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Are the school reforms really going to improve education?

This article is more than 13 years old
Under plans unveiled by Michael Gove last week, the school system in England and Wales will be radically overhauled. Some will break away from local government control. Elsewhere, other new schools will be created by parents. Here, experts discuss whether this shake-up will benefit those who matter most – our children

Peter Hyman, deputy head: "How we teach is what should really count"

To Kill a Mocking Bird

This student and 80 like him have been subjected to a carefully choreographed series of interventions – one-to-one mentoring, Saturday school, motivational assemblies, extra revision classes – at the London comprehensive where I work, to try to get them to the magic number of five good GCSEs.

He is the reason that thousands of teachers such as myself are so passionate about what we do. The achievement gap, despite some progress, still yawns, with, on average, 59% of children getting five good GCSEs, but only 35% of those on free school meals.

So will the Tory education reforms make a difference? Will offering a school like mine academy status raise standards?

There may be some benefits to more freedom and possibly it will come with extra resources. But the academies programme for Labour was about transforming schools in the most challenging circumstances, whereas the Tory policy is about allowing the best schools, often in the wealthier areas, to opt out of LEA control, a less significant change and one that will need careful attention to ensure that funding remains fair and there is real accountability.

It is strange, too, for the Tories to be making such a fanfare about their other key policy: free schools. In principle, having dynamic new schools in the system is a good thing. Though, in this age of austerity, it is far harder to justify new schools springing up where there is no need for more places and where money would be siphoned from elsewhere. But even at an optimistic estimate, it will affect tiny numbers of parents, teachers and children in 100 or so schools out of the 4,000 secondary schools and 24,000 primary schools.

So the point about the Tory reforms is not that they amount to a revolution but, rather, that they are a missed opportunity – a modest extension of one part of New Labour policy. What will be frustrating for many schools is to find a new government once more ignoring the vast amounts of evidence that shows that the best school systems in the world are best for one reason above all else – the quality of teaching. The other big factor is school leadership.

So a radical education policy should start with teaching and learning. It is striking that the schools minister who understood this best in the last 10 years was David Miliband. He realised that what went on in the classroom was more important than anything else and his ideas on personalising learning for each student are, several years later, at the heart of many good schools in the country.

To raise standards, there needs to be a renewed focus on literacy. For students such as Shane, the basics were not embedded early enough.

But we need to do more. The area ripe for reform is the curriculum. We have got to have a rethink of what students learn and how they learn it. There needs to be a revolution in science, maths and computer-science teaching so we have a cohort of students who can truly compete with any in the world. There is not enough thinking in schools and it appears that the Tories are in danger of making things worse by insisting on even more cramming of facts in a return to didactic teaching methods. It's time we started to test skills other than the ability to write a two-hour exam: creativity, analysis, team work, communication skills.

All these things would help students such as Shane in a tangible way – catch-up sessions at the age of 16 are not enough, however good. What matters is improving the quality of teaching, the richness of experience, the joy of learning and the grounding in the basics from an early age. There is a real opening in British politics for the politician who understands this.

Peter Hyman is deputy head of a London comprehensive and was a political strategist to Tony Blair

Rachel Wolf, reformer: "A great step forward... but just the first"

In the last 24 hours, more than 60 potential providers have registered an interest with our charity in setting up a school. They join hundreds of groups we work with, many of which have been campaigning for years for excellent new local schools. The coalition government's announcement that they will support those groups is a fantastic first step towards making their vision a reality.

Why have we been inundated with inquiries? First, many of our groups are parents who have suffered from a two-tier education system, one in which the wealthy can make sure they have an excellent local school by buying a house in the right catchment area or paying school fees, while less well-off parents are stuck. They want to partner with teachers and experts to create a good local school.

Second, we have many parent groups where it's less a matter of having a good local school than having any local school at all. Local authorities have closed down their schools or refused permission for a new one. These parents are forced to send their children miles away to extremely large schools without the community involvement, the ethos, the discipline and the class sizes they want.

Third, we have been contacted by hundreds of teachers who want to make the greatest possible impact in deprived areas and cannot do so under the current system. While the government will help many existing schools by giving them increased independence – allowing them to become academies – it is new schools which will give teachers the opportunity to give help to more children who need it. Those teachers have seen what's been done with new schools in America (charter schools) and they want to do the same here.

But should new schools be a priority at a time of tight public spending? Absolutely. There are too many schools with poor leadership concentrated in the poorest parts of the country. For decades, politicianshave failed to deal with this problem while making life increasingly unbearable for good schools.

Empowering poorer parents to remove their child from a school with poor leadership while allowing great teachers to start new schools has had phenomenal effects elsewhere. And giving more resources to those schools in deprived areas through the "pupil premium" will make sure that efforts are targeted where they're needed.

That doesn't mean there should be no central accountability. In America, it is the states that allow innovation, but also hold new schools properly accountable for their performance.

And we can afford these schools. At least, we can providing that the government takes a second, vital step – planning reform. Without changes to the planning system, new schools will remain a fantasy. Groups who wish to reopen closed schools need planning legislation to do so. Groups who want to set up schools quickly and easily in different kinds of facilities, as they have done in other countries, need to have the planning system radically simplified.

If that planning reform, which Michael Gove has committed to in the past, goes through, then new schools will be significantly cheaper. The money for £40m school buildings is no longer there, but if you allow schools to be more flexible in the buildings they use and let parents decide whether what goes on inside a school is more important than the outer shell, you can achieve new schools without enormous investment, just as they have in Sweden and the United States.

We know that new schools set up in the poorest areas can have an enormous impact. In New York, charter schools have closed the gap between the performance of children in the richest part and the poorest part of New York by 86 per cent in maths and 66 per cent in English. A Harvard professor found that one of the charter schools in Harlem closed that gap completely in maths.

In Boston, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that "charter schools appear to have a consistently positive impact on student achievement in all subjects". And charter schools are enormously oversubscribed. There are 365,000 pupils across the country on waiting lists.

Increasing opportunities for the poor should be the priority for education policy. In other countries, children from deprived backgrounds have had their lives transformed. Pupils here deserve the same chance.

Rachel Wolf is the director of the New Schools Network

Julie Maynard, mother: "This is very bad news for my son"

As a mother of a disabled child and a campaigner, I appreciate the government believes academies will provide choice for parents facing the prospect of their child attending a failing school; no reasonable parent wants that. Yet many parents of "statemented" children with special educational needs (Sen) have no choice. Special schools have closed. There is no requirement for the local education authorities to ensure they exist. Even if they do exist, parents can only express a preference; the LEA determines the child's placement, often based on ideology or bean counting.

Academies do not improve matters for us, but, strangely, weaken our child's legal position. A maintained school must take my child, if it is named in his statement, while an academy can refuse. I may appeal to the secretary of state or the special educational needs and disability tribunal (SENDiST), but an academy can bypass this fair process.

I have no right to ask for my son Joshua's placement to be changed from a maintained school to an academy, thus forcing him to stay in an underachieving school, while peers abandon ship. Academies have no legal duty to ensure my child receives the help set out in his statement; worse still, the funding LEA has no powers to ensure it does. Instead, I am obliged to seek the secretary of state's intervention.

Academies leave disabled children in a worse position. Existing legal loopholes treat our children less favourably. In the government's haste to improve the outcome of children, it appears it has unintentionally overlooked the injustice academies can cause to pupils with special educational needs.

When I first met the prime minister, as a father of a disabled child, Ivan, who sadly passed away, he shared my frustrations regarding the Sen system, described by the education select committee, as "not fit for purpose". Academies will not change that, especially as the admission process is frequently unfair.

If Mr Cameron is to achieve a fair society, he must fulfil promises to parents like me, regarding government educational proposals.

Surely my disabled son should have equal access to a good school, whether mainstream or special, based on meaningful parental choice?

Julie Maynard is a voluntary lay representative in SENDiST and campaigner.

Margaret Eaton, council chief: "Don't take councils out of the picture"

Councils don't run schools and haven't done for many years. What local government does is make sure there are enough school places for all the children who need them.

It ensures the admissions process operates fairly and oversees the distribution of funding. Councils provide support for all children with special educational needs and are also the champions of children who are in care.

I am pleased to say that the education secretary, Michael Gove, has made it clear to us that he sees councils continuing to play a strong, strategic role in the schools system. Councils' top priority is to make sure that the same high standards of education are offered to all students, whether they are taught in a community school or an academy.

There is concern across the country that a boom in academies could lead to inequalities developing in education, for example, if the pool of money left behind for councils to provide special educational needs support or to educate excluded children is drastically reduced. Councils are aware of the risk and are getting involved at an early stage to make sure this is not the case.

Expanding school choice for parents and pupils is something councils support, but this does not mean that schools can just be left alone without someone keeping an eye on their performance.

Councils are perfectly placed to challenge schools to drive up standards and are offering to do much more than the system currently allows, to work with schools and encourage improvement across the board. Schools value the support and expertise their local council can bring.

Local government has a valuable role to play in spotting potential problems in schools before they become serious. Councils are also keen to get involved with an issue which is of great personal concern to me – that of improving standards in the high number of perfectly adequate schools which are coasting rather than striving for excellence.

Michael Gove has asked councils for their own ideas about how they can help schools get better. Councils are on the side of parents and will work tirelessly to make all schools the very best they can be, to give children the start in life that they deserve.

Dame Margaret Eaton is chairman of the Local Government Association and a former teacher

Kim Sparling, headteacher: "It's fabulous – I'll be able to innovate now"

I am excited about the prospect of becoming a new academy. Why is this an attractive option? Academies have a huge number of freedoms to run themselves without petty interference from local or central government. As headteachers of outstanding schools, we do know best how to improve our schools.

Currently, local authorities keep back around 10% of a school's budget to run themselves and provide central services. For us, this means about £400,000. We certainly do not receive "services" worth this amount of money. I have been inundated with queries from other headteachers keen to find out about new academies and finance is a motivating factor. My school – Oldfield, on the outskirts of Bath – will rejoice in the opportunity to receive our funding from central government. We could provide a more appropriate amount of funding for services such as education welfare, education psychology services and behaviour support which have all been severely cut by local authorities over the years. As a high-performing school, we'll be able to take our three specialisms – arts, science and sport – into the new academy framework.

As an academy, we will have greater freedom to innovate with our curriculum and offer a wider selection of qualifications, eg the International GCSE, currently banned in state schools.

When Michael Gove said: "No ideology, just doing what actually works", I wondered whether I was listening correctly. Did politicians admit that they are not the experts on education?

It is interesting that the new government not only wants to encourage successful schools to help others, but that it will be a condition that new academies help other schools to improve. I agree that successful schools are often better placed to help improve schools than local authority advisory teams. My teachers involved in school support really enjoy this aspect of their teaching; they like sharing good practice and really making a difference in other institutions.

Politicians always say they want all parents to have access to a good school. The current framework is supposed to create a good school for all, but in practice, it does not. It punishes parents. The current admissions code, with its insistence on "equal preference", means that many parents do not get their school of first choice. Academies control their own admissions. For us, this is great news. Parents wanting to send their child to an "outstanding" school like ours will be able to do so without the fear that they will not get in and then lose their second choice school in their home authority.

I applaud the new government's desire to give greater autonomy to schools. For successful schools, there will be greater potential for innovation. Until now, it took a brave (some would say stupid) leader to decide to ignore "guidance" from the Department for Children, Schools and Families and plough your own furrow. The irony is that the more "successful" you were the more you could risk doing your own thing, whereas schools deemed to be "failing" had an enormous bureaucracy of initiatives which they felt compelled to implement.

I will enjoy being treated and trusted as a professional in my field, using my expertise to develop my school and share good practice with others. A breath of fresh air.

Kim Sparling is headteacher of Oldfield School, Bath

More on this story

More on this story

  • Michael Gove has no 'ideological objection' to firms making profits by running academy schools

  • Michael Gove's golden promises

  • Will school headteachers accept the offer to become academies?

  • School that became academy loses its 'outstanding' status

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