…. it might be now!

Sadly, Torridge District Councillors last night voted 15 to 11 not to pursue a judicial review against the Secretary of State’s decision (against all advice and the planning inspectorates recommendation) to let Route 39 Academy build their new secondary school in the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Route 39 has 123 students, less than a typical primary school and about 1/3 of the number they told the Dept. for Education they would have attending. To buy the site and build the school will now cost us all £ millions and the countryside will never be the same.

Now that the Government has announced that all schools will be Academies by 2020, why do we need this one? All the other local secondary schools have spare places available for students and most are rated good by Ofsted – Route 39 got a ‘requires improvement’ last Summer!

The Government are now teeing up all schools to be integrated in MAT’s or Multi-Academy Trusts, comprising clusters of schools with centralised financial budgets and control, ripe fruit for ‘out-sourcing’ to the likes of Babcock, Pearson, Ark, E-ACT and other large corporate ‘for profit’ education providers. These companies top slice the first 10%+ from each schools budget for their own shareholders before spending a penny on the children’s education and welfare.

I wonder how many Conservative Party supporters, donors and former Ministers sit on the boards of these organisations?

What a warped world we live in!

Quit your moaning and get on with it!

Secondary school league tables have received a mixed press this week following the release of the final results from the 2014 examinations, with Head Teachers from various schools lining up to either applaud or denounce the league tables, perhaps depending in some cases upon how their individual schools have fared.

I have found this whole debate this week quite interesting – league tables are a rather crude way of providing parents with a comparative idea of just how well their local schools are performing, and perhaps it is no wonder, given the arcane complexity of this country’s educational statistics, performance measurements and acronyms, that parents look for a simplistic way of judging whether a school is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

In the same way that Ofsted inspections are subject to the ‘human’ variable, so too is the league table system. Ever since league tables were brought in, schools have been looking for ways to manipulate the system or ‘play the game’. This is not surprising considering the impact that a poor showing in the table will have, both in terms of parents choosing to take their children elsewhere (with its consequential effect on the school budget) and the Armageddon that then comes raining down on to the schools from the Local Education Authority, Ofsted, Regional Commissioners and Her Majesties Inspectorate of Schools.

Playing the system

In previous years, many schools, both local authority and private, have attempted to ‘play’ the examination system, looking to enter their students into examinations with what they consider to be perhaps less ‘rigorous’ exam boards and to offer other vocational qualifications that carried ‘equivalent’ GCSE grades and which were counted in the league tables. The iGCSE was a prime example of this behaviour. The effect of this was to boost their league table standings, enabling these schools to crow triumphantly about how well they were performing and what a great job they were doing.

Now I have nothing at all against vocational qualifications, I believe these are a valuable addition to the traditional curriculum which by definition cannot always cater to the abilities of every individual student. However, I believe that these qualifications should be offered as the exception, rather than as a quick and easy way to boost the schools performance in league tables, which is what has appeared to have happened over the past few years in some schools.

Understandably this was all rather irksome to those schools that chose to play the league table game with a ‘straight bat’. By offering their students what was generally perceived to be the harder, more traditional GCSE curriculum, inevitably these schools appeared to perform less well, as fewer students delivered pass grades compared to those in other schools following an ‘equivalent’ curriculum.

Now the Government has removed these ‘equivalents’ from the league table measures, which in my view does help to bring greater transparency and clarity to annual performance measurement. This has meant that many schools have now found themselves plummeting earthwards in the table rankings and crying ‘foul’ to anyone that will listen. Well, I am sorry that your schools have been knocked off your pedestal, but hey; it wasn’t as if you were not told well in advance that this change was going to happen!

Holsworthy Community College flying high!

At my school, Holsworthy Community College, we have always tried to offer a mixed and balanced curriculum in order that every child was able to achieve the best outcome that was possible for them individually, regardless of their ability or aptitude. In other words, playing the ‘straight bat’ mentioned earlier. Over the years this has meant that perhaps we have not shone as brightly in the league table standings in comparison to some of our peer schools in Devon and we have had to deal with that situation, from the local authority, from parents and from others with perhaps a more vested interest in rubbishing our school – you know who you are!

With the 2014 league tables now published, we can see the effect of the changes that the Governments ‘level playing field’ has achieved. Out of 76 schools across Devon, Holsworthy Community College was ranked joint 16th, with 57% of students achieving 5+ A*-C grades including English and Maths at GCSE level.

In terms of Total Average Point Score per pupil, Holsworthy Community College was ranked 17th in the county, with 392.1 APS per pupil. Coupled with the ‘Good’ rating from Ofsted that was achieved last year, I think we can be justifiably proud of all the staff and students at our school, who are continually improving their performance and are really going places.

Credit where it’s due…

I am not generally a fan of Government meddling in education, however on this particular issue, I am prepared to give credit where it is due. I hope that the changes to performance measurement through these league tables will bed down and that a degree of continuity can be achieved, as these tables only work for parents and educational professionals alike when the measurements are applied fairly and consistently over time.

And for those schools that are moaning about the new league tables, think about this – You can’t take the plaudits when you’ve been milking the system, then scream blue murder when you’ve been found out. We can see what you are doing and it isn’t very edifying.

I suggest you get over it, pick yourselves up and start giving your students the consistent and high standard of education that we all; as taxpayers, are paying for and that we all, as parents; expect for our kids!

The Telegraph has a great interactive Schools League Table on its website – click here:

 

 

Free Schools Report: Not all they are cracked up to be!

The Academies Programme has, according to the Government in its Free Schools Report today, introduced what it calls ‘healthy competition’ into our education system, that it claims may have helped drive improvement in English schools since 2010. Of course, as usual, that is only part of the story.

Schools are getting better… but they are not necessarily Free Schools!

While the government are spinning the report like crazy, saying that the academy model has made the state of schools improve generally, Graham Stuart, the Chair of the Education Committee actually said today: “It’s still too early to know how much the academies programme has helped raise standards. What we can say is that, however measured, the overall state of schools has improved during the course of the programme.”

What this really indicates is that the ‘threat’ of compulsory academisation, coupled with stricter Ofsted standards, and £ millions of educational funding being thrown at ‘experimental’ free schools has perhaps resulted in an improvement in ALL schools over the past 5 years.

What is crucial is that this report categorically does not state that this improvement is as a direct result of academies and free schools – most of the improvement has come from local authority schools and the report itself makes no mention at all of the sunken cost to achieve this improvement.

Readers should remember that the initial converter academies were limited (some might say ‘cherry-picked’) to those schools with an existing Ofsted judgement of “outstanding” and then to schools which were rated “good with outstanding features”. These schools also received approximately 10% additional funding through the Local Authority Central Spend Equivalent Grant (LACSEG) until funding regulations were latterly brought into line. It should come as no surprise that with this bonus in their bank balances, these schools should have gone on to show even more improvement than their peers. What may surprise you is that in more than a few cases, many of these schools actually FAILED to improve!

According to a recent National Audit Office report, the Free Schools budget is nationally £1 billion overspent and that the academies programme has caused the Department for Education (DfE) to be a further £1 billion overspent is a national scandal. Why is the government not being taken to task for this horrendous mismanagement of public spending at a time when every other public service, from libraries to old peoples homes to the emergency services is being cut by £ millions each year?

The money wasted on free schools could and should have been spent on all school children, regardless of where they happened to live or at the very least targetted at the most vulnerable categories of children, not just those who happened to be in a particular kind of school favoured by the then Secretary of State’s own political ideology.

The report published today goes on to state that “current evidence does not prove that academies raise standards overall or for disadvantaged children. It is clear though that academisation has led to greater competition (NDG: which implicitly the government believe is good), challenging many maintained schools to improve and incentivising local authorities to develop speedier and more effective interventions in under-performing schools.”

The report says that “While some (academy) chains have clearly raised attainment, others achieve worse outcomes, creating huge disparities within the academy sector and compared to other mainstream schools. To address this problem, Ofsted should be given the power to inspect academy chains in the same way it does local authorities“.

“Nearly half of all academies are not part of a chain. By being ‘stand-alone’, these schools risk becoming isolated from others and as such as both less likely to contribute to others and less supported if they begin to fail. In future Ofsted should require evidence of effective partnership with another institution before any school can be judged ‘outstanding‘”.

These findings raise serious questions around the establishment and funding of existing free schools and the basis upon which the decisions to approve them were taken.

Free School Funding Approvals Flawed

The Education Committee continue: “With regard to free schools, the DfE needs to be far more transparent about how and where it decides to fund new free schools. The DfE should also generally avoid opening free schools in areas which have both spare places and an overwhelming majority of good or outstanding schools.”

At long last someone in government seems to recognise what we in North West Devon have been saying for the past three years.

With overwhelming evidence that the Route 39 Free School application was based upon wholly fanciful and unrealistic projections of demand, misrepresentations of local secondary schools performance and a complete (and some might say intentional) failure to engage with the local community, the DfE and the Education Funding Agency should be seriously reviewing the decision-making surrounding the approval of the Route 39 application and taking appropriate steps to recover the situation.

Until this is done, the public can and will have no confidence in either organisation and one has to wonder how long this charade can continue!

Conclusions and recommendations

In its report from the wide ranging inquiry into the impact of the Government’s Academies and Free School Programme, the Education Committee has today called upon the Department for Education to:

Academies

• Publish clear information setting out the process and criteria by which sponsors are authorised and matched with schools.
• Publish data on the performance of individual academies and each Multi Academy Trust or chain.
• Publish clear information setting out the process and criteria by which funding agreements are reviewed and renewed.
• Review the length of funding agreements (in the light of US experience of Charter Schools) with a view to reducing the model agreement to five years.
• Analyse what makes academy chains effective and actively promote best practice  more widely amongst other chains.
• Separate the regulatory and funding roles of the Education Funding Agency, in order to restore public confidence in the academies process.
• Address the serious problems posed by conflicts of interest by taking further steps to strengthen the regulations for governance in academy trusts.
• Create a mechanism for schools to be able to leave academy chains where appropriate.
• Be more open and transparent about the accountability and monitoring system applied to chains and the criteria used to pause their expansion.
• Give Ofsted the power it needs to inspect academy chains.
• Require all academies and chains to publish the salary and other remunerations of senior leaders (within bands) in their annual accounts.
• Publish a protocol for dealing with the failure of a large chains and for how individual schools will be treated when a chain can no longer run them.

Free Schools

• Make clear how competition for free school funding is decided and the relative weight that is given to innovation, basic need, deprivation and parental demand.
• Ensure that local authorities are informed of any proposal to open a free school in their area.
• Collect statistical information on free school intakes and monitor the impact of new schools on the intake and attainment of neighbouring schools.

Primaries

• Commission research as a matter of urgency to assess the impact of academy status on attainment in primary schools.
• Make maintained primary schools in federations eligible for funding through the Primary Chains Grant to assist collaboration between primary schools.
• Review the lessons of wholesale rapid conversion across the secondary sector to identify lessons that can better inform any future expansion.

The Committee has also called upon the Education Funding Agency to:

• Enhance transparency and accountability around how it monitors academy funding agreements.
• Revise its guidance on ‘at cost’ transactions to make expectations of academies clearer.

These conclusions and recommendations paint a fairly damning picture of the mistakes, mismanagement and wilful disregard for our children shown over the past five years by the DfE and EFA in their pursuit of this Governments assault on our education system and despite the clamour and objections of educational professionals, parents, carers and communities across the country.

It’s about time this Government took responsibility for these failings, though one expects with an election looming, perhaps the individuals that have orchestrated and overseen this mess won’t be around very much longer to have to worry about it!

Route 39: Does FOI release reveal lack of financial governance?

October 6th, 2014: Update – Finally, Route 39 have complied with my Freedom of Information request and released the minutes of their Governing Body meetings and Finance and Personnel Committee meetings. They emailed me at 4:40 pm today, 20 minutes before close of business on the final day they were due to reveal the information under the FOI regulations – nice touch chaps, very mature!

The Chair of Governors kindly wrote saying: “In response to your Freedom of Information request, please be advised that ratified minutes of the Governing Body and its committees are available here: http://goo.gl/GP0p4r“.

Who is checking Route 39’s spending? Obviously not the Finance Committee!

It remains somewhat perplexing that it takes someone like myself to hold this establishment to account, and to ensure that they conform to the standards and regulations for public transparency that other schools across the nation have to abide by and to which Route 39 trustees agreed when they signed their EFA funding contract . Why are not the Department for Education, the Education Funding Agency, Ofsted, the parents of students at the school and the governors themselves ensuring that this information is transparent and available for public review?

But hold on… it seems that between December 5th 2013 and June 10th 2014, Route 39 didn’t hold any Finance and Personnel Committee meetings at all, and the June 10th 2014 minutes are not accessible. Very tardy!

Does this mean that for the first six months of this year, at a time when the school has been heavily involved in funding its abortive planning application, Route 39 has been merrily spending tax payers money without any control, oversight or governance in place to monitor and review their outlay? Surely not?

Why are the DfE and EFA not investigating this poor governance and asking governors the challenging questions that need answering?

Schools have a duty to publish certain information on their school website. This includes but is not limited to: details of the pupil premium allocation and spending plans, the curriculum – content and approach, links to admission arrangements, SEN Policy, Charges and Remissions Policy and Behaviour policy. Taking its legislative basis from The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012, the publication of such information is a requirement for maintained schools, academies and free schools.

I also wonder why Route 39’s Governing Body minutes are not accessible to parents and the local community via the schools website, as they rightfully should be – All other local secondary schools do this as a matter of course, but I searched tonight and Route 39’s are nowhere to be found!

Blowing our trumpet for local secondary schools

Having recently visited Holsworthy Community College for the day as part of my Governing Body duties, I came away uplifted by the variety and diversity of activities undertaken and enjoyed by the students at our college. This also left me wondering if people in our part of North West Devon actually appreciate how good our local secondary schools really are?

With other places constantly bigging themselves up in the local media and online to justify their existence, seemingly for even the most prosaic activities (pickle making being a recent example!), it would not be surprising that some may be led to believe that the children in our existing secondary schools don’t get involved in their own projects or participate in extra-curricular activities, sports and cultural events.

That misconception, of course, could not be further from the truth.

So, by way of ‘blowing our own trumpet’ for once, I have taken a quick trawl through the websites and parents newsletters from our local secondary schools and colleges, just to see what our kids are actually getting up to, apart from all the studying that they do!

What I discovered was awesome! Unsurprisingly, our children actually do LOADS of GREAT STUFF!

From raising money for leukemia research to participation in county sports events, winning business innovation awards to international exchange visits, children within our local, existing secondary schools are every bit, if not even more; engaged, inspired, motivated, competitive and concerned as those from any other place.

Just take a quick look at the Enrichment and Intervention video on the Great Torrington School website to see how their children get involved in everything from Science Club to the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. GCSE Geography students took part in an Urban Fieldwork trip to Plymouth, while other pupils enjoyed a night away, staying at the Met Office in Exeter!

At Holsworthy Community College, Year 9 students recently participated in and won the Devon and Cornwall Business Council Enterprise Day Challenge – Their rewards for winning the event were fantastic. Co-sponsors of the event, Hillside Foods (http://www.devonhampers.com/hillside-foods) offered the students the opportunity to visit the marketing department and see how they had developed into a local success story. The other prize was a full day down at the Virtual Jet Centre in Exeter where they get to fly a Boeing 747 simulator, as if they were doing pilot training. (www.virtualjetcentre.co.uk). Other students at the college have raised over £1260.00 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and Bristol Royal Childrens Hospital. Amazing stuff!

Meanwhile, over at Bideford College, students have enjoyed success in sports competitions, with a particularly successful Netball season – the Year 7, Year 8, Year 9 and Year 10 teams all winning their age groups in the North Devon Netball League. And Expressive Arts is also an area where Bideford College shines – two of their pupils, Amelia Dennis (Year 7) and Charlotte McLean (Year 12) were Music winners at the North Devon Arts Festival. Amelia, who plays the euphonium and violin, competed in a number of events and received some wonderful comments by the adjudicator. As well as winning her brass section, she was also the recipient of the Natwest Shield for Performance. Charlotte, who plays the violin and the flute, completed in two separate events and was awarded the Gunderson Whitehead Cup for outstanding Woodwind Solo. Perhaps glittering muscial careers beckon for both these talented young ladies.

And finally, at Budehaven, catering students from the school participated in the opening ceremony in the Bude for Food Festival. The students assisted chef Fran Parody-Candea in the first cookery demonstration preparing and cooking paella in front of a large audience. 70 Budehaven students took part alongside well over 100 students from local primary schools – Bude Juniors, Stratton, Whitstone, Jacobstow and Marhamchurch in the schools Annual Dance Performance. Entitled ‘Metamorphosis’,  the 20 dances explored aspects of change and evolution. Ranging from a kaleidoscope of butterflies, to a moving piece on World War 1, from the solar system with sparkling hoops to Thriller, to name but a few, the programme presented a varied and diverse interpretation of the theme.

So you see, it’s not just small numbers of children in extra-generously funded academies and free schools that get to do news-worthy activities! Through our existing local secondary schools, our children are actively involved in these sorts of ventures every single day and they enjoy it immensely!