SISL: Schooling ahead: a tale of fragmentation

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Schooling ahead: a tale of fragmentation
Sue Robinson

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As the new academic year gets underway I am left wondering what happened to the brave new world of school structural change. Clearly its implementation is proving a lot more complicated than the Coalition government first thought.

I can highly recommend our leaders read Ben Levin* as a source for literature which describes and analyses how education policy is formulated and implemented, together with the tensions and complications surrounding it.

Whether the current policy for restructuring schools is going to lead to improvements or not only time will tell. It leads me to ask a question regarding the increased fragmentation being introduced into the system, which is:

How will the government solve the dilemma of maintaining its control of the system and the accountability of schools in an increasingly fragmented system?

The opportunity for new school structures freed from local authority control with more autonomy for governance to determine working conditions is a mechanism being used to introduce a competitive and innovative element into the system. Its intention is to give more power to the consumer through the greater involvement of parents and other sponsoring bodies in the setting up and management of schools.

Some believe this competition will drive up standards and others that the policy is more likely to be the result of the desire to reduce the cost and influence of the public sector. This is a complex debate as motive is probably determined by a combination of political, economic and educational demands.

Irrespective of government motives for change, I recognise the importance of ensuring that schools provide children with the skills needed to access a knowledge economy and for the country to retain its competitive advantage. Yet education is about more than economic imperatives and the vested interests of different groups, even if they are parents.

As a headteacher I want to be sure that our children have access to the knowledge and ideas accumulated over centuries, and the ethics and values which drive us. Education isn't just about what we already know but also about interpreting it and questioning it. I want children to gain the skills and be given the opportunities to question so that they will have the understanding necessary to be able to make informed choices.

Who then will determine what is the knowledge or the skills to be learnt if there is a greater degree of autonomy for schools? How will the interests, influence and power of those groups which sponsor schools in the future be managed, especially if they conflict with open dialogue and democratic freedoms?

If the government is to make the decision through another revamp of the national curriculum then what are the implications for the promises of autonomy? What will be the process of accountability in a fragmented school system?

Above all, how will the government know if schools go on a 'slalom ride' to failure? How quickly will this be picked up? I suggest that the speed of structural change envisaged by the government will be quicker than the response to it through accountability to Ofsted or local authorities, given their diminished role.

Where is the research that all this diversity in the system will work? There are no guarantees in life but if we are relying on using something which has worked in the US or Sweden there are significant cultural differences in our contexts that make policy transfer somewhat problematic.

I am not yet convinced that new governance in the form of parent providers or other sponsors will improve equity and reduce deprivation. It will be interesting to follow just how many headteachers undertake headship in new school structures and if they make the school improvements the government wants.

In the end, success may be more to do with the quality of leadership than the brand under which it operates.

Dr Susan Robinson is headteacher of Cherry Orchard Primary School and Children's Centre in Birmingham.

*Levin, B. (2004) ‘Educational Policy: Commonalities and Differences', in B. Davies and J. West-Burnham (eds) Handbook of Educational Management and Leadership London: Pearson.

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