In its current consultation paper, the government sets out a vision of a '21st century school system which
provides excellent personalised education and development
enables schools to identify and help to address additional needs
provides a range of activities and opportunities to enrich the lives of children, families and the wider community
is characterised by schools working more extensively and effectively with parents, other providers and wider children's services'.
The National Education Trust (NET) broadly welcomes and supports the government’s overall vision of a 21st century school system, but cautions that there is still much to be done to achieve collaboration between schools, colleges and other services for children.
Policies that facilitate and encourage facile comparisons, and therefore competition between institutions, militate against the collaboration necessary to make the vision a reality.
Missing are a vision and accompanying social policies that value all positive roles in society, whether they are highly skilled or classified as unskilled. Some statements from government can and do encourage an attitude that people with few or no qualifications, and/or who are in “unskilled” occupations, are either failures, or have been failed by the education system. One example is when leading politicians talk about ‘five or more good GCSEs’, which thereby suggests that D grades and below are ‘bad’ GCSEs and without currency.
The government views schools as the ‘main and universal service for children and young people’. NET agrees. It follows, therefore, that schools should not just be a key partner in Children’s Trusts, they should be the central focus taking the lead in defining and commissioning services. NET’s surveys with parents, particularly those of children who are not succeeding, indicate that parents see the school as its key source of support and a ‘gateway’ into other social services.
Partnerships, not only between schools and with other education providers, but with other services for children and young people are the way forward. But a quarter of a century of policies that encourage competition and publicly censure failure need to be rolled back.
Much more needs to be done to move away from such a culture to one in which Local Authorities engage with governing bodies, providing support and resources to develop partnerships.
Success and good practice should be celebrated; failure needs to be dealt with trenchantly, and quietly.
To achieve the vision of schools ‘identifying and helping to address additional needs’, headteachers should have a central role in defining and procuring services to support children and young people. Structures will need to be developed that support heads in this wider role, which may include an executive head to provide overall leadership in the case of an extensive partnership.
The variety of types of school and their differing relationships with Local Authorities and other agencies add to the complexity faced by government in implementing its vision; and there is no mention in the consultation paper of the private school sector. Practical guidance in partnering is needed, with Local Authorities enabled through funding to help create and facilitate partnerships that should also include fee paying schools.
On learning and teaching, NET’s extensive visits to schools and early years’ settings indicate that certain national strategies, once effective, have now outlived their usefulness. Headteachers and teachers are in fear of ‘doing things differently’. Yet they need to do so to lift stubbornly low standards in too many of our schools, and particularly those schools which serve less favoured intakes.
In NET’s view, to achieve the vision for a 21st century school system, the wider cultural setting for education in this country needs to change so that there is
- a commitment to social justice where all roles within society are respected; and
- an approach to law and policy making that is based on discussion and achieving consensus rather than on adversarial politics.
Addressing these fundamental issues would enhance the government’s prospects of creating a vision and a strategy that commands wide support.
Dr Tony Ashmore is Policy Adviser to the National Education Trust
