Malcolm Blair Robinson
March 11, 2010 By Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Education

The Tories have announced a policy of changing the leadership of 75 failing schools within 100 days of taking office. It is a good move and could play well with voters. Unfortunately Labour has a similar plan but according to Ed Balls even bolder. It is also true that Labour have introduced the  radical reforms of Academies, Trust , Foundation and Faith schools and tougher OFSTED inspections, so from the point of view of voters I am not sure there is much clear blue water between the two; more currents and eddies depending on local situations.

I have direct experience of a failing school, both as a parent and as an Addition Governor parachuted in by the LEA when the school went into Special Measures. I agree that the difference between a failing and a good school is almost always leadership quality. But and it is a very big but, the catchment area and level of family deprivation plays a big part. This does not mean schools should be expected to fail in really difficult catchments, because the value of a good school is socially all the greater when surrounded by deprivation. It means the leadership must be even better. It also has to be savvy. It needs very short lines of communication.

My school needed a change of leadership and this was  known to the LEA. However they had no powers to act, because they were not in charge of the school. They were in partnershipwith it. Only the Governors could act and they liked the leadership and would not. So down went the results and because some parents had choice, down went the numbers and because of the way state schools are nowadays funded down went the income. The result was unbelievable IT with a server wired up in a toilet and results at GCSE way below the national average. Parents who could afford to go private did and those who were mobile and could get their children into neighbouring state schools did that. The best alternative was a faith school which triggered an outbreak of religious devotion in order to try and qualify.

The only way to effect change was for Ofsted to put the school into Special Measures which put the LEA into a position where it could direct events. Unfortunately such was the decline in numbers and the state of the finances, the only route away from looming closure was to become an Academy, which has as yet to prove that it can deliver to the standard expected.  The ones who suffer are the students who need the school most from disadvantaged or dysfunctional backgrounds whose parents neither have, nor could be bothered to exercise, choice.

Now all this vast,  costly and sorry saga could have been prevented, with its huge financial drain and the incalculable cost of failed chances for the children affected because they are only in year whatever once and cannot turn their age clock back. What would have prevented it was the permanent power of the LEA to manage its school, change the leadership or do whatever was necessary to deliver a proper level of provision out of taxpayer’s money to those in need. Failure to do this would have led  the Cabinet Member and the majority party to suffer at the ballot box. It is called democracy and it is a clever idea.

Trust or Foundation or Academy schools outside LEA control may well be a good idea and add choice and competition within the free state education system. There is still a central role for LEA managed and funded  schools, especially in rural or disadvantaged areas and it should be a feature of education policy to put them back into the system. We need a return of the District Education Officer with both the power and the responsibility that goes with it. Woolly partnerships with enormous attendant process, practice and bureaucracy overlaid by pro forma inspections and rigid measures will not, whoever is in power, ever do better than disappoint. When cash is short they devour it like a wino with an endless string of bottles.

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