Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
MARTYN COLES,
JEAN HICKMAN,
GRAHAM BADMAN
AND LUCY
HELLER
25 FEBRUARY 2008
Q120 Chairman: Can I have the next set
of witnesses? Graham Badman, Lucy Heller, Jean Hickman and Martyn
Coles. We know all of you, if not by reputation then by the fact
that we have visited with you and had discussions with you. Graham,
you used to be an adviser to the previous incarnation of the Committee,
but I do not think that you have ever given evidence to it.
Graham Badman: Only once, but
I think that it was easier on the other side of the fence.
Q121 Chairman: The previous incarnation
of the Committee visited your school, Martyn, so we know about
you. Jean, we have not visited your Academy so forgive us for
that, but we await an invitation.
Jean Hickman: You are welcome
to visit.
Q122 Chairman: Most of us know Lucy
Heller from ARK schools very well indeed. You have the chance
to see what a fair and balanced Committee this is. Everybody gets
a fair share of questions and if there is a little imbalance,
the Chairman will try to make it good, or someone will. You run
Academies and are supporters of Academies. Tell us where we are
with Academies. You have just listened to the very different opinions
we have had in the first session. Graham, let's start with you.
Graham Badman: As an authority,
as the Committee will know, we have been very proactive. We are
engaged as a sponsor in all the Academies that are opened, with
the Spires Academy slightly different in terms of land. We have
seven open, nine approved and more in the pipeline, and the local
authority is a sponsor of every one. We saw Academies as an element
of our overall secondary strategy, which was the precursor to
BSF—it was actually written before BSF came on the horizon—and
it helped us enormously in structuring ourselves. We prepared
the ground by, for example, taking more than 100 heads to America
to look at charter schools and at initiatives around federations,
and to look at schools within schooling systems. One of the important
things that I want to say about Academies is that I do not want
to separate them from the other things that we are doing in terms
of building multi-agency locality-based children's services, partnerships
and our overall policy of community renewal. As an authority,
I was intrigued by some of the other comments about the role of
local authorities. I am always cautious about speaking for elected
members, but I think that I am on safe ground in saying that we
regard ourselves as moving very much towards a commissioning authority;
an authority that is strategic and that commissions services.
Although we have plans on 15 Academies, I do not think that any
of my elected members see that as a threat to the local authority
in any way—first, because we are engaged within them; and
secondly, because there is a view that schools will work with
a local authority if they value it. If they do not value it, they
will not work with it, whatever structure is wrapped around the
schooling system. So that I am not in any way disingenuous, I
will also tell you that in terms of the first Academy that we
created, which was in Ramsgate, we deliberately set to work with
the Government on Academies to solve a problem. When I joined
the authority, Ramsgate was cast as the worst school in England.
That was perhaps right; it probably was. It had had every initiative
known to man, local authority intervention and Government intervention.
The school had had a plethora of initiatives, none of which worked,
and the consequence was a rate of 3% five A* to C grades for some
of the most deprived kids you would ever wish to meet. So we set
up a strategy that included Academies to try to challenge the
orthodox, and to introduce something, in the context of a selective
Kent, that offered equality of opportunity and access. I do not
think we would argue that all the problems have been solved, and
there are some issues about governors. I wish that I had been
here to answer Fiona Mactaggart's question.
Chairman: You will get it later.
Graham Badman: There are some
issues to be resolved about the social mix in Academies, but perhaps
you will come back to me on that. All in all, I am a fan.
Q123 Chairman: Lucy Heller, you represent
an organisation—some of us worried about the quality of
sponsorship in some of the earlier Academies—that seems
to have met that criticism. Tell us a little about your involvement
and about ARK schools.
Lucy Heller: ARK Schools was set
up four years ago, and is a wing of ARK, a UK children's charity,
which until then had been involved mainly in projects outside
the UK, in eastern Europe and South Africa. Its work in this country
had been primarily as a grant-giver on a small scale to a number
of Home-Start projects. We were enthusiastic about the Academies
Programme because we saw it as a way of having a real impact on
educational opportunity in this country. Our starting point was
the desire to ensure that inner-city children had those educational
opportunities. The starting point for research was much the same
as the research by the London School of Economics that you heard
about last month. Our conclusions were rather different in that
we were saying that one of the things that we were battling against
was the apparently iron-clad link between class and achievement
in this country, but if you look at certain specific examples,
schools can make a difference. In our case, like Kent, we looked
to America and the charter school movement, which has a huge experimental
base to look at. There are now 3,500 charter schools, which are
essentially Academies without the capital funding, and some interesting
things emerge about what does make a difference, and specifically
what makes a difference in the inner city. I was pleased, but
not entirely surprised, to find that our aims are exactly those
of Margaret's in terms of providing educational opportunity. Again,
we take, not surprisingly, a more optimistic view of what the
Academies can and indeed have done. Answering your point about
the choices that have been made by sponsors, not just ARK, but
a group of the other multiple sponsors, responded to the Prime
Minister's Delivery Unit review of Academies, a copy of which
I think you have. It looks exactly at questions such as the siting
of Academies, and what happens with free school meals. Together
with this group of six major sponsors (who jointly submitted the
response), we account for 30 of the 83 open Academies, and there
is a fairly mixed bag, because it includes at least one independent
school that has become an Academy, which is clearly slightly the
odd one in the bunch. But generally, you will see from the paper
that they are situated in the most deprived areas. In fact, the
median Academy in that group, which includes the independent one,
is situated just above the bottom 20% of most deprived areas in
the country. On free school meals, we, again like many sponsors,
have taken a vow of non-selection and have not opted to use the
10% selection criteria that we, like any other specialist school,
could use. We have opted to go for local authority admission criteria
simply to make the point that we are not interested in changing
the intake. It is inevitably the case that if you are talking
about the 200 lowest performing schools in the country, which
was, after all, the initial target, and if you succeed in doing
what Academies set out to do and turn those schools round, you
will go from being a sink school—a school of last resort
for those least able to get their children in anywhere else—to
a school of choice. That has direct implications for the intake,
which is good not only for the school but for the original cohort
of children to be part of a truly comprehensive school. In that
sense, we are the future of comprehensive education, because that
is how we see our job—creating true comprehensive schools
for the local community.
Q124 Chairman: Thank you. Jean Hickman?
Jean Hickman: I am Head of Walsall
Academy. I went five years ago to the predecessor school, which
was a failing school and had a failing authority. We are five
years old now, and many things that you have talked about apply
specifically to us. However, I should like to discuss independence,
the reasons why I feel that the Academy provides for the education
work force who are part of my school in Walsall, and the things
that are different about it. You asked what is so special about
the Academy—independence from a local authority that was
not functioning. Not all LAs do not function, but if the LA does
not, a school is failing and children have been failed year after
year, there is a problem. Therefore, the independence is important.
The sponsors and governors, who are experienced industrialists
from the outside world, in a slightly introverted borough, have
made a big difference. Different terms and conditions for the
school's teaching and support staff—not tied down therefore
to the LA terms and conditions—make for great innovatory
opportunities. It has been possible to create a comprehensive
school. I have taught for 34 years, all but one of them in comprehensive
schools, so I think I know what one means. Simply, a comprehensive
school must be an all-ability, socio-economic mix of the community
that you serve. That is a comprehensive school. The school I took
over was not doing that; it now is. Lastly, the innovation is
great for me. It is not so much innovation against political agendas
or curricula that other state schools use; the innovation that
I enjoy is that of taking a systematic approach to delivering
the educational services to my children in a way that suits them,
not dictated to me for what would be 18 schools. Currently, there
are 18 schools in the borough for which I work, and all have to
do it one way. My systems are specific to my community in Walsall.
Q125 Chairman: Thank you. Martyn
Coles?
Martyn Coles: My situation is
slightly different, because my Academy was formed where there
was no predecessor school. It is sponsored by the City of London
Corporation. There was a shortage of school places in Southwark
in 2002, and the Academy opened with the full co-operation of
the local authority in 2003. As Committee members will know, Southwark
was a seriously underperforming local authority at that time,
and it had two private contractors before the local authority
successfully took the authority back in 2006. The shortage of
places meant that a school was needed, and to be honest, the local
authorities thought that the Academy was a good way of doing it
where they did not have to pay for the building, and all credit
to them for realising that. There was full co-operation at the
time, and one of the governors of the Academy is the leader of
Southwark Council. We believe strongly that we are a comprehensive
school. I completely agree with Jean's point. I was a local authority
head teacher in Tower Hamlets for the previous eight years, and
all of my career I have taught in London, but I had never worked
in a truly comprehensive school before. There is a banding system
in Southwark; it is organised by the local authority. The examinations
are taken in the primary schools, there is no Saturday testing,
which may mitigate against some pupils; there was no selection.
The primary schools organised the banding test, which is a non-verbal
reasoning test that is felt to be the fairest to those pupils
who speak English as an additional language and those who have
special needs of varying kinds. We admit on five equal bands,
as do all other schools in the local authority. The local authority
took that over this year and it administers all our admissions,
so we feel that everything is transparent with the Academy. We
feel that we are very much a comprehensive school and part of
the local community. One thing that has not been mentioned today,
but which is important, is that we are part of local regeneration,
too. In inner-city areas such as Bermondsey, where my school is,
regeneration is important, whether it is housing, social services
or education, and we see ourselves as a full partner in all those
things. I do not disagree with anything my colleagues here have
said. I have a couple more points, and I am sure your questioners
will ask me more if necessary. Lesley King commented on the issue
before, and I must say that I like the idea of our governance.
The City of London Corporation nominates eight of the 15 governors,
and to give the Committee an example, four are council members
in the Corporation and four are nominated from City institutions
and businesses. We have someone from the Legal Aid Commission,
an architect, someone who works for KPMG and someone who manages
their own company. The expertise that those people bring in is
quite remarkable. I was a local authority head for eight years
and, before that, when I was in Islington, a deputy for seven
years. Those people, along with the local authority representative,
who happens to be the leader of the council, bring an efficiency
and focus to staff, parents, myself and representatives from the
Department. That focus has been remarkable, compared with my previous
experiences as a local authority head. Meetings are focused and
dealt with efficiently. Those are certainly the kind of people
who, if they have a question, ring me up beforehand and put me
on the spot. It is not necessarily comfortable, but it is what
they do and it is much more efficient than it was in my previous
school. In terms of governance, that is fine. In terms of independence,
it is the independence of choice. I buy in to quite a few of the
local authority services and we take a full part in co-operation
with other schools. That is not to say that we are the same as
the other schools and that our Academy is becoming like local
authority schools. We are not. It is just that we have the choice
of whether to buy those in. As Graham said, if there are good
local authority services, we buy them, which we do. We work fully
with other schools in the borough. Indeed, I was chair of the
council of Southwark head teachers last year.
Chairman: Thank you. I think that we
are sufficiently warmed up by the new witnesses. Over to you,
Paul.
Q126 Paul Holmes: I am intrigued
by the two heads of Academies, one of which I have visited. They
emphasised the absolute incisiveness of having business people
as sponsors on the governing bodies. Are you saying that you do
not approve of the trend in Academies now of local authorities,
universities and other such organisations sponsoring Academies,
because they do not have that business incisiveness?
Martyn Coles: No, I would certainly
not say that. That higher education and local authorities are
getting involved can only be a good thing. They are becoming involved
in institutions and Academies that might be new, but given the
example and model of other Academies, things are a good deal more
focused than they might otherwise have been. The expertise of
people from higher education is excellent. Indeed, the City of
London Corporation is in partnership with City University in sponsoring
the new Islington Academy. It is excellent that City University
will have such a level of high input. The links that they can
bring in order to raise pupil aspirations will be superb. That
is excellent. The fact that local authorities in many areas of
the country are getting involved in Academies must be a good thing.
We can learn both ways.
Q127 Paul Holmes: But you are emphasising
how bad or indifferent your experience of working with local authority
management was, so why would it be a good thing for local authorities
to sponsor Academies?
Martyn Coles: Not wishing to be
rude, but perhaps you did not take my point completely. When I
was a head in Tower Hamlets, I think that I worked in one of the
best authorities in the country. It was outstanding and I had
a superb time there. I am talking about governance—not necessarily
about local authorities. However, I think that Southwark is a
good example of a local authority that had poor standards of education
for its young people, but which in the last five or six years
has changed dramatically. The local authority has taken over education
and has done so extremely well. However, the local authority has
also supported the creation of six Academies, I think, in Southwark,
because it saw that it is a way of raising standards in partnership
with the Government.
Jean Hickman: My breadth of understanding
is that it is industry, business and education—all of those
fields. I might have said business and industry, but I include
higher education and local authorities. I agree with Martyn on
the higher echelons of business and industrial expertise. You
might have misunderstood when I said industry, but I actually
meant the industry in its totality.
Martyn Coles: So many different
people and organisations can raise pupil aspirations. Jean and
I would agree on that in our own schools. On families—not
much mention has been made of parents and parental perception
of the Academies—I like the idea that parents can see a
school in an area where there has not necessarily been a tradition
of good education and say, "Actually, this school can do
something for my child in a way that has not happened before,
which we have not had experience of in our family."
Q128 Paul Holmes: I want to raise
a point that I was going to mention. We are told that the whole
point of Academies is that they can innovate in a way that schools
within the mainstream system cannot. Can you give examples, from
your different experiences, of these innovations that cannot happen
in mainstream schools? It intrigued me that you seemed to be saying
that one clear example was bringing business people in, although
all governing bodies on which I ever served as a teacher governor
had people from industry on them. However, now you seem to be
saying that such examples can come from other places as well.
What shining examples of innovation in Academies cannot happen
within the mainstream system?
Jean Hickman: I will give you
one, if I may. The terms and conditions of my staff are very different
and innovative. If one works under the state sector terms and
conditions, one is talking about 1,265 hours per contract and
you are, therefore, committed to a school day. My school day starts
at quarter past eight in the morning and works through to quarter
past five in the evening. The staff are employed for well over
1,265 hours per year. We work 200 days, not 195 days. So working
in the Academy at Walsall, the terms and conditions for staff
are slightly different outside the state sector. What does that
enable me to do? It enables me to have longer teaching sessions
and the children are in school longer. The number of hours per
taught child in the local schools is around 25 or 26 hours a week:
mine are in school for 31 hours, up to 35. Consequently, with
an innovative approach to the employment sector one is able to
put in place innovations to enable students to have a better deal.
Chairman: I am being told to turn up
the sound a little bit.
Jean Hickman: It is me. I will
talk louder. My apologies.
Martyn Coles: We have a longer
school day as well. As an Academy, we also have freedom, if we
wish, to change the curriculum that we offer. Ironically, the
review of the curriculum and the changes coming in over the next
two years follow some of the things that some Academies have already
been doing. However, that is a choice for the Academy. We certainly
have the choice to be able to do those kinds of things. We run
an internal fast-track scheme in school, which does not necessarily
fit national pay and conditions but is an extremely good development
opportunity for younger members of staff to take wider school
responsibility: it builds their career and it enhances recruitment
and Academy development. That would be much more difficult to
do in a local authority school, because it does not fit the standard
pay scales in respect of teachers' pay and conditions. That is
just another example that Committee members might find useful.
Graham Badman: Can I just add
something about pay and conditions? Let us go beyond the start
to how it affects the young people. The Marlowe Academy replaced
a school in Ramsgate. Incidentally, its head would not forgive
me if I did not tell you that it now has 39% five A* to Cs, whereas
previously it had 3% and 4%. Because of the flexible day, the
year 12 pupils have an option to work four days out of five. So
if they have part-time jobs, they can retain them. That is quite
important for a lot of young people who want a certain amount
of money. Why should they not have the same things in life that
other kids have? That keeps them in school, sustains them through
years 12 and 13 and enables them to keep their part-time jobs,
particularly on a Friday and certainly on Saturday. In another
innovation, we put start-up companies on the Marlowe school site.
We are currently building pods that will house between 16 and
20 companies. That scheme is jointly backed by a European Union
grant and the other school sponsor—Roger de Haan—and
Kent County Council. You can think differently about the migration
patterns of young people through schooling into further education
and employment and use the time more flexibly. So it is not just
about how it affects the staff; it affects young people as well.
Lucy Heller: I second everything
that has been said. I should like to make it clear that, at least
from our perspective, Academies do not have the monopoly on virtue.
We are not claiming that Academies are the silver-bullet solution
to all problems in education: it is a broadening of the solution
spectrum. I find it difficult to understand some of the opposition
to Academies. Some say, "It is fine, carry on, there are
lots of local authorities doing very good jobs and lots of schools
doing excellent, brilliant jobs." Having Academies is one
way of doing that. Yes, their independence is an important part
of that, and I cannot see why anyone would not want to expand
the range of solutions to what is clearly a fairly intractable
problem in not only this country, but almost every western country.
Q129 Paul Holmes: You say that lots
of local authorities are doing a very good job, but they have
to have Academies. They are forced on them by the Government.
They have no choice. If they want money from Building Schools
for the Future, they must have Academies.
Lucy Heller: If they have schools
that hit the hurdle rate.
Paul Holmes: That is one reason—
Lucy Heller: There are, in fact,
local authorities that have not had Academies because all their
schools come above the hurdle rate. The hurdle rate obviously
changes from time to time, but if we are taking roughly the 30%
hurdle rate that had been set, we would all agree that that is
not an acceptable level for schools to operate at. That is a defensible
decision.
Q130 Paul Holmes: I wish to pursue
a point that has been made in two of the examples.
Chairman: You accept that as an answer.
Paul Holmes: Not necessarily.
Chairman: But there is a hurdle rate.
There are local authorities that do not have anyone below the
30% in respect of A to Cs in GCSE.
Paul Holmes: Except that the Academy
programme has now been expanded to bring in independent schools,
which do not exactly serve deprived areas, for example.
Lucy Heller: Tower Hamlets—
Paul Holmes: As the previous witness
said, the Academy programme is changing rapidly and moving on.
Chairman: I am trying to get you to ask
the questions, get the answers and see if you are satisfied.
Q131 Paul Holmes: Lots of local authorities
would like the opportunity to reform their schools, but have been
told that they must take the Academy route. In Newcastle, for
example, the politicians who took over were elected on a programme
of being against Academies, and were told categorically by the
Government that they would get no money for their reform proposals
unless they had Academies.
Lucy Heller: I do not want to
argue about a question of policy. As a parent and consumer of
education, given the extent to which local authorities have schools
that come below that hurdle rate, it seems to me that it is fair
enough to take action after that has been going on for some time—it
is not done at the first instance of a school falling below the
hurdle rate.
Q132 Paul Holmes: We are told that
one of the advantages of Academies is that they appoint more advanced
skills teachers, attract and retain good staff by paying them
more and provide performance-based bonuses. We have heard the
example of having long school days. I do not know whether the
staff are paid the same for working longer or more, but there
seems to be a number of incentives at Academies that involve spending
more money. From where does the extra money come?
Lucy Heller: It does not. The
answer is that we are working like every other school on standard
budgets. We hope that we manage it better. Some of us might claim
that our business sponsors give us an advantage in that, but I
would not want to push it too far. It is tough. Anyone involved
in education knows how tough it is to balance the budgets that
we deal with. It means making sacrifices in other areas. I am
sure that all of us would have slightly different accounts of
how we make the numbers work to push as much money as we can into
teaching. It is perhaps one of the advantages of the multiple
sponsors—I think that all of us have sponsors who are involved
in more than one Academy. We must have some economies of scale
to drive that money back into teaching, but there is no simple
answer to the question.
Q133 Chairman: Paul is implying that
you get lots more money than regular schools.
Martyn Coles: No, we do not. We
get just the same as the other schools in Southwark.
Q134 Paul Holmes: Are they all specialist
schools in Southwark?
Martyn Coles: Pretty much so,
I think, yes. Indeed, we have two specialisms: business and sport.
We only get money for one of them.
Q135 Paul Holmes: So you are better
at managing the money even though, in general, Academies have
fewer pupils and therefore have a smaller base on which to operate.
Martyn Coles: You may know more
about that than me. I do not think that they necessarily have
fewer pupils. I manage the budget as best I can. When you look
at the age profile of my staff, they might be younger and have
not therefore worked so long. They might then not be paid so much
and I can then adjust that money to pay some of them more bonuses
under the scheme that I mentioned earlier. I manage my budget
on a year to year basis and try to look forward for three years.
I have just the same money as everyone else.
Jean Hickman: Yes, I have exactly
the same. I do not pay my staff any more for working the extra
hours. The terms and conditions are different. The salary scales
are the same. They have a performance-related payment once a year
if they hit the targets that we agree. Other than that, the situation
is much the same. Our financial management is exactly as we would
expect it to be from formula funded. My secret is that I have
an absolutely superb financial director who is an accountant by
training—a business man—who comes in and talks to
me all the time about running the business. It has taken me five
years to get used to that phrase, because as far as I am concerned
it is an educational environment, but he still thinks of it as
managing a business. In so doing, he creates a business environment
for me to function in. Through that person, there is a quite excellent
management of money; it goes a long way.
Q136 Lynda Waltho: Out of interest,
I want to talk about terms and conditions. I was a National Union
of Teachers rep in a former life.
Jean Hickman: I have been one
too.
Chairman: So have I.
Q137 Lynda Waltho: One thing that
we tried to do was not increase the working day necessarily. Are
you happy that your staff are happy with their terms and conditions?
Jean Hickman: Indeed; as an NUT
representative, likewise, I would say that their days are an awful
lot easier. When I worked in the state sector, I would go out
of school, probably after a meeting, at about 5.30 pm or 5.45
pm, and would take a whole load of work home with me. Whatever
level I was working at, I would go home with three hours' worth
of marking to do. I try very hard for that not to be the case.
My staff leave school at 5.15 pm if they have managed their time
properly—and I have facilitated them so to do. They do not
have to go home with three hours' worth of work.
Q138 Lynda Waltho: So, you are one
of those special principals who allows free time for marking?
Jean Hickman: Absolutely. My staff
have 80% contact and 20% non-contact. The 20% non-contact is sacrosanct;
it is theirs.
Lynda Waltho: Excellent.
Q139 Chairman: Martyn, do you want
to come in on that?
Martyn Coles: I wish that I could
say the same. We try to preserve as much as possible. I, too,
am a former NUT rep. I would say that teachers choose to work
in Academies. They know the conditions before they come—they
are made very clear—and choose to come because they feel
it is a better job for them and their career development. They
make that choice. There is not much more that one can say about
that. They could choose to go to another school in the area that
is not an Academy.
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