ELM December 2013

In this issue

December 2013

Education Leader and Manager

1–3

Strong ethical values – the heart of good leadership

4 Work experience 5 South West College STEM Centre 6 FE colleges in Wales 8 The duty to make a referral to the DBS 14 Manage the data 18 Last word: Back to the future AMiE is the leadership section of ATL

Cover story

Strong ethical values – the he Guidance by moral compass Mark Wright, national official, leadership and management, AMiE

“If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.”

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Robert Bolts’ excellent 1966 screenplay of A Man for All Seasons depicting the 16th Century moral dilemmas of Sir Thomas More, could so easily describe the ethical challenges presented on a day-to-day basis in schools and colleges across the land. Sir Thomas, a highly moral leader, while adapting to the prevailing circumstances remained true to himself despite significant external pressure to relinquish his own sense of moral purpose. The lesson of history is powerful.

It’s never too late to be a good leader

While not suggesting for one moment that you should emulate Sir Thomas in paying the ultimate price for the sake of moral purpose, there is, however, compelling evidence that leaders and managers are increasingly being ethically challenged in the face of multiple and often conflicting demands within the system.

At such times it can be incredibly hard to ‘do the right thing’ expected of good leadership and plump instead for an expedient ‘end justifies the means’ approach. Falling for this temptation can all too easily move you away from the spirit of Sir Thomas and more toward that of his contemporary, Machiavelli.

AMiE’s case load increasingly figures leaders who have drunk their own bathwater and believe they can operate however they like, including cases where members are being all too hastily ‘managed out’ as part of the drive for immediate results. Such a top down, end justifies the means, approach is far removed from the paragon of good leadership as understood since ancient times, eg ‘To lead people, walk beside them,’ Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher (6th century BC).

Some may argue that the world is awash with scandalous, corrupt and unethical behaviour and that we ought not to be overly concerned if the education system reflects this to some degree, so long as it churns out employment-ready learners with good maths and English. These are modern Machiavellian sirens; letting poor practice go unchallenged only serves to build stress and hamper good employment relations, which is never a good way to facilitate longlasting and robust final outcomes. Education, the noble profession, must remain noble if it is not to let down its workforce, its learners and, more broadly, society, which needs to take its lead from high ethical standards of behaviour.

However, it is important not to confuse uncompassionate leadership with the asymmetry of change. Change can be both necessary and painful and leaders ought not be berated for this, only for handling it insensitively. How change is navigated reflects the quality of the leader. Being open, transparent, having clarity of vision and rationale, and remaining emotionally available are some of the hallmarks of what ‘good’ looks like in this respect.

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Rejection

Non-responsiveness

Exploit, use and abuse others, and especially their relative disadvantages, for your own gain, without any regard for consequence.

Operate from a position that measures success only in terms of one’s own gain; exploit others where there is a power or monetary gain to be had, and have little real concern for the law of regulation.

heart of good leadership

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE SERIES

Improving perform through critical co ance nversations

By Peter Rushton

Unfortunately, as the pressures for results mount some leaders are tempted to build a wall around themselves and simply passport problems to the frontline without sufficient attempts to challenge or temper things first. At worst, there are examples of blatant age discrimination (particularly against older females), bullying and the kind of practices you’d expect from Thomas More’s main detractor, Thomas Cromwell, rather than the fairer-minded More.

Reaching ethical levels The hallmarks of a healthy organisational culture, such as openness and receptiveness to challenge, can be seeded at any time no matter what may have transpired in the past, and can be a useful way to move toward peace and reconciliation if standards have not been high. Indeed, using a framework to channel thoughts and aid discussion can be a useful way to engage staff with a positive focus in mind.

For example, building on the work of Dexter Dunphy, emeritus professor at the School of Management within the University of Technology Sydney, the journal, Performance, has identified various levels of leadership and management behaviour, from the unethical through to the highly ethical, which can be a useful discussion tool. The article can be found at http://performance.ey.com/ wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/05/ Ethical-leadership.pdf but the various levels of leadership and management behaviour discussed within have been defined below.

and Pauline Morr

It’s never too late to be a good leader.

Even if practices may have fallen short i n the past a good leader could use a simple framework such as this to tease out discontent and galvanise a move toward a better working environment.

It can also help inspire a more performance focused culture – a committed yet relaxed member of staff tends to be a lot more effective.

Remaining open and aware of the importance of self-management can be the deciding factor in your long term effectiveness both as a leader, and if you’re honest with yourself, as an individual. Such personal leadership entails a focus on keeping your vision and values foremost while aligning your life to be congruent with them. The price of incongruence is high and something that AMiE unfortunately often has to try and salvage through its casework activity.

In schools, performance-related pay is one among many of the changes that leaders and managers are challenged to deliver in a fair, mature and responsive manner and how it is deployed could present an ethical dilemma for some. Will you use it as an ‘end justifies the means’ way or will you stay in touch with your moral compass and manage the process with both rigour and compassion? When ethical leadership is absent it fosters fear, alienation and confusion and this should trigger a good leader to ‘stand fast a little, even at the risk of being a hero.’

AMiE’s latest publication, Improving Performance Through Critical Conversations, is a timely resource to help leaders and managers navigate smoothly through the challenges offered by both the appraisal process and more broadly the day-to-day conversations that can be the difference between whether you are attuned to Sir Thomas or Machiavelli!

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Compliance

Efficiency

Proactivity

Sustaining

Do the minimum required by the relevant authorities, and continue to exploit others, but minimise consequential risk. In other words, don’t get caught out.

Regard yourself as a good citizen (individual or corporate), and act in a manner that respects and upholds the morals, values, regulations, customs and styles of wider society; act in a holistic, integrated way across all areas of activity.

Be a proactive agent for values-led leadership in the context of wider society in all areas of activity, recognising this as a point of personal or corporate distinction. Or, be a role model by going ‘above and beyond.’

Recognise one’s place in the grander scheme of things, and the interconnectedness of everyone as well as everything, and act as a co-evolutionary element to foster greater effectiveness for the whole.

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AMiE is ATL’s section

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College leadership and union support

We need to be realistic about work experience The latest example of downplaying the FE contribution concerns work experience, now seen as an essential part of most study programmes for 16-19-year-olds and the dominant element of the new traineeships. It is highly unlikely that employers, who are rapidly turning their backs on 16-19-yearolds, will provide sufficient substantial and high quality places to meet the hugely expanded demand that curriculum reforms have generated.

One way of filling the gap is to build on the many and varied ways in which colleges provide realistic working environments (RWEs), but the Department for Education (DfE) has gone out of its way to damn that valuable contribution with faint praise.

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Lynne Sedgmore, executive director, 157 Group

There is a strange policy gap that English politicians of all parties fall into when thinking about vocational education.

They present choices for young people in terms of either going to university or taking an apprenticeship; linking and limiting their policy options to improving one or the other - if not both. They bemoan the low status of vocational study but then undermine it further by their rhetoric, actions and misunderstandings.

We are not arguing that places at university or good apprenticeships are bad options. For many young people they are the right choice.

There is, however, a third choice, made by far more young people than ever get the chance of an apprenticeship; the option to undertake a course of vocational education in a college.

The numbers of apprenticeship places for The numbers of 16-19-year-olds is small and falling. Despite apprenticeship consistent and high profile action from successive governments, vocational further education places for (FE) is the only realistic alternative to academic 16–19-yearstudy - though you might not realise this olds is small listening to ministerial and policy sound bites. and falling

Again, we do not deny that a well organised and substantial placement with a good and committed employer should be the gold standard in respect of work experience. We do, however, challenge the implied view that any work experience with an employer, however limited and contrived and short term, is always better than a well planned programme in an RWE. College farms, training restaurants, travel agencies, florists, hairdressing salons, body shops and a host of other commercially managed activities offer valuable experience for students across a whole range of vocational areas. We ought to be celebrating what they achieve and finding ways of expanding their contribution rather than stigmatising them as second best.

We need to use RWEs because of the shortfall in good employer placements but we should also use them because they meet needs that employmentbased options do not. After all (thankfully), surgeons do not learn the first steps in dissection on real patients and pilots make their first flights on a simulator. A college enterprise can give students an insight into real commercial pressures and the experience of dealing directly with customers but still have staff whose primary focus is on student learning and not shareholder profit.

Oddly, government is more than capable of celebrating this same approach outside FE. When university technical colleges reinvent this particular wheel it is (rightly) praised as forward-thinking and innovative. When Edge set up a training hotel or Lord Baker announces a new raft of ‘career colleges’ it is seen as progressive and exciting. It’s a pity, however, that we don’t make more of the outstanding practice that already exists in plenty across FE.

The view from Northern Ireland The Stem Centre, Dungannon, has been described as: ‘the best example of the use of technology in an FE college.’

With the government’s ‘Success through STEM’ policy highlighting the importance of science, technology, engineering and maths, Mark Langhammer takes a look at an innovative response in Northern Ireland.

The STEM Centre is located within South West College’s (SWC) Dungannon Campus in County Tyrone. This discreet Centre is designed to the highest ergonomic standards in technology-rich learning spaces. The STEM Centre creates an immediate ‘wow’ factor.

The Centre is a state-of-the-art teaching space focused on educational and instructional activities in STEM areas, aimed at creating a culture of innovation and adventure in schools. The target audience includes key stage (KS) 2, KS3, parents, community groups and industry, as well as college students.

South West College STEM Centre Contact the STEM Centre by email at shirley.patterson@swc.ac.uk, tel 028 8772 0644 Ext 3644 or visit www.stemcentreni.com.

SWC is part of the The Gazelle Group of 19 colleges, see www.gazellecolleges.com.

Staff facilitate discovery, rather than teach or instruct. Activities encourage inquiry and are unlikely to be delivered in the classroom. Accompanying teachers are advised to ‘take a step back’ whilst pupils explore a range of activities, puzzles and tasks.

Staff have designed a range of engaging ‘action learning’ scenarios. On the day I visited, pupils were engaged in a CSI-style ‘Who done it?’ exercise with pupils taking over the crime scene to engage in forensic analysis, blood sampling, ballistics testing and deduction to inform and solve a murder mystery. The Centre stimulates a high level of engagement through teamwork, using initiative, problem-solving and, fundamentally, enjoyment.

External verification of the STEM Centre’s work has been very positive. In 2012, the Centre won a UK Association of Colleges (AoC) beacon award, with AoC chair, Lord Willis, noting that the STEM Centre was: “the best example of the use of technology in an FE college I have come across.”

The Education and Training Inspectorate praised the: “outstanding work of the Centre to Year 7 pupils…” and that “the impact of the programme outside the college in promoting interest in STEM courses and careers is significant.” The Inspectorate praised the Centre’s internal impact on the STEM curriculum offer and learning experience for FE students.

Centre manager, Shirley Patterson, said: “The Centre gets pupils enthused about the STEM subjects through novel and exciting activities. We hope that this experience will encourage more pupils to choose STEM careers.”

The Centre sits alongside an innovative range of employer engagement, science, research and development initiatives across the largely rural, college catchment area in Tyrone and Fermanagh. The STEM Centre’s ‘sister centres’ include the CREST Renewable Energy Centre (Enniskillen), the IDEA Centre for product design (Omagh), the IMAGE Centre (Enniskillen) focusing on creative and digital media and the InnoTech Centre (Tyrone), an award-winning industry research and development centre promoting innovation, product development and technology transfer.

Fergal Tuffy, manager of the InnoTech Centre at SWC commented: “The college has developed a suite of innovation centres to target the STEM agenda for students, industry and the wider community. We have a novel approach that will benefit all involved to provide prosperity for the region.”

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The view from Wales

Major developments for FE John Graystone, chief executive, ColegauCymru (CollegesWales)

The educational change agenda in Wales differs from the other UK nations; the Welsh Government is setting down its own distinct path.

This article updates readers on some key developments that were described in June 2013.

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Let’s start with transformation.

On 1 August 2013, four mergers involving FE colleges in Wales took place.

Assuming all goes to plan, and two further mergers are due shortly, by January 2014, the FE sector in Wales will comprise 10 FE colleges, one Catholic sixth form college, three colleges which are wholly owned by universities, and two FE institutions. Eleven successful mergers will have occurred since 2009.

The largest college now has a turnover of over £75 million with well over 30,000 students. The average income for FE colleges is over £40 million per year.

The transformation programme is now complete. The focus will inevitably shift towards seeing whether the newly merged colleges can improve on the high standards already achieved by the FE sector in Wales.

Trust is a key element here

The second key area is the Further and Higher Education (Governance and Information) (FHE) Bill, published in May 2013, which has now passed the important first two stages of scrutiny by the Welsh Government. A Bill in Wales has to pass through four stages before Royal Assent. The FHE Bill takes forward proposals to enable FE colleges to remain as ‘not for profit institutions serving households’, rather than be reclassified by the Office for National Statistics as ‘central government bodies.’

Wales has taken a different path from that in Scotland and Northern Ireland where colleges will become part of central government. The Scottish Government is already developing approaches to mitigate the negative effects on college budgets and capital funding.

The Minister for Education and Skills has given his strong support to the Bill, recognising “the maturity of the FE sector in Wales” and that “colleges, rather than government, are best placed to determine how the needs of learners and local communities should be met.” (White Paper, Further and Higher Education (Wales) Bill, Welsh Government, 2 July 2012).

Assuming the Bill receives Royal Assent, ColegauCymru and colleges will clarify their future working relationship with the Welsh Government, possibly through a memorandum of understanding. The Welsh Government provides around 80% of college funding – including work-based learning and capital funding.

An appropriate balance needs to be struck between the Minister ensuring that colleges deliver the Welsh Government agenda and that the taxpayer receives value for money while at the same time acknowledging that colleges have increased freedom to manage their own affairs and respond to the needs of their local communities. Trust is a key element here.

A third key area is the national common contract for staff in FE. Negotiations between ColegauCymru and the joint trade unions have lasted for three and a half years. They have been tough and far-reaching but against the odds it appears that a historic agreement will be reached. The Minister for Education and Skills stated that the common contract must be, at worst, cost neutral for the sector as a whole.

On the very day I am writing these words, the negotiations have concluded and both sides are seeking to recommend the deal to their members.

Version 27 of the contract is the final ‘ballot ready’ version. Assuming that both sides ratify the common contract, each college governing body will decide whether to implement the new contract.

Currently, college staff are employed on a wide range of contracts – there are even a handful of lecturers on the old Silver Book, which pre-dates incorporation in 1993.

colleges in Wales For some colleges, the introduction of the new contract will lead to added costs. Some staff may find the new contract less favourable than their present one. To provide some protection, the new arrangements will be phased in. The final date for all staff to transfer is 1 September 2016.

The fourth and crucial issue is that of funding.

Colleges in Wales are directly funded by the Welsh Government. Colleges were expecting an increase of one percent in 2013-14 but shortly before the start of the financial year were informed that their budgets would be cut by 1.5%, an overall reduction of £5.5 million compared with what was expected. They were then asked to plan for at least a further five percent cut (around £15 million) in 2014-15.

Colleges recognise the tough financial situation facing the Welsh Government. But they have pointed out to ministers the huge social and economic value of FE. Colleges promote social justice - widening access, tackling disadvantage, offering a second chance, preventing NEETs. They also promote economic growth - raising the skills levels, encouraging entrepreneurialism and enterprise, being the first port of call for industry.

On 31 October 2013, colleges were informed of their indicative allocations for 2014-15.

The reductions are less than expected with an overall cut of 1.46% or around £4.5 million.

Most college allocations will be reduced by 2.07%. The Minister has listened to the concerns of colleges. It is a tough settlement.

Colleges will make some hard decisions, looking closely at making further efficiency gains while maintaining quality – with the interests of the learner as central.

The final area is that of qualifications. The review of qualifications chaired by Huw Evans, a retired college principal, sets out a very different path from England. GCSEs will be retained with terminal assessment set at a minimum of 40%; AS and A-levels will continue; Qualifications Wales will be established with a regulatory and quality assurance role and with the duty to report directly to the Welsh Government. The Welsh Baccalaureate will have a central place.

All involved in these qualifications reforms recognise the fundamental importance of quality standards in Wales being able to match the best in Europe.

To conclude, the education system in Wales is becoming more and more distinct from that in England. In Wales, partnership and cooperation are the drivers. There are no funding bodies or 24+ adult loans. Students are still able to access educational maintenance allowances.

There are no academies, free schools, university technical colleges, careers colleges or studio schools. There is no encouragement to schools to open sixth forms to widen choice and increase competition. There are no plans to raise the education and training age to 18 or to allow colleges to recruit full-time 14-16-yearolds. The table below demonstrates the differences between Wales and England. Time will tell which country has got it right.

Differences in English and Welsh education systems Theme

Wales

England

Overall approach

Partnership

Competition

Choice for students

Limited

Extensive

New types of school

No

Yes

Raise participation age to 18

Opportunities for learners expanded

Legal requirement

Funding councils?

Welsh Government

Two funding bodies

Funding

Tight funding with priority to 16-18-year-olds

16-18-year-olds protected but 19+ more to employers and 24+ loans

Mergers

Strong lead from Welsh Government

Discouraged

EMAs

Yes

No

Common contract

Yes

No

NPISH

FHE Bill

Yes

Curriculum reform

Yes but different from England

Yes but different from Wales

Colleges able to enrol 15 and 16-year-olds full-time

Not normally Yes full-time and in consultation with the local authority (LA)

Chartered status

Being considered

Yes

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Safeguarding update

When you have a duty to make a referral to the DBS John Lowe, AMiE Council member 8

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is the body that decides whether people should be barred from certain forms of working or volunteering with children or adults.

Employers and those who engage volunteers have a legal duty to refer people to the DBS in certain prescribed circumstances. It is the purpose of this article to describe those circumstances as simply as possible, but it is impossible to avoid all technical terms if we are to provide a clear understanding of this legal duty.

The DBS website at www.disclosuresdbs.co.uk contains a good deal of clear and helpful material, including 13 factsheets covering different aspects of referral at www.gov.uk/government/ publications/dbs-referrals-factsheets.

The DBS is a key element in the strategy to keep children safe

All employees in schools and those responsible for under-18s in FE colleges will be engaged in regulated activity. Essentially, it will cover all employees for whom an enhanced DBS check, including checking the barred list, is required. In many cases, of course, the employer will be the LA. Employers have a legal duty to make a referral to the DBS when they have permanently removed a person from regulated activity through dismissal or permanent transfer from regulated activity (or would have if the person had not left, resigned, retired or been made redundant) for one of the following reasons:

1 the person has been cautioned or convicted for a relevant offence

1 the person has actually harmed or put at risk of harm a child

1 the person poses a risk of harm to a child.

A list of these serious sexual and violent offences can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/249428/dbs-factsheet-relevantoffences-england-and-wales.pdf.

The DBS factsheet entitled, Harm, Relevant Conduct and Risk of Harm, which can be downloaded from www.gov.uk/government/ This article will confine itself to the duty of referral uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ in the case of children, those under age-18. There file/249422/dbs-factsheet-harm-relevantare similar provisions for vulnerable adults, but conduct-and-risk-of-harm.pdf states: they largely concern health and personal care “Harm is not defined in any of the applicable rather than education. However, if you are involved legislation relating to DBS referrals and barring with the care of vulnerable adults, the websites and so should be understood in terms of its referenced cover them as well as children. common understanding or the definition you may find in a dictionary. Accordingly, harm The article will, for the sake of simplicity, talk should be construed within a broad context about employers, but the stipulations cover and meaning.”

The factsheet gives a number unsupervised volunteers in the same way as of useful examples of categories of harm. employees. The duty to refer applies to employers of people working in ‘regulated activity.’ This To make a referral to the DBS employers are technical term is explained fully in the DBS required to use the DBS’s very detailed form. factsheet entitled, Summary of Regulated Activity It is accompanied by 13 pages of guidance, Relating to Children, which can be located at including a long list of documents that are www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ required if employers have them. The form, uploads/attachment_data/file/249435/dbsguidance notes and set of frequently asked factsheet-regulated-activity-children.pdf. questions can be located at www.gov.uk.

The DBS has no powers to investigate, so it relies entirely on the information supplied to it by employers. When someone has been dismissed because they have been cautioned or convicted of a criminal offence, the DBS can obviously use the police investigation. However, if it is a case of someone causing harm or posing the risk of harm, this is something the employer will be required to demonstrate. The DBS asks that referrals should only be made once the investigation is completed and its results can be included with the documentation.

Employers should also consider at this point referring the matter to the police.

If the person referred to the DBS is a teacher in England, the employer should also consider referring the case to the National College for Teaching and Leadership. Details can be found at www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/ teachermisconduct/b00203674/referring/ safeguarding. The National College for Teaching and Leadership states: “If an allegation against a teacher is in any way connected to the risk of harm, or actual harm, to a child (safeguarding) then a referral should be made to the DBS. “If the misconduct element of an allegation involving safeguarding issues is serious, a referral should be made to both the DBS and the National College for Teaching and Leadership. The National College for Teaching and Leadership and the DBS will consider the misconduct and safeguarding aspects of the case respectively and in parallel. Employers have a statutory duty to consider referral of cases involving serious professional misconduct to the National College for Teaching and Leadership.”

As with police investigations, the DBS will rely heavily on the findings of the professional body as it has no investigatory powers of its own.

The duty of referral to the DBS is serious and potentially arduous for employers, especially when they have to conduct an investigation. The paperwork required by the DBS is also daunting.

It might be tempting to turn a blind eye to some activities that should give cause for concern.

We have seen recent instances where schools might seem not to have done everything in their power to alert the authorities to serious harm experienced by some children. The DBS is a key element in the strategy to keep children safe and employers have a serious duty to cooperate with it through these referral procedures.

The scope of the DBS extends to England and Wales. Similar arrangements are in force in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Details can be found www.disclosurescotland.co.uk and www.safeguardingni.org.

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funding

pay

Roll up, roll up,

join the AMiE policy panel

Given the sheer pace of change within education and the dysfunctions that come to light on a regular basis it is absolutely vital that we maintain a strong channel for your views and opinions, especially during the run up to the next election when politicians are more likely than usual to be in listening mode.

With this in mind and acknowledging how busy you are we would like you to spare no more than half an hour every two months contributing your thoughts on areas of interest to you via AMiE’s policy panel.

There’s little point in grumbling about having to put into practice ill thought out policy if you haven’t taken every opportunity to register that there has to be a better way, so let us have your views and we will represent them for you.

You can sign up to as many topics as you like among the following, or suggest others – we are led by you on this:

1 inspection 1 pay and conditions (including performance-related pay) 1 changes to national curriculum 1 curriculum and qualifications (and league tables) 1 governance and leadership capacity 1 funding 1 teacher training/recruitment 1 new free schools/forced academisation 1 work stress/workload 1 apprenticeships/traineeships 1 any others – what key topic have we missed?

Please go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZLDQ72Y and express your preferences. In case others wish to add to the comments already received, we will publish the outcomes from this survey, as well as any comments received via email, in future editions of ELM; this will hopefully help shape education. Let’s aim for the stars, why not!? For further information on the policy panel please email Mark Wright at mwright@aime.atl.org.uk.

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Equalities issues

The challenge facing BME staff in education Danielle Egonu-Obanye, founder and director of Ethnic Minorities in Education

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I still encounter parents and children who are surprised to see me.

I’ve often chuckled to myself when parents tell me time and time again that I sounded white on the phone or freeze as I welcome them to step into my office to discuss a school matter and they ask me several times if I’m the right person they should be talking to. But even though I take it all in my stride, I wish that my presence or the presence of other black and minority ethnic (BME) leaders, teachers, lecturers and the like wasn’t still such a surprise, just a normality.

Even having a Nigerian surname gave rise to concern in my pursuit of progression. It is an easy identifier to prospective employers of my ethnic origin. I’ve spoken to BME teachers who have been asked to ‘adapt’ their last name by senior leaders because: “no one will be able to say it” and they have felt the pressure to adhere to the request.

One of the most difficult aspects of my research occurred when I spoke to children from BME backgrounds who still, in 21st century England, anticipate the day when they might have a person who looks like them, not just teaching in their classroom, but anywhere in their school. All children, from all backgrounds need positive BME role models, not just from films, music videos and sports but in their day-to-day lives.

Ethnic Minorities in Education (EMIE) didn’t begin in any exciting fashion and I would never have dreamt that I would be leading a movement of change. However, when I was out with fellow teacher friends at dinner one night, discussion about their negative experiences from working in education began as it always did. On this particular night it resonated with me and it was the catalyst for my action in developing EMIE. I’d heard so many stories from so many people and while one of my friends sobbed in despair about being too afraid to put in yet another application for threshold, I realised there were people out there that didn’t have the support that either she or I had received.

Not everyone supported the idea. I received warning phone calls about the implications that starting the network would have on my own career. Clearly, as the person leading a movement that would highlight and try to overcome prejudice, I would be at the front of the firing line. But then emails from teachers began to flow in, and as people poured out their sorrows and stories of discrimination from across the country, I felt that I couldn’t ignore their plight. No one else was putting themselves forward to offer help and although a scary and lonely path awaited, I took the first step and haven’t stopped going forward.

EMIE recognises that there isn’t always a level platform for people to build on and that the challenges of poverty, gender, race, disability and sexuality are very present but these are amplified because change takes time and obstacles are not always recognised and acknowledged.

EMIE’s vision of a diverse workforce may sound simplistic but with the difficulties surrounding recruitment and retention, as well as the disproportionate representation of BME leaders in educational establishments, local government and DfE departments, the challenge ahead becomes more apparent.

Raising awareness of this is necessary, not just for the workforce but for the children and young people we educate. Our young people deserve role models from all backgrounds in order to recognise that success comes in many different forms. They need to see different visual models of leadership that reflect the world around them.

Only recently, a headteacher from an urban London secondary setting approached me after a talk about EMIE. He acknowledged that his staff base was monocultural and unreflective of his pupil demographic. However, it had never occurred to him what impact this might have within his school. It’s these conversations which will provoke change in perceptions and keep the benefits of diversity at the forefront of people’s minds. In 2014, EMIE will be taking more steps forwards towards promoting the benefits of a diverse workforce, by holding events for practitioners from all backgrounds across London and the rest of England.

ATL is a member of EMIE. If you want more information on EMIE please visit their website at www.emieuk.com or email them at info@emieuk.com.

Union matters

Help us develop our curriculum resources Louisa Thomson, education policy adviser, ATL

The final drafts of the new national curriculum framework were published in September 2013.

When the first version was put forward by Michael Gove at the beginning of the year, opposition was so widespread 17,000 responses were submitted to the government’s consultation.

ATL has spent the last 12 months talking to teachers and leaders about the changes, debating the aims and purpose of the national curriculum, and how a broad and balanced curriculum can best equip young people with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required for 21st century employment.

There have been some welcome changes in the final version which unions and subject associations lobbied hard for – but the overall approach remains the same, underpinned by the Secretary of State’s narrow vision of ‘essential knowledge.’ Many subjects are harder, narrower and more challenging for pupils to progress.

From next autumn maintained schools will be required to teach the new national curriculum in its entirety. There are some exceptions: Years 2 and 6 will still be taught the old curriculum for English, maths and science as new tests at primary level will not be introduced until May 2016; and pupils in Years 10 and 11 in 2014-15 will be taught the current programmes of study for English, maths and science until the reformed GCSEs are introduced in 2015. This is a challenging timescale for schools, especially as the changes to the curriculum have been introduced alongside other changes to assessment, qualifications and accountability measures.

ATL believes the national curriculum should give teachers space to innovate, to be able to support their pupils’ learning through an ever-changing society. It should be a curriculum for all children and young people in all schools. We want to encourage a creative response to the new framework, and empower teachers to take up this challenge and create a curriculum that counts in their schools.

As leaders, you have probably already started to think about the new national curriculum and what will happen in your school from September 2014. You might be making decisions about how much will need to change, how to involve staff in the discussions, and whether it’s an opportunity to start afresh and rethink the values that inform your school’s approach.

Over the next few months we are aiming to provide ongoing support to teachers and leaders as the new curriculum framework is developed and implemented in schools. A new website will bring together curriculum resources for ATL and AMiE members. Different approaches to curriculum design will be outlined; links to subject resources and special discounted offers will all be in one place. Members will also be able to share ideas and ask questions about the curriculum.

One of the most important aspects of our new curriculum resource will be detailed case studies from different schools, containing video clips, Q&As, presentations, downloadable resources and ideas covering how each school approached the curriculum, planned and delivered it, how leaders brought staff on board and what resources and training were needed.

To make this project a success, we need your help. Is your school doing anything interesting and innovative around curriculum design?

Could your school be a case study and help inspire other teachers and leaders?

Please email Louisa Thomson in ATL’s policy team at lthomson@atl.org.uk as we’d love to hear from you.

It’s now harder than ever to be good Recent changes to Ofsted inspection guidelines are likely to make it much harder to achieve a ‘good’ rating. The guidelines also place a greater focus on leadership, including a need to demonstrate positive collaboration with other schools and developing middle leaders as part of a succession planning duty.

See AMiE’s website at www.amie.atl.org.uk/ inspectionframework for further information regarding Ofsted inspection frameworks.

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Employment matters

Shaping education

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AMiE is heavily engaged in ATL’s Shaping education campaign, which seeks to take forward the views of our members – that you would like to be able to work in accord with the values that motivated you to come into education in the first place – and the current climate often gets in the way of this. We would like to see a golden thread between practical policy, how it is deployed by leaders and how it is taught, and how it all adds value in the process of developing children and young people into wellrounded, confident, articulate individuals with productive and satisfying lives.

The next Westminster election might seem a way off but politicians are now in the process of shaping their education manifestos. We encourage you to write to your local MP or, even better, request a meeting at one of their surgeries; now is the time when they are most likely to be receptive. ATL/AMiE school-based members will have received our shaping education postcard and we urge you to use them to lobby your MP over the key education issues. We all need to help shape a more effective education system. More information on the campaign can be found on AMiE’s website and you can also join in the debate on Twitter at #shapeeducation.

FESH Safety Assessment Tool The Further Education Safety & Health Forum (FESH), set up to offer strategic direction on health and safety matters in the sector, is reporting that 50% of colleges in England and Scotland, and as many as 90% in Wales, are now using the FESH Safety Assessment Tool. FESH is made up of representatives from English, Welsh and Scottish colleges, trades unions, and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its representative nature makes it well-placed to speak on behalf of the FE sector on health and safety matters and to design tools to complement the HSE’s strategy for the health and safety of Great Britain.

Further information about FESH can be found on AMiE’s website at www.amie.atl.org.uk/fesh and on the safety assessment tool at www.amie.atl.org.uk/feshtool.

Action to tackle stress Over the last year or so AMiE has been working with ATL colleagues to develop effective tools that will help colleges manage stress and well-being in the workplace.

As a result of this, a new factsheet entitled, Managing Stress and Well-Being in FE, has been published by ATL to encourage wider use of the HSE’s Management Standards for Preventing Work-Related Stress. This factsheet can be found on AMiE’s website at www.amie.atl.org.uk/adv64.

Using the familiar risk assessment model, the HSE’s standards refer to six areas of work that can lead to stress if not properly managed. Under each area there are ‘states to be achieved’, which organisations should work towards.

The Management Standards require managers, employees and their representatives to work together to improve those areas of work, which will have a positive effect on employee well-being.

The approach is aimed at the organisation rather than individuals so everyone can benefit from any actions taken. Its success is highlighted in ATL’s factsheet.

We have no doubt that implementing the Management Standards will have a significant and positive effect on the well-being of staff as well as on college life. We know that if reps, college managers and staff work together, using ATL’s materials as a starting point, that it is achievable.

As well as ATL’s excellent factsheet, AMiE is also providing a free workshop aimed at senior managers, safety officers and union representatives at colleges on how to implement the Management Standards. If you would like to discuss holding a workshop at your college please contact David Green by email at dgreen@amie.atl.org.uk or by phone on 01858 411 540.

ATL ADV ICE

Managing stress and well-being in FE

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ADV64

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Be the link Have you ever considered becoming an AMiE rep and being the link between your school or college and the AMiE office?

CPD leadership courses 2013–14

Wherever we have an AMiE rep, members tend to be better informed on matters affecting their workplace and find it easier to raise or respond to issues that affect them.

ATL/AMiE provides high quality training for members, including face-to-face and online courses, as well as opportunities to access discounted learning with our partner, Edge Hill University. Of particular interest to AMiE members will be our range of leadership courses, which include courses on ‘Leading behaviour: improvement to outstanding,’ ‘Strategic and operational management,’ ‘Managing change: a strategic approach’ and ‘Moving into headship or senior leadership.’ Details of these courses can be found under the CPD section of AMiE’s website at www.amie.atl.org.uk.

Leadership breakfast seminars 2014 AMiE is also pleased to be able to offer you the opportunity to listen to some excellent speakers, debate key issues and network at the Hays Breakfast Forums. The forums take place at various venues around the country and run from 8.30–10.30am. They include a bite to eat, networking and presentations by keynote speakers and culminate in a Q&A session. The dates and locations arranged for early 2014 are: Speakers

Title

Date

Location

Tim Brighouse David Cameron

Creative curriculum

21/01/14 Leicester

Estelle Morris Evidence-based 23/01/14 Bristol Jonathan Sharples learning Tim Brighouse David Cameron

Creative curriculum

28/01/14 Southampton

Estelle Morris Evidence-based 06/02/14 Woking Jonathan Sharples learning Tim Brighouse David Cameron

Creative curriculum

11/02/14

Jonathan Dunford Evidence-based 13/03/14 Jonathan Sharples learning

Leeds London

The seminars are free of charge; to book your place please email Paul Matthias at paul.matthias@hays.com.

Don’t forget, you can access the Hays’ job finder service, for all the very best in career advice and job opportunities at www.hays.co.uk/jobs/atl.

Being a rep does not mean representing other members with grievance and disciplinary problems – we have AMiE regional officers to do that. But by becoming a rep, you can provide a vital link between AMiE and the members in your institution. Being a rep can be both personally and professionally rewarding.

Together we can help you and your colleagues to be well informed about key workplace issues. It doesn’t have to involve a huge time commitment, and you don’t have to be an expert, we’ll give you all the support you need. AMiE provides a range of resources and training courses to help you in your role as a rep.

Interested?

To find out more about what’s involved you can contact either your regional officer or email Ellie Manns, AMiE development officer, at emanns@amie.atl.org.uk.

A cap on potential?

A GCSE entry and performance table restriction announced at the end of September has again highlighted the knee-jerk approach to government policy-making, which impacts unduly on schools and learners.

Furthermore, the DfE is proposing a cap of 600 teaching hours for A-level students in England. This is likely to limit students to only three A-levels, presenting an issue for those who are unable to fund more than three themselves.

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Manage the data, don’t let data manage you Mark Wright, national official, leadership and management, AMiE

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Schools and colleges need to become ever smarter in the way in which they manage their data in an effort to be as efficient and effective as possible – as well as ensure they are on the right side of an inspection!

Simply producing data is generally not a problem. In fact, the numbers are quite startling. A school or FE college with 1,000 students studying 10 courses each with 10 key assessments per year produces 100,000 valuable pieces of information about student progress during the same period. From a staff salary point of view, the time spent marking rapidly runs into £100,000s per year.

The FE sector has colleges at the forefront of good information management but a rump of others in need of reinventing a performance culture based on good data. Given the cutbacks to the sector, organisational memory is easily lost and inefficiencies and ineffectiveness can almost go unnoticed in such an environment. AMiE has been working to help plug this gap.

Our Data Gold initiative is showing early signs of being a useful boost to the capacity of MIS within FE with a few hundred MIS staff already having registered to access the Data Gold resources housed on the www.felinks.co.uk website; our accompanying booklet, Data Gold, the Importance of Management Systems Data for Colleges, on the appropriate culture and ethos for good management information has been well received.

Equally, schools also often have problems managing their data. The marks are often recorded in paper markbooks or in 100s of separate Excel spreadsheets (with class lists growing more out-of-date by the day). Here, their value lies untapped by the school as a whole until they are summarised in dreaded data collections in the MIS. That leads to yet more spreadsheets until days (sometimes weeks) later a few key staff get to see the story being told by the data. Sound familiar?

It is possible to be too late to get a good grip on your data needs (eg looming inspection) so it is worth being open to the challenge of what is required to reach a level of real data effectiveness. Too often employment relations problems and a poor grip on data tend to go hand-in-hand so it is in everyone’s interests not to leave the data to fester and instead extract every last drop of value from it.

Advertorial

That is a key point. Staff can record marks in GO 4 Schools as and when schemes of learning require it, building up evidence behind each student’s progress.

The ‘freshness’ of this information allows you to plan interventions based on who needs help today, and to monitor those interventions as often as you need, without having to wait for another data collection to tell you whether your intervention is delivering the results you expect from the time and money invested.

GO 4 Schools is a product on the market designed to help you get the most from your data. It is an online school improvement solution which, among other things, can replace paper markbooks and Excel spreadsheets with online markbooks that are easily tailored by subject leaders to their needs. A nightly update from your MIS keeps the class lists and demographic data about each group up-to-date.

It is a simple idea but it is incredibly powerful.

Marks entered into GO 4 Schools immediately feed into detailed year group statistics (5A*-CEM, EBacc and value added, etc), detailed subject statistics (comparing pass rates and levels of progress for the cohort as a whole against pupil premium students, etc), student progress reports, and a crosscurricular view of each student showing where they are today, not where they were when the last data collection occurred.

As GO 4 Schools is online, the information and statistics are available to all of your staff: SLT members, middle leaders, progress leaders, SENCOs, etc - whenever they need them.

Charts and graphs make the data easier to understand, encouraging everyone to access and use data as a tool that can be used to help improve outcomes. GO 4 Schools also helps you get the most out of your investment in externals tests, such as CAT and reading tests, by making the results readily available to staff online.

GO 4 Schools doesn’t just deal with assessment data and progress reports. It can be used to record behaviour and attendance too. This allows you to see students ‘in the round’ and to identify problems earlier. For example, a teacher can quickly check whether an unexpectedly poor piece of work from a student in their course is part of a pattern across their curriculum, and whether there is evidence of a drop in attendance or a spate of negative behaviour events

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”

Ralph Nader, activist lawyer, consumer advocate

that might indicate the need for some immediate intervention.

Schools using GO 4 Schools can also give students and parents access so they can keep track of progress from home, leading to more meaningful discussions at parents’ evenings. As parents can access and print progress reports at home, the school can save thousands of pounds in printing and postage costs for progress reports and can see, at a glance, which parents have read reports and which haven’t.

AMiE headteacher, Samantha Mandley, has been using Go 4 Schools and found it to be an indispensable tool: “GO 4 Schools gives me up-to-date real-time data, which I use to support curriculum decisions and discuss current attainment with the people I line manage. It helps me draw up intervention strategies with middle leaders by matching areas of weakness with targeted support. It also enables discussions with students and parents without the need to organise a data collection or send roundrobins to staff. During the KS4 and KS5 options process GO 4 Schools helps me steer students into the appropriate qualifications and pathways.

“It has become such a part of my everyday life. I use it all the time and the readiness of current data makes my job so much easier.”

For more information about Go 4 Schools visit their website at www.go4schools.com or contact Jonathan by email at Jonathan.Brenchley@ hyperspheric.com.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

“Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.”

John Quincy Adams, 6th president of the USA (1767-1848)

Jesse Jackson, civil-rights activist, minister

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Employment matters

Your questions answered David Green, director of employment services, AMiE

My five colleagues and I work in an FE college. We were all called to a meeting yesterday and told we were being given notice that we will be made redundant in exactly three months time. Since then our date of leaving has been confirmed during individual consultation meetings.

However, I have had nothing in writing. Is this the right length of notice, and is it lawful to tell us at a meeting?

16 This very much depends upon the terms of your contract. The amount of notice you are entitled to receive will probably be set out in your written contract of employment. If you have no specific written contract the notice period may be found in a separate document setting out your main terms and conditions of employment. As you have not received anything in writing you should check the wording of your contract carefully.

If there is no actual requirement for it to be given in writing, then the verbal notice given at the meeting will be valid.

If, however, it should have been given in writing, then currently you have not been given lawful notice. You should therefore ask for proper written notice as set out in your contract, and the effective date will need to be changed accordingly.

Even if your contract does not specify an actual notice period by law you are entitled to receive reasonable notice, which itself should be no less than the statutory minimum. Minimum notice periods apply to any employee who has been continuously employed for one month. The entitlement is to one week’s notice for service up to two years with the same employer, two weeks for two complete years of service, and then an additional week of notice for each complete year of service up to a maximum of 12 weeks.

Your employer must give you the longer of either statutory or contractual notice. To be valid, the notice must either specify the date on which the contract will terminate, or contain material from which the date of termination can clearly be determined.

As we state here, it does not have to be in writing unless the contract itself says it should be (and many do) but if given verbally, it must reflect the intent to terminate the contract.

Case law has established that notice starts running from the day after the date on which notice was received (West v Kneels Ltd 1987; and Wang v University of Keele 2010); and the notice period will end on the date on which the contract of employment terminates.

To avoid problems it is advisable for notice always to be given and received in writing.

If an employer fails to give you proper notice then they will be in breach of contract. Your subsequent dismissal will amount to a wrongful dismissal and you will be able to claim damages for any losses you incur in a county court or an employment tribunal. In practice, these would be the salary you would have received for the lost period of notice together with any other benefits you may have earned.

However, offset against compensation for your losses will be any pay in lieu of notice you receive. In addition, you would be expected to mitigate your losses so an amount may also be deducted from your compensation if no reasonable steps were taken to find alternative employment.

You can find out more about your notice rights in our employment relations leaflet, entitled Your Notice Rights, available for members to download from AMiE’s website at www.amie.atl.org.uk.

About AMiE

AMiE’s 2014 leadership seminar AMiE’s 2014 leadership seminar entitled, ‘Held to account: inspection, governance and you’ is taking shape and will be held on Friday 28 March at the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury, London. The day will consist of two sessions; the morning session will feature a regional director from Ofsted and Emma Knight from the National Governors’ Association, and the afternoon session will focus on an alternative approach to accountability. The afternoon session will provide an opportunity, in partnership with the NAHT, to contribute to a more positive sector-owned model.

If you would like further information or to register for a place on the seminar, please go to http://amie.atl.org.uk/seminar2014.

Whatever you face as a manager or leader, AMiE can help you. With support from AMiE, you can focus on what’s really important in your role as manager or leader.

We are the only union to represent managers and leaders across the entire education sector, providing:

1 help, advice and support: a confidential helpline, online guidance and a network of professional and experienced regional officers to support you in your role as both an employee, and as a manager or leader

1 excellent personal and professional development: accredited training and development opportunities for you in your role as manager or leader

1 a voice in the education debate: an opportunity to influence policy and get involved in issues that affect you

1 publications and resources: a range of free publications focused on contemporary leadership issues

1 more for your membership: discounts and rewards for you and your family on a range of products and services.

And with 50% off your first year’s membership*, there’s never been a better time to join AMiE. Join online at www.amie.atl.org.uk/join or call 0845 057 7000 (local call). Let AMiE take you further. *Terms and conditions apply, visit www.amie.atl.org.uk for full subscription details, membership eligibility and further information.

Who can join AMiE?

A new link for reps We are very pleased to welcome Ellie Manns as AMiE’s development officer. Ellie will replace Danielle Campos, who has been promoted to the role of organiser working in the west midlands region.

Ellie joins us from That Mortgage Place where she was business development manager and brings a wide range of skills and expertise to the role. Ellie is also a Borough Councillor.

Ellie will be contacting reps in the not too distant future to introduce herself and provide any support you may need in conjunction with the assistance provided to reps by our team of regional officers. Ellie can be contacted by email at emanns@amie.atl.org.uk or by phone on 01858 411545.

Colleges: AMiE welcomes managers at all levels in FE colleges, sixth form colleges and adult education providers.

Schools: We warmly invite school headteachers (including those in academies), deputy headteachers, assistant headteachers, acting headteachers, bursars and business managers to join AMiE. We also have many members in national organisations, training organisations and other areas of the education sector, including higher education.

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The last word

Back to the future Mary Bousted, general secretary, ATL

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Armed with the cloak of rigour and righteousness, Michael Gove, with the willing help of Ofqual, has launched a massively damaging assault on England’s qualification system. Out goes modular courses, controlled assessment and (in most subjects) tiering and in comes timed, linear exams.

These changes are proving to be popular with the press as they play to long held prejudices (that coursework is a parental cheats’ charter; qualifications are being dumbed down; grade inflation is rife, etc). Let me be clear: ATL supports rigorous qualifications which equip young people with the skills and abilities they will need for life in the 21st century. We need, as a nation, to do far better in skills development as the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) survey into adult skills, which left the UK languishing at the bottom of the league table, demonstrates. So the question that has to be answered by Ofqual is how will the return to timed exams support skills development (which happens when the knowledge learned by pupils is applied in different contexts).

How, for example, will our young people’s verbal communication and understanding be supported when speaking and listening – a core competence for English – will not form part of the overall English GCSE grade? Ofqual responds to this challenge by arguing that exams can only do so much and that teachers must develop these skills in other ways throughout the curriculum.

The problem with this approach, of course, is that in a high-stakes system what is valued is what is tested. Over-reliance on timed exams will stifle support for skills development and greatly limit the time devoted to skills use, which will be replaced by rote learning and endless revision of what has already been taught.

But there is another problem, and one that goes to the heart of the issue. The fact is exams are not a perfect indicator of an individual student’s ability in any given subject. Politicians and parents strive for certainty and exams seem to give them that. Exams, it is widely believed, are absolute and accurate measures of individual achievement. The uncomfortable fact, however, is that they are not. An exam grade (or number) is an approximation. It is a contrived, one-off assessment. (This is despite the best efforts of the exam boards and markers who operate complicated procedures and practices into making examination grades as accurate as humanly possible.) But, despite these efforts, there is no getting away from the fact that the grade achieved by an individual student is dependent on decisions made by the exam boards, which include: the type of questions posed to the candidates and on which topics, and the nature of the mark scheme and the competence and accuracy of exam marking.

Research has shown, also, that the same student responding to the same examination paper on two different occasions (perhaps just a few days apart) can quite commonly produce work that will lead to the award of different marks. We all have good days and bad days. Teenagers are highly vulnerable to anxieties, mood swings and regression to immaturity – particularly if they are faced with a timed paper which will define their life chances.

It is for these reasons that different assessment approaches were developed at GCSE, AS and A-level. Modular courses give students and teachers the opportunity to check up on their progress and give early indications of difficulties in understanding. Course work allows the undertaking of longer, more in-depth pieces of work which assess deeper understanding and mastery in a subject. Practical work enables the assessment of the application of knowledge and skills in various contexts. All of these assessment approaches create challenges for the qualifications system. There are issues with ‘controlled assessment’ and ‘coursework’ in some subjects.

These can, however, be addressed. It is important, rather than to abandon these approaches, to make strenuous efforts to improve them because mixed assessment modes have higher reliability (ie you are more likely to get a good indication from the grade of the overall competence of the student) and higher validity (ie you are more likely to get an indication of the competence in the subject, rather than in the capacity of the student to engage in short-term memory revision, or where literacy challenges can mask deep understanding in a technical/scientific field).

An over reliance on timed, linear exams also risks exposing the exam boards to further criticism as public and professional perceptions of exam credibility are at an all time low. The DfE/Ofqual changes will not overcome this without properly addressing the status, rewards, and experience of exam markers.

Ofqual’s own data on qualification grade changes reveal that there were over 31,000 grade changes at GCSE last year and over 14,000 at A level. Ofqual acknowledges that the rise in grade changes as a result of paper re-marks is ‘statistically significant.’ As schools become aware of the increasingly successful challenges to the grades, the amount of enquiries and re-marks will rise as confidence in the quality of the marking processes falls.

Teachers are overwhelmingly opposed to the current direction of travel undertaken by Michael Gove with the willing support of Ofqual. Notable amongst the most recently critical voices is Mike Nicholson, director of undergraduate admissions and outreach at Oxford, who said on 15 October this year: “The loss of AS levels will have tragic consequences for widening participation and access to higher education….

The real danger is students will plough on believing that they may not be capable of applying to a highly selective course. Meanwhile, less able students may continue with applications to highly selective courses without realising they have little chance of success.’’

Mr Nicholson warned that: “the rapid transition to the new system of A levels – coupled with changes to GCSEs – risked causing ‘havoc’ in England’s school system, with students at less well-resourced schools hit hardest.”

It seems to me that the English education system is sleepwalking into disaster. We are in danger of doing our young people a grave disservice. We believe that assessment/ testing is not about creating insurmountable hurdles for learners, but rather is about measuring and confirming progress and achievement. We do not need more pupils to fail. We need more pupils to achieve and to develop the skills, abilities and knowledge needed for success in a fast-changing world. The recent OECD survey into adult skills concludes that policymakers need to develop strong links between the world of learning and the world of work. The divide between academic and vocational learning is a false one – they are two sides of the same coin. We neglect skills development and the practical application of knowledge at our peril.

What Michael Gove and Ofqual are doing, going back to the future of timed, linear exams, is perilous to the life chances of our young people.

Ofqual requested a right to reply to Mary’s article and their response is as follows:

Dear ELM Mary suggests in her article that we are sleepwalk ing into disaster. In fact we have woken up to real problems with key qualifications and we are reforming them. Our plans are based on evidence rather than myth, suppositio n or politics.

I encourage readers to look at our website to see what our reforms are really doing, and the evide nce base. It shows for example that – as most teachers know – controlled assessments are burdensome, and generally less valid than examinations.

Mary asks how skills will be supported even wher e they are not assessed. We do need to recognise that exam s cannot do everything. A culture change is needed so that skills are taught because they are important, not because they are assessed. The new accountability arrangements will help, but it needs teachers and lecturers to make it happ en.

Ofqual regulates in the world as it is, not as some people would like it to be. The policy context, set by mini sters, is a given. The evidence, for example, is that speaking and listening assessments were unfair to students beca use they are not generally marked reliably, something we could not in conscience allow to continue. But we are not scrapping internal assessment altogether, but reducing it. The current arrangements are not based on any principled appr oach, whereas our plans are evidenced and well grounded .

Our aim is that the qualifications we regulate shou ld be of a high standard, and produce valid results. It is that ambition that underpins and drives our qualifications refor ms.

Yours sincerely, Glenys Stacey chief regulator, Ofqual

Join the debate on Twitter @atl_amie

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Contacting AMiE AMiE office

Members are warmly invited to contribute to this newsletter. We welcome pieces for inclusion in ELM – especially articles about good or innovative teaching and learning or on key policy issues, plus letters or photographs of student activities.

AMiE 35 The Point Market Harborough Leicestershire LE16 7QU Tel 01858 461 110 Fax 01858 461 366 www.amie.atl.org.uk

Please email all contributions to Sheila Greaves at sgreaves@atl.org.uk.

The copy deadline for the next issue is 20 January 2014.

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Follow AMiE on Twitter: @atl_amie And for employment issues tweet us at @DavidG_atl_amie

National helpline Tel 01858 464 171 helpline@amie.atl.org.uk Clare Atkinson Office administrator Tel 01858 411 541 catkinson@amie.atl.org.uk David Green Director of employment services Tel 01858 411 540 Mobile 07711 929 043 dgreen@amie.atl.org.uk

Ellie Manns Development officer Tel 01858 411 545 emanns@amie.atl.org.uk Julia Pearson Administration manager Tel 01858 411 542 jpearson@amie.atl.org.uk Sara Shaw Head of AMiE Tel 01858 411 546 Mobile 07545 438 061 sshaw@amie.atl.org.uk Mark Wright National official: leadership and management Tel 020 7782 1530 Mobile 07436 805 330 mwright@amie.atl.org.uk For membership queries, please contact the membership department on 020 7782 1602 or email membership@atl.org.uk

AMiE regional officers Eastern Liz Salisbury Tel 01572 720 467 Mobile 07595 099 617 lsalisbury@amie.atl.org.uk

Central Louise Scarff Tel 01604 810 980 Mobile 07918 741 030 lscarff@amie.atl.org.uk

WALES Hilary Mason Tel 01591 620 700 Mobile 07435 970 063 hmason@amie.atl.org.uk

South East Steve Cooper Tel 01983 856 362 Mobile 07436 549 565 scooper@amie.atl.org.uk

EAST ANGLIA Darren Smith Tel 01502 217 584 Mobile 07570 670 411 dsmith@amie.atl.org.uk

NORTHERN IRELAND Mark Langhammer Tel 02890 782 020 Mobile 07918 195 070 mlanghammer@atl.org.uk

London Kalbinder Herr Tel 01865 765 454 Mobile 07711 929 038 kherr@amie.atl.org.uk

Northern Pauline Rodmell Tel 01204 660 440 Mobile 07711 929 037 prodmell@amie.atl.org.uk

Scotland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man Contact the national helpline: Tel 01858 464 171 helpline@amie.atl.org.uk

South West Rachel Jennings Tel 01752 839 643 Mobile 07738 641 689 rjennings@amie.atl.org.uk

Designed by thingswedo (thingswedo.com).Illustrations by Keith Sparrow. Printed by Blackmore Ltd, Shaftesbury. Š AMiE 2013. All rights reserved.

Contacting ELM