Stories + Views
The White Paper: What’s in it for parents?
Parents, for so long treated as the main drivers of education reform, get scant direct mention in this week’s White Paper. Teachers are the flavour of this particular political month. Nevertheless, this fiercely political White Paper contains reforms that will affect parents directly.
It just depends on what kind of parent you are.
If your child is at a grammar school or in one of the newly freed ‘outstanding’ academies or burgeoning free schools, then this government has lots of treats in store for you; the chances are that the school’s highly academic curriculum, bolstered by a largely affluent/privileged intake, will win you a further hike up the league tables. There will be lots of English bacc certificates to flutter around. Your school may be in a better position to bid for the plethora of grants and endowments for artistic/scientific extension work increasingly available from private philanthropic schemes.
There are hidden dangers to the new school freedoms of course. There will be fewer checks and balances on your autonomous schools and the lifting of the requirement for Free Schools to have qualified teachers could leave your child prey to some pretty eccentric teaching. But the whole school population will definitely feel the financial advantages, in the short term certainly, of cutting loose from less privileged schools in your area.
It will be a very different story for parents at many local maintained non-selective schools, particularly in severely deprived areas. Whatever the hard work that has gone into improving results at you school, two significant proposed changes – raising the floor of so called failure from 30% to 35% in terms of GCSE’s including Maths and English, and further broadening the specification for what is considered five good GCSE’s – will inevitably make the job of these schools far harder especially at a time of overall cuts.
So if your school is one of those who fails to pick its results above the crucial 35% you will find your child’s school labelled a failure, however fantastic and hard working the leadership, teaching and pupils, and then be almost certainly converted into an Academy against your collective will.
As for the move towards an English bacc, without the extra resources/teachers required to introduce and consolidate modern languages, history, geography and separate sciences into the curriculum, schools like yours will inevitably slip back further in terms of league tables and local/national esteem.
And no, the much hyped pupil premium will not even begin to cover these extra costs; remember the government has axed the funding stream for one to one catch up tuition, so the pupil premium is going to have to re-invent the wheel on this, as on so many other initiatives. Newly slashed funding to school sixth forms will make it even harder for many schools to retain pupils beyond 16.
Parents will also be affected by potential reform of admissions policies, one of the major, if least publicised, elements of the White Paper. The growth in academies and free schools means more schools will become their own admission authorities, although still bound by the Admissions Code. But that might have less meaning if the government go ahead with proposals to weaken the part played by local authorities in overseeing schools admission policies and ensuring fairness.
Taken in tandem, such proposed changes make the emergence of a two tier system even more likely. We need to start lobbying against these damaging reforms as soon as possible.
Key LSN themes mentioned
Academies, Accountability, Admissions, Comprehensives & Grammars, Curriculum, Exams & Qualifications, Free Schools, Government Policy, Parents, Stories + ViewsOther tags
Academies, Accountability Private sector, English Bacc, free schools, funding, Government Policy, White PaperRelated posts
Comments, replies and queries
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I think this is a very important debate to have Melissa. I agree that the introduction of the English Bacc (which is basically adding Science, a Humanities, and a Modern Foreign Language to the existing GCSEs) together with the scrapping of modules and the downgrading of vocational GCSEs and BTECs will mean that schools in socially deprived areas will see their results go down. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea though: in a way it’s quite socialist because it’s insisting everyone does the same basic qualifications at 16. My big criticism of the old government was that it really allowed children to take qualifications that seemed to me to be very dubious in their value; they were 100% coursework and were very widely abused if we’re honest. I firmly believe we need to be a European country, MfL seems crucial as does Science (Humanities could be an option though…) The key issue for me is the support that these schools will get in introducing these qualifications — which I see as worthwhile; we need to put all our energies into making them work in schools with socially deprived intakes. I don’t think Gove’s privatisation agenda is the answer; I think supporting schools to arrive at creative solutions is the answer as well as giving schools a mixed intake. LAs have an important role to play here; I think they will be needed if standards are going to be raised.
An important clarification, Francis. Of course, an Mfl is important, as is a deeper knowledge of science and history. I am very glad for instance that my daughters and their peers have had access to all these subjects and many more at their local school where much of the teaching is nothing short of inspirational.
I want to see every pupil access these sorts of subject as of right, wherever the school, however ‘challenging’ the intake. The trouble is, schools are to be asked to implement this new move in a context/culture of potentially punitive consequences and severely curtailed resources; add to this, the looming changes to admissions and school structures which are probably going to segregate our schools even more.
Sadly, these make up the true backdrop to Gove’s easy pronouncements about a challenging curriculum; whatever he says he wants to see, they will combine to make it so much more difficult for a big tranche of schools already battling with so many other issues, to help pupils access this full range to the highest necessary standard.
Put it another way, I would rather see the wider curriculum offer made in terms of support and greater resources.
I totally agree that the government appears to have given little resources to implement the new changes; for some schools switching over to these subjects will be very difficult. It makes the government’s decision to axe the specialist schools budget even more troubling; there’s a good article in the TES today pointing out that many specialist schools are great at teaching languages in challenging circumstances:
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6064254
One thing few have noticed is the effect this will have on White British achievement in particular. Students who speak another language at home – for example, Bengali or Polish- will be much more likely to achieve the language component than students who don’t encounter a foreign language until they are 11/12. This is unless community languages are not part of the Bacc, though that would be clear discrimination, especially if ancient languages are included.
Yes, I think you’re right here. It will be very difficult for schools in white working class areas of high social deprivation. But I feel the issue of our insularity about languages needs to be addressed. I think primary schools are going to play a vital role here. I’ve noticed my son’s primary school has got its act together about teaching Spanish to the children, making it fun and relevant, widening their horizons beyond English. It will all backfire if the funding for languages at primary school disappears. More than ever, a strategic approach is needed: LA are required to implement borough wide plans like they’ve done in Tower Hamlets with Music. Schools will need to pool resources across the secondary and primary sectors. Oh and having mixed intakes in schools might help too!
Going to be difficult to get school pooling now that the duty to co-operate has been abolished!
I fear it might be. The White Paper talks speculatively about it, but word on the ground is that schools aren’t going to be keen giving anyone any help because they’re competition…
Behind some notably specious sound-bites, there’s actually very little mention of parents in the Education White Paper. Particularly their influence upon children’s attainment, which research and common sense suggests is overwhelmingly what determines a child’s achievement at school. We know that getting parents involved in their children’s education is the key to success. That’s why we need to support programmes like Families and Schools Together, which does exactly this. http://familiesandschools.org/