Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
JOHN BANGS,
MICK BROOKES,
MARTIN JOHNSON
AND DARREN
NORTHCOTT
11 JUNE 2008
Q120 Mr Carswell: Does it help to
explain why something like 15% of children in that school are
not achieving five or more good GCSEs?
Martin Johnson: Does it explain?
Q121 Mr Carswell: Yes. Is it a factor
in that failure?
Martin Johnson: No.
Q122 Annette Brooke: May I backtrack
slightly? Could you identify what, if any, advantages we have
had from the National Curriculum? We are moving on, and I would
like to know what is good in it and what needs preserving.
Darren Northcott: Again, I am
going to reassert the point that is really important to us. As
Mick was saying earlier, prior to the introduction of the National
Curriculum, there was a degree of variation. What experience of
education you had as a pupil very much depended on all sorts of
factors that were beyond your control and the control of democratic
authorities at national level. One thing that the National Curriculum
has given us is a coherent structure or framework within which
teachers and head teachers have the potential—if it is structured
properly—to work. It also allows an effective national policy
to be determined as well about what the Curriculum should involve,
how it might be taught and what might be effective approaches
to that. So it has brought a degree of coherence to the system,
which I think that teachers welcome. You would struggle to go
into schools now and find many teachers who would question the
existence of a national curriculum. Most of our feedback from
our members is that as a framework, it is extremely important.
It is about getting that framework right.
Martin Johnson: Yes. This concept
of entitlement that was behind the National Curriculum was extremely
important. There was substantial class and gender bias in the
curriculum in practice prior to the introduction of the National
Curriculum. We think that it is right that the state, which provides
education, should also say in broad terms, after appropriate political
debate, what the curriculum should look like.
Mick Brookes: In a nutshell, it
is science for girls. That is one of the areas that was ignored
prior to 1988, certainly in the primary setting because there
was no prescriptive curriculum. Science for girls has been a major
success of the National Curriculum. I am glad that you have asked
the question because it is very easy to get a polarised and negative
response. There are some good things that came out of the National
Curriculum. The system of assessment has blunted some of those
good things. The propensity to go towards closed questions rather
than open thinking is one of them. We need our young people to
think creatively and openly rather than closed all the time.
John Bangs: I will not repeat
what other colleagues have said, but I agree with them. There
are a couple of points to make. It is worth remembering that when
the National Curriculum was introduced in 1987-88 by the previous
Conservative Government, it was not as a benchmark for entitlement,
but as a benchmark for stimulating the market between schools
so that parents could look at individual schools and decide, on
the basis of what they thought was being taught in schools, which
schools to choose. There has been a perceptual shift about the
nature of the National Curriculum. I agree with my colleagues
that it should be about a common entitlement—wherever you
come from and whatever your background—to a balanced and
broadly based curriculum. That makes me wonder why the selling
point for academies is freedom from the National Curriculum, which
bothers me to be honest. If it is an entitlement, and actually
you do believe in a balanced and broadly based curriculum—
Chairman: We are aware your union does
not like academies.
John Bangs: Just making the point.
Q123 Annette Brooke: Indeed, I thought
you might slip that point in. Moving on from that and just picking
up from where David was, this is really the input from the teachers.
We have that picture that you do not like so much—national
prescription on the detail—so what is going to be the appropriate
division of labour? What proportion of all this is going to come
from the teaching staff? If I can just have a quick comment on
that to start with, John?
John Bangs: I sincerely believe
in a broad framework, rightly in consultation with all stakeholders
and national framework, and I do agree with Darren, who said that
the new secondary curriculum and the processes that led to the
construction of it were exemplary. I have to say that the Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority actually did a very good job indeed in
terms of consultation. Certain Ministers put in their own particular
things but actually it is a very good curriculum. But I do not
think that we are there yet. I think the agency of teachers explicitly,
with permissions within the National Curriculum, and with encouragement
within the National Curriculum—the local curriculum—is
very, very important, and is something we need additional to the
curriculum. There is one very good example: we were doing some
work with the National College for School Leadership on white
working class achievement and a locally constructed history curriculum
is absolutely vital in terms of engaging the local communities
in knowing why they are there. We need those kinds of permissions.
Annette Brooke: Let us just see if anyone
in particular wants to add another comment.
Martin Johnson: Can I just say
that—
Chairman: This is a rapid session.
Martin Johnson: I appreciate that.
When you mention proportions, it might be that some people think
that part of the week can be devoted to the National Curriculum,
and another part of the week to the local curriculum. That is
not what we see at all. We see the national role as high level
general statements and the local role as detailed interpretation
of those general statements.
Darren Northcott: The example
about history is a really good one. The National Curriculum programmes
of study for Key Stage 2 set out that there should be a local
study undertaken by students. That is a national entitlement,
that you can study the history of your locality. But there are
a vast range of different localities where schools are located,
with different themes that can be explored and different interests
of pupils that can be pursued. A good balance between a national
entitlement—to say "you will study the history of your
locality"—and the ability locally to determine what
aspects of that locality will be studied is needed, and features
of the history of the community should be looked at as well. That
snapshot gives a really good example of a national framework and
local determinations of that content.
Chairman: Can we make that the last question
now.
Mick Brookes: Very interestingly,
picking up on history, we did a piece of work with the National
Association of Head Teachers a little while ago with the European
School Heads Association, ESHA, who have tried to design a European
curriculum. There was complete agreement right throughout every
country represented there—and there were many countries
there—apart from on history, and who wrote, or writes, European
history. But our view is that there has to be a core entitlement.
Describing that core entitlement has to be done very carefully
so that it does not subsume everything else. I think that there
are things that all young people should leave schools with, but
actually underneath that, the values underpinning any national
curriculum must be those things which are not subject-based, such
as the ability to work in teams; the ability to think logically;
to be able to problem-solve; to have a love of literature; a fascination
with numbers. We must capitalise on that fact that young people
in our schools know far more about information and communications
technology than their teachers do.
Q124 Annette Brooke: My final question
is basically about whether teachers have the skills to play the
part that you are describing. For instance, we have had evidence
from, to my eyes, a relatively young teacher who clearly would
not have been confident taking a totally blank sheet into the
classroom. If we go back to slightly older teachers, they will
of course have been trained with those detailed folders that came
out at the time of the National Curriculum. How confident are
you that the teachers out there are ready for the new era?
Martin Johnson: I think that this
is an extremely important point and agree that the profession
as a whole is probably not ready at the moment, but it is very
important that we reskill the profession. If we do not, we will
eventually lose the capacity to design or think through curriculum
issues. Who are yesterday's curriculum designers? Well, they are
the teachers of the day before, so where are tomorrow's curriculum
designers coming from? We need to have in this country a reservoir
of expertise on thinking about the curriculum and unless we restore
to teachers in general the capacity to think through those issues,
we are heading for trouble as an educating nation.
Darren Northcott: I do not want
Martin's response to be interpreted as meaning that teachers currently
have neither the skills to design the curriculum nor pedagogical
skills. Ofsted has told us that this is the best generation of
teachers ever, and there is a lot of evidence to support that.
Our members tell us, as you have discovered, that there might
be instances in which teachers do not feel confident in a particular
area or that they need more help, support and professional development
to enhance their skills. Teachers do not tell us that their lack
of skills is necessarily the problem. The problem is the context
within which that curriculum is delivered, the constraints on
them created by the accountability regime and the fact that historically,
rather than being allowed to concentrate on teaching and learning,
they have been distracted by a whole range of other administrative
and bureaucratic tasks that have not given them the scope and
capacity to make the best possible use of the curriculum that
they have to deliver and ensure is available to all students.
Q125 Annette Brooke: May I just throw
in the point that you made strongly. Currently a large number
of schools do not have the necessary leadership and the teachers
with the confidence, as we have just heard, so where will that
confidence come from?
Mick Brookes: I shall come to
that point. I believe that teachers who are trained and educated
to degree level should be able to take on and think freely. With
regard to confidence, the best way that I can describe it is,
perhaps unfairly, as the chickens in the henhouse syndrome—when
you open the doors, the chickens stay in the henhouse because
that is what they are used to and because out there looks frightening.
We have to change the way in which we treat our schools and particularly
how they are held accountable, so I am pleased that that is your
next piece of work. At the moment there is what I can only describe
as a fear of stepping outside the prescribed boundaries, and that
is the case in a large number of schools. We need to take away
those constraints to have the sort of curriculum that we all want
to see.
John Bangs: I absolutely agree
with Darren that we have the best trained teachers that we have
ever had, but with regard to David's point, there is an unevenness
in confidence about how you use your knowledge and training and
what permissions you think you have to develop the curriculum.
That is why we have consistently argued that this Government and
the other parliamentary parties need to have a vision for the
teaching profession for the 21st century that would involve, for
example, an entitlement to professional development that was written
into the National Curriculum. That would include an entitlement
to a sabbatical every seven years to investigate some of the developments
that are needed, for instance, in assessment or in the construction
of the curriculum in your school or with other schools, which
goes back to the James report of 1971. We need that kind of creative
thinking in the teaching profession.
Q126 Chairman: You are very keen
on history today, John. Perhaps you could persuade the students
in Hackney to look at the history of educational underperformance
in their area and discover whether that was the result of the
awful national curriculum, the quality of teachers or the impact
of your union.
John Bangs: I think that it was
actually the result of the break-up of the Inner London Education
Authority, because I was there when it happened.
Q127 Chairman: It was the worst performing
local authority in the land until Mike Tomlinson came along and
sorted it out with academies. Those kids in Hackney had no chance
at all, did they?
John Bangs: Yes, and I would say
that it is also the toughest local authority in the land. If you
want me to give a discourse on ILEA, I will, because I was a member
back then, Barry.
Chairman: Yes, I remember.
John Bangs: If you want me to
speak about where the local education authority was actually going
in Hackney, I will, but probably not now.
Chairman: I cannot call Douglas Carswell
at the moment because he is going to lead in a moment. Paul is
going to take us through the impact of the National Curriculum.
Q128 Paul Holmes: We have covered
quite a few of the points already so I want to come back at one
or two of them in a slightly different way. Like Annette, I am
of an older generation of teachers and I have been a bit shocked
by some of the things we have had from previous witnesses with
young teachers asking, "Are we allowed to do that?"
We had two quite high-flying young deputy heads—I cannot
remember whether that was in an evidence session or in the seminar
before we started—who asked, "If we started with a
clean slate, what would we do?" When we came in to teaching
as heads of departments we wrote the syllabus for our department.
Darren, specifically, the NASUWT has said that with the changes
that are coming in on the secondary curriculum about flexibility,
guidance needs to be issued to make sure that local authorities
and schools apply that flexibility. Is that not an appalling state
of affairs that you allow flexibility, but you can only use it
if you are given the guidance that says it is okay to use it?
Darren Northcott: One of our concerns
is that if you have a debate that says, "Let's free up schools",
"Let's free schools from national control", "Let's
give schools the freedom to determine far more than they perhaps
can at present in curriculum content and delivery", who exactly
is getting that freedom? If at national level there is a hands-off
approach, who gets that freedom and autonomy? Is it the individual
teacher in the classroom, which is where we would say it matters
with those professional decisions? Or is there a danger that without
guidance, if you remove national-level control, you just reimpose
local-authority-level control or school-level control? So, instead
of teachers being directed by the state nationally about what
they have to do, they are directed at school level by a head teacher
or a local authority about what they have to do. They are no more
free or autonomous. So, if the principle of the reform of the
secondary national curriculum is to give teachers more autonomy,
we need to ensure that head teachers and local authorities do
not inadvertently reimpose prescription in a different guise.
It is at that chalkface and that interface between teachers and
pupils where that autonomy and that ability to make professional
decisions really matters. That must not be undermined wherever
that prescription might come from.
Q129 Paul Holmes: Two questions arise.
First, how can you have more flexibility and autonomy at whatever
level, while you have the massive impact of league tables, assessment
and inspection?
Darren Northcott: You can attempt
to increase it, certainly, but it will work against it. Ultimately
that accountability context we are talking about is so important
to schools. The consequences of perceived failure are so high
that it is bound to constrain that degree of autonomy that I have
talked about. So, talking about the curriculum in context is crucial.
If you change the curriculum, but do not look at the context—like
my colleagues, I am glad that you are moving on to look at accountability
later on—what you think you are achieving by reforming the
curriculum, you will not achieve in totality at the very least.
John Bangs: That is why I referred
to the temporary order that Estelle Morris introduced in relation
to the National Curriculum when the strategies were introduced.
It was not used. The flexibilities were not used. They were not
used because, as you suggest, schools were worried about the consequences
of not using them in terms of inspection. Unless, as Darren says,
there is a really "Glad you are doing this" evaluation
of the nature of accountability, unless there is encouragement
implicit in the evaluation mechanisms, nothing will happen. The
Making Good Progress pilot, which you covered, was initially
a good idea, but it has the capacity to create massive work load
simply because teachers will be worrying themselves sick about
how many times they have to do tests throughout the year to make
sure that they have hit the button and got the highest possible
results in terms of both league tables and Government reports.
It is, as Darren says, all integral. Permissions in the National
Curriculum will really flourish if the accountability system is
got right.
Q130 Paul Holmes: The Government
up to now would tell us that without the prescriptive National
Curriculum and the testing regime and all the rest of it, they
would not have driven standards forward. If you introduce too
much flexibility and local accountability and all the rest, do
you end up back in the days of William Tyndale when every school
was a law unto itself and nobody knew what was going on? How do
you square that circle? I know the NUT published a suggested way
forward on this a few years ago.
Mick Brookes: Yes, we have to
move away from a situation typified by direction, regulation and
compliance into a situation where schools are committed and innovative.
Moving there is part of the next piece of work that you are doing.
Could you remind me of the first part of the question?
Q131 Paul Holmes: How do you move
from prescriptive national curriculum and testing to local flexibility
and accountability without going back to what is supposed to be
the dark days of the 1970s?
Mick Brookes: Actually that answers
the question to some extent. We have to find that balance, so
that there is a core entitlement and also flexibility within the
school to do some of those things that I was talking about earlier.
Finding that balance is difficult.
Q132 Mr Heppell: I get a little confused
by this. I find it difficult to see what your problems are with
the National Curriculum. It seems to me that you really have problems
with the stuff outside of it, such as assessment. You talk about
local flexibility, but you really mean teachers' autonomy, not
local flexibility. You do not want the head teachers to be involved.
One witness said that they did not like the National Curriculum,
but when we got to the bottom of things it turned out that he
was happy with all the subjects in it, he just wanted them taught
in different ways. He wanted to set his school's standards rather
than having national standards. I started to think about that
and thought, "Well, isn't there something in that? Why shouldn't
governors, heads and parents have flexibility and a say in what
is taught locally?" From Darren's point of view, you seem
to be saying the opposite—that they should not be involved.
What do you mean by local flexibility? Who should have something
to say about the curriculum? Is it just the teacher or is it the
head teacher, the governor and the local education authority?
Darren Northcott: We are absolutely
not saying that there should be unfettered discretion by any manner
of means or that the control and power over what is taught should
rest completely with the teacher. Using the example of head teachers
or local authorities, we are saying that if one problem identified
in the National Curriculum and in the curricular structure in
general at the moment is that they are too prescriptive, there
needs to be more flexibility then there is at the moment—not
unfettered, but to appropriate degree. Circumstances where one
prescription, which comes from a national level, is replaced by
local prescription risks undermining that. I shall use an example
of circumstances in extremis because that will highlight the problem.
Poor school leadership would involve teachers in a classroom being
directed by a head teacher to teach in a very prescriptive and
defined way because that head teacher has determined that that
is how it should be done. The head teacher may have developed
the approach themselves—"This is how we teach English
in this school and here is, in huge detail, the approach that
we are going to adopt." That is rare and I do not think that
it would happen necessarily on a widespread basis, but it is a
risk, which is why we talk about guidance to ensure that it does
not happen. In those circumstances you have teachers being as
constrained as they are under the previous system, but the source
of the constraint is more localised. We are saying that to get
the balance right, you need to ensure that people are empowered
and that teachers have an appropriate degree of discretion. Others
in the system—stakeholders, governors and local authorities—have
a key role and essential responsibility in shaping how the curriculum
is delivered, but it is about flexibility versus prescription
and getting that balance right.
Chairman: John?
John Bangs: I think that John
Heppell's question is very good. I am not as pessimistic as Darren.
There is a model for local flexibility, which involves communities
getting together and constructing a local curriculum—the
standing advisory committees on religious education. The local
SACREs are successful. It is worth evaluating those models. Local
authorities used to have responsibility for the local curriculum
statements. With respect, Mr Chairman, I refer to countries such
as Finland and New Zealand because they have a defined national
core and explicitly give the responsibility to schools and local
authorities to develop it. That is the balance.
Q133 Mr Heppell: I still find it
difficult. If it is too prescriptive, what do you want taken out
or put in? Perhaps we could nip round the table and people could
tell us one after another. We go round in circles—I know
what balance means, but my idea of balance might be different
to someone else's. I am serious. I fail to understand. What would
you like taken out of the national prescription, and is there
something that you would like put in?
Chairman: Come on Mick, you can do that.
Mick Brookes: If it is too prescriptive,
what we would like taken out would be that prescription. The National
Curriculum and the national strategies are a compendium of very
good ideas. If we went back to schools and asked them what they
wanted to teach, would it look very different to the National
Curriculum? It is about the way in which it is approached, the
freedom with which those subjects can be taught, and the creativity
that can be put in without tilting and narrowing it in the ways
that we have described. We want a free-range curriculum, if I
may use my chicken analogy again. We want the prescription taken
away. Let us use appropriately those very well thought through
and planned ideas—which are in both the National Curriculum
and national strategies—for each individual school setting.
That happens in some schools, but the fear factor prevents it
from happening in them all. We want it for all.
Martin Johnson: I think it is
true to say that ATL probably has a different answer to the question
from the other organisations. That is encapsulated in the title
of the book that we have written, Subject to Change. Among
other things, we want the organisation in subjects taken out of
the National Curriculum. Instead, we want broad descriptions of
the skills that young people need to learn put in.
Darren Northcott: To a large extent,
I would echo the comments that have been made already. We are
not in a place where we can just write out the National Curriculum
in its entirety, despite crossing things off. There is more debate
to be had about what needs to go on and what should be refined
or streamlined in some way. Your work is an important part in
coming to a view in that debate. It is about prescriptions and
have-tos in the curriculum, and the way that the amount of prescription
is a real problem. That is what our members tell us about the
things that must be done that constrain the ability of teachers
to use an appropriate degree of professional autonomy. If it is
overloaded and over-prescribed, we need to look more at what perhaps
needs to come out. I return to the reform of the Key Stage 3 and
4 programmes of study. Again, we must see how those work and play
out. They have involved a significant realignment of the content
of the Curriculum, and I think that they have reduced prescription.
We must give them time to get bedded into the system, but they
have the potential to make the kind of difference that we talk
about. Again, that must be watched very carefully. It might be
a good example of reduced prescription, and might be something
that the Rose review of the primary curriculum could learn a lot
from.
John Bangs: I think that the National
Curriculum is something that could be made advisory. That would
free up the advice, including the models, exemplars and permissions,
which would help schools and give them the idea that they could
use it with creativity. One of the best things that the Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority has done is the guidance on global dimensions,
which is absolutely excellent. It says, "Here are the schools,
here are the connections that you can make with other countries,
these are the kind of learning things that you can do, and it
is up to you to get on with it." It is not so much about
the content. As Mick says, it is about describing what is advisory
and what is statutory. We do not have that balance right in the
National Curriculum.
Q134 Chairman: Martin, does your
book ask for people to come back to you and say, "But what
about the core subjects?" I note that it is Anne Frank day
tomorrow. If you read her diary, she rather engagingly goes on
about how she dislikes algebra and geometry and loves history.
People in constituencies that some of us represent might say that
surely some hard, challenging subjects will and should always
be on the Curriculum. It is not only about skills, it is about
hard topics.
Martin Johnson: We would define
the skills of those subjects.
Chairman: I see.
Martin Johnson: So the skills
of literacy and numeracy, for example, would have to be part of
the National Curriculum.
Q135 Chairman: Is not your kind of
approach encapsulating that sort of publication—the sort
of thing that makes Chris Parry from the Independent Schools Council
dismiss state education by saying that you just fail to deliver
because you do not talk enough about the hard subjects, but about
all these waffly general skills approaches? Is that what upsets
him so much?
Martin Johnson: I make no apology
for returning to some of the things that were said to you last
week. Lesley James made some very telling points about the fact
that, if youngsters are experiencing things in a different way,
their basic skills improve more quickly than if they are being
hammered with those in subject-driven lessons week after week.
I think she said that it is context that provides for learning.
Q136 Mr Heppell: I find myself with
another conflict now. How can something be an entitlement if it
is an advisory? At one stage we are saying these things are entitlements
for children, and the next minute we are saying that it should
all be advisory, and none of it should be prescriptive. Secondly,
how do we square the circle in things like literacy and numeracy?
You may argue that that should just be advisory. What people seek
is core subjects, yet employers keep telling us that those subjects
are getting worse and worse. Should we not put more emphasis on
them if there is a problem with that?
Chairman: We can only hear from two of
you. Mick, we will start with you, and then come back to Martin.
Mick Brookes: I find this chorus
from employers interesting. It has been a long-running chorus,
and it is fascinating because we know that, at the end of Key
Stage 2, the literacy and numeracy of young people graded at Level
2, and Level 4 at National Curriculum levels, are almost equivalent
to that of the general population, in terms of core skills. In
mathematics young people at 11 have almost twice the level of
skills that the general population has. I am curious about this,
and I wonder if it has to do with the questions they are asking.
Martin Johnson: I have a slightly
different take on this. We know it is notoriously difficult to
know exactly what employers think. Different employers' organisations
say different things, and often different things at different
times, about these issues. But it seems to me that it is wrong
to concentrate too much on employability skills, not because preparing
youngsters for employment is not an important part of what schools
do—which of course it is—but because, in practice,
in so far as we can find out what employers want, they want the
kinds of skills that are important to young people in every aspect
of life. For example, communications skills. Is it important that
young people enter their first job knowing how to talk or answer
the phone? Of course it is. But they need that in every aspect
of their lives, and not just in their jobs. Let us not talk too
much about employability, but about the skills all young people
need throughout their lives. If anybody says that the ability
to be numerate and literate is not one of those skills, they are
crazy.
Chairman: I would like to call every
one of you on each question, but we are time limited. Douglas,
you are going to take us into an area into which we have already
strayed.
Q137 Mr Carswell: Before I move on
to the aims and skills-based approaches to the curriculum, I just
want to put a couple of questions to Mr Brookes and Mr Bangs,
if I may. Your unions very rightly emphasised the need to boost
the professional standing of teaching. Surely, if teaching is
to be seen as a proper profession, you need to let professional
teachers make judgments on what to teach. An architect might have
to give regard to certain rules about planning and the design
of buildings, but they do not follow government designs of buildings
the way teachers follow the National Curriculum. A professional
and very creative artist might use public money, but he does not
produce art that complies with government rules. A professional
musician does not do what the government wants. If you really
want teaching to be a big, grown-up profession, surely you should
be arguing to get rid of the state-dictated curriculum. You should
not be collaborating with the corporatism, but should be saying
that it is for professionals to make these decisions. How dare
government tell your members what to do?
Mick Brookes: The analogy of the
architect is a good one. In order for a building to stand and
in order for education to work, they must be built on good foundations.
There must be an understanding about what those good foundations
are. They are not random. Unless foundations have certain aspects,
the building will be on weak foundations. Next is the structure
that goes on top of the foundations and there are mathematical
and physical laws that dictate what that should be. The same thing
is true in the construct of the curriculum, which should enable
young people to play their full part in society when they leave.
This point goes back to what we have been saying. The core foundation
needs to be defined, but the freedom to create something like
the Gaudì church in Barcelona, or something more plain,
is with the architect. That analogy can be used with schools.
After the basic foundation is laid and the basic structures are
there, it should be for schools to decide what sort of curriculum
building to put on their site.
John Bangs: I think the role of
the state is to ensure that there is not social segregation and
that there is community cohesion. We have a benchmark national
curriculum. We are arguing for a framework national curriculum
at national level and for schools to be given the autonomy to
develop it at local level. A national curriculum sets out the
common entitlements for the pupil population. That may appear
abstract, but that is how the New Zealand national curriculum
is done. That is worth looking at. To dig a little more into your
comments about the freedom of the profession, the work of Stephen
Dorrell and Baroness Perry on the relationship between strong
self-regulation and strong professional autonomy is very good.
That is very creative work. I go back to the response that I made
to David: you really have to trust the profession. In trusting
it, you have to ensure that there is an entitlement to high quality
professional development owned by teachers, not imposed on them.
That is why we argue strongly for teachers to construct their
own pedagogic bank. They can then share good practice at national,
regional and local level. Instead of feeling that the national
strategies are another damned thing, by learning and keeping at
the edge of your subject, you own it and it is not another imposition.
Providing the conditions for that is a task for this or any government.
Chairman: We need really fast questions
and fast answers.
Q138 Mr Carswell: Most people recognise
that when it comes to providing public services, there are almost
always two distinct interests: a producer interest and a consumer
interest. The trite answer is that they want the same, but they
do not. Most great innovations, whether the iPod or the mobile
phone, come about because of tensions between those two interests.
Does the National Curriculum serve the producer interest?
Mick Brookes: The debate about
the producer and the consumer is interesting. There was undeniably
a producer system in schools in the 1980s. We have now gone too
far the other way and the consumer has too much say. Finding that
balance is important. Both of those views are absolutely right.
As we have said, the National Curriculum must recognise that what
happens in schools must have national relevance and local relevance.
As John said, that must be delivered in a high-trust environment.
We are currently working in a low-trust environment, hence the
regulation and prescription.
Q139 Mr Carswell: I noticed, Mr Johnson,
that you were shaking your head when Mr Brookes said that at the
moment there was too much consumer interest—or was it producer
interest? Or is it that you think there is too much parent power
at the moment and you were shaking your head?
Martin Johnson: What I was shaking
my head about is what Mick said, that before the National Curriculum
there was too much producer interest. I speak as someone who introduced
CSE mode 3s—if you are not familiar with them, they are
old-style, school-based qualifications, in which, basically, the
teacher invented the syllabus to meet the needs of the pupil.
That is the point that I was making. I was introducing such courses
in the schools that I taught in because I did not see anything
on the shelf that suited the needs of my pupils and their circumstances.
I would say that I was responding to the consumer—although
I do not like using that terminology. A very prescriptive national
curriculum prevents that sort of thing. If we had the type of
national curriculum that we are all talking about, with the type
of local accountability that we have touched on, you would be
able to reintroduce that responsiveness. That would be essential,
actually.
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