Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
LESLEY KING
AND MARGARET
TULLOCH
25 FEBRUARY 2008
Q80 Chairman: As people settle down,
I welcome Lesley King and Margaret Tulloch to our proceedings.
As you know, we shall look at diversity of schools, particularly
Academies. Those who have done their homework and looked at our
other evidence session on this will know that it was an interesting
first step into the territory. We usually give witnesses a
chance to introduce themselves, and you can say anything you want
to get us started, or you can opt to go straight into questions.
We shall start with Lesley King, as she is sitting on the left.
Lesley King: I shall say a couple
of things to put myself into context. I have been a teacher since
1968, and have worked in six schools: a secondary modern and five
comprehensives. I have held two headships over 19 years. Being
in a specialist college was one of the most exciting initiatives
I was ever involved in, hence my involvement with the Specialist
Schools and Academies Trust and its local, regional, national
and international networks. I retired and became an associate
director of SSAT, and came out of retirement to manage the Academy
networks programme, which chimed exactly with my commitment to
social justice and a wish to close the gap. I am now a Director
of the Trust, and there are five strands to our work with Academies,
which I shall list. The first strand is to support the integration
of the Academies into the other specialist family of schools;
90% of secondary schools are affiliated to the trust, hence wide
networks. There is integration for two reasons: Academies work
in difficult circumstances, so they need those networks; and they
often work in innovative ways, so they have things to give to
the wider networks. Secondly, we have a communication function,
both internal and external. Thirdly, we have a smaller sponsor-relations
function, supporting sponsors from feasibility to implementation.
We run two programmes: the Academies support programme, with which
we are working with 98 Academies and Academies designate, and
an Academy leadership induction programme, where we place relatively
experienced Academy principals—it is a young programme,
so no Academy principal is very long in the tooth—for short
periods with new Academy principals.
Q81 Chairman: Margaret, you are also
well known to this Committee for your high-profile role in education.
Would you like a few moments to introduce yourself?
Margaret Tulloch: I prepared something
to say, because I am probably in the minority in being less positive
about certain aspects. Could I emphasise at the beginning that
there is a need to focus on disadvantaged pupils to raise their
attainment? I do not begrudge pupils in Academies having access
to excellent facilities. Three years ago, this Committee raised
some concerns about the Academies programme and since then the
Government's aim has been to accelerate it. There have been criticisms
highlighted, for example, about the costs of the programme, the
suitability and influence of the sponsors, whether or not standards
of attainment are actually being raised, the pressure to introduce
Academies through Building Schools for the Future and the so-called
preferred sponsor route. There have also been questions about
exclusions, admissions and special needs. No doubt, if you decide
to embark upon a more detailed study of Academies, you will take
these reports into account. My label says "Comprehensive
Future/Research and Information on State Education". I am
also chair of the Advisory Centre for Education council. None
of those organisations is primarily concerned with Academies.
However, Comprehensive Future's aims for fair admissions and an
end to selection on ability and aptitude are relevant. I should
like to mention a couple of points of concern, which we submitted
to the as yet unpublished review of Academies by the delivery
unit and which you have. We think that there is a danger of increasing
social segregation between schools as more and more schools become
admissions authorities. On banding, the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers
report says: "the Department should undertake a closer review
of admissions" and "fair banding" in Academies
"to ensure that there are no overt or covert barriers preventing
the most disadvantaged pupils from accessing Academies."
Some Academies adopt the admissions criteria of local community
schools, but others operate banding across those who apply, which
can skew the intake in relation to the local area. We think that
it is better to have banding across the reference group of the
local authority. If Academies require the test to be taken at
the school, only those with parents able to bring them can sit
the test. The Department for Children, Schools and Families has
suggested that tests for banding—not just in respect of
Academies—could be done in the primary schools using the
optional year 5 test, in which case that would, of course, be
done for all children. I was involved personally in an unsuccessful
campaign against the setting up of two Academies in the London
borough of Merton where I am a secondary school governor. I am
convinced by that experience, and in talking to many others, that
there are some fundamental questions about the Academy programme
that need answers. The current Academy prospectus says: "Independent
status is crucial in enabling Academies to succeed." I do
not understand why what is being called the educational DNA, which
the sponsors are supposed to inject, cannot be brought into a
school through its becoming a trust school and therefore remaining
in the maintained sector. The RISE research has found that, in
the initial stages, too much goes on behind closed doors. I do
not understand why there is so much secrecy and lack of local
accountability in negotiating the funding agreement. I also do
not see why the sponsor needs an overall majority on the governing
body. If their ideas are good, surely they should be able to convince
their fellow governors through argument rather than force of numbers.
We need to know what will be the effect on neighbouring schools:
PricewaterhouseCoopers says that it will look at that in its last
report. What will be the effect of increasing centralisation where
so many levers now lie in the hands of the Secretary of State
and future Secretaries of State, not with the local authority,
the adjudicator or the ombudsman? What about the costs of the
unit in Sanctuary Buildings, which will eventually be devoted,
potentially, to 400 Academies? Lastly, I return to Comprehensive
Future's aims. The DCSF says that Academies are needed where schools
face challenging circumstances. In 2003, Sir David Garrard kindly
invited me to the launch of the Business Academy Bexley, where
the then Prime Minister said something about this being the future
for comprehensive schools. Bexley is a fully selective local authority,
and the school on which Bexley's Academy is based was—whether
in name or not—a secondary modern. I know that not all schools
at the bottom of the pecking order are there because of selection,
but a significant number are. It seems that the Government are
bold enough to hand those schools over to a private sponsor, but
not bold enough to do something instead about removing one of
the challenging circumstances that they face.
Q82 Chairman: Thank you. We now go
into the question mode. Lesley, you heard what Margaret just said,
and we have got you from rather opposite sides, but knowing both
of you, you make a very reasonable case in every sense of the
word. Lesley, the Academies programme started in 2000, and you
have been involved for how long?
Lesley King: The last three years.
Q83 Chairman: Are you satisfied with
the progress? Where are we? What is your feeling?
Lesley King: Progress is as good
as one would hope. It would be foolish to expect miracles when
one works with schools, many of which had been neglected. Academy
principals say that one of the things that worries them most is
low aspirations of parents and students, and sometimes even of
staff—quite understandably, because they have worked in
poor circumstances for a long time, so turning it round is very
difficult. On indicators about the Academies programme, progress
is good. I shall list one or two. At Key Stage 3, results are
improving faster than in schools generally, and quite rapidly
in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science. At Key
Stage 4, again, the trajectory is good. There is faster improvement,
according to our research, and indeed to the Department's research,
than in schools generally. More students are staying on post-16.
Some Academies are opening sixth forms for the first time, which
is really very exciting. I have to be anecdotal; I do not make
policy, I work in Academies and I have been in the vast majority
of Academies, some of them several times. To see students for
the first time enter sixth form and then ask questions such as,
"What is an undergraduate?", makes me understand that
sometimes those schools need their own sixth forms, because those
people are not going to go the other side of the city for post-16
education. Also, post-school progression is good. Last year, seven
people from an Academy in Bristol went to university; this year,
50 went to university. At Grace Academy in Solihull, 67% of its
first sixth form went to university—the vast majority being
the first in their family to do so. Those indicators are good.
The second good indicator is that Academies are popular with parents,
including parents whom people have been saying for years were
not terribly interested in their children's education. However,
they are clamouring to get them into Academies. Sometimes, there
are three first-choice applications for every place. PricewaterhouseCoopers'
evaluation says that teachers and pupils like being in Academies,
too. There have been good Ofsted reports, with no Academy in special
measures now, and good leadership. Principals are attracted to
Academies in a way that they would not have been to the predecessor
schools. They will therefore bring their expertise and experience
in other schools to areas where they might not have thought to
go before. They are attracted by the flexibility, by being part
of a full-blooded moral movement and by the fact that they can
really make a difference. So principals are good. And there is
good news from the National Audit Office and from PricewaterhouseCoopers,
although of course there are suggestions for further involvement.
Q84 Chairman: That will do. Lesley
is saying that it could not have been done on the old model, that
this rebranding and this new initiative are exciting and that
a moral code is attached to it. Do you agree?
Margaret Tulloch: I do not accept
that the other schools have some sort of immoral code. It is very
difficult when trying to put a point of view, and I do not want
to denigrate any of what I have heard, but I have not been convinced
that you need to get out of the state system and have a set of
independent, private schools in order to do that. I do not think
that heads who approach their students to ensure that they have
high aspirations are confined to Academies. We need a system in
which all schools reach those sorts of levels. We can argue, although
I do not intend to, about whether the results are as good as those
claimed on things such as GNVQs. The Anti Academies Alliance,
during its hearing, produced a lot of evidence for that. Evidence
is also available to argue against some of those points, but my
point is that I do not see why we need to set up effectively a
parallel system of secondary schools.
Q85 Chairman: Margaret, somebody
might say to you, "Look, 10 years ago, the Government noticed
that nothing much was happening in the areas of greatest deprivation
for those children who only get one chance at education."
You cannot blame the Government for thinking that something needed
to be done.
Margaret Tulloch: I do not blame
the Government at all. Of course, they are not just doing Academies,
but things such as London Challenge. Very often, some areas will
be not so bad and others will need attention. You will not always
get a school that is failing totally in every area. Many other
programmes are going on to tackle those things quite quickly within
schools. Those are the sorts of things that we read about in The
Guardian this morning. I would have said that those are the
sorts of things that the Government should focus on, rather than
necessarily a programme that aims to place one in eight secondary
schools in the independent sector.
Q86 Mr Heppell: Strangely, most of
the questions that I was going to ask have been answered. Do we
need Academies? Are they effective? How do they fit in with the
rest of the system? Most of that has been touched on pretty adequately.
I have one Academy established in my area and another being established.
It was apparent in the system before that there was a culture
of not expecting a great deal of achievement. What do you think
that Academies have done specifically? In my area, they seem to
have made people want to achieve more. I sometimes think that
it is a bit of kidology and telling people that they will do better.
If that is all that it is, that is fine. I was just wondering
whether you think that Academies have done, or could do, specific
things in order to get rid of that culture? How do you think that
that could be done within the state system?
Lesley King: I must make a small
statement first. I do not think that Academies are the only things
that can raise achievement—far from it. I think that they
are part of a diverse system that helps raise achievement. In
saying that Academies are doing well, I am not denigrating the
rest of the system. For instance, I do not denigrate London Challenge.
The SSAT works very closely with it. We have not mentioned sponsors,
which are important to lots of Academies. They have a very limited
focus on particular Academies that they see as theirs. They want
them to do well and bring an urgency from their outside interests,
which can be lost when schools have entered a downward spiral.
I think that they bring expertise—not necessarily in pedagogy
as sponsors leave that to principals and staff, but in running
organisations. That outside look can be useful. They also bring
contacts, which are important, and they are certainly keen for
an Academy associated with them to succeed because of reputation
and pride. They are also in it for the long haul, which is important
for Academies. I have been involved in other initiatives. For
example I was a field officer in Education Action Zones. Academies
are about the long haul and that attracts me. Later, I am sure
that Martyn will talk about the importance of the City of London
Corporation working with his Academy. I can name lots of sponsors
who have brought something extra, but there is also generally
a sense that there is a huge spotlight on Academies and that they
have to succeed very quickly. People like Margaret help with that
because they are under the spotlight and they know that they can
never say, "Next year will do". They have to succeed
very quickly indeed and engage in a huge culture change, including
having generally new and experienced leadership in order to accelerate
that.
Chairman: Lesley, your answers are very
good, but are slightly long compared with what we are used to
so we will have to control you a bit. John, do you want to ask
something?
Q87 Mr Heppell: My question is really
for both of the witnesses again. Could the things that you have
just mentioned—perhaps even sponsorship—have been
done without making the Academies independent and extending the
fresh start initiative?
Margaret Tulloch: That is the
point I was making. We do now have trust schools in which charitable
bodies—
Q88 Mr Heppell: Did you approve of
the idea of trust schools when they first came in?
Margaret Tulloch: As I said, I
do not approve of any group having a majority on the governing
body and I extend that to faith schools. That is my personal opinion,
but I do think that there is a place for external foundations
to bring links, expertise, and enthusiasm. It is interesting to
think about the question of "in for the long haul".
Will the people who have become sponsors be immortal? For example,
what will happen to the Harris Federation when Lord Harris shuffles
off this mortal coil? The Church of England has existed for a
long time, but some of these federations have only just started
so I do not think that we can say such things. I am not saying
that there is not a role for people from outside. I think that
governors bring that sort of outside expertise as well, which
has been one of the big advantages of the 1986 Education Act.
Q89 Mr Heppell: Do you want to say
something about that Lesley?
Lesley King: The principals in
Academies certainly appreciate the extra flexibility and independence
that they get. Many of us experienced that during grant maintained
status. It focused the mind marvellously to feel that "the
buck stops here". I think that that is very important in
Academies, but that is a point of view. Of course, governance
is important in Academies too; as is expertise. All I can say
anecdotally is that all the principals to whom I have spoken said
that governance was more professional, more to the point and those
involved knew exactly where the Academy needed to go forward.
Q90 Mr Heppell: Could the improvements
in Academies be because of the new-brush approach? Within the
present system, I have seen comprehensive schools that were quite
good, but as the head got older and was around for a long time,
the schools gradually became slightly worse, then complacent,
and then quite bad. Could improvements not just be because of
the rush of a new idea? In my area I will have nothing but Academies.
When they become the norm, will I see improvements tail off gradually?
Lesley King: There is always that
danger from a new initiative, but it is important that the Academies
programme and initiative changes all the time anyway. It is not
the same programme as it was five and half years ago. New sponsors
are on board and there are changes all the time; it is changing
according to circumstances. The programme is better than it was
five and a half years ago, but that is my personal view.
Q91 Fiona Mactaggart: I have a general
question about school governance, which is the last great unreformed
area. Head teachers go out and ask, "Is there somebody around
here who can turn up to a meeting? If so, would you be a governor?"
It strikes me that Academies are different, in that several of
their governors are, in effect, paid by the sponsors. I am not
saying that they are paid to be governors, but they are employees
and so on, and they have the kind of expertise that is needed.
Is there a lesson for other kinds of schools? Perhaps we should
be paying school governors.
Lesley King: I have never really
thought about that, to be honest. Margaret might have some views
on the matter.
Fiona Mactaggart: Okay, let Margaret
start, but then I would be interested in your views, Lesley.
Margaret Tulloch: Should we be
paying school governors? I do not think that we should. I value
the idea that the governors bring the outside world into schools,
and talk about schools to the outside world. I have always valued
the idea that they speak up for education, and I think that one
of the reasons why education is higher up the political agenda
is that we opened up governing bodies, and opened up education
to people who are not educationists. I do not think that paying
the governors I have known would have made a lot of difference.
Before we start doing things like that, we have to look hard at
what governors are for. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation produced
a good report recently on governance. It said that we need to
be clear about what governors are for. As much as I hesitate to
say it, because there has been quite a lot of it already, I would
encourage the Government to do even more fiddling about with governing
bodies. We need to look at the role of governors before we decide
to pay them. Many times, governors have the sorts of jobs that
other people should be paid to do. I was a primary school governor
for many years—I am a secondary school governor now—and
we relied very much on governors to do things for which we should
have had money. That was in the 1980s, when there was hardly any
money around. We relied on governors to help the school out and
do things that, frankly, we should have paid others to do. So,
yes, there are probably jobs that we should be paying more people
to do, but I doubt whether those people should be governors.
Lesley King: I do not disagree
with what Margaret has said. The important thing is not whether
governors are paid but whether they understand their role vis-a"-vis
principals and the rest of the staff of the school All head teachers
have had those six-hour meetings at which the colour of the curtains
and such things are discussed. What is needed are brisk meetings
at which governance is duly delivered.
Q92 Annette Brooke: Following on
from that, if we could just assume for a moment, Margaret, that
Academies are tackling underachievement—I put that as an
assumption because it makes the questioning easier—we have
on the table so far good governance, good leadership and the ability
to innovate and to have flexibility. My first question to Lesley
is, on that basis, why do we need Academies? Do they bring something
else? Any of those three could be applied to the mainstream state
system.
Lesley King: Sorry, could you
repeat the three again?
Annette Brooke: Good governance, good
leadership, and flexibility and freedom to innovate, which you
mentioned.
Lesley King: Perhaps we would
not have needed Academies if those things had been the norm rather
than the exception in some of the schools that I have been in
that were predecessors to Academies.
Q93 Annette Brooke: Perhaps I could
ask Margaret the question. Could we provide those things in the
state system?
Margaret Tulloch: Yes, not only
could we, but we do. The programmes that I mentioned involve those
sorts of things. I am sure that such things are happening in schools
that are not Academies. I am not totally clear about the freedom
to innovate, and then there was the permission to be autonomous.
I hope that you will ask the head teachers behind us what freedoms
they have that they would not have if their school were not an
Academy. I think that there can be quite a lot of flexibility
in the state system anyway. Those things could be, and are, in
the maintained sector.
Q94 Annette Brooke: Can I come back
to Lesley? Are they the three main ingredients? Do we not have
to look at things such as admissions policy, extra money and so
on? Are the three things that I mentioned the key?
Lesley King: I think that sponsors
are slightly different from good governance. At least, they are
connected with that, and the role of sponsors is also quite important.
There was a sense in the early days of the Academies programme
that new build was important because it was an important signal
to students and staff that they were important, but that has now
gone into the BSF programme, so it is something that is part and
parcel of the Government's policy generally in terms of developing
secondary schools. It was important in the early days to signal
a change. The Academies programme is, as I said, a full-blooded
attempt to deal with past failure. It might be easy to say, "Yes,
it could have happened elsewhere", but the fact is that it
did not always happen. Thousands of students who are doing well
now, were not doing well, or their predecessors were not doing
well five or six years ago. There has been progress in secondary
schools, but there needs to be faster progress. The Academies
programme in my view—I think that the evidence is there—is
speeding up progress. What is not to like?
Q95 Annette Brooke: I am just exploring
the different routes and so on. Margaret, do you think that the
relative independent status of Academies has any implications
about which we should be concerned?
Margaret Tulloch: I think it has
implications from a practical point of view. About 14 years ago,
I was on a television programme, "From Butler to Baker",
and the man who had retired from what was then probably called
the Department of Education and Science was talking about the
opting out of grant-maintained schools. He said that they should
go, because his experience of being in Whitehall when direct-grant
schools were the norm was that it was an expensive way of doing
things, because Whitehall was running one-to-one relationships
with a number of schools. That is why he thought that grant-maintained
status should go. We could well find ourselves in a similar situation,
because, if Whitehall runs a section of schools, it will cost
quite a lot of money. I do not like to think of money going into
structures—I would rather see it going into classrooms—and
if you have a complex diverse system, you end up having money
going down the cracks. It is far better that money is spent in
the classroom. I am concerned about centralisation, and the things
I mentioned at the beginning. If a parent is unhappy about what
is happening in an Academy, in the end they can go to the Secretary
of State. I am sorry, but I do not think that that is a good way
to run a system.
Q96 Chairman: Margaret, the pure
essence of your views chimes with what I have always believed
in politically, but my experience as an elected politician is
different. I have lived and worked in, and represented areas where
the whole local authority structure was mind-bogglingly awful
with no direction, no leadership and with total inertia and a
refusal to accept that children were getting a terrible deal.
I have known that as a local politician in Wales. In a major city
in Yorkshire, close to my constituency, but not in it, the education
performance was so bad that it had to be replaced. No one would
even apply for the job of director of education, and while that
languished, children were getting a rotten deal. So you can see
why a new Government, seeing such inertia and lack of leadership
from governors, local authorities and almost everyone, had to
do something. You can understand that your model is not one that
always works, is it?
Margaret Tulloch: No, and I do
not think that I am saying, "Let's go back to the '50s when
everything was wonderful."
Q97 Chairman: I am talking about
the '70s, '80s and '90s.
Margaret Tulloch: Or the '70s
or whatever. What I am saying is that there are concerns about
the Academies programme—the ones I listed at the beginning,
such as centralisation and governance. Our concern in Comprehensive
Future is that we have not actually done anything about those
"challenging circumstances". I also have concerns about
what seems to be the possibility that in certain areas schools
will be replaced. This came over in the RISE work that I sent
to the panel, and parents may be faced with a large number of
faith schools. That is not parental choice in my view, so there
are issues. When I came here not long ago you used the phrase,
"drilling down". There is quite a lot of drilling down
to do on the Academies, and that really will happen if parents
are unhappy—those sorts of things. They are issues. I asked
the Advisory Centre for Education if it was starting to get parents
ringing in about Academies. I have to say that parents often do
not know what type of school their children are attending. For
example, I had an e-mail this morning about a child who had been
excluded 15 times from an Academy because of her haircut—somebody
who had an excellent record before. I do not like to be a Jonah,
and this was true of grant-maintained schools, too, but when things
start to get difficult, you are aware of the centralisation and
where people go. I do not hold a brief for a lot of local authorities;
I spend a lot of time arguing with the local authority where I
live. However, there are problems with centralisation.
Chairman: Thank you. Lynda Waltho.
Q98 Lynda Waltho: I should like to
consider performance and local accountability. You have spoken
about what sponsors can bring to an Academy. What would you say
are the main factors behind the reported improvements in pupil
performance in Academies?
Lesley King: The main factors?
This will be a generalisation, because each Academy has worked
in different ways, but in the Academies in which we have worked
closely, there was close attention—I am sure that Margaret
will say, quite rightly, that this could happen in every school,
so I shall say it for her—to school data, so that there
was no danger of aspirations being low for sections of children.
There has been a renewed culture of determined optimism about
children. It happens when new heads come in, too, but it has certainly
been true. Data have been important. I dispute what Margaret just
slipped in about GNVQs, because in fact the trajectory of students
with five A to Cs including maths and English has gone up considerably,
too. There has been a concentration on the basics—on literacy
and numeracy. Often, Academy principals have despaired at the
levels of literacy in students coming in, and they have therefore
had to make it a huge priority. There has been extra training
in areas such as middle leadership, where middle leaders had been
good at teaching but not quite understood the leadership part,
so there has been systematic work there. The grammar of pedagogy
has been developed, so that there is an understanding in many
Academies about what makes a good lesson, too. If teachers do
not teach that good lesson, they understand why not and what they
must do to improve. It is the basic stuff.
Q99 Lynda Waltho: What would you
then say to the perhaps rather cynical point that that is related
to the fact that increasingly, Academies take fewer children with
SEN, fewer children with English as an additional language, and
fewer children who have free school meals? Does that have any
bearing, or is that too cynical a point?
Lesley King: I do not think that
there is evidence to back up any of that at all. There are 25%
more places in Academies than there were in the predecessor schools,
so sometimes Academies might well have a smaller percentage of
students with free school meals, but that is because there are
more children in there generally. There is no evidence at all
that students with free school meals are being debarred from Academies;
in fact, any evidence that there is would show that Academies
take more children with special educational needs, or who have
free school meals, than there are such children in their catchment
area.
|
