So: This Is What We're Heading Towards!

There have been some interesting developments this weeks with the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove delivering a monumentally flawed overview of the new Academies Programme by first stating that some were safe, only to say in a later release that there had been a clerical error and some that thought they were safe weren’t. Anyway, he’s said sorry so that must be alright must it not? The corrected statement contained clerical errors too, a good/bad week for clerical errors depending on how you look at things.
A recent Times Education Supplement article pointed out that many academies were pushing up their pass rates by entering lower ability learners into non-academic subjects were passes are easier to achieve. Really? I’m shaken to the core of my being.
Research tells us that schools with a number of residual problems in lower attainment, poor facilities and low expectations have opted for academy status and I can see why. Apart from enabling a greater sense of self determination, it enables them to draw a line under the past and start again with some new and invigorating approaches to teaching and learning. Part of this approach includes curriculum developments that reach out to engage young people who might otherwise effectively “switch off” from their education and fuel a downwards spiral of poor engagement in employment, education and training.
Too many years ago now, I used to moderate courses developed and marketed by both City & Guilds and B.Tec. They were an honest attempt to change the direction of young people who were vulnerable to voting with their feet and simply not attending or creating “hot spots” in the school timetable. Overall, the level of engagement was better than might have been expected had we stayed within the more traditional curriculum.
So, academy leadership teams realise that they are about transformation and that one of the transformative strategies will be to increase the options available to the “new disaffected” (these are, I suspect, very much similar to the old ones), who are at risk of becoming NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) and will need a different skill set to remain engaged in the education/training process. Information tells us that at risk learners are likely to reside in poorer areas with higher risk and vulnerability factors and yes, poorer schools in terms of fabric, catchment and results at out-turn, higher exclusion and absent rates with greater teacher turn over. The Academies Programme was, at least in part, I feel at genuine and honest attempt to reverse the trend.
The newly elected coalition had a golden opportunity to state that whatever else needed to be cut and trimmed (slashed and burned?), education would remain its highest priority and would be resourced accordingly. It’s a depressing start: let’s begin to water down the strength of the Vetting and Barring Scheme (big government = very bad) and at the same time suggest to parents and other “interested groups” that they might wish to open schools in closed down shops. Then let’s move quickly and give the National Curriculum’s QCDA the coup de grace and do away with BECTA. Gove has gone on record as saying that academies should have greater freedom re qualifications (26/5/10) and then tells a substantial number of them “No, you only thought you were going to be one, now your not: clerical error-happens all the time.”
So, where are we? Sandwell, worst hit by clerical errors is one of the poorer areas in the UK and its needs unsurprisingly speak with a powerful voice about what should be in place to enable people to live better lives. Education standards need to rise: their Academies programme has been decimated and a further 90+ redundancies have been issued at Sandwell College, an innovative and eclectic organisation that meets the needs of a diverse community. Today’s news tells us the government is considering re-allocating the funding in Primary Care Trusts to GP’s. What I see here as a return to provision at the Parish Pump.
Those with money can and will buy their way out of the mess by moving to areas where there are “better” schools or, it would seem, opening one of their own. Much as the public perception of “The Successful Fee Paying School” might be about standards, it’s often a more complex social reasoning that persuades some parents to say, “I want my child to mix with people other than those who attend school x” and as long as we continue to leave school x to its own devices, it is unlikely that there will be a significant change.
One stop health shops, the bringing together of community health, access to services have their impacts most keenly felt in areas of high need and it’s a long hard slog to turn around some of the crushing social factors that have militated against progress and development: mark my words, it’s Housing next.
Some flagship decisions mooted this week will have long-lasting consequences. It’s a great life; just don’t have the wrong post-code, go to the wrong school, be unemployed, sick, old or poor.
Well done everyone: a promising start!