or is this done in a sort of nudge-nudge, wink-wink
way?
Mr Glyn: I have not seen anything
in writing.
Q165 Mr Chaytor: You are prepared
to put it on the record that this is happening?
Mr Glyn: That is what I have been
told, yes, and certainly that is the feeling which hangs around.
Q166 Chairman: If you have an academy
proposal, you are a sixth form in most cases, are you not, anyway?
Not that you have an academy, but that is true, is it not?
Mr Glyn: Yes.
Q167 Mr Chaytor: In all the legislation,
there is a presumption that schools without a sixth form which
apply to expand to a sixth form will be given it, because of a
parallel presumption that colleges which apply to expand will
also be given approval. Is it possible to have two parallel presumptions
which would lead to a neutral, contradictory outcome, do you think?
Mr Glyn: I think so.
Q168 Mr Wilson: It does seem that
we are unearthing that parts of the system seem to be working
against each other. Does not this need to be sorted out before
we get to the point where we are launching this in 2008?
Mr Glyn: Absolutely.
Q169 Mr Wilson: What do you think
is the process to deal with it; is that in the hands of the DfES,
or some other organisation involved in this?
Mr Hafren: I think some of the
issues are so profound that to ask a local area to try to resolve
them is not adequate because I think there are bad policies.
Q170 Mr Wilson: Who should be resolving
this, do you think; is it the Department for Education and Skills
that should be resolving it?
Mr Hafren: I cannot think of anybody
else that would have that responsibility.
Q171 Chairman: As was said in the
last session, the buck stops somewhere in the Department, does
it not?
Mr Hafren: Absolutely.
Mr Bangs: I wrote a thesis on
local authority co-operation when the Inner London Education Authority
had its tertiary education boards. I have to say, it works, and
comments by colleagues about sorting out students' travel times,
for example, it is not marginal, it is central to students' sanity.
I have seen colleges, special schools, employers, the local authority,
sitting down, looking at courses and working out what was the
best optimum course, and that was when CPVE was in place, for
particular students, to remove those travel times, and to look
at where the pastoral support and the tutorial support might be.
Local authorities do not know that they are in the driving-seat
when it comes to local organisation; there are mixed messages.
Local Learning and Skills Councils are fading out, you have got
the Further Education Bill in Parliament, which is going to remove
them, but the consequence of that is that, local authorities,
all they have got in terms of additional funding is probably one
principal officer and an administrative assistant, if you divi-up
£15 million. They do not know that they should have the capacity
to draw all those people together, there is not that message in
the system and that is what I have been trying to say consistently,
Chairman.
Q172 Chairman: They have not yet
come to terms with their new strategic role?
Mr Bangs: No; certainly not.
Q173 Mr Wilson: It may not be a car
crash but it may be something close to a car crash and this may
end in tears. What incentives do schools and colleges have to
become involved in these local partnerships and the Diplomas?
Mr Glyn: The needs of the students,
frankly.
Mr Hawthorne: We can provide a
much richer curriculum which will improve continually, I think,
attainment and inclusion, participation of schools, undoubtedly
by working together.
Chairman: We had better move on.
Q174 Jeff Ennis: Peter, have all
the providers in your area been keen to get involved in the 14-19
agenda, or have some been a bit more lethargic, shall we say,
than others, and, if so, which ones, in general terms?
Mr Hawthorne: What we have tried
to do is create what we call an infrastructure to facilitate collaboration,
to make it possible, and leave the decision-making in the hands
of the heads and governors of those institutions. Everyone in
Wolverhampton participates, everyone uses the infrastructure,
college, all schools, special schools, training providers, the
lot, because it is elective, so they are doing it to serve their
own agendas. They do not compromise and sacrifice their institutions,
so they can do it out of self-interest. That is the trick; that
is to circle the square.
Jeff Ennis: Have any of our witnesses
got any experience of the so-called local LSC-appointed co-ordinators
and is there a need for this particular kind of role to promote
the development of the Diplomas?
Q175 Chairman: Has anybody got experience
of local LSC co-ordinators; they exist in some parts?
Mr Hafren: I have got experience
of a co-ordinator, I think they were appointed jointly between
LA and LSC, and that should have been a force for good, I am sure.
Q176 Jeff Ennis: The LSC provided
the funding.
Mr Hafren: They might well have
done. Particularly because this person has been new to the area,
they have come at it with a fresh pair of eyes and that has been
quite useful really just to challenge some of the habitual ways
of thinking.
Mr Hawthorne: I think the leadership,
wherever it comes from, needs legitimacy in the eyes of the principals
and the head teachers in the area. There is too much low-level
co-ordination, which gets rubbished by senior managers.
Q177 Fiona Mactaggart: Paul was talking
earlier about how you create a culture of collaboration where
collaboration is not rewarded. John said that the answer is to
give this responsibility back at a strategic level to the local
authorities and let them know it. I wonder if everybody else would
offer me just one thing they would change to reward collaboration;
has anyone got a proposal, a thing you would change to make a
better reward for collaboration? Elaine, have you got an idea?
Dr McMahon: Funding direct to
the colleges for 14-19-year-olds would sort it out.
Q178 Fiona Mactaggart: Give the money
to the colleges and they will sort it out, is their solution?
Mr Hafren: A radical solution
would be to give the funding to the collective.
Ms McCarthy: I think I would agree.
Give the funding, in our case, to Peter to sort out and he helps
us then to drive it forward.
Mr Glyn: I would agree; funding
to consortia, or whatever arrangement it is at the time.
Q179 Chairman: Peter has been spoken
for, has he?
Mr Hawthorne: I would say that
all the providers in an area have to have a collective responsibility
for all the learners in that area.
Mr Bangs: I agree about re-examining
the funding system. It should go to the collective and it should
be allocated according to the board or the group of representatives
of the institutions and providers. I would also do something else,
which is, it came up earlier, school performance tables in this
area really are redundant and they ought to be reviewed and another
form of institutional measure put in its place, which is not so
crude.
Chairman: We are moving to our very last
subject, the Gateway process.
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