Elm February 2016

NEED TO KNOW

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

anonymously and kept in a password-protected file.

Would you like the opportunity to influence AMiE’s strategy and policy decisions? Are you interested in working closely with our professional staff and colleagues in the sector to support and shape our future advocacy work?

If you are, then you might be interested in joining AMiE’s Council, the forum through which our members’ views are shared and communicated.

Through discussion and debate at Council, members’ views inform strategy, policy and direction, as well as responses to Government plans and consultations. It is also an excellent means of sharing the insights, good practice and challenges experienced by colleagues in other schools and colleges.

According to current member, headteacher Alex Clark, participation in the Council is an opportunity to work at close quarters with colleagues from other parts of the education sector at a time when partnerships between schools and colleges are more necessary than ever. “The Council brings together such a wide range of leadership expertise and knowledge,” says Dr Clark. “I have learned so much to benefit my colleagues, staff and students – it’s highly recommended.”

AMiE will begin the process of seeking nominations from members for a range of categories in April, with new members taking up office in September. Self-nomination forms will be circulated in the next edition of ELM.

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HONOURS AND APPOINTMENTS CONGRATULATIONS go to Richard Atkins, former president of the Association of College Management and a long-standing AMiE member, who received a CBE in the New Year’s Honours list for services

to FE. Mr Atkins, who is principal of Exeter College, has also served as president of the Association of Colleges.

A NEW NATIONAL schools commissioner has been

NEW GENERATION OF MENTORS SOUGHT THE PRIME MINISTER has announced plans for a new generation of “high-flying” mentors to help teenagers at risk of dropping out of education improve their life chances.

Christine Hodgson, chair of Capgemini UK and the Careers and Enterprise Company, will lead a campaign to encourage business people and professionals from the public and voluntary sectors to volunteer to act as mentors to young teenagers in danger of underachieving or becoming NEETs – young people not in education, employment or training.

The campaign will target the 25,000 teenagers who are about to embark on their GCSEs and who are underachieving or at risk of dropping out.

It will encourage schools and businesses to work together to give these young people the best possible chance to succeed in their later lives.

appointed by the Department for Education. Sir David Carter, regional schools commissioner for the south west, will succeed Frank Green, leading a team of regional commissioners.

LEADERSHIP SEMINARS LEADING WITH LESS, AMiE’s 2015 leadership seminar series, was highly valued by members, with the majority of attendees rating the content good or excellent.

Ninety per cent of those who completed the evaluation survey rated the keynote presentation good or excellent, with members highlighting its “thought provoking” yet “practical” approach. Almost four out of five (78%) delegates thought Peter Rushton’s discussion group on talent management was excellent, with the rest rating it good. Members said they came away with practical ideas and solutions and “a better understanding of how to lead others better”.

Mark Wright’s discussion group on ethical management was rated excellent by 70% of respondents, with no one rating it less than good. Members described it as “encouraging”, “inspiring” and “empowering”. There was also positive feedback on Jacqui Christie’s discussion group on leading teaching and learning, with 47% rating it excellent and 49% rating it good.

MANAGEMENT SURVEY Selected AMiE members are to be asked to take part in a survey that AMiE and the University of Warwick are conducting to investigate the changing face of school management and the recruitment, support and

training of managers in education.

We would be grateful if members contacted by the researchers would complete the survey. Respondents can be assured that all information given will be treated

Members with questions should contact Mark Wright, assistant director (leadership and management): mwright@amie.atl.org.uk.

If you would like to discuss membership further or find out more about the Council, contact Julia Pearson: jpearson@amie.atl.org.uk.

FEBRUARY 2016 | ELM 5

P O L I C Y M AT T E R S

T STORM WARNING

The comprehensive spending review wasn’t as painful as expected, but there was little to address the gathering storm in teacher recruitment, or offset the turmoil area reviews are likely to cause in an FE sector already rocked by ‘catastrophic’ cuts WORDS PAUL STANISTREET

6 ELM | FEBRUARY 2016

A continuing crisis Less positively, however, Osborne also announced plans to cut £600 million from the education services grant paid to academy schools and local authorities for school support services. The removal of the funding, which is currently worth £87 per pupil to academies and £15 per pupil to local authority schools, is on top of a £200 million cut to the grant made by the Department for Education last year. With the chancellor determined to reduce the role of local authorities in school provision, and pupil numbers increasing at the same time as school pension and national insurance costs rise, there is certain to be a further attenuation in support for schools in England. Clearly, we remain some distance from a stable financial settlement for the schools system. The demand for schools and school leaders to do more with a steadily diminishing funding pot, combined with the day-to-day workload pressures that result from this and a burdensome accountability regime, mean the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is likely to grow. Despite the ‘protection’ provided by the chancellor, the reality

ILLUSTRATION: IKON IMAGES

he chancellor’s autumn spending review was met with relief in some quarters. It was, most commentators agreed, not nearly as bad as expected, or, indeed, as the Government had previously implied. Core funding for 16- to 19-year-olds and adult skills in colleges was protected in cash terms for the rest of the Parliament. Plans for a new, fairer national funding formula for schools were announced, to be in place by 2017, while the Government pledged to protect schools funding in line with inflation. And more detail was forthcoming on the new apprenticeship levy, which will be set at 0.5 per cent of payroll and affect employers above a £3 million payroll threshold. There was also welcome news in George Osborne’s move to allow sixth-form colleges to become academies and reclaim VAT as schools do – a significant victory for the Sixth Form Colleges Association, ATL and others, who have long campaigned for the removal of this anomaly. What is less clear is why this must be addressed through academisation.

P O L I C Y M AT T E R S

“SOME GREATER MEASURE OF STABILITY WILL BE REQUIRED IF THE FE SECTOR IS TO PLAY A FULL ROLE IN CREATING A MORE SKILLED AND PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE.” is that schools will face substantial real-terms cuts.

The same can be said of FE. Although the cash-terms protection for core funding is welcome, there remain real concerns about adult skills provision, funding for which has been cut by 28% in the last year alone, as well as for the viability of institutions, which have been hit hard by cuts – described by FE policy expert Alison Wolf as “catastrophic” – and now face the turmoil of the Government’s partial and ill-conceived programme of area reviews. These are likely to result in college mergers and closures, further diminishing the FE offer for young people and adults. Some greater measure of stability will be required if the FE sector is to play a full role in creating a more skilled and productive workforce, particularly through apprenticeships, which remain key to the Government’s thinking. It will be important that some of the money raised through the apprenticeship levy, expected to be in the region of £2.7 billion a year, is used to improve the quality of apprenticeships and widen access, as well as to ensure that colleges are equipped to respond to the new opportunities it will create.

Rollercoaster ride Colleges, said Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, had been “on a rollercoaster ride” over the past year, so much so that the “breathing space” provided by a spending review, which was “much less damaging than the large doubledigit cuts we feared”, had to be welcomed. Cash-terms protection for the core funding rate for 16- to 19-yearolds and the adult skills budget were “positive steps”, reflecting the Government’s recognition of both the importance of FE to the economy and the vulnerable position in which funding cuts had left it. “In initiating its series of area reviews, the Government is implicitly recognising the need for a pattern of good-quality, locally responsive colleges. We believe it is no coincidence that some of the

£27 billion that the Office for Budget Responsibility found ‘down the back of the sofa’ has found its way to the adult skills and 16–19 budgets. This move acknowledges that this vital sector was, in Baroness Wolf’s words, ‘close to the precipice’.”

The outcome of the spending review would give colleges an opportunity in early 2016 to re-orient their business models to respond to changed priorities, Doel said. “Financial pressures do remain, including the costs of recruiting and retaining specialist staff, the high costs involved in equipping young people with the English and maths qualifications they didn’t get in school and the uncertainty created by the new apprenticeship voucher system and devolution of budgets. We will continue to urge the Government to look upon colleges as an investment to be made in our most important asset – a skilled and productive population.”

Stretched resources Mark Wright, assistant director of AMiE, with responsibility for leadership and management, acknowledged that the spending review had not been as bad as anticipated – some of the forecasts that preceded it had been stark indeed, particularly for FE – but expressed concern that it had nonetheless “left the profession exposed financially”, with its leaders obliged to make some very difficult decisions. “The issue is how to improve quality with ever more stretched resources,” he said. “It’s like expecting a boxer to punch above their weight with a hand tied behind their back.” Allowing sixth-form colleges to become academies offered a “shortterm lifeline” for some, he added, but warned that colleges could “get lost” if they joined a multi-academy trust or merged with local FE colleges as part of the area review process, the likely driver of change in this part of the sector. Collaboration among sixth-form colleges as part of an independent academy trust could make more sense, he said.

Eddie Playfair, principal of Newham Sixth Form College, said that the prospect of sixth-form colleges being able to convert to academies opened up the possibility of colleges working more closely with schools and planning provision more rationally by forming new kinds of partnership.

“This could be a step in the right direction if we see it as a move from the margins of independent incorporated status towards something that feels a bit more like a public service system in its networks, relationships and accountabilities,” he said.

“However, we have yet to see the proposition, and this won’t be published until February. Until then, we don’t know what the terms, conditions or timescale of any change of status will be. What we do know is that the process is likely to be linked to the area reviews, and that colleges will have to come up with strong partnership proposals to be considered. Every governing body will want to examine the options and evaluate the risks and benefits carefully. Our staff and stakeholders will also have important questions about the implications.”

Partnership possibilities The exemption from VAT for sixth-form colleges that become academies, which would save the average college over £300,000 per year, was an incentive, Playfair said, but that “cannot be the sole criterion for such a big decision...

The new partnership possibilities could be very attractive, but we won’t want to do anything to jeopardise the unity of our 16–19 sector based on its strong values and ethos. Quite the opposite, we would hope to be able to apply our strengths to spread good practice and excellence across a wider range of 16–19 provision.”

It is clear that the chancellor has listened to warnings from the sector that further cuts could have a devastating impact on schools, sixth-form colleges and FE, limiting opportunity and further reducing the life chances of the most disadvantaged. Nevertheless, the challenges we face are very significant. Even with the protections announced in the spending review, resources will continue to shrink, while the damage done by previous rounds of cuts goes unrepaired.

FEBRUARY 2016 | ELM 7

COMMENT: WALES

Plus ça change IT MAY BE ALL CHANGE IN WALES, BUT MUCH, AS EVER, WILL DEPEND ON HOW PREPARED LEADERS ARE TO STICK TO THEIR PRINCIPLES

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he new year in Wales certainly brings with it some uncertainties. The National Assembly elections will be held in May and the current Labour Government may be getting nervous following last year’s General Election, which saw large gains in Wales for the Conservatives. As the various parties fight for control of the Welsh Assembly, education could once more become a political football kicked about to prove the success or failure of political decisions.

On the positive side, the Welsh Government has proposed some encouraging developments to the education system. The Donaldson report on curriculum and assessment in Wales, for example, outlines a vision for the future that is full of optimism, with literacy, numeracy and digital competence for all at its heart. The ‘new deal’ for the education workforce is another positive development, designed to support teachers, leaders and support staff with professional development throughout their careers, while also raising the esteem in which education professionals are held. These are all high ideals, but will practice match policy?

In addition to these developments, the way in which Estyn, the Welsh inspectorate for education and training, operates is under review.

As president of ATL Cymru, I have had the opportunity to provide feedback as a part of the consultation process. I was eager to do this, as I have recently been through my second Estyn inspection in three years.

As a bilingual deputy headteacher of a primary school, with nearly 30 years’ experience, it should not have been daunting. We began the inspection week confident in our teaching and learning strategies, knowing that nearly all pupils had achieved their potential. We know that all pupils in

“HOW MUCH NOTE WILL POLITICIANS REALLY TAKE OF THE CONCERNS OF MANAGERS AND THOSE IN THE CLASSROOM?” 8 ELM | FEBRUARY 2016

COLUMNIST BETHAN JONES DEPUTY HEAD OF YSGOL HIRADDUG AND PRESIDENT OF ATL CYMRU our school are valued, developed and praised. So why was it, come the end of the week, that despite a good report (again), we felt battle weary?

For one thing, the inspection felt more like an inquisition than an opportunity to celebrate the school’s achievements and embrace the chance of improvement. It was a gruelling experience.

Inspectors seemed to have drafted their report (based on data) before walking into the school.

The week of their visit then consisted of their trying desperately to find evidence to confirm their pre-written narrative. Our school seeks to develop, encourage and praise its pupils. The inspection system seems to do the exact opposite to the education workforce upon whose good will and skills its success mainly depends. How sad that a school system designed to promote and develop creativity and excellence in its pupils is accountable to a body so constrained by its remit that it often misses the elephant in the room.

As you can imagine, it was an interesting consultation meeting.

So, what of all the proposed changes to Estyn?

A good start has been made – but the openness of Estyn will be key. The same is true of the implementation of both the Donaldson report and the ‘new deal’. How much note will politicians really take of the concerns of managers and those in the classroom? Budget cuts will have a devastating impact on schools, whichever party is in control of the Welsh Assembly. All in all, perhaps the main challenge for leaders in Wales will be to stick to their educational principles despite – and not because of – Government legislation.

COMMENT: NORTHERN IRELAND

The trouble with inspection TRUST, DISCRETION AND PROFESSIONALISM ARE AMONG THE CASUALTIES OF NORTHERN IRELAND’S NEW CULTURE OF INSPECTION

COLUMNIST MARK LANGHAMMER DIRECTOR OF ATL NORTHERN IRELAND

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eaching unions in Northern Ireland are undertaking industrial action, including non-cooperation with inspections and key stage assessments. Effectively, this is slow-burn resistance to an overwrought accountability system. At the heart of the accountability system in Northern Ireland is the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI). The culture of inspection at ETI, with its stress on high-stakes micro-management, testing and micro-level lesson assessment, has prompted ATL members in Northern Ireland to submit a motion of no confidence in the chief inspector, to be considered at our April conference.

In November 2013, the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Education Committee, aware of these trends at ETI, published a report on inspection, the result of a comprehensive inquiry. The report was widely welcomed by unions and educationalists.

Yet, more than two years later, it is still some way from being implemented in full.

ATL/AMiE has written to the Assembly expressing disappointment that the report has not been wholly implemented, either in letter or spirit.

Let’s start with the positives. Our letter notes that the inspectorate has responded to a number of the recommendations, such as on using ‘less pejorative descriptors’, restoring the valuable role of district inspectors and the establishment of a parental consultation platform. We also recognise progress in piloting joint lesson observations, the inclusion of school leaders in inspection and

moderation meetings, changes to the formal intervention process, and the use of ‘sustaining improvement’ inspections.

However, we also advised the Assembly that, contrary to the report’s recommendations, school improvement services continue to be inadequately resourced, regressing instead to mere ‘signposting’.

The most substantive recommendation of the committee, ‘that the school improvement services should be aligned with school inspection in a single organisation’, has not been accepted, either by the ETI or the minister. We are instead moving towards an Ofsted-type culture.

The recommendation that ‘the school inspection complaints procedure should explicitly allow for the possibility of a revision to an inspection finding’ and that consideration should be given to ‘a reformed...complaints procedure that would allow for investigation by personnel outside of the inspectorate or the Department for Education’ has also been rejected, seemingly by decree of the chief inspector herself, who ‘considered’ it only to decide against implementation.

Recommendation 11, that ‘a reliable standardised baseline of attainment at key pupil junctures be introduced in order to provide a common objective formative measure of pupil value added by schools’, has also received scant consideration. The sensible proposals on value-added measures in the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland’s report, Striking the Right Balance: Towards a Framework of School Accountability for 21st Century Learning, are still to be addressed. ATL/AMiE has asked the Assembly to revisit this.

Finally, we advised the Assembly that preinspection data requirements remain onerous.

In 2013, we estimated that the pre-inspection ‘data dump’ often ran to 750–800 pages, with the report-formatting guidance alone close to 60 pages.

Schools and colleges view inspection as a ‘high-stakes’ event. The changed culture of inspection is driving schools to engage in a range of micro-managed ‘weighing and measuring’ processes, such as excessive interim reporting and obsessive testing, assessment and examination analysis. Teachers and principals feel obliged to undertake large amounts of bureaucratic ‘back covering’, which reduces quality learning time and lowers levels of trust, discretion and professionalism. It’s time for change.

FEBRUARY 2016 | ELM 9

F E AT U R E

Mind the

F E AT U R E

“The danger of becoming associated with a poorly performing school is leading to greater segregation among schools.” inspected during 2014/15, 72 were judged to require improvement and 21 were found to be inadequate, affecting around 73,000 apprentices.

Too many low-skilled roles are being classed as apprenticeships and “used to accredit the established skills of employees who had been in a job for some time,” the report says. In some cases, apprentices are not even aware they are on an apprenticeship programme. This is a depressing return on substantial Government investment and represents a major challenge; not only to ministers, but also to college leaders and employers who must work together to ensure the politically charged target of three million new apprenticeships in this Parliament is not met at the expense of quality. Clearly, until quality is addressed, apprenticeships will not become an “aspirational route” and the number of young people on them will remain static, as it has for the past decade.

Sir Michael argues that there is an urgent need for the type of collective action, involving local politicians, officials and headteachers, that led to improvements in under-performing London secondary schools under the London Challenge programme launched by Estelle Morris in 2003.

This, too, as Mary Bousted has argued, is something of an embarrassment to the Government, which, instead of promoting school collaboration, has

ATL BELIEVES EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY MUST DO THE FOLLOWING: 1. Support and challenge the work of teachers and leaders, and assist schools and colleges to support and improve their performance.

2. Encourage teacher creativity and local innovation, and promote teacher self-efficacy.

3. Be founded on a shared understanding of effective practices in teaching and recognise that this is the subject of ongoing research, which can be contested and is open to new developments.

4. Reflect the complexity of teachers’ professional

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understanding and practice, and not be driven by summative performance measures.

5. Support teaching quality by not increasing bureaucracy, but making best use of sustainably generated information.

6. Be conducted by welltrained evaluators who are accountable for their contribution to quality education. The practice of any external evaluators must be monitored by consistent and effective quality-assurance procedures.

7. Support the development of schools and colleges

as professional learning institutions with collegiate relations and professional dialogue between teachers and leaders.

8. Be compatible with well-aligned procedures for teacher recruitment, registration, induction and mentoring, support structures and evaluation.

9. Make connections between the different evaluation components to ensure they are sufficiently linked, therefore avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy, unhelpful duplication and conflicts between accountability processes.

“engineered a fragmented education system in England, where too many schools are isolated and lack the support, which local authorities provided, to establish the productive working partnerships with more successful schools, which was the hallmark of the London Challenge”.

The Government’s ideologically driven dash to force all schools to become academies is likely to mean more operating in isolation, making secondary school standards still more resistant to improvement. The constant pressure of accountability, Dr Bousted says, “means that successful schools are pulling up the drawbridges.

The danger of becoming associated with a poorly performing school is leading to greater segregation among schools, leaving those in challenging circumstances more isolated and less able to access the support they need.”

Workload pressures Accountability is, of course, the elephant in the room in all of this.

The impact of an overbearing and punitive inspection regime is a major barrierto change, and a cause of the sorts of pressures that are creating the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, which Ofsted itself describes.

“Ofsted is a key driver of increased workload for our members,” says Jill Stokoe, ATL’s education policy adviser.

“ATL has consistently argued that fundamental change is needed to

PROFILE

We need to talk about pedagogy RATHER THAN FRETTING ABOUT PARITY OF ESTEEM, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION SHOULD FOCUS ON HOW BEST TO DELIVER OUTSTANDING TEACHING AND LEARNING, SAYS BILL LUCAS WORDS PAUL STANISTREET

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n January, Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of Ofsted, raised concerns about the quality of vocational education and the “one size fits all” model of education in England. Education “for children who do not succeed at 16 or would prefer an alternative to higher education”, he said, is “inadequate at best and nonexistent at worse”. It’s a familiar point, says Bill Lucas, director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, but it’s also a highly simplistic one that ignores the crucial role of other system drivers. While Lucas agrees that grading young people at 16 has produced a system “with one pathway called general education and one called ‘other’”, and that the ‘other’ pathway is viewed as “somehow narrower or less good”, he rejects the suggestion that this is the fault of FE. There is, he says, lots of “great vocational learning and teaching”, a point borne out in Ofsted’s own annual report, which found only three per cent of

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FE colleges were inadequate and 77% good or outstanding. To understand the bias in the system, we must recognise the “peculiarly toxic stranglehold on options at 16”, reflected in the EBacc school performance measure, which identifies five ‘core academic subjects’. “I don’t know why music and art, for example, are not deemed core academic subjects, but I know this is perpetuating a language of academic as opposed to something else,” Lucas says. “We shouldn’t be surprised if the effect of this is a two-tier system.”

Lucas, who last year co-authored Remaking Apprenticeships – a report commissioned by City & Guilds, which argued for learning to be put back at the heart of apprenticeships – is passionate about vocational and FE and its potential to offer “an ambitious, expansive and powerful alternative to academic routes”.

Yet, he says, “those of us who beat the drum for FE have been too slow in being more aspirational”. Too often, the sector presents itself as being about narrowly

occupational skills, rather than a rich diet of outcomes to compare with the opportunities offered by general education. Lucas’ work on vocational pedagogy, by contrast, argues that “in addition to routine expertise or skill, you also need to have a system that actively creates what we call ‘resourcefulness’”.

Resourcefulness, he explains, “is the capacity to think for yourself, to deal with the unexpected. It is what business wants, and it’s what we need our citizens to be able to do. We have to have people, not just for the workplace, but in their own lives, who, as Jean Piaget put it, ‘know what to do when they don’t know what to do’. That is a really powerful contribution of FE and one that is much underrated.”

Lucas and his colleagues have consistently argued for vocational teaching and learning to be about more than “routine expertise”, important though that is. As well as promoting resourcefulness, Lucas believes great vocational education

PROFILE

However, vocational education must also be “real”, which means developing businesslike attitudes to issues such as time, money and customers, and supporting the development of dispositions relevant to the student’s future work and quality of life – what is sometimes termed ‘character education’.

“Character includes perseverance, growth mindset, ability to collaborate, reflectiveness, grit, all that family of capabilities,” Lucas says. “These are things I think ought to be foregrounded in FE and in general education – there’s a lack in both.” He cites the example of Australia, which has a “capability-driven” curriculum, which starts from “the premise that you want kids to have, for example, high levels of creativity and critical thinking,” and plans teaching and learning content from there. He would like to see FE here similarly “on the front foot” about pedagogy and capabilities.

“That’s what business wants, too. As John Cridland at the Confederation of British Industry argued, schools and colleges need a wider set of outcomes to be judged

Bill Lucas, director of the Centre for Real-World Learning, University of Winchester

should also develop four key factors: functional skills – verbal, written, numerical, graphical and digital; craftsmanship – an aspiration for excellence and a pride in a job well done; a businesslike attitude in dealing with clients, suppliers and customers; and wider skills, including developing the dispositions of an effective lifelong learner. “The really important element of this more ambitious set of outcomes is craftsmanship,” Lucas says. “I know we haven’t got the word right, and I appreciate it’s gendered, but if you look at the systems that the world holds up, for example, in Switzerland and Germany, there is an utter determination to deliver excellence. It’s an ethic of excellence.”

The Centre for Real-World Learning has been examining some of the ways in which this ethic can be fostered, looking at the work of Holts Academy and Trafford College. “It’s clear that there are cultural and pedagogic ways in which this hunger, to be great, can be cultivated,” Lucas says.

“THERE ARE SOME BRILLIANT LEADERS AND STUNNING EXAMPLES OF BEST PRACTICE, SOMETIMES DESPITE THE SYSTEM.” by. We need to expand our horizons as to what the point of FE is.”

Pedagogical leadership School and college leaders have a critical role in creating a climate conducive to outstanding vocational teaching and learning, Lucas believes. “Leaders have had to learn a whole other set of skills to do with managing money. I think in many cases the managerial route has taken senior leadership away from the workshop and the classroom, from pedagogy, into accounting and performance management and all those other things. You need both.

You need, within a senior leadership team, leaders who are passionate and well informed about best thinking and best practice in teaching and learning, and you need the whole team to model their absolute belief in the value of creating a climate in which learning can really flourish. Great pedagogic leaders model their interest in learning, they talk passionately about learning, they ask

questions about learning and show that they value the answers to those questions, and they ensure that everything in the college speaks of a world in which getting better at doing something is what the college is about. It’s about creating a culture in which this can thrive.”

Lucas welcomes the Government’s drive to create three million new apprenticeships, but has concerns about quality. “If this is not going to be another ‘false dawn’ we need to set our aspirations high. We need to stop and think about the best blend of teaching and learning methods, and we need to attend to the quality of our teachers, both by skilling up those already in the sector and making FE a really attractive place to work.” That, Lucas says, means not just restating the importance of vocational education, but going the “hard route” of “getting into the engine room and understanding how best we can make fantastic teaching and learning. We may not be comfortable with ‘pedagogy’, but it seems to me a no-brainer that helping teachers take the best teaching and learning decisions they possibly can in the interests of their learners, is where our effort needs to go.”

Lucas is optimistic about the future of vocational education. “I am excited about what the best schools and the best colleges do on a daily basis. There are some brilliant leaders and some stunning examples of outstanding practice, sometimes despite the system rather than because of it. We are now in a position to say with confidence that we know the teaching and learning methods that are most likely to deliver really engaging learning experiences. The job becomes an operational one: how can we ensure that all teachers acquire that, not through gap analysis and shaming, but long-term professional learning and appreciative inquiry, and shining a light where people are doing great work.” Leaders, for their part, must exhibit “courage, an unambiguous set of moral values, enormous cunning – because you never know when the system is going to change next – passion about learning, deep understanding of pedagogy, and an entrepreneurial spirit. I think that the capabilities that would describe a really powerful real-world learner would probably also describe a really great leader of an FE college.”

3 MORE INFO Bill Lucas and Guy Claxton’s recent book, Educating Ruby: what our children really need to learn, makes the case for a wider capabilities approach to education. .

FEBRUARY 2016 | ELM 15

MASTERCLASS

Leadership?

It’s about empowering people

LIKE ANY OTHER COLLEGE, BROCKENHURST COLLEGE FACES HUGE PRESSURES, BUT ENGAGING AND EMPOWERING STAFF IN A SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT HAS HELPED THE COLLEGE IN TOUGH TIMES WORDS PAUL STANISTREET

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xcessive workload is an issue of concern across the education sector and is one of the main reasons for teachers and leaders leaving the profession.

With budget cuts biting and accountability demands driving workload pressure, there can be a temptation for leaders to revert to ‘command and control’ to make sure tasks are completed and targets met.

At Brockenhurst College, however, the senior leadership team has adopted a different approach, giving clear performance guidelines to staff, but also setting out the rationale for change, consulting them on major decisions and empowering them to take control of their own work, offering targeted support where necessary. The dividend in terms of staff commitment and performance, as well as student attitude and achievement, is apparent.

It’s an approach that is ingrained in the college’s culture, and in its ethical approach to leadership, says principal Di Roberts: “One of our core values is that we care about people. We try to live that.

Staff and students are very supportive of each other. It’s like a big family.” Roberts tries to live the college’s values by being 18 ELM | FEBRUARY 2016

consultative, open and available to staff, transparent in decision-making and clear about mission and objectives. But she is clear that there is nothing “soft” or “wishy-washy” about caring for staff; valuing the workforce also means being tough on poor performance.

“We undertake performance management because, actually, we care,” Roberts explains. “It’s not fair on people who are doing a good job if somebody who is not, isn’t challenged. It’s about consistency.” Expectations at the college are high, she says, but when performance dips below the level required, support is on hand. “Our starting point is a supported improvement plan,” she says.

“That might be for a department, it might be for a course or it might be for an individual. It’s a proper process to support people to improve. If you care about the students, you have to care about the quality they experience, and when you’ve got great staff, you have to care for them by helping those who aren’t doing such a brilliant job.”

Staff at the college accept that the plans are not punitive, but are a genuine attempt to help them improve, says Geoff Coughlan, Brockenhurst’s head of construction. “I’ve had staff on supported improvement plans. They weren’t aware

that what they were doing wasn’t to the standard expected. And they are totally accepting of the fact that this is a plan to help them improve their teaching. That, in turn, improves the quality of the student experience. You can have a tough line on quality and be supportive of staff as well.” That support is what makes the college different, Coughlan adds. “You feel valued and that the people above you do actually care. Everyone you talk to in the organisation is really supportive, right down to the students.”

Brockenhurst College is based at two campuses in the New Forest, and a number of adult learning centres. The area it serves is large and diverse. Despite its rural profile, there are more businesses in the New Forest than in neighbouring Southampton or Portsmouth, and the population of 176,000 includes 35,000 young people aged 19 or under. The district also has the largest number of children living with poverty in Hampshire and contains some areas

ADVICE

Dealing with unfounded allegations

The statutory guidance for managers is clear in cases where teachers leave following groundless claims of inappropriate behaviour with pupils A teacher has decided to leave following an allegation that he had an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old pupil. Fortunately, the allegation turned out to be false, although he did breach our social media policy by contacting the student on Facebook.

Should I report the matter to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) as I’ve heard that I may be breaking the law if I do not? Also, what do I say to a future employer, if, in a reference request, they ask if the teacher has ever been the subject of a disciplinary investigation or the subject of safeguarding allegations?

I’m assuming that in saying you found the allegation to be false, you mean that the evidence led you to conclude the teacher had not had an inappropriate relationship with the pupil. As such, you will not need to refer this matter to the DBS as it does not meet the criteria.

The statutory guidance (Keeping Children Safe in Education: for schools and colleges, Department for Education, July 2015) states: “Schools and colleges have a legal duty to refer to the DBS anyone who has harmed, or poses a risk of harm, to a child or vulnerable adult; where the harm test is satisfied in respect of that individual; where the individual has received a caution or conviction for a relevant offence, or if there is reason to believe that individual has committed a listed relevant offence; and that individual has been removed from working (paid or unpaid) in 20 ELM | FEBRUARY 2016

regulated activity, or would have been removed had they not left.”

Since there was no harm or risk of harm found, or any suggestion that an offence was committed, there is no need for a referral. More information about the harm test and referrals to the DBS can be found at: www.gov.uk/ government/organisations/disclosureand-barring-service.

Regarding a reference request, the statutory guidance is also quite clear. It says: “Cases in which an allegation was proven to be false, unsubstantiated or malicious should not be included in employer references. A history of repeated concerns or allegations which have all been found to be false, unsubstantiated or malicious should also not be included in any reference.”

So there should be no mention of the investigation in any reference that you may give. This advice applies whether or not the reference is requested in writing or verbally. Indeed, simply

mentioning there was an incident, even if you then clarify it by saying the allegation was found to be false, may leave you open to legal action.

Finally, as with any disciplinary matter, it is always good practice to review your policy and procedures upon the conclusion of a case to see if any lessons can be learned. Given what you said about breaching your social media policy, then it may be desirable to review this and how the policy is drawn to the attention of your staff.

Indeed, as I’m sure you know, it is unwise for a teacher to communicate with a pupil via social media unless done so through official school accounts, and then only in accordance with the school’s own code of conduct and/or guidelines.

3 MORE INFO Further information can be found in AMiE’s employment relations leaflet, Safer Social Networking (ER13), which is available to download from our website.