The background

Under the “transforming rehabilitation” plans, the current probation services will be broken up. Roughly 20% will be kept ‘in-house’ as a new national public probation service. From Autumn 2014, this service will be responsible primarily for risk management in the new system: “carrying out the critical roles of providing pre-sentence advice to court, assessing the risk an offender poses to the public, and directly managing those……… who pose the highest risk to the public.”

The remaining 80% of staff and activity will be pushed into “newcos”, (i.e. new ‘companies’) and will be transferred to the prime contractors who successfully bid for each of the 21 regional “rehabilitation programme” contract package areas (CPAs). The contractors will be responsible for delivery of all actions required of offenders (other than the high-risk ones) by the courts, such as Community Orders, Supervision or Unpaid Work.

If this can be assumed to encompass the whole £1bn of current spend on community sentences including probation: £200m is kept to fund the in-house risk management core; and £800m is outsourced – with two key provisos.

Firstly, people who are sentenced to prison for less than 12 months currently receive no supervision on release. Rates of re-offending among this group are particularly high. A key commitment of the “rehabilitation revolution” is to extend supervision to everyone in this group. This adds another 10%, c. 20,000 offenders, to the annual caseload.

Secondly, in outsourcing these services, the Ministry is looking for a saving. They must, after all, deliver on: “the MoJ commitment to deliver annual savings of over £2 billion by 2014/15”. In 2011-12, the Ministry of Justice total spend was £8.55bn.

Estimates vary but it is widely assumed in the market that the Ministry is looking to achieve a 20 to 30% reduction in expenditure through this outsourcing. This is despite the need simultaneously to increase the service scope.

The competition

In order to understand how this will play out, let’s consider this from the perspective of a would-be prime contractor. We are interested in Contract Package Area F.

After stripping out the risk assessment and high-risk offenders, the ‘old’ probation service in Area F currently costs a total of £30m a year. They spend 5% of this on external suppliers, delivering additional services aimed to rehabilitate. The remaining 95% is on overheads and delivery of the core court orders.

If we are to win this contract, our tender will have to meet a quality ‘threshold’. But we are old-hands at this outsourcing game and know how to tick all those boxes. It comes down to price.

We know that the MoJ is looking for a 30% cost saving. We are going to have to bid at around £20m per annum. For this, we will take on all court-directed activity, including new supervision orders for people receiving sentences of less than 12 months. It is not going to be easy! But our Board are very keen indeed for us to secure this contract. They have, after all, agreed with the shareholders some stretching growth targets that can only be achieved through new contract wins.

We will inherit in Area F the ‘newco’ of transferring probation staff. In order to make it work, we will have to: strip out overhead; look for significant redundancies on the frontline; take the remaining staff through a radical cultural change programme, rolling out a new rigour in performance management; and also find ways to deliver some of the court orders differently (for example, using call centres instead of face-to-face contact). This transformation programme is going to cost us a lot of money, which is obviously going to have to come out of the £20m too.

If we win the contract, the £20m will be paid to us in monthly installments. Only, it won’t be fixed at £20m for every year of the ten-year contract. It will be reviewed each year to take account of any fluctuation in volumes of offenders. It will also be reduced year-on-year, to make sure we keep improving and growing in efficiency.

If we fail to deliver what the courts require, then MoJ will claw money back. If re-offending rates increase in Area F, then MoJ will claw money back.

In an attempt to focus us closely on rehabilitation, we will only be able to earn profit, i.e. anything over and above the agreed service fee of £20m, if we demonstrate a reduction in re-offending. If we have a massive impact on re-offending, they will even let us earn “super profit”, though it will be capped. MoJ are calling this the Payment by Results (PbR) element.

So. We have to take the existing service, plus some extra supervision orders, and deliver it for 30% less money. The MoJ drive us to find efficiencies and to maintain effectiveness with the risk of clawbacks. Additional interventions, over and above the core court-directed service, will have to be funded either out of the money for that core activity or be investment we make at risk, in order to generate a return from profits.

Our initial focus must be just the core contract. We have a massive transformation to achieve. Let’s get the ‘newco’ knocked into shape. Let’s drive for a much smarter core service, targeting a small reduction in recidivism to mitigate the risk of clawback. If we can deliver this for less than the £20m agreed, then that’s our profit.

To show willing to MoJ, we could propose investing some money at risk. But our Board aren’t going to like it. We’ll try to hand that risk down to subcontractors, offering purely outcome-based payments, but after the Work Programme debacle, MoJ are discouraging this. We could try to draw in social investment, but that’s not particularly cheap money and there is, to be honest, insufficient potential return in the PbR element.

Conclusion

If the sort of service transformation indicated above is possible, then the Ministry will have outsourced 80% of probation services, maintaining the effectiveness of that service (i.e. with no increase in re-offending) and achieving a significant cost saving (c. £300m per annum). Assuming it’s financially viable and contractors don’t bid too cheaply and go bust, the proposed funding model addresses concerns over things like volume fluctuation and contractors ‘gaming’ the system or trying to cut corners.

What this certainly is not is a rehabilitation revolution. It is not a mechanism to deliver a big decrease in re-offending. In order for that to be the case, real returns would have to be possible from the introduction of entirely new services over and above court orders. This conflicts with the objective of cuts. Payment by Results or outcome-based funding does not necessarily mean additional results – when combined with simple cost-cutting it generally just means de-risking public expenditure through shifting to cash-on-delivery.

What a rehabilitation revolution requires is a ‘spend to save’ model. The savings are clearly there to be made. The MoJ cite the 2010 National Audit Office report, Managing Offenders on Short Custodial Sentences, which estimated that in 2007/8:

• The total cost to the economy of crime committed by recent ex-prisoners was between £9.5bn–£13bn;
• Of this, the cost of crime committed by offenders released from short prison sentences was around £7bn–£10bn a year.

To cut this waste, it is necessary to track the savings resulting from reduced re-offending and use a share of that saving to reward the investors who risk the spending in order to achieve it.

The biggest systemic challenge appears to be the fact that savings sit in different budgets. In this case, much of it actually sits within MoJ anyway, albeit within different silos of service delivery, such as the police, legal aid, courts, criminal injuries compensation and probation itself.

It is not helpful to pretend that this will be achieved within the outsourcing of probation. It could be commissioned hand-in-hand with that outsourcing but it demands a different contracting framework.

If it isn’t commissioned, the slashing of the budget will mean reduced spending delivers short-term savings. The jury will be out for some time on whether that level of spend also risks long-term rises in offending.

Courtesy of Richard Johnson at Buying Quality Performance

David Didau, @LearningSpy captures the issue of teaching with high expectations brilliantly and considers the impact of underestimating what students can do in this post: What does Gifted Mean Anyway?

Geoff Barton gives an excellent impassioned response to the suggestion that schools can be lumped together, battered by sweeping generalisations derived from flawed methodology and limited samples in Pass the G&T

Tim Dracup @GiftedPhoenix has argued that the KS2 to KS4 data does actually give cause for concern.

It seems to me that there is value in filtering out what value there is in the OfSTED report and use it as a tool for some self-evaluation. My understanding of these survey reports is that they are meant to explore some general issues; they are not meant to be turned into system-wide judgements and a line has been crossed in this case. Geoff is right to be irritated by the headlines and the general thrust of Michael Wilshaw’s comments when his school doesn’t match the description of a place that is failing the most able. The data doesn’t really stack up either because of the classic bell-curve standards delusion. More children get Level 5 than get A/A* on the bell curve; it is not surprising, therefore, when not all L5 children at KS2 get A/A* five years later. And if they did, there would be a national outcry about easy exams instead of a celebration of success. Tragic but true.

BUT, …from my perspective, it is important not to be defensive on behalf of the whole system when considering teaching the most able, however irritating these pronouncements and damnations are. In fact, as I say in my post about a Total Philosophy of G&T, I believe very firmly that if schools cracked the issue of teaching our most able students, then the whole system would be transformed; this suggests that we haven’t cracked it yet. The data doesn’t necessarily stack up in the way it is presented but, for me, the experience of schooling is just as important as the outcomes.

Let’s look at what OfSTED are saying in terms of recommendations:

The key OfSTED recommendations

Away from all the rhetoric and dodgy data, these recommendations make perfect sense. My first-hand experience and observation, as parent and school leader, is that expectations can be too low too and these recommendations ring true. How does your school rate against these recommendations? How much further can you go?  It is worth having a very deep, honest look. It isn’t about working hard or doing well despite the challenges….it is about completely meeting needs of the most able, regardless.

In my experience, it is true that some schools do not project a strong culture and ethos where very able students are championed; often bright students are regarded as ‘doing fine’ rather than being enabled and encouraged to find their true limits. I’ve spoken to Heads and teachers who are not entirely comfortable with the idea of academic excellence as an ethos-defining concept and, in their legitimate desire to promote inclusion, they are almost squeamish about talking about universities and Oxbridge. I’ve encountered this on various school visits and engagements and on the school Open Evening merry-go-round as I describe in this post. Some schools manage to project insecurity and lack of confidence rather than giving able students a deep belief that they too can go to the best universities or get the most challenging jobs.

I’d suggest that OfSTED is correct in highlighting KS2-KS3 transition  which is hardly a national success story; I hear this all the time. I’ve called it the Berlin Wall of our system and far too often, Y7s are babied and patronised instead of allowed to fly from the position they reached in Year 6. From Day One, some children are systematically under-challenged; they are not expected to work as hard as they could and their sights are set lower than they could be… in some schools. Maybe not yours..

Setting may not be a panacea but mixed ability teaching is difficult. It may be the most desirable mode of grouping for social inclusion; it may even lead to the best average rates of progress; but, very often, it is not done sufficiently well for the most able to thrive at their maximum capacity. They are held back. I’ve seen that too and I’ve measured it.  I’ve done it myself. The theoretical notion of mixed ability teaching often flounders on the limited capacity of a teacher to make it work; really work. We’re only human.

There could be more research for sure but I’d bet on outcomes that show quality of teaching is the key factor – not the grouping system, if you could apply the necessary research controls. So, for example, a lower ability group taught with high expectations by a great teacher would probably progress better than similar lower ability students in a mixed ability class taught by a mediocre teacher who teaches to the middle. This debate is polemicised too often, reduced to ‘setting is bad; mixed ability teaching is good’ or vice versa without looking at the precise configuration of sets, the quality of provision in each set, the expectations of the teachers, the curriculum and the parameters allowing students to move between sets – against the similar issues in a mixed ability class. The OfSTED recommendation is for schools to evaluate mixed ability teaching – not to abandon it. That seems fair enough to me.

The recommendations about homework and the general level of expectation at KS3 echo what I hear all the time from friends and colleagues, parents with children at my school who compare their experience with siblings at other schools and various school leaders and teachers. Before I joined KEGS, I would say that the most common complaint I received from parents as Head of Year or school leader was the lack of challenge at KS3. I’ve dealt with this issue over and over again; patchy homework, work that is too easy, lessons disrupted too often and teachers too accepting of work that is below par. The KS4/GCSE phase seems to kick everyone up a gear but  it’s a long time to wait for a bright kid in Year 8, once the Year 7 adrenalin has ebbed away.

As I’ve described in several other posts, arriving at KEGS opened my eyes to another world of expectations even though I’ve always been a vociferous champion for the most able. I don’t have time for people who dismiss this as merely elitist or tell me ‘it’s alright for you’ as if their students are not entitled to the same level of expectations as mine. As someone said on twitter recently; teaching 19th Century fiction is not elitist; not teaching it is elitist. I feel  the same about the level of challenge students experience. Instead of suggesting my school’s existence is inherently wrong, people could be saying – OK, let’s see what it would take to match that challenge; let’s get as close as possible to setting our expectations just as high. This is easier in some contexts than in others, of course. But can it be done? I believe so, if the intent is there.

Here is my take on what it looks like to succeed:

The Anatomy of High Expectations:

• Make teaching the most able students a top-line priority, even above narrowing gaps.  (This can be a false promise as I describe here.) Tell staff, students and parents that you will stop at nothing to make sure students find their very limits, intellectually as well as in other aspects of school life; expect them to do the same. It’s a nuanced balance. Teaching to the top, aggressively and with determination has benefits for all learners. Raising the ceiling is more powerful than pushing up the floor… in my opinion. Of course, you need to try both but the ceiling effect would be my priority.

• Embrace the language of excellence in all communications: assemblies, newsletters, staff briefings. Never diminish it; never characterise the most clever kids as freakish or even ‘brainy’. Normalise academic excellence; expect it; model it. Wrap up technical/vocational learning in a context that doesn’t ever set academic learning as beyond reach for anyone. If the Head or Head of Year is not comfortable being the voice of academic excellence, then someone else needs to be. Who is giving your messages? What are they saying? Are they inadvertently celebrating mediocrity? These things make a difference.

• Talk explicitly in terms of rigour and scholarship. I like the phrase ‘scholastic excellence’ used by OfSTED. What’s not to like? Talk about learning and studying as a reward in themselves; give value to academic pursuits in assemblies and public messages alongside pastoral concerns. Make it feel completely normal that students will do at least 5 hours of study per week in their own time, from the very first contact with parents. It could be more like 10 hours during KS4.

• Set lots of challenging homework; don’t allow the fact that some students find this challenging or the reality that not every student will do it to pull down standards in this area. The most able students in any school could be set a level of challenge to match any other..it is just a question of intent. If you reach a point where your most able students are struggling to cope with the volume, you might be in the territory of imposing limits – but otherwise, take the limits away. There is a lobby against homework. To me this is akin to arguing against learning poetry – it is elitism. It is an equal opportunities issue. It should not be up to a teacher to limit a child’s opportunity or capacity to study between lessons. Parents who don’t like it can simply rebel. Let them if they insist; but set the standards for the rest.

• Celebrate subject expertise and normalise intellectual debate as part of the diet of school life. Engage effective role-models who embody the joy of learning and studying and the success that results from hard work; showcase students who project confidence in using the language of academic learning. Make the use of technical language a high priority when evaluating the quality of teaching and learning. Are students routinely expected to give extended, reasoned answers? Are they at least given the opportunity to? Do teachers use CPD time to deepen their subject knowledge?

• Provide a curriculum that is challenging and aspirational as well as inclusive. EBacc is a horribly lame, deeply flawed construct – but only because we can do better than that; not because it is inherently unattainable. Be very rigorous in your evaluation of curriculum days and any blocks of time not allocated to formal learning.  Is it working – really? What do your most able students think? If they hate it, do you at least allow them to opt into something different. If it is too soft and woolly and the learning outcomes are too fuzzy and ephemeral…the value is probably too low to be justified. Be super critical about these things and very careful that the subliminal message is not ‘low expectations’.

• Ensure that technical / vocational learning has parity where this is in your curriculum by setting the same standards – not accepting lower standards.  BTEC Science is not  meant to be ‘easy Science’ – don’t let that happen or become the folklore if you are sincere in your view about parity of esteem. This debate is too one-sided; it is a challenge for Technical qualifications and the teachers of them to show that they are as rigorous as their academic counterparts…a challenge that has to be met, not given freely.

• Give students responsibility and the opportunity to be trusted both in terms of behaviour and learning. This links to the homework culture.  Overnight homework? Why not? Read the whole text over half-term break? No problem. Do a full three page essay in Year 7? Yes, of course. Accept that half-done scrappy piece of copying-out?  Absolutely no way!! Get the right balance in terms of supervision and trust -are you putting barriers in the way of students who would happily read quietly or get some work done in a classroom at lunchtime? Are you imposing restrictions on everyone just because of the poor behaviour of a few?

• Get the basics right and keep them tight.: Uniform, expectations of equipment, behaviour routines and so on.. but avoid giving a low expectations message. A student who will engage with a sign that says ‘Bring a Pen to Every Lesson’ probably doesn’t need to read it – but they get a different message: “We have very low expectations of you”. Similarly with uniform:  clip-on ties are low-expectations enshrined; any student who can wear a normal tie sensibly should be allowed to. Surely?  ( I enjoyed a jokey twitter exchange on this a while ago where we imagined students being issued with one-piece jump suits with a suit and tie printed on them, thus avoiding any shirt tuck or tie issues altogether). If you tolerate the Waterloo Road style, perhaps go non-uniform altogether. Make the behaviour policy learning focused and raise the bar continually. Harsh discipline that doesn’t lead to better learning is worse than anything in terms of buy-in from able learners.

• Avoid soft rewards that undermine high expectations.  There are teachers who give rewards for ‘opening the door’ or ‘sitting nicely on the carpet’. I think we can expect a bit more than that. My daughter’s rewards points are a source of great mirth among her friends because they are given liberally to people who do not model excellence; they are given to people as rewards for meeting the basic expectations the others already meet. It’s killed it. In any case you need 100s just to buy some rubbishy biros. Cheap rewards are not worth having.

• Take transition very seriously and make sure the Y6 taster day and  every lesson from Day One onwards feels like the lift-off they were expecting on hitting secondary school. Find out what they already know and take them from there…

If you are doing all this stuff already, then great. I know schools that do this and it shows. But if everyone was, I don’t think the OfSTED report could have been written. Let’s have a really good hard look at the reality and do whatever is necessary to raise the stakes.

Courtesy of Tom Sherrington at headguruteacher

Imagine if instead of saying “why doesn’t she leave him?” we said “why doesn’t he leave her?”. Imagine if we thought that the men who bully, threaten and intimidate women are responsible for their actions and that they should be the ones to leave.

Imagine if wondering why she puts up with it, we wonder why he does it in the first place.

Unsafe houses for him

Imagine if there was there a place they could go -  unsafe houses for abusive men. A place that would remove them from the situation to eliminate the risk of continuing violence against their current partners and future partners. A half way house between home and prison. Imagine if they were responsible for leaving their children behind. Imagine if these unsafe houses got government funding to run. Imagine if they were run by people trained to help men to take responsibility for their actions and get either professional help or punishment.

Emergency housing for him

Imagine if councils offered emergency housing for abusive men who felt they were at risk of abusing their partner again. Imagine if men were encouraged to get help when they needed it. Imagine if we thought that was okay.

His friends

Imagine if we heard people ask “why didn’t he leave earlier?” and “why don’t his friends help him leave?”. Imagine if we made helpful suggestions like “couldn’t he move in with his dad?”, “could he talk to his brother about it?”, “isn’t there somewhere he could go?” or “has he tried ringing the national helpline? Imagine if instead of thinking victims are silly for thinking their partners will change, we held men responsible for actually changing. Imagine if we thought this change was possible.

A men’s issue

Imagine if we thought that violence perpetrated against women by men was a Men’s Issue. Imagine if men became passionate and enthusiastic about solving this problem. Imagine men’s charities devoted to solving this Men’s Issue springing up all over the country. Imagine men collecting money for these charities, setting up unsafe houses, manning helplines and setting up advice centres for men who want to leave. Imagine male journalists and bloggers writing about it and tweeting about it. Imagine having a men’s minister dedicated to solving the problem.

Imagine well-funded and well-publicised university research into why men abuse their partners and what makes them stop. Imagine the tabloids enthusiastically reporting on this. Imagine government-funded public campaigns aimed at men urging them to get help.

His responsibility

Imagine if the men who commit domestic violence took responsibility for their actions. Imagine if other men helped them to do this. Imagine if it became possible for men to talk about their issue.

Imagine if it were that simple.

*This is a post about the abuse of women by men. This post is not about women abusing other women or men. Nor is it about men abusing men. My blog, my choice. If you don’t agree with my choice, please write your own blog.

Courtesy of Systems thinking for girls

And that is what the modern feminist movement has become. Full of intersectionality, debates about middle-class privilege, hand-wringing over a good education (this is again “privilege” and not well-deserved success), and otherwise intelligent women backing out of debates and sitting around frenziedly checking their privilege.

It does nothing. It accomplishes nothing. It changes nothing.

Laurie Penny defended the term.

Telling someone to “check their privilege” isn’t the same as censoring or silencing, but to people who aren’t often introduced to the concept that they might be wrong, it can sometimes feel that way. When someone asks you to check your privilege, it doesn’t mean you should stop talking – it means you should start listening, and sometimes that involves giving the other person in the room a chance to speak. That’s what often upsets people most about the whole idea. It’s about who gets to speak, and who has to listen, and social media is changing those rules.

I’ve been pondering this for a while, and I’m going to give a list of what I think are some of the problems with privilege-checking. Some have suggested that the only people who have an issue with being asked to check their privilege are those who are privileged themselves. Given that I’m white, male, straight, cisgender, middle-class and able-bodied, quite possibly I may be guilty as charged here.

But here’s something I’ve noticed about the often-virulent arguments between feminists on social media (anyone who says, “If feminism ruled the world, there’d be no war” doesn’t have a Twitter account). These are debates where I’m at best an ally and at worst merely an outside observer, but when I’ve criticised some of the discourse, I seem to get an easier ride than when those on the inside say the same thing. Why are those involved expending so much energy to hurl vitriol at other feminists like Louise Mensch, Caitlin Moran and Helen Lewis? Why aren’t they flaming me?

I suspect that might be one to file under, “Be careful what you wish for”.

Anyway, here’s what I think are some of the problems with saying, “check your privilege.”

1. Not all privileges and oppressions are immediately apparent.

When someone says “check your privilege”, it suggests that they know what privileges the other person has. Trouble is, there are plenty of hidden oppressions and privileges. A history of mental health problems and/or childhood abuse, for example. I recently spoke to a woman with an anxiety disorder who got Twitterstormed by various feminists who (wrongly) interpreted a comment by her as transphobic. Getting bombarded with abusive messages telling her to check her privilege for several hours prompted a mental health relapse.

Even apparently straightforward privileges/oppressions might not be especially visible, especially if all you know about someone is from their social media profile. I spoke to a woman who’d been accused of showing her “white privilege”. When she pointed out that she’s actually mixed-race, she got the retort that since she could pass for white, she still has white privilege.

2. It’s patronising and dismissive.

I’ve actually seen some suggestions that Stephen Fry, when talking about his mental health problems, is doing so from a “privileged” perspective. Admittedly that was said before he disclosed his recent suicide attempt, but even so, do we really want to tell people with a mental illness to check their privilege? Sounds a little too close to, “Chin up, you could be starving in Africa.”

3. Privileges and oppressions don’t necessarily affect prejudices in straightforward, linear ways.

This point leads me onto the question whether we should really be talking about prejudice rather than privilege. There seems to be an assumption in “check your privilege” that more privileged = more prejudiced and more oppressed = less prejudices. Okay, there’s plenty of examples where that’s true, but by no means always. George Orwell was educated at Eton, and went on to become one of the sharpest observers of injustice and the abuse of power in English literary history. Or there’s Joe Strummer, the son of a diplomat.

Sadly it can also be the case that some people subject to various oppressions can internalise the oppressor’s logic, and even applying it to their fellow oppressed. There isn’t a shortage of people on benefits who will tell you that there’s too many benefit scroungers in this country – though they’d frequently be mortified if someone suggested that they might be seen in the same way by others. Likewise, a while back I had a conversation with a Nigerian-born woman, and was surprised to discover that her views on immigration were well to the right of mine. She simply didn’t view herself as that sort of immigrant.

4. Privilege isn’t the only thing that affects prejudice.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying privilege doesn’t affect prejudice. It can affect it a lot. But it’s not the only thing – what about your life experiences, the people you’ve met, your cultural background, the books (and blogs and Twitter feeds) that you’ve read? this is why I think it’s better to have a wider discussion about prejudice (of which privilege can be a part) rather than talking simply about privilege.

5. It talks at people rather than with people.

Laurie Penny insists that “check your privilege” is an invitation to listen rather than telling someone to shut up. That’s fine in principle, but having seen it used in various Twitter flame-wars, it’s clear that all too often it does get used as a shorthand for, “You are male/white/straight/cis/able-bodied therefore argument invalid.”

And even if it is used as an invitation to listen, is the other person also listening? I actually agree with Penny that social media is changing the way people communicate, but for slightly different reasons. Social media changes the old world of books and newspapers from one in which ideas are presented to the public, into one in which those ideas are co-created by people talking and listening with each other rather than ateach other.

I’ve actually found blogs and Twitter to be powerful tools in challenging and reshaping my prejudices. I can hear about the lives of prisoners through @PrisonerBen or sex workers such as @itsjustahobby or @pastachips - two groups that tend to be talked about or to rather than with. Just recently I’ve been reading about the experience of having a gender identity that doesn’t fit into a binary male/female divide from @halfabear and @jaspergregory – a group that’s barely written about at all. But these people didn’t change my thinking through, “I’m going to tell you about your life and what you think”, which is what “check your privilege” does. They did so by saying, “I’d like to invite you to hear about my life and my thoughts.”

Ultimately, I don’t think people’s views are changed by simply tweeting “check your privilege” at each other, and in that sense it fails in its purpose. It doesn’t get the recipient to think differently. If anything, it’s the obsolete old media thinking of talking at people rather than with them. I think views are changed through civil constructive discourse where people tell each other about their own lives rather than presuming to tell someone else about theirs.

Courtesy of Phil Doré, also known as Zarathustra, at The Not So Big Society

As part of its commitment to improve policymaking, in March the Government announced  its plans for a new network of ‘what works’ evidence centres, responsible for gathering, assessing and sharing the “most robust evidence to inform policy and service delivery.” The Government claims that these evidence centres – from health and education, to crime and local economic growth – will “drive better decisions across £200 billion of public services.” The evidence centres are welcome, but this isn’t the whole picture. On their own, they represent a relativity small investment – for example, the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth will have core funding of £1 million a year over an initial three year term, jointly funded by the ESRC (50 per cent), BIS, and DCLG (both 25 per cent).

Last week, the Economist suggested that the Government is showing a “worrying disregard for data”, noting the decisions by the Department for Education to abolish a survey on drinking, drug-taking and bullying among children, the Department for Communities and Local Government to scrap surveys on local services and the Citizenship Survey on community cohesion (something which generated significant discussion when it was announced in 2011), and the apparent desire to do away with the current census. (This follows the criticism made of many departments for their use and presentation of official statistics). So what is actually happening to government research?

The first thing to note is that, despite the Government’s commitment to ‘open data’, it’s not easy to find out what departments spend on research. The lack of common reporting across departments inhibits clear comparisons; sadly, it’s also not possible to search easily by department for research commissions on the Government’s Contracts Finder, due to the lack of meaningful categorisation and tagging. As a result, we’ve taken a look at the annual reports and accounts of the six government departments of most interest to us in social policy – but even then the actual spending allocated to research isn’t always clear.

Department for Education

During 2011-12 the DfE spent a total of £12.1 million on research and evaluation, including studies on the children’s workforce, providing improved support for families, and safeguarding children. Core department spending was £11.58 million – down from £24,72 million the year before. (It’s also worth noting however that the DfE has published an ‘Evidence and analytical review‘ suggesting research priorities for academic researchers.)

Department for Work and Pensions

DWP spent £8.6 million on research and development in 2011-12, down from £21.7 million in 2010-11. Most of this (£7.1 million) was under ‘Programme costs’, with £1.5 million under ‘Administration costs’; all of it was in the wider ‘Departmental group’ of agencies rather than the core department.

The other point to note about the DWP is that there has been significant criticism of its contracts under the Work Programme, whereby detail is often hidden behind a cloak of ‘commercial in confidence’. Under such an approach, data on the effectiveness of interventions is hidden behind prime contractors who only have to report at a high level; making available more fine-grained data on performance within their supply chain is effectively the responsibility of these prime contractors (something we have written about before). Further, evaluations tend to be skewed towards how effective the commissioning model is rather than how the programme affects people.

Department for Communities and Local Government

DCLG is the only department of the six that breaks down its research spending into DEL and AME, and ‘Resource spending’ and ‘Capital spending’; it also (again uniquely) describes it as ’Research, Data and Trading Funds’, which isn’t further broken down, thus making a clearer picture of spending only on research impossible. In terms of Resource spending, DEL has increased to £34.4 million in 2011-12 (from £34.27 million in 2009-10), while AME has increased to £61.45 million from £31.19 million – but according to data from BIS (on a broader definition), CLG spent £16 million on ‘R&D’ in 2010-11 (the most recent statistics available), down almost 50 percent on the previous year.

Department of Health

DH is (unsurprisingly) by far the biggest spender on research among these departments. The department spent £952 million on research and development in 2011-12; of this £920 million was provided to the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). Then there is the Health Research Authority (HRA), a newly formed NHS organisation established in December 2011 as a ‘Special Health Authority’, to ‘protect and promote the interests of patients and the public in health research’, which has a budget of £3.6 million.

Ministry of Justice

The core Justice department spent £1.47 million on research and development under ‘Administration costs’ in 2011-12 (including the wider departmental group increases this total to £1.54 million), and £581,000 under ‘Programme costs’ (a total of £1.27 million including the wider departmental group). The administration spending was only marginally down from 2010-11, but the programme research spending has seen a marked decrease – from £2.04 million (core department) and £2.81 million (wider group) respectively.

Home Office

No research spending was recorded in the Home Office’s accounts – although support for the analysis used in the Winsor Review (including reviewing the evidence base on performance related pay) and the establishment of the Organised Crime Research Virtual Network are listed under ‘Achievements’ in the accounts, and priorities for 2012-13 apparently include ‘supporting academic research on the carbon cost of crime’ (!). According to data from BIS, the Home Office spent £42 million on (a wider definition of) ‘R&D’ in 2010-11, a small decline on previous years and significantly down on the high of £83 million in 2005-6.

Of course, direct spending by government departments is not the only investment that government makes in research, for example funding for higher education research is mainly provided by HEFC and the UK research councils. But this too is decreasing; as recorded by the ONS, in 2011 the Government’s ‘in-house R&D expenditure’ decreased by 7%, while research councils’ R&D expenditure decreased by 11% to £1 billion in 2011.

From one perspective it’s unsurprising that research budgets have been cut when overall departmental budgets have been seriously squeezed; however, previous analysis of the cuts to research up to 2011 showed that they were ‘disproportionate’, exceeding overall departmental reductions. Further, research is such a tiny part of government expenditure overall that there is a strong case to protect it even in a time of cuts, especially since the Government as a whole is claiming to want to be more evidence-based.

The decline in many department’s support for research (both commissioned directly and in terms of academic research) also means a greater reliance for policy-relevant research on other actors, such as think tanks and charities, with the resulting risk that public policy is increasingly informed by more partisan or partial research – or in some cases, no research at all.

Those people familiar with the IB will not need any convincing  – it is a superb programme in many respects. There is built-in breadth of learning, the opportunity to complete an extended essay, an element of Theory of Knowledge interwoven with every subject and value given to Creativity, Action and Service – the ethos-defining CAS programme. We also felt that the GCSEs gave students a superb preparation for the IB in a way that the IB Middle Years Programme didn’t – at least not at the time.

The IB Diploma

In Jakarta, CAS permeated the entire school ethos and we also adopted the IB Learner Profile as a whole-school tool for shaping our thinking on teaching and learning.  These components have far greater significance that their points value on the IB, where only 3 points are given beyond the 6 x7 points for the three Higher and three Standard subjects.

However, the IB is not perfect or universal. The rigid subject groups make it difficult for students to undertake a specialised programme – say three sciences and certainly not two arts subjects.  It is also too demanding overall for a large proportion of learners; at least it was before the introduction of the new IBCCs -  Career-related Certificates. There are also some inherent inconsistencies in standards – some languages and maths courses have points parity despite representing different levels of attainment. Interestingly, IB schools are expected to work with integrity in terms of putting students in for appropriately challenging courses instead of the easiest ones. They also have responsibility for verifying completion of the CAS component and ensuring that the content is of high quality. Despite these issues, and reliance on centres to act in certain ways, the IB has credibility worldwide, allowing students to enter almost any profession or university course.

Arriving in the UK to take on the Headship at KEGS, the IB was being hotly debated. I was clear that the IB represented a superior framework to the standard 3 A level package. We undertook a thorough feasibility study into the possibility of running the IB. A number of things became clear immediately:

1) There was a deep commitment to the flexibility offered by A Levels in my school. Many students take three sciences and maths;  many take multiple humanities subjects – History, Economics and Philosophy, for example; the possibility of taking both Art and Theatre Studies is important to some. In general there is a feeling that the IB can squeeze out the arts.

2) Given the commitment to A levels, the only option would be to run IB and A levels in parallel and, by our calculations, this would be unsustainable in terms of staffing and costs. It would have to be all or nothing.

3) We felt that we matched the IB in our general provision anyway:  most students at KEGS engage in a wide range of CAS-type activities, they all take General Studies and almost all take at least four A Levels in addition to that; in fact many take five. So – why bother?

It was an easy decision, therefore, to stick with A Levels. For other reasons, we have introduced Pre-U English, the excellent Global Perspectives and Research course and increasingly, students are taking the Extended Project alongside General Studies.  Despite the quality of provision overall, there is still a piecemeal feel to our curriculum; we pack it out with activities and rigour; we offer a very broad and challenging education and have our own distinctive ethos rich in international perspectives – but it doesn’t all hang together quite like the IB.

When Michael Gove announced the EBacc as a new performance measure, I was incensed. I have no objection to incentivising schools to offer a broad KS4 curriculum including the chance to take a GCSE in Languages and Humanities – but the EBacc measure is so crude,  so rigid and was introduced in such a crass manner – it was infuriating. We have wasted the concept of an English Baccalaurate – the EBacc – on something utterly pathetic compared to the IB. The lack of vision inherent in this decision still galls me.

When the EBacc Certificates were being mooted, prior to being abandoned after what must have been one of the most one-sided, negative DFE consultation responses, I felt it was time to suggest something better and was determined to reclaim English Baccalaureate as the title of something with meaning and substance.  The key thinking in my initial model was this:

• We need one system for the country; a system that is inclusive, allowing different levels of success at Levels below Level 3.
• We need to match the IB for rigour and breadth – but introduce flexibility to specialise in the way that three A levels allows.
• We need to ensure that we give value to elements of education that go beyond subjects and exams.
• We need to find a way to give technical learning a home alongside academic learning.
• We need to think about a model with terminal qualifications aged 18, not 16.

I wrote this up in this post  EBacc for All; Excellence for All

Then things moved on:  The Headteachers’ Roundtable formed, ran an alternative  consultation on the EBC issue and then held a conference. I presented my ideas alongside other people’s and we then started to work on an alternative together. I think the solution we came up with is very powerful. It includes the idea of progressive grades, along the lines of Piano Grades, to measure attainment. With input from Special and Primary Heads, we devised a model that could be a universal framework for assessment across the system. It is recorded on the Headteachers’ Roundtable site here.

The Headteachers’ Roundtable Bacc Framework

The potential for this system is immense. However, just now, we’re not in a position to put it into practice because it would require us to redefine all existing qualifications to fit the 1-8 Grading system. It is a vision for the future.

Following this piece of work, we were approached by members of the organisation Whole Education who were looking for a model to roll out via a set of Pathfinder Schools, signed up to the ‘Better Bacc’ principles that they had been putting together. Their values line up very closely with ours at HTRT:

The Whole Education organisation’s values

Working with Whole Education, supported with input from City&Guilds – for their knowledge of technical/vocational qualifications, we’ve come up with an exciting model that could be implemented straight away. It is detailed on the HTRT site here:  The English Baccalaureate Pathfinder Model

I love it. We’ve managed to find a proper way to include technical learning within the overall framework so it is not a separate ‘Tech Bacc’. We’ve also created a points system that might pave the way to removing grades from our qualifications altogether. No more cliff edges. Below is the Advanced Bacc in detail. It provides an A level/BTEC framework to match the IB; it would allow the IB to line up with A levels in a  very integrated way, to the point where the IB might not even be needed it the Personal Development Programme contained a TOK course and CAS for all.

The Advanced Baccalaureate: A representation of a rounded education.

I am going to sign my school up to be a pathfinder. I want to evaluate this idea alongside the others, feeding in our experiences and working towards an genuine alternative; an IB for England. The full document on the HTRT site has a page of questions that we want to answer. The idea is to shadow the implementation of the Bacc framework, looking to see how it fits and what additional provision might be required.

Working with various people at HTRT, Whole-Education and locally in Essex I’m looking forward to exploring how various learners could fit into this system; does it work for everyone? A student on a L2 or L3 Apprenticeship attending college on day-release? A student with a mixed bag of GCSEs doing a mix of BTECs and an A Level? A student taking 12 GCSEs and 5 A levels? A student with special needs for whom L1 is a challenge?

I think it could work well at KEGS. To make it look simple for my students it could be represented like this:

How the KEGS version of the English Bacc might look.

The Personal Development Programme we would put together would be brilliant – and we’d have a framework for it to fit into that would allow us to ensure all students are included, not just those who opt in. The PRP would be our CAS – permeating throughout the school. There is more detail on this on the HTRT website and more to follow. The idea of a centre-devised element to the Bacc framework is very powerful.

The overarching accreditation is an area we are exploring. John Tomsett and I are talking to various university contacts to see if they will act as an accrediting body for the purposes of the pathfinding process. That will give the Bacc some credibility with students even while it is in a trial phase. Nothing has been confirmed yet but I’m sure someone will offer!

We’re not there yet, but I am starting to believe that the tide is turning in our favour. There is still too much fiddling and tinkering with GCSEs and Alevels without a broader vision… but the case for a proper English Bacc is very strong and I think we’ll get there in the end; we just need schools to show it can work and politicians with a bit of steel and genuine vision. Once we have this in place, we can then concentrate on all the things that will really raise the bar in our system -improving teaching and learning and raising aspirations.

Come on people – it is there for the taking.

Courtesy of Tom Sherrington at headguruteacher

Apart from the odd day trip, this was Phyl`s first escape from the demands of looking after dad, whose dementia is really taking hold.

Sometimes you can only understand the pressures on a single carer by `doing the math` to work out how you`d cover them. So–to replace one Phyllis for two and a half days, and two nights?  Five people: three professionals to deal with his `personal` care round the clock, plus, armed with copious amounts of chocolate: my sister and I .

How did we feel? Anxious. A weekend `in charge` of our beloved dad, who`s spent a lifetime doting on us, guiding and protecting us–and is now frail, with Alzheimer`s. His health problems meant this would be a total reversal of roles. When you have a toddler, you note the development of each new motor, speech or social skill with pride. When you have a dad with dementia, you watch each one disappear, with sorrow.

Before we arrived, we wondered, to be honest, if his increasing sleepiness would make our `job` easier. It`s true, there were `nodding off in the chair` times when we could get ahead with laundry or preparing food. There were `not really sure what to do` moments where we re-loaded with coffee, and chocolate, and more chocolate, `to keep us going`….and just about muddled through.

But there were angry, befuddled moments too. He had a rant about, of all things, the political situation in Turkey –we just about kept up with that. But those flashes of anger surfaced several times when reminded, gently, that the carer had arrived to help with various, personal tasks. He responded on two occasions with a heartbreaking mix of confusion, hurt pride, incredulity that carers were even needed, and eventually, a complete, stubborn refusal to budge.

That`s the short version of a couple of `scenes` that lasted about an hour each, and ended , inevitably, in tears.

My sister and I had coped with all kinds of conflict at home and at work. We`d survived professional prima donnas, achingly long hours, crushed commuter trains and domestic toddler tantrums. We`d emerged unscathed from those `five minutes to get to work` mornings where your three year old`s in PJs, face smeared with raspberry jam; not budging from under the kitchen table. We`d faced, and defused dad`s wrath when, as teenagers, we`d try and sneak back home three hours late, hoping he hadn`t heard the click of the lock or the quiet swoosh of boyfriends` motorbikes being rolled silently down the road before being fired into life once clear of the house, round the corner. We`d convinced him that our two week teen breaks to Majorca and Rimini wouldn`t be a licence for moral turpitude. (They were). We`d discussed things. Negotiated.

But now, his mind is addled; hard to reason with. You might think your points are persuasive, but they`ve sometimes been forgotten by the end of your sentence.

There were bright times, too. He didn`t fancy our attempts to rekindle his talents for art, or piano playing.

But a `quick coffee` out in the front garden melted into three or four hours soaking up the sun, watching village life, squinting at the frothy vapour trails from silver birds high in the blue skies above, wondering together where they were heading. More coffees, ice lollies, more chocolate, a hug from a neighbour who`d spotted us sitting together and dashed across the lawn to say hello. And, best of all, the moment Dad,  in the straw hat he`d chosen for his venture outside, beamed at both of us, proclaiming `this is the life !`

Meanwhile, under the same sun in Bournemouth, Phyl was lapping up the sea view, strolling along the prom; hopping on a bus for a day trip to Swanage, relaxing in a hot bath without worrying what Dad was up to, and slipping into her new dress for dinner.

She deserved that escape, and many more. For all she does, we consider Phyl to be one in a million, but in fact she`s one of six and a half million carers in this country. We survived our weekend with dad, through professional agencies, sisterly support, caffeine and chocolate. And we`ll be back. But real, regular carers face daily difficulties and challenges 24/7, with varying degrees of help. Carers` Week, on now, aims to highlight some of the problems they face, part of a vital, ongoing campaign to give them the benefits, the back up, and the breaks, they all need.

http://www.carersuk.org

Courtesy of Jane McIntyre at Once a journalist…

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968 

“Education still hasn’t learned that poorly designed curricula generate poor performance in both teacher and students.”

Siegfried Engelmann, Academic Child Abuse, 1992

Confused cargo cult ideas are damaging education

In their early encounters with Westerners, Pacific islanders saw cargo being delivered to islands from the sky. What seemed to them to draw in cargo were headphones, handsignals and landing strips. To attract deliveries of goods, they set up ‘cargo cults’ to build crude imitation landing strips and mimic the handsignals they observed of the people operating them, using coconut shells as headphones. They were then puzzled when the goods failed to materialise.

Some time in the late 20^th and turn of the 21^st century, the educational establishment in England took a historic and disastrous wrong turn. Knowledge became mistrusted as limiting and elitist. Facts were branded as useless for the future economy and obsolete due to new technology. Teacher-led instruction was pilloried as passive, boring and ineffective. Subjects were denoted as oppressive constructs and arbitrary middle-class inventions that risked indoctrinating students, reproducing hegemonic values and entrenching social inequalities. So runs the argument of a new book published next week, Seven Myths about Education, which this blog post summarises and reviews.

The alternative recommended by educationalists, this book continues, was to teach transferable skills, ideally through independent projects. It traces these ideas back to admired education theorists John Dewey and Paulo Freire, all the way up to their modern-day inheritors Guy Claxton and Ken Robinson. Today, Freire’s books have sold 1 million copies, and Sir Ken Robinson’s videos on TED and Youtube have had over 30 million views. The RSA’s Opening Minds competency curriculum is inspired by this philosophy and is taught in over 200 schools in England. The influence of these ideas is unquestionable. The inheritors have seized the mantle of trailblazing progressives and announced themselves as pioneering innovators.

Given the history of education, all this seems like a puzzling historical accident: how had facts and knowledge become so tainted? For there is another tradition of egalitarian educationalists brought to light by this book, for whom knowledge was not indoctrination, but liberation. Marxist critic Antonio Gramsci wrote in 1923 that it was precisely a move away from knowledge-led instruction that would ‘perpetuate and crystallise social differences’. For labour leader Robert Tressell in 1910, knowledge was not middle-class:

Civilization – the accumulation of knowledge which has come down to us from our forefathers – is the fruit of thousands of years of human thought and toil. It is not the result of the labour of the ancestors of any separate class of people who exist today, and therefore it is by right the common heritage of all.

The extraordinary working-class efforts in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries to gain knowledge through great literature documented by Jonathan Rose in his book, The Intellectual Lives of the British Working Classes, belie the notion that high culture somehow belongs to an elite.

Similarly, the little-known story of Siegfried Engelmann is of another egalitarian educationalist whose astonishingly effective method of instruction achieved excellent results for disadvantaged pupils, but whose ideas seem to have been systematically silenced by the educational establishment. Likewise, the story of E.D. Hirsch is revealing. Hirsch realised that knowledge builds on knowledge: the more pupils know, the more they learn, but poorer pupils lack the cultural capital to achieve academically. Motivated by a burning sense of injustice, Hirsch’s curriculum is built on the idea that ‘cultural literacy is the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children and combating educational inequality.’ The unprecedented success of the state inspired by his ideas, Massachusetts, shows that knowledge works. These egalitarians argue that knowledge isn’t elitist; what’s elitist is withholding it. Knowledge is liberating, and these educators working towards equality and progress know that.

So how have we got to the puzzling situation where many modern progressives have aligned themselves with ultra-elitists in restricting high culture to the elite? It’s too simplistic to laud ‘traditionalists’ and blame ‘progressives’. The puzzle of how knowledge became toxic is better explained like this: it’s postmodernism, with all its scepticism of the value of truth and knowledge, rather than progressivism, that is the culprit.

The author of this new book, Daisy Christodoulou, is fired up by the same egalitarian impulse as Gramsci, Engelmann and Hirsch. Far from being a crusty old traditionalist who yearns nostalgically for an elitist golden age, the author has spent her twenties teaching in inner-city comprehensive schools, working against educational inequality. Her book is essential reading for anyone in education who wants to fully understand what’s at stake in education reform today.

Much of the heated disagreement in education seems to be over structures. As the introduction points out, ‘both left and right prefer structural solutions to education problems’. Over a decade of reform has focused on governance, with New Labour introducing academies and the Coalition introducing free schools, with much heat but little light. Instead, this book shines the spotlight on what matters most: what actually gets taught in classrooms, and how it gets taught. Amid all the red herrings in the educational thoughtworld, this focus on ideas rather than institutions is refreshing.

In its focus, this book recasts the debate on knowledge and skills, away from the resort of dismissing it as ‘false dichotomy’, or politicising it as a ‘Trojan horse’ for right-wing or left-wing ideology, to being a vital issue for education reformers tackling inequality. In this view, knowledge and skills cannot be separated, a bit like, in Hirsch’s analogy, scrambled eggs.

You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs

Over seven chapters, a powerful critique emerges of the educational status quo as it exists today. Hugely erudite and mercifully jargon-free, it’s a riveting attack on received wisdom. Lucid prose and sharp anecdotes reverberate with indignation:

‘After I’d been teaching for three years, I took a year out to do further study. I was shocked to stumble across an entire field of educational and scientific research which completely disproved so many of the theories I’d been taught when training and teaching. I wasn’t just shocked; I was angry. I felt as though I’d been led up the garden path. I had been working furiously for three years, teaching hundreds of lessons, and a whole lot of information which would have made my life a whole lot easier and would have helped my pupils immeasurably had just never been introduced to me. Worse, ideas which had absolutely no evidence backing them up had been presented to me as unquestionable axioms… My central argument is that much of what teachers are taught about education is wrong, and that they are encouraged to teach in ineffective ways’.

The book exposes the following ideas as pervasive but ineffective in our education system: that facts are unhelpful; that teacher-led instruction is passive; that the 21^stcentury makes knowledge unnecessary; that technology makes memory obsolete; that we should teach transferable skills distinctly; that projects are more effective than subjects; and that knowledge is indoctrination. All share modes of thinking similar to the primitive cargo cults on Pacific islands. They look at how experts, scientists or historians learn, work or think, then try to replicate their transferable skills, independent thinking, and project-based approach. But this is about as effective as using coconut shells to get cargo from the skies:

‘I share the aims of many of the people whose methods I disagree with. But the methods we are currently using to achieve these aims simply do not work. The main reason why they do not work is because of a misguided, out-dated and pseudoscientific stigma against the teaching of knowledge’.

Taken together, these myths act as a seven-headed hydra, whose heads regenerate, rear themselves over decades of discussions over teaching, and according to the author, ‘damage the education of our pupils’. The logic builds its momentum to a striking crescendo:

‘The fundamental ideas of our education system are flawed. When one looks at the scientific evidence about how the brain learns and at the design of our educational system, one is forced to conclude that the system actively retards education’.

This upends the education debate. Seven Myths gathers the evidence from cutting-edge cognitive science about the vital importance of knowledge in memory and cognition to uproot an entrenched status quo and concludes: ‘there is nothing elitist about powerful knowledge: what is elitist is the suggestion that such knowledge belongs to an elite… It’s sometimes said that those who want to teach knowledge want to take us back to the 19^thcentury. In fact the reverse is true. It’s those who don’t want to teach knowledge who want to take us back to the 19^th century. For when we consider the 19^th century, we see that for many of the elites at the time were extremely reluctant to teach knowledge tothe masses, on the grounds that it would make them ‘refractory and seditious’.Combining historical analysis with modern scientific research, this should strike a resounding chord with anyone who wants to see education become more equitable.

The author is uncompromising in confronting the predictable challenges to this argument. But how do we decide what knowledge to teach? Why do pupils need it anyway? Who is to say which knowledge to teach? How do we ensure it’s not biased or unrepresentative? How do we decide which disciplines and which concepts pupils should learn? What about the concerns over facts that are inappropriate or irrelevant? These concerns are comprehensively rebutted in the final chapter, thoroughly debunking the notion that knowledge indoctrinates rather than liberates: ‘If we fail to teach knowledge, pupils fail to learn. Unless we place the powerful and liberating force of knowledge at the heart of our education system, our education system will continue to fail our pupils and to deepen inequality’.

Millennial madness: is the educational status quo entrenching inequality?

Just how sound is the research that this book is built on? It’s water-tight. Comprehensive, reliable and significant evidence of modern teaching practice across 228 lessons descriptions from the 9 most recent OFSTED subject reports in Maths, Science, Religious Education, Art, History, Geography, Modern Foreign Languages and English establishes a firm bedrock. The historical analysis of the long theoretical and practical pedigree of each myth is credible and authoritative. The synthesis of decades of scientific research is diligent and scrupulous. Great lengths have been taken to amass an impressive array of evidence that these myths, far from being straw men, are dominant, dangerous and damaging.

History is littered with unfulfilled prophecies. So it’s probably best to leave predicting the future to the soothsayers and crystal-ball gazers. I’m no futurologist, but I will go so far as to speculate that this book from Daisy Christodolou is likely to cause consternation in the educational establishment and change minds in the teaching profession over the next few decades. I’d be fascinated to hear from my colleagues who are ardent advocates of the skills agenda as to whether this book sets out a compelling enough case for them to consider taking up the cause of powerful knowledge in the curriculum.

Next week in this blog, I turn to this controversial area of the curriculum, and explore the implications of the importance of coherent, cumulative knowledge.

*** 

Seven Myths in Education is out on Tuesday 18^th June on Amazon Kindle, and available via the free Kindle app on iPhones, ipads, Macs, PCs and android smartphones.

Daisy Christodoulou and Guy Claxton are speaking on the same panel on Friday 21^st June at 2pm at the Wellington Festival of Education.

Seven Myths in brief

1. Facts prevent understanding

Myth: Facts are inert

Reality: Facts are foundations

2. Teacher-led instruction is passive

Myth: Directed instruction is counterproductive

Reality: Directed instruction is effective

3. The 21^st century fundamentally changes everything

Myth: The future economy makes learning facts pointless

Reality: In a knowledge economy, knowledge is a prerequisite for innovation

4. You can just look it up

Myth: The Internet makes memory obsolete

Reality: Long-term memory is crucial for thinking well

5. We should teach transferable skills

Myth: Most skills transfer easily across subject content

Reality: Few skills transfer easily across subjects

6. Projects and activities are the best way to learn

Myth: Physical activity always enhances thinking and remembering

Reality: Physical activity often crowds out thought and memory

7. Knowledge is not indoctrination

Myth: Prescribing knowledge is a right wing ideology

Reality: Sequencing knowledge is crucial for critical thinking skills

Courtesy of Joe Kirby at Pragmatic Education

It would seem poverty rates came out today and I don’t suppose you need me to tell you they’ve gone up.

Nonetheless, @DWPpressoffice are valiantly tweeting that some relative poverty levels have gone done and Hallelujah, 100,000 disabled people are no longer living in poverty!!

How can this be? During the single biggest assault on the living standards, security and dignity of disabled people this country has ever known, disability poverty has FALLEN?

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the miracle of Atos!

You see, if you tell hundreds of thousands of people with MS and cancer and Parkinson’s and heart failure that Lo! With one wave of the Atos magic wand, kindly supplied by the DWP, they are no longer disabled, then they can’t be disabled people living in poverty any more can they?

Nope, they’re just, erm, people living in poverty, hence the overall rise.

Cunning little foxes aren’t they?

Courtesy of Sue Marsh at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

“…..our well regarded good ship ASPT is sailing along effectively, well helmed, brilliantly crewed and partnered, but it is now entering as yet poorly charted waters. As well as taking actions to avoid rocks and grounding we have to consider how best to ensure that our effective services have the best chance of improvement, continuity and survival and that our staff have the best future opportunities. In short, what sort of craft or ‘lifeboat’ might we in ASPT need to build to meet these objectives?”

Skilfully written in a measured tone, the document seeks to convey to staff as much information as possible that can be gleaned from the Transforming Rehabilitation process, aka omnishambles. It’s clear from reported meetings with the MoJ/Noms TR team that there are still loads of unanswered questions as the whole shambolic process begins to gain momentum, but I’m sure something will be cobbled together.

As with other Trusts, Avon and Somerset are busy talking to other interested parties in the hope that some form of ‘lifeboat’ can be constructed in order to try and keep some staff safe and dry and ready to crew some new probation vessel.* The document makes clear that ASPT is ‘not rushing into anything’, but the outlined timetable and obvious hurdles involved must make any such viable initiative highly unlikely.

In the meantime reports are beginning to emerge of some Trusts using the annual staff appraisal process to assess the degree to which individual staff members are willing to ‘embrace’ the TR agenda. Very naughty!

The Welsh government have made it clear that they want nothing to do with the TR proposals and are demanding that responsibility for probation in Wales is transferred to the Welsh Assembly. Plaid Cymru have confirmed their opposition to the privatisation plans and we wait to see if the government is prepared to devolve responsibility, leaving just England to go it alone.

Interestingly a recent article in the Daily Telegraph by Peter Oborne hints at unease within Tory ranks that Conservative radicalism ‘has gone too far’.

“If anything this admirably radical administration deserves criticism for doing too much. In its urgent ambition to leave an enduring mark on society, it is arguably in danger of trying to make too many changes at once. 

But there is also a deeper criticism. There are too many radicals at the heart of the Cameron government – and not enough Conservatives. These radicals fail to share the Conservative insight that continuity matters more than change, and stability more than either. Conservatives understand that there is a great deal to be said for leaving things alone. They respect the wisdom of the past, the necessity to preserve inherited institutions, and the rule of law.

This is the reason we Conservatives, contrary to popular opinion, value a strong state, so long as it is virtuous and not corrupt. We do not (as many believe) merely value a powerful state for purposes of national defence and to uphold law and order. All serious Conservative thinkers grasp that only the state can embody all those ideals which bind us together, and which count for so much more than self interest.”

Yes that really is from the Daily Telegraph and sounds like a case for keeping the probation service as it is to me.

The petition can still be found here.

*Some might say a better analogy is up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle.

Courtesy of Jim Brown at On Probation Blog

The scale of the non-payment and part-payments of the tenant rent shortfall the bedroom tax creates is giving shockwaves in the boardroom of every social landlord. Nobody predicted this level of arrears increases and it has surprised everyone. While the early figures are just that, early, they are huge and if they continue then doubtless many social landlords will get into deep financial trouble and some WILL fold or be taken over by the larger groups. Yet even they are not immune and while I doubt the huge 54,000 home strong Riverside group will go bust their early figures of 50% zero payment and 25% part payment are alarming. As are the figures for YHN in Newcastle or HHT in Halton both much smaller HAs and there are plenty of other examples too.

While it is easy to be a doom scaremongerer and take these early figures as evidence of impending crisis, there is genuine reason for alarm.  The bedroom tax is less financially damaging to landlords than the benefit cap and direct payment of HB to tenants. Worse ‘reform’ is to come in other words. These early bedroom tax figures are in the context of the added pressures these later reforms will bring and I doubt other contextual factors such as welfare benefit increase below inflation while household expenditure such as gas, food, electricity all are rising at higher than inflation have yet to fully kicked in.

Landlords response has, not surprisingly but stupidly in my view, been to ramp up arrears collection activities. It is not stupid that landlords are doing this just the way they are going about it and this is one area where social landlords need to stop and think. In fact social landlords really do need to think clearly and fully for the first time – I would say have a rethink ordinarily yet I don’t believe they thought about and considered the welfare reform impacts at all.

One example of this is the benefit cap which I repeatedly criticised social landlords and the entire social housing sector all last year for ignoring and appearing blasé about. The DWP impact assessment from June 2012 says 46% of those affected live in social housing yet the strong impression social landlords gave and continue to give is that they believe this is ONLY a problem for private landlords and in high rent areas such as London. That is an incredibly naive view and a very neglectful one.

The average cut for the 41,000 social tenants who have been sent letters by the DWP is £93 per week. If the bedroom tax tenant household with its average £14 per week cut in HB cannot afford to make up a £14pw shortfall they don’t have a hope in hell’s chance of making up a £93 per week shortfall. In other words the benefit cap social tenant household is a guaranteed certainty to be evicted for arrears and very quickly and highly likely to be before the bedroom tax arrears evictions.

Social landlords whether HA, ALMO or Council cannot bear such high arrears losses and eviction of these benefit cap households is inevitable. Yet one of the less considered impacts of this is how this will impact on the landlord to local Council relationship which needs to be good and strong for obvious reasons.

I have criticised the social landlord to Council relationship as being complicit in the bedroom tax decision making. Councils simply took the word of social landlords on what a bedroom is and how many bedrooms each property has. It was in the mutual financial interests of both landlords and councils to do this and that is undeniable whether you agree or not with my complicity argument. Yet the benefit cap relationship is very different and while arrears evictions are in social landlords financial interests they add hugely to council homelessness costs and especially since Steve Webb is on record in parliament as saying families evicted for arrears caused by the welfare reforms that are out of their control – which the benefit cap reductions are – mean councils should find such families UNINTENTIONALLY homeless and therefore councils have a full homeless duty with its large associated costs.

Local Councils will – out of necessity – be pressurising social landlords not to evict such cases while recognising that landlords have little choice but to evict for arrears. The landlord council relationship sours significantly because of this which does not bode well for social landlords then asking Councils to support development bids or in planning permission terms etc., which it has to do.

I also predict strongly that tenants will start targeting social landlords more and burdening them with higher costs as the ‘reforms’ really start to bite. Why did my landlord choose to give property information to the Council when it did not have to provide anything at all? As tenants become increasingly aware of bedroom size arguments ala 1985 Housing Act, or HSE 1998 guidance over gas appliances and other potential appeal challenges then tenant will step up ‘pressure’ on social landlords.

How long before tenants who maintain they have 2 bedrooms and a boxroom and not 3 bedrooms as their landlord says, begin to write to landlords to say they believe their rent is too high and should be reduced. If their “3 bed” rent is £90 per week and a 2 bed rent is £80 per week will tenants write and offer to only pay £85 per week of the £90 per week the social landlord wants? In fact many Councils are telling bedroom tax tenants to take up the number of bedrooms their property has with their landlords and not them. So tenants would only be doing what their Councils tell them to do!

How long before tenants mitigate and nullify the social landlords’ response to the bedroom tax arrears collections? Every landlords policy says something to the effect that the landlord will ramp up evictions where the tenant “refuses to engage” with them or very similar wording. Yet tenants are very angry at letter after letter, phone calls, text messages and unannounced visit from ‘income officers who then errantly and unlawfully claim to have a legal right of entry and then again claim to have a legal right to do a financial statement of means on the tenant finances. All any tenant has to do to show they are engaging and not burying their heads in the sand is to write to the landlord stating all correspondence between the parties can only happen by letter and not by calls, texts or visits as such landlord recovery actions may end up in court?

The tenant would also be wise to tell the landlords they have appealed the bedroom tax decision and have applied for a DHP and any shortfall in rent payments from them is because they can’t afford to pay and not because they are a ‘wont payer.’

These are obvious and simple matters that tenants will start to do if they haven’t already and they nullify landlords intentions to get ‘financial statements’ or generally to scare tenants into paying and also many of these matters will increase landlords costs as they will have to respond in writing.

Also when I drafted the template letter with 6 questions for tenants to ask of their Councils, most Councils refused to answer two key questions – what information did Councils request of landlords and what did the landlord respond with. Tenants need such information for their appeals and they will be asking for that necessary and reasonable information now from landlords. Again this costs landlords more and more and if landlords don’t supply then tenants will merely see their landlord blocking their legitimate appeal challenges – not good for the landlord tenant relationship at all…and especially not before tenants take control of rent payments by having HB directly paid to them from October as another of the welfare reforms this coalition has imposed.

Yet that is the real rub – the coalition imposed these pernicious welfare reforms on tenant, landlord and council and now all three are infighting with one another while the coalition sits back and smirks at this!

The tenant can’t pressurise the coalition directly yet needs to pressurise it via landlord and local council and the judiciary by appealing in huge numbers. The tenant, the landlord, the councils and the judiciary all despise the bedroom tax and the rest of the coalition welfare reforms yet instead of all uniting against reforms they end up infighting!!

That infighting can only increase unless radical change by landlords and councils take place and they stand behind the surprisingly large and increasingly powerful tenant bloc which has emerged. If it doesn’t the tenant will blame landlords and local councils who also have been shafted by these ‘reforms’ just as the tenant has. The coalition nullified the Lords, the Commons, Local Government and Landlords with the bedroom tax and didn’t believe that tenants had any power or they were not a threat to them. Yet with reliably over 40,000 members the anti bedroom tax groups have twice as many members as the CIH for example and the 40,000 figure is a conservative one and growing and will grow even further once the benefit cap hits in just over 4 weeks time and when monthly and direct payments kick in 10 weeks later. By that time the full impacts of paying council tax for the first time, below inflation benefits rises and much higher than inflation household expenditure in food and utilities will have kicked in too.

The infighting can go on for tenants yet it can’t for landlord and council. That is a reality that should send even more chills into social landlord boardrooms and councils.

Social housing as a model has been targeted with the welfare ‘reforms’ and especially as the bedroom tax and benefit cap only cut Housing Benefit not welfare benefit levels. Yet social landlords’ responses and considerations of its impacts have been unfortunately inept. While the NHF as one umbrella group has done some good work the CIH the professional body has been woeful and that is giving it too much praise.

Yesterday I posted a reworking of an earlier blog from January which said social landlords should reclassify as this will mitigate and nullify the bedroom tax within two years and not take 5 or 7 or even longer for the ridiculous downsizing suggestion to take place. It is in social landlord’s best financial interests to do so. It needed restating not because of Professor Steve Wilcox stating the same argument in May and lending his gravitas to the argument, but primarily because the bedroom tax arrears had been so unexpectedly high and makes it a necessity.

Take the claimed three bed property at £90 per week that could (and should be described) as a 2 bed plus large (50 -70sq/ft) boxroom.  This wouldn’t see a reduction to a 2 bed only rent of say £80 per week and a £10 pw reduction – it could and should be reclassified as an ‘enhanced’ 2 bed rent of say £87 per week. The nominal £3 per week loss takes away the average £14 per week bedroom tax and the £3 can easily be made up through rent increases over the next two years. The 2 bed and small (ie under 50 sq/ft) boxroom is still more than a mere 2 bed alone property and so reclassified and rented at say £84 per week. Again this nullifies a £14 per week bedroom tax risk and again the £6 per week nominal loss can easily be recouped over two years.

Yet social landlords are loathe to do this as they errantly believe they cannot do it o that the HB regulations say it can’t be done or as YHN errantly said there are “strict government rules” which prevent this! Utter nonsense and if anyone cares to tell me which government “rules” these are then let me know as the don’t exist except in social landlords minds or in their PR spin they issue as news releases.

Bristol and Nottingham have already (albeit post April 2013) decide that anything under 50 square feet is a bedroom. Why don’t all landlords follow suit and do so as I explain above – the bedroom tax financial threat and tenant arrears threat go away and much more quickly than the current unfortunately conservative and naive response of the social landlords.

Why oh why landlords and councils see a need to infight with the similarly shafted tenant is beyond me and beyond any sensible comprehension. Social landlords should sit around a table with tenants and anti bedroom tax (ABT) groups and listen and learn – and yes it is a two-way street.

About six weeks ago one such ABT group rather cheekily rang me late one Tuesday afternoon asking if I could make a Thursday morning meeting with KHT they had arranged. I could re-arrange my schedule but made it dependent on KHT saying this was acceptable – I had criticised them specifically over the publicity they sought (brownie points if you will) for reclassifying 4% of their stock which were difficult to lets. KHT had no problems with me being there which was good and professional.

The meeting saw me and 4 ABT members and from KHT there was Bob Taylor the CEO and the Director of Customer Service , Director of Housing and a minute take – a turnout of the key executive management team and impressive. The meeting was scheduled for an hour and was an extremely open and honest meeting that lasted 2.5 hours – more impressive and clear evidence of how serious KHT viewed the meeting.

Both ‘sides’ learnt a lot!  The ABT group discovered that KHT like all landlords had been lobbying government more than expected. They also realised that despite their preconceptions social landlords do have limited influence and got most of the fact that social landlords can be hamstrung in terms of challenge given the restrictions charitable status has for anything remotely seen as political activities.

KHT, while having communicated with tenant groups and their housing officers individually with individual tenants – the same as all HAs – heard some incredibly moving tales of what the bedroom tax meant. Many of the impacts of it became much clearer as did the impacts it would have for tenants and for KHT as landlord. Many issues were talked in depth rather than in superficial terms which most landlords do as they don’t have such meetings. For instance KHT stated the often heard position that they are seeking to sort out the cant payers from the wont payers – a typical statement all landlords have said. Yet landlords don’t elaborate on that incredibly difficult even in theory statement whereas the meeting discussed it in some detail which was mutually beneficial.

I won’t go into any more detail than that except to say the meeting resulted in the ABT group having a lot more understanding of the landlord’s lot and the landlord having a lot more understanding of the tenant’s lot. A few days later KHT issued what was then the most damning news release to date about the bedroom tax.

I receive about 60 unsolicited emails from tenants about the bedroom tax right across the country every day. Mostly they alert me to ‘bad’ social landlord practise or bad council practise and if I get enough of similar stories which I can verify I do tend to publish such stories through the blog. Landlords doorstepping techniques and ramped up arrears collection to Councils stating tenants have no right of appeal or other ‘dirty tricks’ etc. I have heard no such stories from Knowsley where KHT is by far the largest landlord and Knowsley also has the largest percentage of bedroom tax affected households in the North West. Anyone see a link there?

Landlord and councils fighting with tenants has to stop and both, but especially social landlords need to totally rethink their welfare reform strategies. They need to work WITH tenants and harness the power tenants have and not work AGAINST tenants. Councils need to do the same.

As I said above and now finish with tenants can afford to continue their fight against landlords and councils. All the tenant can do is fight to persuade landlord and councils to stand behind them and have nothing to lose by doing so. If that is the only way they can get landlord and council ‘onside’ – and all have the same ultimate cause then they will continue to do so and with ever greater pressure. Yet landlords and councils can’t afford to carry on fighting tenants and especially landlords.

Courtesy of Joe Halewood at SPeye

Myths about DLA and PIP

The Hardest Hit uses the start of the national rollout of Personal Independence Payments to summarise some of the main facts (and myths) about PIP. Posted on The Hardest Hit.

The probation thing

Prisoner Ben argues that the Government’s ideological drive to outsource probation will sideline the only people with expertise in this area – the existing Probation Service. Posted on Ben’s Prison Blog.

A post revisited

Jim Brown took the opportunity to revisit and reflect upon 10 predictions that he made in December 2010 about why probation is finished. Posted on On Probation Blog.

The coming tyranny and the legal aid bill

Kittysjones argues that the Government’s “reforms” to legal aid will undermine the basic principles of human rights, seriously weaken access to justice and disproportionately affect the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society. Posted on kittysjones.

Compulsory sex and relationship education in schools – Commons’ vote

Puffles argues that the failure to add the “New Clause 20” to the Children and Families Bill at report stage in the Commons does not necessarily mean the end of the road for the campaign to make relationships education compulsory in schools. Posted on A dragon’s best friend.

What restricts teachers?

Tessa Matthews argues that most teachers have little faith that the ‘boxes’ they are forced to tick are helping young people – and wonders what might happen instead if teachers challenged the ‘restrictive powers’ that cast a shadow over education. Posted on Tabula Rasa.

How can we improve initial teacher training?

Joe Kirby makes the case for a new school-led professionalism to improve initial teacher training and outlines three aspects that he would like to see improved. Posted on Pragmatic Education.

Attacking housing benefit is not the answer, investing in new, affordable homes is

Andy Winter acknowledges that there is a problem with how much is spent on housing benefit but argues that the real scandal is the the lack of money spent by the Government on affordable homes. Posted on Andy Winter’s BHT Blog.

Rent chaos

Steve Hilditch argues that the tide of public opinion is moving towards having more investment in affordable homes, which will keep rents down and make us less dependent on housing benefit. Posted on Red Brick.

Three reasons a freemium model would never work in housing

Matthew Gardiner considers the objections to housing associations using some of their empty homes to provide a first step for people who are unable to pay. Posted on From where I sit.

We’re always interested in hearing from frontline bloggers, so if you’re interested in having your post featured on Guerilla Policy then do get in touch: info@guerillapolicy.org

In short, the way I see a freemium model working is quite simple. Based on a similar principle to Dot Dot Dot’s approach we could use some of the homes that we currently have empty within our stock to provide a first step home for people who were unable to pay. These people might have been recently released from jail, they might be people with poor credit ratings, they might be homeless. They would be able to live in the property in return for their guardianship of it during maybe a six month initial period. Their occupation might even be tied to a level of community volunteering. However, they would live in the house rent free. After the initial period we could then look at them graduating to other homes within our stock, or onwards into the private market.

In discussions on this topic since I published the blog I’ve found three main objections to the freemium idea.

1) It would provoke community resistance

There’s no doubt that it’s a tough sell to the people who aren’t getting free houses. How do you respond to people within the same community, aggrieved that someone in their midst is getting free rent? Is there perhaps a way to engineer an increase in supply of empty homes beyond a housing association’s own void portfolio that could be used in this way so that they too could be offered the same deal? It would need to be in a property that had the basics but in November 2012, 710,000 empty homes were empty in England of which 259,000 were long-term empty (meaning they have been empty for more than six months).

2) People should be able to access more permanent housing solutions, not rely on temporary ones

Yes, they should, but they can’t. And for the many currently excluded from permanent social or private rented housing this solution would be useful. These are the people who would struggle to either afford or arrange a conventional letting procedure. These are the people who are falling through the cracks currently – the idea of giving them a platform on which they could build, while developing a further stream of potential customers for us in the future has to be an attractive thought.

3) You can’t give houses away for free

There’s an argument that’s hard to disagree with – that organisations don’t generally do well by giving away their main product for free. That’s true and the freemium approach wouldn’t work for all the stock in a housing association’s portfolio. However, while we have a number of properties that remain empty, no matter what we do, they aren’t generating an income. They can though be used in a way that reduces costs and which generates a non-financial return. Looked at in a social value way, the economics are not so mad.

Innovation around the use of empty homes has a long tradition within the sector – short-life housing was once officially recognised (and funded) through the Housing Corporation; but it’s always been at the margin. Does the severity of the current housing shortage mean it now deserves its place within the mainstream?

Courtesy of Matthew Gardiner at From where I sit

Why it’s not the end of the road for Lisa Nandy, Stella Creasy, Sarah Wollaston and friends

There will be understandable disappointment from lots of people – myself included that Lisa Nandy MP was unsuccessful in persuading Parliament to add “New Clause 20″ to the Children and Families Bill at Report Stage in the Commons. The clause covered personal, social and health education in maintained schools, with the aim of making relationship education compulsory in schools. I’ll go into the reasons why it’s not over rather than why  it’s important – which is for a separate blogpost.

Why it’s not over

Part of this comes down to some of the conventions that exist in Parliament, and between ministers and MPs. It involves reading between the lines of what ministers say to MPs and trying to work out where they are open to persuasion and where they are not. In the cases where they are open to persuasion as far as legislation is concerned, the issues are one of ‘legalistic detail’ rather than on points of principle.

How do we know this is a point of detail rather than an issue of principle?

We don’t know for certain – I’m only looking at the transcripts and cross-referencing with my own experience of working with ministers and a bill team on a past piece of legislation. (I worked in a policy team that had policy responsibility for a section of primary legislation going through Parliament – something I learnt lots from). Let’s look at what The Minister, Edward Timpson MP said in response to Lisa Nandy and other MPs.

“This group of amendments covers a wide range of issues relating to the care and protection of children. As I will be unable to address all the points made, I will endeavour to write to all hon. Members in response to their amendments and the questions they posed, particularly the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who has been very convivial and constructive during the passage of this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has raised a number of important areas of debate, particularly in making some powerful points about returning home from care. I will look at those points extremely carefully and am happy to discuss them with him on another occasion.”

In the case of Ms Nandy, The Minister has committed to give her a written response to the points that she made both in her speech as well as regarding the broad thrust of the amendment that she tabled & ultimately pushed to a vote. This is important as what is not currently clear is the reasons why the Coalition whipped their MPs to vote against New Clause 20. (I’ll update this post with hyperlinks once Hansard has updated itself).

The best thing Ms Nandy can do as soon as she received the response from The Minister is to have the reply scanned and cascaded to everyone that has an interest. That way the rest of us can unpick the response. Feel sorry for the civil service policy officers that have to draft the response that will be unpicked by all of us. I’d be petrified if that were me having to draft up that letter. But then, ultimately it goes out in The Minister’s name so he has to approve the final content & make any changes he sees necessary. He’s the decision-maker.

No, really. How do we know the issue is a point of detail rather than of principle?

That’s why it’s ever so important Ms Nandy publishes that letter as and when she receives it. If it’s a point of principle, then it makes things a little uncomfortable for the Liberal Democrats, especially as on a quick scan, only my local MP Julian Huppert was the lone rebel along with Dr Sarah Wollason for the Tories. I’d have expected a few more rebels on both the Tory and Lib Dem benches – for example Margot James & Sarah Teather respectively.

If it is a point of principle that ministers have with New Clause 20, it should become clear as to why in the letter to Ms Nandy. If they accept the principle but not the detail, then what happens between now and the Bill’s introduction to the Lords becomes all the more important. The concern for ministers in this case will be ensuring that the objectives that MPs want to achieve are achieved in the amendments tabled. This is why MPs & peers table, debate and then withdraw amendments to pieces of legislation. They are called ‘probing amendments’ – amendments tabled to see where ministers really stand on an issue, and perhaps to get a commitment from them on the floor of the House which by convention of Parliament is as good as written in stone. This is because if a minister makes a commitment to Parliament knowing they don’t intend to keep it is a textbook breach of the ministerial code – the stuff ministers are expected to resign over.

What Ms Nandy’s amendment seeks to do is to amend primary legislation – the Education Act 1996, The Education Act 2002, and the Education and Inspections Act 2006. If ministers accept the principle of what Ms Nandy and colleagues want to achieve, it might be the case that they see a different mechanism to achieving those objectives. For example a simple enabling clause that says “The Minister may make regulations with regard to the teaching of sex and relationship education by means of a statutory instrument” – or words to that effect. If a minister then made a commitment that such regulations would be laid in Parliament by a given date, civil servants would then be directed to draft such regulations for the minister to introduce to Parliament by that date. At least in principle they should be – and it’s the minister’s responsibility if such regulations are not laid before Parliament by such a date.

What should Ms Nandy do next?

The first thing to do is to wait for the Minister’s response. If the Minister is opposed on principle, then it’s a party political issue and one that campaigners outside of Parliament can really sink their teeth into. If it’s a point of detail, then the challenge will be for Ms Nandy & her colleagues in the House of Lords to persuade ministers to table a Government amendment to the Children and Families Bill in the Lords – normally at Lords Committee Stage – to make the legislative changes that Ms Nandy and colleagues are seeking. In order to do this, Ms Nandy and one of her colleagues in the Lords will need to arrange a meeting with ministers to discuss the contents of Clause 20 that were rejected in the vote in the Commons.

What does this meeting look like?

Normally a meeting like this is chaired by the minister with the policy lead. In this case it is likely to be Lord Nash, as he is the minister responsible in the House of Lords for this Bill. For me, being a government peer in the Lords is not an easy job. The level of scrutiny you get in the Lords is far tougher than anything the Commons can throw at you – even though it gets next to no publicity. In the Commons you can go “Yah-boo-public-school” at your opponents and three-line-whip your MPs to vote with you and leave it at that. In the Lords it tends not to work that way – hence why governments tend to suffer more defeats in the Lords than the Commons. They are interested in things like how practical the legislation being tabled is, and whether there are serious constitutional conventions that are potentially being broken by it.

No, really, what does the meeting look like?

Accompanying the minister are a series of civil servants. These include someone from the minister’s private office and the senior civil servant responsible for managing the progress of the bill concerned. At various points there will be staff from the bill team, staff from the legal team and, at various points staff from the policy teams whose work areas are covered by the legislation. On the other side might be one or two MPs or peers who either have concerns about particular clauses, or who have tabled probing amendments that I’ve mentioned above – along with one or two advisers that they’ve brought along.

I remember being called up to one such meeting. I had about five minutes notice. “Yeah – can you come up? The minister wants you here for this meeting.” ***Eeeek!!!!***

Such is the dense nature of the material that ministers have to remember that they cannot possibly recall every single little detail. To give you some context, the clauses my team was responsible for covered about 2 pages of primary legislation. The minister’s speaking notes plus questions and answers? Over 100 pages. Now, when you look at major pieces of legislation passing through parliament…exactly. That’s a lot of ‘briefing’.

This is where the conversations happen – where the minister responsible can refer directly to the policy officials that do the detailed work. There will be a policy unit within the Department for Education that is tasked with responding in detail to the points made by Ms Nandy. The key conversation that needs to take place under the auspices of ministers is between Ms Nandy, one of her colleagues in The Lords and the civil service policy advisers. But this can only happen if it is points of detail that ministers have issues with. If ministers reject Ms Nandy’s arguments on points of principle, they have no incentive to offer Ms Nandy or anyone else arguing similar points the possibility of a meeting. In which case it goes down to votes in the Lords, similar to that over say equal marriage.

If ministers accept the point of detail, then the discussion will be over getting the language of the clauses correct legalistically and getting agreement from ministers that any amendments will be Government amendments – significantly increasing the likelihood that Parliament will accept them. (I can’t recall the last time a government amendment to a bill was rejected by Parliament – normally these are tabled in response to concerns from MPs and peers).

If all goes well for Ms Nandy and colleagues, we could see some government amendments being tabled in the Lords. But that all depends on whether ministers accept the principle of what Ms Nandy’s New Clause 20 was pushing for. We’ll have to wait for Edward Timpson’s letter to her to find out.

Courtesy of Puffles at A dragon’s best friend

There is clearly a problem with housing benefit, costing, as it does, £95 billion over the four years of the government’s spending cycle. This compares to just £4.5 billion being spent on new affordable homes in the same period.

I recall that, in the 1980s, that ratio was 80% invested in new affordable homes with just 20% on housing benefit.

But it is not the so-called feckless unemployed claimant who is responsible.  92% of new claims for housing benefit, according to the DWP, come from people in work. Housing benefit has become, as some people say, a public subsidy for some employers, allowing them to pay low wages.

The cost is spiralling. Bill Randall, the chair of Housing at Brighton and Hove City Council tweeted last week: “Research shows private sector rents up by more than 20% in Brighton and Hove this year. If true more evidence that rent control needed in sector.” Two years ago the 30% centile for a typical one bed room flat in the City was just below £130 per week.  Today the 30^th centile is £150 (equivalent to the 50^th centile in 2011).

Being tough on benefits might play well in the short term, but revenue spending to meet need, rather than capital investment in new homes, will ultimately always be more expensive.

The knock on effects to the economy of the lack of affordable homes has been known for many years, and David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, has written a very compelling blog (as always) on why employers need to say yes to new, affordable homes.

Courtesy of Andy Winter at Andy Winter’s BHT Blog

You won’t be surprised when I revealed that I am no great friend of the Probation Service. Each week I have to take half a day to trek to my nearest office and spill my gits to my State appointed keepers. It is not a situation I enjoy. And the purpose of this? It is politics, PR. For there is not a shred of evidence that supervising Lifers in the community has reduced our reoffending rate one iota. Zilch.

So when I am asked to sign a petition opposing the Government’s proposals to privatise the heart of the Probation service, I had a cynical chuckle. There was even a moment when I was in discussion with one of the private companies intending to bid for Probation contracts. Welcome to the Dark Side…..

But I am, I hope, more reflective than that. Just because the Probation Service is the political tool used to molify an aggressively anti-prisoner public doesn’t necessarily mean that the Probation Service is utterly useless. Dealing with Lifers is a miniscule portion of its workload and it would be cowardly of me to condemn the whole edifice due to my views of their relationship with me and my peers.

The Government proposes to put up for auction the majority of probation work, that is with criminals who are not assessed as being “high risk”. Amongst others, G4S is interested in these contracts.

My – improbable, maybe – objection to this is that the Probation Service has met every target set by Government to reduce reoffending. Indeed, it is a fact that the reoffending rate for those under supervision is the lowest level ever.

I hold no brief for Government and its bureaucracies. As a general proposition, I think Government can screw anything up. And yet the Probation Service is not merely performing well, it is possibly one of the best performing public services.

In planning to break up this service and sell it, the Government is acting out of pure ideology. There is no evidence whatever that the private sector can do as well, let alone better. Indeed, the discussions I was in with the private sector revealed that they hadn’t any clue how to even begin to do the job of probation.

In their ideological frenzy, the Government has blown its cover. If it had the slightest interest in reducing reoffending and protecting the public, it would allow all qualified parties to bed for future contracts. But, and this is the tipping point for me, the Government is barring Probation Trusts from even bidding for the work. The only people with any expertise in this work are being specifically forbidden from being involved in it.

I love change, I revel in innovation. These are qualities that the private sector excel. But the are attitudes, not areas of specific expertise in themselves. Allowing the private sector to bring some of its methodologies and attitudes into the efforts to reduce reoffending may well be a good idea. Yet the way the Government is about to destroy the body into which the private sector can inject its expertise.

Reducing crime is an interesting and often hypnotic political mantra. After all, who could disagree with that aim? And yet there is the temptation for policy makers to forget that every point on their charts, every number on their tables of data actually represents genuine and individual suffering. Crime is not an aggregate for politicians to toy with and manipulate, it is the collective pain of individual victims.

And the danger is, thanks to Chris Grayling, that when the laments of these victims to cut crime are wailed into the air in the hope of some genuine understanding and purposeful response, the people who respond will not be the successful dedicated specialists who have been labouring at this effort for a lifetime. Instead, the door will be opened by an underpaid, undertrained private sector worker who will be as concerned with cutting costs as cutting crime.

Writing this has been the product of a personal struggle. I hope that my lifetimes experience as a vocal critic of the Probation Service can only add some depth of meaning where my fumbling wordplay has failed. Save the Probation Service – and keep cutting crime.

Courtesy of Ben’s Prison Blog

Increased expenditure on DLA.

• Each year, DLA claims have increased by a smaller amount than the increase in the previous year.
• Part of the increase in DLA caseload is because the population is growing each year; assuming the same proportion of disabled people, this means there are more disabled people each year.
• Part of the increase in DLA caseload is because increasing numbers of pensioners are becoming eligible for DLA.
• Claims for DLA increased between February and May 2012. This was entirely due to increases in children and pensioners receiving DLA; working-age (16-64) claims fell during this period.[1]

“The DWP uses the concept of “receipt per head” to sort out different types of increase. They  use a data set that only goes back to 2002/3, but they helpfully provide “aligned” figures back to 1992 in a separate file. Between 2002/3 and 2010/11, total growth of DLA was 29%, but total growth due to changes in “receipt per head” was 21% and part of this is due to a “maturing” effect.

DLA can’t be claimed after the age of 65, but people who were receiving it before then continue for as long as they need it; this means that, in 1992, the oldest recipient was 65, but now there are people aged up to 84 getting DLA – another reason for the growth in claims. If people over 65 are excluded, the total increase in the numbers is 23% and total growth due to changes in “receipt per head” was 16%. …

Until recently, governments have gone out of their way to make sure that disabled children can qualify for DLA; one of the best things the last government did was, in 2001, to extend the number of severely disabled children who qualified for the care component. Families with disabled children have substantial extra costs and are more likely than other families to be poor. It would be a tremendous shame if the current government plans to reverse this policy intent. (Their benefits are currently threatened by Universal Credit: see Sam Royston’s post for more details.)”

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2011/08/why-are-there-more-dla-claimants

“In reference to rising costs in disability payments, David Turner says that, “The escalating cost of welfare is a real political challenge. However, this is the result of a rising population of disabled people due to higher survival rates rather than mounting fraud. It will remain difficult for the government to get its message across that reforms are intended to help the most vulnerable when media perceptions of the most vulnerable types reinforce negative stereotypes.”[2]

The government has said that, “In just eight years the number claiming the benefit [DLA] has risen from around 2.5 million to nearly 3.2 million—an increase of nearly 30%.[3]” However 36% of this growth was from the increase in numbers of pensioners receiving DLA.[4]  There has also been a large increase in children and young teenagers receiving DLA.[5] Neither pensioners nor children and young teenagers will be affected by the changes to DLA that the government is bringing in.

For DLA claims based on physical health, all of the increase since 2002 can be based on the increase in overall population size plus the demographic change with increasing numbers of pensioners becoming eligible each year. The rest of the increase in claims since then is due to increased numbers of claimants with mental health issues or learning difficulties.[6] This matches the increasing prevalence of severe mental health issues and learning difficulties in all developed countries, and cannot therefore be attributed purely to any inappropriate loosening of criteria.”

Extract from “Why We’re Not Benefit Scroungers,” Aida Aleksia

Cutting the DLA budget

By comparing the 2009 figure with the 2015 figure, the DWP is able to say that DLA is not being cut.

David Cameron said that, “In 2009-10, the money spent on disability living allowance was £12.4 billion. By 2015 it will be £13.3 billion. There is no cut in the money going to the disabled.”

• “But Cameron failed to tell MPs that forecasted spending on DLA this year, 2012-13, is £13.6 billion. This means – according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ own figures – that spending on DLA will fall over the next two years.”[7]
• “450,000 disabled people will have no disability benefit entitlement at all and 510,000 disabled people will have a reduced award.”[8]
• “The higher rate mobility criteria was slashed from 50 metres to 20 metres without consultation or warning with the consequence that once PIP has been fully implemented, in 2018, up to 428,000 fewer people will qualify for the enhanced mobility element which provides eligibility to lease cars using the Motability scheme . This is now the subject of a legal challenge.”[9]

Consulting with disabled people

• The abolition of working age DLA was announced in the emergency budget of 2010. There was no consultation with disabled people or groups prior to the announcement.
• The DWP ignored the majority of responses to the consultation on Disability Living Allowance, which were opposed to the DWP’s proposals. Only 7% of responses fully supported the DWP. [10]

Claiming DLA

• 84% of decisions use additional evidence from GPs, consultants, hospitals and others who provide care, support and treatment, or from a medical assessment with the company Atos.
• There have always been random checks and reviews of DLA, so that people do not continue on DLA for many years without reassessment.

- Don King, Lunar ltd.

Before I was a teacher, I worked as an administrator for a large manufacturing company. The office at Lunar ltd headquarters was a very strange place indeed: an unpleasant mish mash of sights, sounds and smells. The boisterous noise, the overt (and unashamedly sexist) banter, the room-filling egos and coffee-stained paperwork did not make for the most glamorous working environment. On the contrary, I used to liken my 9-5 existence to that of a life spent sitting in a cave, staring at a wall, watching condensation drip from the ceiling as my soul eroded away, piece by piece. Not very glamorous at all.

Don was a rather rotund gentleman with halitosis and an unpredictable temper. Every morning, I would try to gauge his mood as he strode over towards my desk, never quite sure how he would speak to me until he opened his stinking mouth. Some days (I called them ‘sunshine days’,) he would beam at me and ask me nicely how long it would take me to do x number of tasks. Other days (I called them ‘stormy days’) he would simply bark orders at me whilst I cowered behind a pile of unprocessed invoices.

Despite his erratic mood swings and obvious distaste for toothpaste, Don was a fierce businessman. He got the job done, even if he had to get two or three people fired along the way, he would do it. Everyone hated him, but they admired his conviction and audacity. One sunshine day, I made the very bold (and in retrospect, naïve) decision to ask what he credited his success to. His initial answer sounded like the usual boardroom word-vomit you might hear on The Apprentice: the typical ‘vision’, ‘drive’, and ‘inspiration’ nonsense. However, he then made an unusual addition, one that I have a much deeper understanding of now, a few years older and with (a bit) more experience behind me. Apparently, ‘ticking boxes’, or getting others to tick boxes for you, can turn you into a big shot in business. Who would have thought?

So, fast-forward a few years and here we are. I’ve been working at Galaxy High long enough to know that box ticking is part of the job. We all have to do it: whether it is for Ofsted, for SLT or to please examiners, boxes have become part of the school culture. Although most SLTs aren’t (I would hope) as lucrative as Don, and aren’t driven by profit, there does seem to be the distinct impression that if you tick certain boxes, your school will become more successful. It’s the same in middle leadership, too: tick this box; get a pat on the back from SLT. And of course, those of us at the bottom of the food chain, even we are compelled to tick a box here and there, even if it’s just for a lesson obs.

But the problem is, as has been discussed at length throughout the twitterblogiverse, a lot of the boxes we are made to tick are the wrong boxes.

We know they’re wrong. We have little faith that most of the boxes we are forced to tick are actually helping us to do our very best for our kids, and yet we continue ticking.

This week, I sat in a meeting where a new list of boxes was presented. It was possibly the most depressing list of boxes I have ever come across.

“I don’t like it, either.”

The new emphasis on APS (Average Point Score) has proved to be just the proverbial rocket that the Galaxy High leaders needed to shoot them off, once again, in the wrong direction. Of course, to extend the Galaxy metaphor further (I’m getting a lot of mileage out of it today), it would seem that they have settled on yet another orbit around the planet Ofsted, rather than the planet Pupil.

Apparently, the new way to tickle Ofsted’s fancy is to improve APS by putting all our kids through an entirely vacuous and banal ‘Level 1’ course before they sit their GCSEs, just in case they fail. Because at least that way they have something, right? Wrong. I shan’t name the course in question: I just can’t bring myself to do it. But let’s just say that this makes the Unit 1 AQA English Language exam look extremely rigorous by comparison, which is really saying something.

We were presented with the sample papers, and I looked through, desperately searching for a single text. Supposedly, posters and leaflets now constitute works of literature, and we now need to spend AN ENTIRE YEAR teaching kids to analyse how a film company made their movie look ‘funny’ in the poster.

“This is a complete disaster!” I declared, explaining why I thought this was an utter waste of time and that it was a travesty that our students won’t get to study a single novel, poem or Shakespeare play throughout the whole of year 9, all in the name of progress.

But, the thing is, all my colleagues agreed with me. They got it; I was preaching to the converted. The fact was, they didn’t like the course either, but felt absolutely powerless to do anything about it. It wasn’t through a lack of desire to do things properly, or because they are lazy or don’t care about the job; rather, it was because they have seen too many changes, and know the consequences of refusing to acknowledge them.

SLT are firmly focused on what they think Ofsted want. They have managed to hide behind ‘5 A*-C including English and maths’ for long enough. They have learned the rules of that game perfectly and are now being forced to regroup, to come up with a new plan of attack in the face of a new obstacle standing in the path of their success.  Those of us at the bottom of the chain of command feel that we have little choice when we are up against the powers that be. We feel restricted and constrained by what SLT tell us, and they feel restricted and constrained by what they think Ofsted is telling them.

Do we have to be restricted in this way? If teachers don’t like what they think they are being made to do, why are they doing it? Shouldn’t we start challenging the view that is set by school leaders and the higher powers if we feel in our heart of hearts that it is right to do so?

We live in fear of the boxes; we are worried about what might happen if we simply refuse to keep ticking them. Perhaps if we did stop ticking the wrong boxes, we might not have to keep going back to the drawing board to devise the next battle strategy. Perhaps, we might even stand a chance at winning the war against the restrictive powers that cast a huge shadow over our system.

Courtesy of Tessa Matthews at Tabula Rasa

White privilege

My introduction to the subject of privilege came through studying the theme of the video. White privilege. For those who don’t understand that it’s a concept used in race studies which often explains how in Western society (English speaking and other) people and systems will lean more towards favouring those who are white. An ethnic penalty if you will. Societal institutions ensure that such privileges favour whites as a racial group in the media, politics, business and education.

Personally I hate dualism. Them and us arguments. White vs Black arguments. I find them silly especially as they tend to be based on premises of division as opposed to a meeting ground. Race as a social construct also excludes other skin complexions brown, bronze, yellow(?) and suggests that such a construct is a suitable way of analysing demographics. Yet no matter my opinion it is evident our criminal justice system, politics, consensus and many other institutions where we are identified other than by gender focus on race, regardless of the fact it is non scientific and is somewhat a divisive way of classifying people.

The trouble I have the term white privilege as a whole is the the grouping of all white people into one group. The disdain which many Brits have had for foreign workers from Eastern Europe for me remains a challenge. The way middle class communities and media look down their noses at working class. Chav. Gippo. White trash. Disadvantaged. Choose your label. Yet on the same token I can understand why some will see this an issue. For some evidence of this will be experiential and for others there are a wealth of studies which show that societies perceptions and expectations around social groups will tend to lean towards white privilege. Check missing white girl syndrome out in your own time.

Again my issue is that an all embracing term of white privilege conversely allows for generalisations to made about blacks, browns and all shades in between. I get the tone of the video but I think we are missing a bit of the puzzle here.

Male privilege

Talking of privilege. Earlier today I was challenged on Twitter. Got me thinking about male privilege.

I had recommended a number of people on Twitter. I noted that in my network a lot of the educators who I saw as agitators and disrupters were male. So I asked the following:

A response came back that I would get a better responses if I asked for women educators instead of females. By default was to think what the heck? I pride myself as a feminist so this came as a broadside. I don’t believe my statement was inappropriate but it got me thinking

Do we use language as a a default that is inconsiderate to women across culture?

Is male privilege such a embedded part of the male psyche that we don’t even realise that we behave in that mode subconsciously?

Does male privilege domestic violence or rape towards women get dumbed down because men are mostly victims of violent crime, suicide and homelessness?

The following tweet today even compounded the thought some more.

And yet male privilege has sub layers too. Of race. Power. Class. Orientation.

Which leads me to my last point about privilege.

Heteronormative privilege

The debate about marriage equality has been disruptive. Not only has it had to challenge notions as to what people call ‘normal’ but brought into the open challenges to a one size fits all (if you pardon the pun) approach to sexuality.

The ideology about same gender relationships has by and large been formed by religion and cultures aligned to that religion. If you are heterosexual unless you have conversations with bisexual, homosexual or transgender friends (or strangers) about how much other people don’t feel ‘comfortable’ to talk about another variant of sexuality you will never understand this privilege.

When you are surrounded by a culture which will not bat an eyelid of two heteros holding hands or sucking face in a supermarket queue but will recoil if they saw the same with a homosexual or transgender person(s) it’s time to ask why. Even some of the most liberal people I know would still probably flinch if they saw a gay couple kissing at a marriage. And to make it even worse the fact remains that while it may cool here in the UK to accept same gender adults to be married or be in a civil union there are some countries for them to freely travel to and be a couple could end in bullying, imprisonment and in the worst case scenario, death.

Checking privilege is about debunking stereotypes. It is about not being afraid to ask questions where one is unclear instead of projecting our own stereotypes. I cannot check white privilege where I see it and at the same token tell my children they have to work twice as hard as whites to succeed. I cannot check my own male privilege and dismiss a woman who would have a problems with me calling them luv or darling. Men and women cannot check heteronormative privilege whilst treating someone who is LGBT as other.

It’s a heck of a lot unlearning. It is also an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and those around us. It’s a heck of a lot of privilege checking.

The thing is we probably don’t even realise the biases sitting in our subconscious until we are confronted with something that takes us out of our comfort zone.

It’s deep right?

Courtesy of David McQueen

Additional reading:

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

I am comfortable in my own skin

The general arguments against selection run along the following lines:

It is fundamentally incompatible with creating a cohesive society; it is reinforcing a sheep and goats social sieve; the ‘social mobility’ claims can’t be substantiated; the nature of testing is flawed and only certain abilities count; testing acts as a social selection because affluent parents can more easily afford coaching; some selective schools cream off talent to the extent that neighbouring comprehensives are essentially secondary modern schools, disadvantaged beyond what is reasonable; fully selective areas do not show significant overall levels of increased attainment; 11 is too young for children to experience failure/rejection.

This argument is often put to dampen the enthusiasm anyone might have to open new selective schools; it can also be put to suggest a policy to close grammar schools or, more accurately, to remove their selective admissions policies. This is part of the movement to promote the idea that all children should go to the local school so that, in so doing, we would have a more equitable, integrated and fair society. The arguments are also put forward to help contextualise the performance records of non-selective schools; if you start off by selecting the intake, then no wonder the results are so high and so on.

I fully understand all of this and I believe it is an important debate to have. However, it frustrates me that the debate is often too polemical and too limited. People (including me) tend to argue from a perspective that justifies their decisions as parents and teachers; radical idealistic policy suggestions are all too easily made  when they’re never likely happen in practice given the range of public opinion among the electorate (this includes the idea of abolishing independent schools as if any government could control how people spend their money to this degree); selection by testing is often isolated from a myriad of other factors when, in truth, there is always selection at work (see below). For me the biggest issue, is that the admissions debate is a sideshow relative to talking about educational standards and the difference we could be making by focusing on classroom practice.

Here is my perspective on all of this:

Specialist Provision

I am not a spokesperson for selective education per se; I am happy to concede that in some areas, it could well be the case that the net effect of selection is neutral at best in terms of the overall impact on the education of the population in that area, even though it is impossible to separate school quality from the evaluation. I’d say the jury is out. However, after spending a few days in my school, I would suggest that there wouldn’t be many people who’d say that the school shouldn’t exist. In fact, I think it is a wonderful thing that a school like mine is funded by the state. Why? Because I think we offer a form of educational opportunity that isn’t generally present in the system. KEGS is one of many similar schools that provide specialist provision for able students including an extraordinary breadth of curriculum and a learning culture that they would not get elsewhere. I was astonished at what I found here when I first arrived as I describe here. I know that saying this winds people up… but it’s just true. The average points scores for my students last year were 560 at A Level (A= 120) and 680 at GCSE (A*=58). This volume of high achievement is difficult to deliver except in specialist environments.  In addition to the range of subjects and extra-curricular opportunities (including, for example,  a rare state-school CCF contingent of 200+ cadets), very simply, expectations of students are phenomenally high. This is the key distinguishing feature of my school. It remains my conviction that, every day, students at KEGS are challenged to a far higher level that their peers in most other schools. It should not have to be that way, but it is and my children’s school experience supports that view. (This is nothing to do with how hard teachers work or what other challenges schools face… I recognise all of that.)

Of course, not everyone who wants a place can have one but does that mean that free education like that on offer at KEGS shouldn’t be available in the system? Should it only be an option for those with the money for private schools? Education isn’t a redistributable asset.  One person’s excellent education doesn’t have to come at the expense of another; you can’t share it out like money. But, I feel my school shows what can be provided and a great deal of what goes on could be transferred elsewhere, without the selective intake, if people set their sights higher. (Again, this doesn’t go down well but I believe it is true.) The goal should surely be to provide the same level of expectations and curriculum elsewhere and reduce the unevenness in the system that way; level up, not down.

Pragmatic Realities

As Tony Blair and Andrew Adonis agreed at the start of the New Labour government, there is nothing to be gained from closing down successful institutions. In a democracy, it will never be acceptable and, pragmatically, it isn’t sensible. The same attitudes prevail today and so, in short, closing selective schools ain’t going to happen and, therefore, it’s a fruitless discussion. The battles of the 1970s are over and with a history dating back to 1551, I actually feel that KEGS, and schools like it, deserve to be protected and preserved, provided that they continue to deliver; and we do.

However, if it is argued that selective admissions should be phased out, it is worth considering the impact. KEGS is one of four selective schools out of 79 secondary schools in Essex Local Authority. From our intake of 120 into Year 7, only about 50 come from the town of Chelmsford, who might otherwise have gone to 7 or 8 local schools.  Our admissions area, from which 80 % of places must be offered, is 25 miles wide; 20% of places are offered further afield. If KEGS became a non-selective school, we’d be taking all 120 students from the town (an additional 350 students over five years) which, in my view, would have a significant negative impact on the local schools as well has having an impact on the local housing market. I think the balance of numbers in Essex works very well; no one school suffers a creaming effect of any magnitude and the local schools have the full ability range. My school sits among them offering a unique form of provision as part of the overall offer in the area; it’s a balance that has evolved over many years and I think it works.

Another important factor is the issue of diversity. My school has a BME intake of about 35 % overall. This is three times higher than the local average; I think KEGS has a good shout for being the most ethnically diverse school in Essex. Diversity takes many forms and I’d suggest that my students experience a form of diversity that my own children, despite being in North London (comprehensive but socially selective schools) do not experience to the same extent, especially when they go into their ability groups.

De Facto Selection

One of my biggest frustrations with the ‘local school’ argument is that proponents very often gloss over the realities of de facto house price selection. In the scenario where everyone went to the local school, using proximity measures alone, school choice would be entirely determined by the housing market – in terms of renting or buying. In my area of North London this is significant. The same is true in parts of Essex and all over the country. Taking all other selective factors away, the key determinant of school choice is how much you can afford to pay for where you live. Arguing the local school case, is arguing for housing market selection; there is no escaping that. I know for a fact that many of my students come from families with incomes that mean they could not afford to go to my school if they had to buy or rent a house in the area if we became non-selective. I also know that people choose to rent small flats without gardens in Muswell Hill to gain access to the local school when they’d rather have bought a house with a garden somewhere cheaper.  Only people with serious money get to have both. This is the reality of the ‘school choice via Estate Agent’ system; it serves the wealthy to a far greater extent than any issues to do with general affluence, coaching and cultural capital; the sums involved are straight forward to compare.

In Essex, there are situations where the school profiles are radically different in different parts of the same town, far away from the influence of selective creaming. School choice by housing is literally how things work and I’d suggest that the ‘choice’ to stay in some areas is not one many local school campaigners would make gladly and they’d move if they could afford to. There are plenty of parents in many parts of the South East who choose to stay in relatively low cost housing but spend their money on private education or extra home tuition. They are scoffed at but I’d suggest that they’re often spending less than people buying the £800K ++ homes in North London that enable people to go to the better local schools – or, to be more accurate, the school of their choice.

Another element in the debate is the role of faith schools. The Sutton Trust report from 2008 showed that, of the 100 most socially selective schools in England, based on a measure derived from comparing school vs local Free School Meals rates, only 17 were grammar schools.  (See Chapter 7)  53 were voluntary aided faith schools and the others were comprehensives. None of the 20 most socially selective schools are grammar schools. The report suggests that faith schools have a significant impact in terms of social selection. To me this is important; when selective schools are being evaluated, it is obvious to me that any debate has to include faith schools. As an atheist – where, by definition, I don’t believe in a supreme being – it is odd to me that gaining access to schools can be determined by demonstrating faith in something that isn’t real. Now, I know lots of religious people extremely well and I respect them for having their faith; I’m well aware of the place religion has in our culture and history and there is never likely to be a political agenda to remove faith schools from the system  -  but when one child gains access to a school instead of another because of their parents’ stated faith allegiance, and when this extends to employing staff too… I obviously feel I have less to defend in my own position as Head of a secular selective school. Imagine if we had humanist schools…..

The Social Justice Case:  FSM

A recent Sutton Trust report on social selection in comprehensives attempted to suggest that new converter academies were more socially selective than the average and less so than the original sponsored academies. To me this was simply self-referential data-truism. These academy types had initial origins in ‘Outstanding’ schools (converter) and ‘schools in challenging circumstances’ (Sponsored). By definition the FSM characteristics of these schools on average would show divergence. The same logic is applied to selective schools; yes it is true the selective schools have proportionally fewer students on free school meals. Why? Well.. take a look at the ‘top table’ in any Y6 classroom – or the average of all Y6 ‘top tables’. Take a look at the demographics of the top set in any comprehensive school. What do you find… ? Of course there is a deep and well-established correlation between attainment and socio-economic advantage. You find this in reception classes. The 2008 Sutton Report actually shows that the level of social selection at selective schools is no greater than that explained by academic selection alone; grammar schools don’t add additional social selection beyond the act of testing. The issues pre-date arrival at the schools themselves and as I’ve argued elsewhere, stopping gaps emerge should be our priority because narrowing gaps is a false promise.

The good old Grammar School days?.. Much has changed; much is the same.

I know all the stuff about the Halcyon days of grammar schools, where ordinary boys were able to become socially mobile, is often overblown. But it certainly did have that effect for hundreds of students at my school over the years; they tell me so and still we have students gaining that benefit. That said, even if my school now largely serves a middle class ethnically diverse, elite, I’d still argue that it shouldn’t be necessary to limit educational experiences like my school offers to those who can afford private education. KEGS is like an Oxbridge College for kids… but it’s free and is far more equitable in terms of entry than either Oxford or Cambridge. I can live with that.

So, on the basis that ‘something should be done’, we need some solutions. Here’s where I’d start.

• Freeze changes to school structures, but make all schools funded on the same basis with the same freedoms.  I don’t think adding more schools necessarily solves underlying issues in the system – so far, there is no evidence of that. However, we should give Local Authorities overriding school planning powers so that any new provision derives from clear need and references existing provision with the potential to improve. If that includes a strategically placed school like mine, so be it – but that that needs careful planning and consultation not just the drive of some local power-players.
• Focus on school improvement; however hard it seems, with some schools in much more difficult circumstances than others, leveling up is the only justifiable course of action. Raising expectations is at the heart of this. Probably all schools have some students just as talented as mine – so give them the same curriculum experience and set the same expectations.  I’m not saying it’s easy…..but people want to come to my school for a reason.
• Focus on teaching and learning; instead of tinkering with school types and funding, invest  all our time and energy into improving the quality of teaching and the quality of both the planned and the enacted curriculum. This might include providing additional incentives to teach and live in more challenging areas…(but actually, spend a week teaching in my school and you’d experience challenge of a different sort. It’s not for everyone.)
• Explore wider use of lottery and banding systems and other mechanisms that reduce house price selection. This can only really work in certain circumstances – as it appears to in Greenwich and at London Nautical School – and it reduces the school-community link to some extent. (Banding seems like a good idea although the idea of doing too well on a test to get a school place doesn’t seem entirely right… and this is an inherent issue.) However… let’s not have debates that are essentially only arguments for letting the housing market determine school places, unchecked without release valves for those with less financial power.
• Explore wider use of selection. This doesn’t mean opening new selective schools, but if all schools could offer some or all places on a form of aptitude selection – then, theoretically, all schools might be open to anyone. There might be winners and losers, of course, but this might create mass mobility where house prices were no barrier and we might achieve greater equity overall. It would be worth modeling with different proportions of places allocated by promixity, by aptitude and by banding.

Above all, I’d argue that the polemicists need to tone down their arguments in favour of a more considered and rounded view of these issues. Ultimately, it is all a case of relative values and some form of selection over another. Faith? Ability? Wealth? Random? Who is to say which order these should come in…. it’s more complicated than we’re often allowed to admit or discuss. There is no system without selection of some kind and, having arrived to KEGS from ‘the plantation’, I’m confident that we’re making a contribution that the system needs.

Courtesy of Tom Sherrington at headguruteacher