Schools urged to debate and reject Tory plans for education

• [Jan 22] THE Liberal Democrats have written to the Richmond's head teachers and chairs of governors urging them to debate and reject the Conservative council's plan for the disintegration of the borough's education system.

Last month the Conservative council published plans to radically change the way education is delivered and managed in Richmond. The paper advocated turning all of the borough's schools into independent Academies and the outsourcing of most of the council's education department. Taken with the Conservatives' desire to create sixth forms in all the borough's secondary schools, which would reduce the size of their intake, these changes are so far reaching that they need to be thoroughly understood and have the widest possible debate.

Cllr Malcolm Eady, the Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson, said: "This would be a huge shake up of the way education is provided in the borough. All schools are being encouraged to become independent Academies and our education department is being gutted. None of this was in the Conservatives election manifesto, and they are attempting to rush these changes through before the next election in 2014. The pace of change and the adoption of these untested ideas would be completely reckless. The decision making body, when it comes to deciding if a school converts to an Academy, is the school's governing body. I have therefore written to all our schools, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat councillors, detailing our views and comments on the proposals, and encouraging a wide and thorough debate on the subject.

"The driver of change is the Conservatives' desire for significant cost cutting and to remove the influence of the council from the education provision in the borough. If it is implemented it will drastically reduce the council's ability to provide more school places and risks damaging school performance. We have the best primary schools in the country and last summer our secondary schools had the best ever results. Our schools need to change and innovate, but this should be achieved by building on what is already successful, rather than changing radically to an untested model. The Conservative policy document is full of rhetoric and poorly thought out policies. The important priorities, such as providing more school places, are muddled up with changes driven by political ideology rather than practical need. Their experiments could severely damage the educational provision for this borough and therefore their document should be widely read and the consequences understood."

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Cllr Eady's letter:

Dear Head Teacher and Chair of Governors,

I AM writing to you in my role as education spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat group of councillors. At the end of last year the new Conservative controlled Council published an education policy paper. This proposes a number of radical changes to the way education is delivered and managed in Richmond. Their six priorities are:-

• All schools to become independent academies.

• Create sixth forms in all secondary schools.

• Outsource the local educational authority services.

• Set up non-statutory community "education" boards.

• Provide more primary school places

• Provide more secondary school places.

Of these six priorities only the last two attempt to tackle the major problem facing parents and the council. The rest are based on national Conservative party policies or are the whims of the local party.

As you know the responsibility for managing our schools lies primarily with the Governing bodies of the schools not the Council. You are the decision making body when it comes to deciding if a school is to be converted into an Academy or have a sixth form. As a Governing body you will need to carefully consider if the proposed changes are to the long term benefit of your school and local community, and then vote accordingly.

Below are our comments and views about the Conservative administration's proposals:

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• PRIMARY Schools: We have the best results in the country, although a few primary schools should be doing better. The local authority's school improvement officers know their schools well, and their oversight enables them to pick up emerging patterns and trends and work with schools and governors to address problems. Making schools independent and outsourcing the department will improve nothing and at worst put schools at risk.

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• SECONDARY Schools: At secondary level, our schools are now achieving their best ever results. Over the past few years those schools needing support received it and we are now reaping the rewards. Two secondaries are now rated outstanding by Ofsted, and all the schools bar one are oversubscribed.

To bring about change at the three under-performing schools we partnered them with two top class educational providers and created three academies, which will stay within the family of Richmond schools. They opened last summer, and staff, pupils and parents were very supportive of the changes.

The history of the three schools shows that concentrated support from the local authority and London Challenge was successful and that sponsoring them with an educational provider has acted as a catalyst for change in teaching methods and organisation. Joint positive support and working with schools has worked.

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• NEW Academies: The Conservative policy paper proposes to adopt a new type of Academy which will not allow for co sponsorship by the Council, nor sponsorship by an experienced provider of educational services. The schools will be handed over to independent trusts formed from the Governing bodies. Non statutory community boards will be set up to meet 3 times per year, but with no powers.

Nationally, the supporters of these proposals claim that these proposals would free schools from outside interference and let head teachers get on and run the schools. In fact schools are aware that it is interference from central Government not the local authority which resulted in excess paperwork and form filling. Currently a lot of this is done by the local authority, but in future it will all be done at the academy level. The new white paper shows that the Government's desire to influence what goes on in schools has not gone away, only the direction has changed.

The second advantage claimed for the academy route is that more money will go directly into the schools. Currently academies are very generously funded. This cannot continue as there is no extra money in the system. The white paper acknowledges that they will "fund schools on a fairer and more transparent basis, moving towards a national funding formula where funding follows the pupil and parents can see easily how their child is supported." We support this move, but it will mean less money to academies.

We consider that there is no evidence to support the claim that these new academies will bring about academic improvement, increase local accountability, or create a framework for sustainable high level performance. On the contrary, it puts at risk long term good work at primary and secondary levels. It will make strategic planning impossible and this will be detrimental to the overall education provision for the borough.

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• POST 16 education: The Council plan is to introduce Sixth forms in our oversubscribed secondary schools by reducing intake and hoping that the Government will fund two new secondary schools. They hope, without evidence, that this will result in higher standards.

In a very few years all children will have to stay on in education or full time training until 18. At post 16 we need to provide courses which focus on the needs of:-

• the highly academic,

• those who need a mixture of academic and vocational courses,

• and those who want to follow a full vocational course.

Our colleges provide this full range of courses and most pupil choices can be met.

Highly academic students have a wide choice - RuTC is one of the top providers of the International Baccalaureate Diploma, and Esher is one of the top sixth form colleges in the country. The performance of our 18 year olds ranks them 9th in the country. The current system is working.

The RuTC is planning to reduce the number of students it admits, because new post 16 provision is being provided in nearby boroughs. A smaller college more focused on Richmond students will be more attractive to Richmond parents.

It could be possible, given time, that a system based on sixth form provision in each secondary school could achieve the level of success for the students that the current system obtains and the breadth of course provision, although it would need a lot of cooperation between schools and significant strategic planning. We see no justification for taking that risk, especially when capital resources are limited and we are required to expand the 11 to 16 provision. The primary use of any spare capacity on secondary school sites should be used for expanding 11 to 16 provision.

The Government's white paper proposes to equalise the funding of pupils in colleges and schools. As there will be no more money available, funding per pupil in sixth forms is likely to be reduced. It will be much harder for schools to fund small classes, and therefore more difficult for schools to grow sixth forms.

Our main priorities should be to tackle existing problems, which are:-

• to make sure our vocational courses are relevant so that students acquire the necessary skills to obtain good and sustainable jobs,

• to improve the outcomes for those students who come from economically deprived backgrounds,

• and to provide good quality advice and guidance, so that students select appropriate courses, and so reduce dropout rates.

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• SCHOOL places: The problems the council and schools should be concentrating on are:-

1. The provision of more primary school places. Over the last 20 years the birth rate has increased by about 30 children per year, see graph in appendix 1. There is very little spare land to build new schools, many of our existing schools are on very tight sites, and the government has underfunded school expansions over many years. After 6 months in office the new administration's primary school programme is basically the same as our draft version. They have at last grasped the scale of the problem, but what they have not done is to commit to the next round of expenditure and to the need for long term capital planning. These delays will very probably lead to a shortage of places.

2. The provision of more secondary school places. The policy document has no firm ideas on how these are to be provided, just policies which will make the problem worse. Besides the council, the only holders of educational land in the borough are our two colleges. We need to be working with them, with perhaps some 11 to 16 provision on their sites.

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• OUTSOURCING the local educational authority services: Although this is not directly a school issue I suspect you may wish to express a view. The Council has to minimise the cost of running the services it provides. If it can do this by joint working with other councils or by outsourcing to an independent company, then this has to be considered. The Conservatives aim is for the local authority to commission services not provide them. To help governors understand the range of services currently provided, I have listed some in Appendix 2.

One of the reasons Richmond has been so successful in its provision of Children's Services is that it is a small borough. It is very easy for staff to get to know all the schools and for schools to get to know key staff members. There is good cooperation between schools and the various Council departments such as Arts, Libraries and Sports, and this has been used to supplement the basic education provision in projects such a Competitive Edge, Dramatic Edge and Scientific Edge. Outsourcing and fragmentation of Council departments will put this type of cooperation at risk.

The staff of the School improvement teams know their schools very well and there is a good supportive relationship. Outsourcing will put this high level of knowledge at risk. There will be some professional Services which will gain by the economies of scale and we will support those proposals.

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• CONCLUSIONS: The Conservative policy document is full of rhetoric and poorly thought out policies. The important problems are muddled up with changes driven by political ideology rather than

practical need. Their experiments could severely damage the educational provision for this borough and therefore their document should be widely read and the consequences understood.

It is the Governing body of the school who request to become an academy, not the local authority. If a governing body does decide to follow the Academy route, then they should carefully consider the following:-

• How will any new proposals benefit their pupils?

• Do they fully understand their new responsibilities, accountability and commitments?

• They should think of how this might affect the school's future role in the local community, and how it might affect other local schools?

• This borough has a very successful family of schools; although competitive, schools are supportive and collaborate well with each other. The Governing body should consider how any Academy programme might weaken or fragment this positive arrangement.

Our educational provision needs to change and innovate, but this should be based on incremental building on what is already successful not radical change to an untested model.

I would be grateful if you would share this letter with all the members of your governing body.

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Malcolm Eady Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Education and Schools.

Cllr.meady@richmond.gov.uk 020 8977 1398

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• APPENDIX: Services provided by the Local Authority:

Professional services - pupil/curriculum: Curriculum and Management Support for School Improvement. The Local Authority Consultant Inspector and Advisory Service. Special Educational Needs Education Welfare. Pupil Referral Service. Work-related Learning.

Professional Services - non-curriculum: Corporate Procurement Human Resources and Payroll and Pensions Legal Services Building support services Admissions Workforce development Schools' Finance Support and Training.

Development And Training: Governor Support Induction for Newly Qualified Teachers Subject Panels.

Other Services: Arts Service including Orleans House Gallery, Building Cleaning Service Curriculum and Training Centre Grounds Based Services. Grounds Maintenance Contract, Music Trust , Music Therapy, NQT Teacher Recruitment, Peripatetic Learning Support Service and School Catering Service. School Management System (SMS), Support Schools Online (LGfL Service), Schools' Library and Resource Service Youth Service.

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