Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-150)
COUNCILLOR LES
LAWRENCE, LORRAINE
COOPER, DECLAN
MCCAULEY
AND LYNDA
JONES
1 APRIL 2009
Q140 Paul Holmes: I have two
questions on recruitment that come from a completely different
perspective. The Government hoped that there would be a much larger
percentage of SIPs who were head teachers. In practice, that has
not worked out. Why is that? Why is it so hard to get head teachers
to do that role?
Declan McCauley: That is something
I touched on earlier. If someone is a head teacher, it means going
out of their school to work as a SIP. They cannot do that if they
do not have total faith and trust in the team that they are leaving
behindie the deputy head teacherto run the school
effectively while they are out. Not all schools have that, so
that is one issue. Not all head teachers want to take on the SIP
role. When the role came in initiallyI am talking not from
Warwickshire but from Staffordshirehead teachers there
were very wary of this new process involving people who were trained
outside the local authority. What was the impact going to be?
Who were they and what did they want? There was a lot of negativity,
and heads did not want to take up that kind of position.
Q141 Paul Holmes: Is that
changing now that it has bedded in? You spoke about going and
seeing what happened in two different authorities with the schools
you went to.
Chairman: Councillor Lawrence changed
his mind. Did your colleagues change their minds?
Paul Holmes: It could be an important
part of a head teacher's professional development and future promotion
prospects if they have done this sort of thing. Is there a beneficial
improvement now, or is it still a problem recruiting heads?
Declan McCauley: Now that head
teachers are seeing how the process works, I know of some who
have gone off, in the recent past, undertaken the accreditation
process and become SIPs. Whether they go on to take up any appointments
is a different matter, but they have undergone the accreditation
process.
Chairman: Is that your shared experience
Lynda?
Lynda Jones: We mentioned the
accreditation process earlier and how onerous it is. The stakes
are really high because, as Declan was saying, people know that
you are going for it so what if you are turned down? What does
that say? It certainly seems to say something about your powers
of analysis, because that is a key part of being a SIP. That is
one thing that may predispose people not to do it. It also takes
a lot of time. The online part of it took me 15 hours to complete,
and that was just to get through to the next stage and the face-to-face
training. I know of one head teacher who opened it up, a crisis
happened, and he was not able to complete it with a proper amount
of time to consider issues. As a consequence, his accreditation
was not successful. It could be that the accreditation process
deters people. In Warwickshire, we now have fewer serving head
teachers as primary SIPs because they found that they had to withdraw,
as they needed to be in their own schools. What we have described
is a rigid process. There is a series of things that we must do
at particular times of the year and that might not be the right
time. For example, the autumn term is particularly heavy and,
I imagine, that is a very heavy time for a head teacher too. That
is another aspect.
Lorraine Cooper: Many head teachers
tell me that they do not want the role because their job as a
head teacher takes 200% of their time. They cannot get their heads
around how they could deal with somebody else's problems as well
as their own. That is the most common feedback that I get. Clearly,
there are some who enjoy the role and feel that they can offer
a lot and that it offers something to them. You will always get
that in a group of people. Generally, however, we are not seeing
an increase and if anything, I would say that I am seeing a decrease
in the numbers of people who are available. There may be a number
on the SIP register, but when you contact those people because
you are looking to appoint, a very high percentage of them are
not available for work. I have just been through the process.
Q142 Chairman: Do they get
paid extra for the SIPs job?
Lorraine Cooper: They do, yes;
they get paid to do it.
Q143 Paul Holmes: I
think that Lorraine's point about the 200% input into being a
head leads to the next question. There is a shortage of people
applying to be primary school heads and a lesser shortage, but
still a shortage, for secondary. Does the existence of SIPs improve,
or otherwise, that situation? Do people applying to be head think,
"Good, I'll have a SIP, who is very supportive and helpful",
or do they think, "I've got the local government snitch,
an inspector, so I'm not going to apply for that job. It's just
not worth it any more." Is it helpful or not?
Declan McCauley: I personally
do not see that that has any impact. If you were going for a headship,
that would not even come into your mind.
Q144 Paul Holmes: But
why are so few people applying to be heads these days? They always
quote pressures from the Government, league tables, Ofstedsurely
the SIPs are just another part of that pressure?
Declan McCauley: It is pressures
from above, isn't? It is the initiativesas Councillor Lawrence
said earlier, it is taking time for initiatives to bed downand
not having more landing on your table. It is the pressure of managing
your school. Some people do not even want to do an NPQHthey
say that that is too onerous. There are many, many factors.
Lorraine Cooper: There are a number
of factors. There is no doubt at all that when heads talk to you
about why there are the issues around the recruitment of headswhy
they do not move on to second headships, why they decide to retire
early, whatever those things might bea lot of them express
the view that they do not feel that they are able to do the job
as well as they want to, because of the volume of initiatives
that fall on their desk. They constantly feel that they are battling
the next new thing, instead of being able to do a good job on
the rest. There is a little bit of an elementfor some head
teachers, maybe not allof feeling pushed further away from
the learning and teaching by all the other things, by the breadth
of their job, which is growing and growing. Some people will say,
"That is not why I came into it. It is not what I want to
do. I am about learning and teaching, about children, and I don't
want to have to be bothered about some of the other things."
There are some developments that will help that and will be very
valuable, I am sure, as we get more development of people like
business managers around ranges of school sites. However, the
job has become very broadthe extended agenda for schools
is pushing some people to the point where they feel that they
can either be a head or they can live, as part of a family life.
They are not sure that they want to forfeit the one for the other.
There is a balance that needs to be struck.
Q145 Paul Holmes: This
is a totally different question. Since the Education Act 1988,
league tables, Ofsted, key stage tests and everything, Governments
have argued that this is the only way to hold schools to account
and to make sure that they do not just do their own thing, with
nobody knowing what is going on. If you had had a system of SIPs,
for example, in the '70s, would that have meant that William Tyndale
could never have happened?
Lynda Jones: You would not have
had the data then. Data are the lynchpin of the judgments that
the SIP makes, because the data are robust and look at all aspects
of performance. It is about standards and achievement, and Every
Child Matters. Increasingly, the data will shine a light for you
on what is going on in the school. Increasingly, as teacher assessments
become more valid and robust, you will get that on a continuous
basis too. In the '70s you would not have had thatthe judgments
would have been made by straws in the wind.
Q146 Paul Holmes: In
Canada, Sweden or New Zealand, for example, it is very much based
on the internal school assessment of pupils. In New Zealand, it
is a 3% national sample at random, rather than a 1% key stage
test, so you could get the robust data through SIPs and then go
and talk to the local schools without having the framework of
league tablesor could you?
Lynda Jones: At the moment, you
have not got the valid and reliable teacher assessments. You will
have, when reforms have come through and the teachers are properly
supported in making those judgments. My personal view is that,
yes, that would be a good vision for the future.
Lorraine Cooper: It is definitely
the way that we need to go. The profession has changed phenomenally
in that time. I came into it in the mid '70s and, I have to say,
it is not the same profession now at all. It is held much more
accountable and it is much tighter. Its systems and processes
of understanding itself and whether it is producing the goods
are much better than they were. I think that standards have definitely
risen as a result. Schools now are much more robust and rigorous
places and much more focused on whether outcomes for pupils are
as they should be. My personal view is that if we had the systems
and processes in place then that have brought about that developmentit
has been a journey and has not happened because of one or two
things, but because of a series of things coming together over
a fairly lengthy periodit would have been much more difficult
to have a William Tyndale situation. It needs to continue to develop
because it does not stand still, which is the beauty of education.
It is a process of change and we need to adapt systems as the
process moves on.
Chairman: I want to squeeze in two last
questions. Derek and then Annette.
Q147 Derek Twigg: Do you think
that we have got SIPs today because of the accountability that
we have in the system? LEAs have accountability to ensure that
education overall is very good, whereas most head teachers are
only really concerned about what has happened in their school,
for whatever reason. Therefore, why do you not work collaboratively
anyway and help each other?
Chairman: Declan, would you like to take
that?
Declan McCauley: That collaboration
is there, but you still have to have the level of accountability.
Q148 Derek Twigg: Let me just,
very briefly, give an example from four or five years ago in my
constituency. We now have a different set of heads, but some of
the previous heads would not talk to each other. I believe that
is not uncommon. I accept that collaboration does take place,
but there are too many areas where it does not. What is the answer?
Declan McCauley: I do not know
what the answer is.
Chairman: Lynda has the answer.
Lynda Jones: No, I do not have
the answer to that question. At the moment, the accountability
regime does not take into account the partnership premium. We
would like it to because that would impact on a number of arenas,
for example the 14-to-19 arena. At the moment, SIP accountability
is just with the school, so as accountability changes to suit
circumstances, the partnership premium ought to be considered.
Lorraine Cooper: I believe that
it is growing. It is happening. Increasingly, schools are aware
that they cannot possibly deliver on the broad agenda if they
stand as independent, single units, and they are looking outwards
much more. If you said to me, what is the difference between what
might be coming with the new framework of accountability compared
with the old one, it might be that we have persuaded schools over
some period to be quite inward looking in terms of their standards,
their quality and whether they get their pupils, but that is turning
now and is moving outwards more. We are beginning to say that
it is about the provision for children across a locality and about
how schools can work together to provide it. I think that heads
are beginning to engage more in that debate now, but it is a big
cultural change and it is not going to happen overnight. We are
working on it and I have a sense from the headship group I work
with that people have accepted that agenda and are beginning to
look much more to what they could do better with colleagues than
they could do on their own in terms of provision.
Chairman: Do you agree with that Les?
Cllr Lawrence: In Derek's case,
I would suggest that the fault is partly with the local authority.
Derek Twigg: That has gone. It is historical.
It is not the case now.
Cllr Lawrence: To deliver the
post-14 diploma requirements, schools will have to collaborate,
because no one school can deliver all diplomas. The local authority
should be significantly and regularly engaging all its heads in
a single conversation or groups of single conversations to ensure
that they, first, understand each others' accountability in regard
to provision at secondary level, but equally, understand how they
can begin to share resources. I go back to the point that I made
earlier on English, maths, science and languages: because there
is a scarcity of skilled teachers within those areas, we find,
in lots of authorities, that schools are now sharing teachers
across schools to get the best out of the skills that are available.
Q149 Derek Twigg: So why do
we need SIPs?
Cllr Lawrence: To me the SIP is
a fundamental part of the individual challenge that enhances relationships
and confidence in the heads themselves and enables them often
to build up their leadership teams to be much more effective.
It ultimately allows the head the freedom to go on and do other
things which can be not only to their professional development
but to the development and benefit of their school.
Chairman: Annette.
Q150 Annette Brooke: This
is a very brief question and I am not intending to undermine rigour
when I ask it. Hearing about all your analysis I have to confess
that I am the softie on this Committee and I want children to
be happy at school. Could you tell us about some of the other
dimensions you are involved in?
Lorraine Cooper: The agenda is
broad and children enjoying as well as achieving is very important.
The well-being aspects of their experience at school, their growth
as people in school and their ability to be adaptable to changing
circumstances, which is the world they are going out to work in,
are equally important. A large part of the work of the SIPs will
be around those agendasthe Every Child Matters agendaall
five areas are equally important. People talk about accountability
through data because it is the easy one to measure and get a handle
on. Some of the others are harder to get a handle on but they
are no less important. If they are not there, it will not matter
how hard you push on the other side, it is not going to come to
fruition and will not bring about the changes you want. Certainly,
the agenda that the SIP has at the interface with schools will
be broad and will cover those aspects. Quite a lot of the work
when you are in schools may be looking at the outcomes of pupil
surveys and questionnaires; it might involve discussions with
pupils to find out their views on what they are receiving and
how they feel about school. There is a whole raft of things that
happen that can give that further information. Schools are undertaking
more of that all the time, so when there is a SIP validating their
judgments and their data, they will provide you with that sort
of evidence and say, "Here is what the children have said."
You can then have conversations to validate that. Yes, the enjoy
part is important: looking at learning outside the classroom,
the extended agenda and the availability of that for children
is a very important part of the role.
Chairman: Lynda, take no notice of Annette.
We all on this Committee want children to enjoy.
Annette Brooke: I thought you told me
off last time.
Chairman: Lynda, do you want to comment
on children enjoying?
Lynda Jones: I do not have anything
to add to what Lorraine has just said.
Chairman: Declan?
Declan McCauley: I agree because
it is a much broader package. It is not just about statistics
and data. There is much more breadth and the SIP has a role to
play.
Chairman: This has been a really good
session. We have learned a lot. I hope you enjoyed it. You have
given us a great deal of information. Thank you very much for
your attendance. Susan, this is your last Committee attendance
in your present role and you are moving to a different Committee.
We wish you well.
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