Elm July

EDUCATION LEADER AND MANAGER

Representing leaders and managers in education P O L I CY

PROFILE

HOW TO COPE WITH FISCAL CONSTRAINT page 6

AMIE REP OF THE YEAR: CLWYD JONES page 14

M A ST E R C L A S S

THE HUMAN FACTOR IN RESTRUCTURING page 18

JULY 2015 @ATL_AMiE

F E AT U R E

FUNDING AND RECRUITMENT MUST BE ON THE EDUCATION SECRETARY’S AGENDA page 10

WARNING SIGNS

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ELM / JULY 2015

INSIDE 4

Education news including the UK skills gap and exam paper rewrites

6 8

Policy matters: same old

The view from Northern Ireland and Wales

Funding and recruitment should be top priorities

Clwyd Jones: AMiE’s Rep of the Year

17 18 20 22

The latest from AMiE

The human factor

Constructive dismissal

Ideology will not work

ELM is the magazine from ATL, 7 Northumberland Street, London WC2N 5RD Tel 020 7930 6441 Fax 020 7930 1359 Email info@amie.org.uk Website www.amie.atl.org.uk Editor Paul Stanistreet

Senior sub-editor Rachel Kurzfield Art director Darren Endicott Advertising sales Michael Coulsey or Anthony Bennett 020 3771 7200 Account manager Kieran Paul Managing director Polly Arnold

ELM is produced and designed for ATL by Think Publishing, Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH Tel 020 3771 7200 Email info@thinkpublishing.co.uk

ATL accepts no liability for any insert, display or classified advertisement included in this publication. While every reasonable care is taken to ensure that all advertisers are reliable and reputable, ATL can give no assurance that they

will fulfil their obligation under all circumstances. The views expressed in articles in ELM are the contributors’ own and do not necessarily reflect ATL policy. Official policy statements issued on behalf of ATL are indicated as such. All rights reserved. Material contained in this publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior permission of ATL. Cover: Phillip Couzens

PETER PENDLE AMiE CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Welcome For people working in the further education and schools sector, the Queen’s Speech will have had a familiar ring to it. There was more tough talk about “failing or coasting schools” and forced academisation, a recommitment to a target of three million new apprenticeship starts by 2020 and a further assault on public sector workers’ right to take industrial action. There were some good ideas too, not least the extension of free childcare to 30 hours per week for three- and four-year-olds. And the ambition to create new apprenticeships is laudable provided they live up to the name. But there was little or no acknowledgement of the context in which these changes must take place – nor of the challenges facing schools and further education. For FE, the challenge is obvious. It is all about funding, and the growth in apprenticeships will come at a price. That price will, for the most part, be paid by adult FE. With the chancellor committed to running a budget surplus by the end of the parliament, it is unsurprising that many in the sector are warning of the ‘decimation’ of state-supported adult education. For schools, too, funding is critical. The government has committed to protect the four-to-16 budget only in cash terms, which will mean shrinking budgets but rising costs and pupil numbers. The pressures of leading and teaching in such an environment are enormous, and significantly compounded by a punitive inspection regime. It’s little wonder that teachers are leaving the profession in droves, while the recruitment of new teachers is drying up. We are seeing the same pattern in FE. The challenges faced by schools and colleges can only be met by a government prepared to work with teachers and education leaders, to give them the respect they deserve and the resources they need to do their jobs.

GET IN TOUCH

www.facebook.com/atlunion @atl_amie @DavidG_amie

JULY 2015 | ELM 3

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NEED TO KNOW

NEWS IN BRIEF

KEEP UP TO DATE WITH THE LATEST EDUCATION SECTOR NEWS

STOP THE FE FUNDING CUTS TEACHER RECRUITMENT ATL/AMiE MEMBERS have meetings with their MPs to taken part in the #LoveFE discuss the impact the cuts IN CRISIS lobby of parliament to will have on people’s skills SCHOOLS ARE FACING a major teacher recruitment crisis, according to Teach First, the country’s largest provider of new teachers. School leaders are struggling to fill vacancies, it said, with demand “more than double” what it was at the same time last year. It took Teach First, which recruits graduates to teach in disadvantaged areas, until the end of June last year to place all its new teachers. However, this year, all had places by the end of March. The latest figures from UCAS show the number of people applying for teacher training courses has fallen by 12% in the past year. The figures reveal a drop in the number of applications to just 33,500, compared with 38,000 this time last year. The slump is affecting both university and school-led training, including School Direct, which has been criticised for failing to reach recruitment targets. There has also been a fall in the number of applicants accepted on to courses, with numbers as of May 2015 down four per cent compared to the same time last year. Brett Wigdortz, chief executive of Teach First, told the TES: “The sense we are getting from heads is that it is worse than in 2002.” That recruitment crisis prompted schools to scour the world for teaching talent and the government to relax the rules on support staff teaching.

protest against the latest cuts to further education. The lobby, which took place on 16 June, aimed to develop dialogue with the new government and MPs, and to urge action to protect the FE budget following the announcement of a 24% cut in the adult FE budget for 2015-16. It was organised jointly by ATL/AMiE, the University and College Union, the National Union of Students, the Association of Colleges, Unison, the 157 Group and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). ATL and AMiE members were encouraged to set up

and employment chances, as well as on the economy, and to highlight the emerging recruitment and retention crisis in FE as pay restraint prompts many staff to return to their technical professions. Cuts to further education have already resulted in the loss of one million learners since 2010. It is expected that the latest cuts will lead to a further loss of 400,000 learners in 2016. 3 MORE INFO More detail on the cuts and how ATL/ AMiE members can get involved in the campaign is available at www.atl.org.uk/ fecuts and www.atl.org.uk/policy-andcampaigns/supported-campaigns/stopFE-funding-cuts.asp.

OFSTED SCRAPS GRADED LESSON OBSERVATIONS IN FE OFSTED IS to scrap graded lesson observations in inspections of further education providers from September 2015. The watchdog said it had consulted with FE and skills providers and “conducted numerous pilot inspections to test the changes” before making the revision. “In response to our findings, we have taken the decision to no longer grade the quality of teaching in individual learning sessions,” a statement said. “The change will be reflected in Ofsted’s new handbook for the inspection of FE and skills, which we will publish before the end of the summer term.” Individual lesson grades in schools were dropped last year, following criticism from teachers. Many in the FE sector have long argued that graded lesson observations are little more than a box-ticking exercise that puts pressure on staff but offers little in the way of fair or reliable judgement on the quality of teaching or learning.

BOARDS REWRITE GCSE MATHS PAPERS Qualifications regulator Ofqual has told exam boards to rewrite parts of their GCSE maths exam papers following research into the difficulty of the boards’ sample assessments for the reformed maths GCSE, to be taught from September. While acknowledging that all boards’ higher-tier papers “appropriately stretch the most able students”, the watchdog concluded that OCR, Pearson and WJEC Eduqas needed to “refine their higher and foundation tier papers to differentiate across student abilities”. AQA, on the other hand, needed “to lift the expected difficulty of its foundation tier paper”. All boards offering the reformed GCSE in maths will draw up new sample papers. These are expected to be available just a few weeks before teaching begins. Ofqual does not anticipate “fundamental changes” to the assessments. The first exams under the new curriculum will be taken in 2017. The review was launched after exam boards Edexcel and OCR complained that an AQA sample paper, published last year, was not challenging enough. This prompted Ofqual, which had already approved the papers, to begin a major research project comparing standards. Ofqual has also confirmed that it will run extra checks on difficulty levels in reformed science qualifications. The regulator has been criticised for removing ‘practicals’ from A-level and GCSE science exams.

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NEED TO KNOW

MEMBERSHIP BODY FOR FE STAFF A NEW membership body aspiring to be the professional home of further education staff has been launched by the Education and Training Foundation. The Society for Education and Training aims to promote professionalism and ensure FE staff “gain wider recognition for their educational expertise”. The society will take over the work of the former Institute for Learning (IfL), which closed last year. It aims to grow its membership to 35,000 and increase the number of teaching staff with qualified teacher learning and skills (QTLS) status to more than 20,000 in the next three years. For more, go to https://set. et-foundation.co.uk.

ROBUST INTERVENTION FOR FAILING UTCs The body that runs University Technical Colleges (UTCs) has said it will make its intervention processes more robust after inspectors revealed a catalogue of failures at one institution. Black Country UTC announced last month that it would close in August, blaming financial challenges, low student numbers and a recent inspection report. Ofsted graded the college inadequate in all areas and highlighted issues including weak teaching, belowaverage achievement, poor behaviour and belowaverage attendance. It also said the college’s governors and sponsors, Walsall College and the University of Wolverhampton, did not

understand how well students were doing at the college and so did not “have the knowledge to hold leaders to account” or to “tackle the underperformance of staff, including that of leaders”. The Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which runs the UTC programme, called the report “disappointing”, and admitted it could have done more. “In this case, we accept that our interventions needed to have been more robust, and plans are now in place that enable this to happen in the future,” it said. The plans include improved support for UTCs, a larger support team with varied experience and closer links with other agencies that support UTCs.

CAMERON MAKES APPRENTICESHIP GROWTH TOP PRIORITY Creating apprenticeships was at the heart of the legislative programme set out in David Cameron’s first Conservative Queen’s Speech. The plans included a requirement of ministers to report annually on apprenticeship growth, something that would help the government achieve its goal of creating three million apprenticeships by 2020, David Cameron told parliament. “The priority of the Queen’s Speech is to help working

people, and we are clear about what that means – more jobs, more apprenticeships, more tax cuts, more help with childcare and more opportunity to get a home of their own,” Cameron said. “The last parliament saw the start of more than 2.2 million apprenticeships, and the Queen’s Speech will help to create three million more.” The speech also included plans to use JobCentre Plus advisers to supplement careers advice in schools and to establish a Youth

Allowance for 18- to 21-yearolds, conditional on them starting an apprenticeship or work placement. The government’s ambition on apprenticeships was welcomed, but some warned they needed to be high quality, and accessible to young people. A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research in May, warned that apprenticeships were bypassing school leavers, with too few places to fulfil demand. In 2014, there were 1.8 million applications for 166,000 places in England.

FREE SUPPORT FOR SCHOOL MEALS All schools, local authorities, academy trusts and caterers directly involved in providing free school meals can access free support in increasing take-up

as part of the government-backed School Food Plan. The government has made £5m available to fund expert organisations to work with

schools with below-average take-up (currently 40% or less). The resource is available for a limited time. To find out more, go to www.schoolfoodplan.com.

12.6%

GAP IN LITERACY

UK FACES BIGGEST SKILLS GAPS IN DEVELOPED WORLD

THE SKILLS gap between young people not in employment, education or training (Neet) and those in work is wider in the UK than in other developed countries, according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). OECD researchers looked at 2012 and 2013 data for 16- to 29-year-olds in 22 developed countries, including England and Northern Ireland – termed ‘the UK’ for the purposes of the report. They found that UK Neets lagged well behind the rest of their age group in terms of literacy and problem solving, placing the UK in last place out of 22 countries in terms of the literacy gap, and last out of 19 in terms of problemsolving abilities. Overall, there was a 12.6% gap in literacy, almost double the OECD average. There was also a 9.6 per cent difference between the problem-solving skills of Neets and working young people in England and Northern Ireland. The OECD calls on policymakers to help Neets re-engage with education or employment, noting they can face difficulties moving from school into work, while those with a low level of education face more problems. JULY 2015 | ELM 5

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

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE, ER, OLD As the new government sets out its stall for the new parliament, school and college leaders face a familiar challenge – how to survive in a climate of unprecedented fiscal constraint WORDS PAUL STANISTREET

ollowing an election campaign in which education barely registered as a topic for debate, we have a new, if familiar, majority Conservative government, a very familiar secretary of state for education, and a new secretary of state for business, innovation and skills in Sajid Javid. Early announcements included Nicky Morgan’s warning that “failing or coasting” schools would have their headteachers removed and be forced to join an academy chain and a recommitment to a target of three million new apprenticeships (part of a wider commitment to “end youth unemployment”). But with the chancellor planning to operate a budget surplus by the end of the parliament – paid for mainly through cuts to public spending – funding remains the elephant in the room. Further education, in particular, is facing unprecedented funding challenges. The coalition’s nearobsessive focus on apprenticeships, combined with a willingness to put the interests of other sectors ahead of those of FE, have seen courses cut, staff made redundant and sector morale plummet. As a result, options for students are narrowing. Further education appears to have few friends in parliament – particularly since the loss of Vince Cable. Funding for adult further education has seen the most devastating cuts, reduced by 25% between 2009-10 and 2014-15, with a further 24% cut to non-apprenticeship adult learning planned for 2015-16. Unsurprisingly, the Association of Colleges is warning that adult further education could be a thing of the past by 2020. One of Cable’s last acts as secretary of state was to launch a consultation on adult FE.

Swingeing cuts At the same time, the Department for Education (DfE) reduced spending on 16- to 18-year-olds from £7.7bn in 2009-10 to £7bn in 2013-14, with a further 17.5% cut to the funding rate for 18-year-olds introduced last September. These swingeing cuts will hit the poorest adults and young people the hardest. The Conservatives were the only large party not to pledge in their manifesto to ring-fence funding for 16- to 18-year-olds, leaving this sector vulnerable to yet more cuts. The schools budget has enjoyed relative stability, although inequities in

the way funding is allocated mean some schools have enjoyed more stability than others. With the government pledging to protect the four-to-16 budget only in cash terms, the situation is likely to get worse for struggling schools, which will also have to cope with an increase in pupil numbers as well as rising pension and National Insurance costs. This is a pressure all maintained schools will feel. The Association of Colleges estimates that the DfE will face a large and growing budget shortfall after 2015 – from £600m in 2015-16 to £4.6bn by 2018-19 – largely as a result of the rise in the school-age population.

How will you cope with the cuts?

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

PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY IMAGES

A reducing pot “School funding is in a mess,” states Robin Bevan, headteacher at Southend High School for Boys; a mess, he says, the government is doing too little to plan for. “The government has made a decision to pursue austerity policies that have frozen overall funding. In real terms, this is a reducing pot, exacerbated by increasing costs. The government failed to recognise, acknowledge or plan for the consequences. During a period of relatively plentiful investment under the Labour government, per-pupil levels of school income increased and became more widely spread. It made sense to invest extra resources in the areas of greatest need. As budgets are now tightening, with many schools facing deficits next year, the distribution of resources has not been correspondingly reformed. “There is no plan in place to address the fact that, with declining budgets, the schools at the lower end of the income distribution will be the first to fail financially – and a disproportionate number of these are free-standing academies. Of course, to resolve the issue – within a standstill budget – is to play a zero-sum game. Is the government bold enough to reform

the national funding mechanisms when there will be as many losers as winners? Can it stand by as a whole wave of schools face bankruptcy? Will the issue be so severe that the only politically palatable solution will require a change in the public-spending mindset?” Ralph Surman, deputy head of Cantrell Primary School and an AMiE council member, agrees. “Schools in the maintained sector will see ring-fenced budgets eroded by increased costs, and will have to make difficult decisions about cutting jobs while pupil numbers increase.” In the circumstances, he adds, “it is difficult to see how the government can justify spending £1.5bn on just 170 free schools”.

Daylight robbery Nevertheless, Surman argues, cuts to FE constitute a more serious and urgent issue. “The FE sector has been robbed by the government in broad daylight. The 24% cut in the adult skills budget is completely unacceptable. This cut will hit learners, colleges and ATL/AMiE

Group of large FE colleges. “If we are serious about making our young people more ready for work then we have to address the disparity of funding rates and acknowledge that high-quality technical education for those over 16 is as worthy of funding properly as classroom study pre-16. For those over 18, the time has come to look at our education system in the round – to judge the outputs of both further and higher education by the same standards and to offer the same opportunities to study in different settings. “If adult grant funding for FE is going to reduce, then it should be targeted at those most in need, and the possibility of a loan should be made available to more people. Developing more highlevel skills provision will require the government to look seriously at its commitments, not just in terms of FE, but HE also. In the current climate, it is clear that the greatest challenge will be to get buy-in from both employers and individuals to invest in high-quality training of the kind delivered by FE

“THE FE SECTOR HAS BEEN ROBBED BY THE GOVERNMENT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. THE 24% CUT IN THE ADULT SKILLS BUDGET IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.” members, and result in redundancies across the sector. Terms and conditions will crumble into insignificance, the widening gap between lecturers’ and teachers’ pay becomes ridiculous, and one wonders whether there is a future for the FE sector. Is this deliberate? If not, colleges face acute choices and challenges simply to survive. “We will continue to see amalgamations of colleges and further closure of courses. This will lead to fewer options for young people. The greatest impact will be on those young people who are most disadvantaged. Unemployed young people will have nowhere to turn and be unable to acquire the skills they need to get a job – a shocking prospect. The economic recovery could stall and social cohesion could be threatened. My hope is that the difficult times could bring the FE sector together like never before.”

Funding disparity The new government will need to be mindful of “some important principles about equity and durability”, says Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157

colleges. And, however the funding system is designed, it should ensure both maximum freedom for colleges and others to respond to employer need and minimum unnecessary bureaucracy and central control.” These issues are not going away. The chancellor’s commitment to balance the government’s books within this parliament makes education funding vulnerable to more cuts. The sort of settlement that would be needed to undo the damage already visited upon 16–18 and adult further education is unlikely to be forthcoming. And many schools are facing a budget deficit that they have no idea how to fill. Yet, as OECD research shows, the skills gap between young people out of work or education and their working peers in the UK is greater than in other developed countries. Increasing investment in schools and further education is crucial to long-term recovery. But, as Bevan argues, perhaps only a shift in the “public-spending mindset” will bring about the changes that both society and the economy badly need. JULY 2015 | ELM 7

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COMMENT: NORTHERN IRELAND

Road to nowhere TRUST AND PROFESSIONALISM WILL BE AMONG THE CASUALTIES OF AUSTERITY POLITICS

COLUMNIST MARK LANGHAMMER DIRECTOR OF ATL NORTHERN IRELAND

MiE casework is dominated by concerns about work-related stress. Leaders in schools and colleges are being asked to do ‘more with less’, while facing increased scrutiny and micromanagement, driven by a punitive accountability system. Between 2010 and 2014, educationalists’ pay in Northern Ireland fell by 12.5% in real terms. Since 2008, thousands of teaching jobs have been lost through redundancy, while teachers’ pensions have reduced from final salary to career average. Workload has intensified; escape through flexible working is on the rise; and a process of de-skilling is under way. On top of that, we face an end to contractual incremental wage progression and a move to performance-related pay. Under the Stormont House Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive will borrow £700m to make staff across the public sector redundant. That will mean far fewer posts in schools and colleges. As George Osborne cuts his way to a budget surplus, we can expect more of the same, with thousands more jobs gone by 2019. The effects in education will be significant. We will see class sizes rise; amalgamations will accelerate; and there will be curriculum cuts. Further education/school collaboration will decrease and there will be a reduction in early-years provision, school trips and extra-curricular activity.

In short, austerity will narrow the educational experience for pupils. In further education, cuts of between six and seven per cent will mean an end to community, adult and second-chance education. There will be reduced money for apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship training. Relatively speaking, those attending university have been protected at the expense of those seeking vocational training. At the same time, students are demotivated by the lack of rewarding, well-paid careers in regulated, structured industries. The bargain traditionally at the heart of education has been broken. Work and study hard, we were told, and you will get your reward in the labour market. That deal is dead. Teaching and lecturing remains a decent job, but there are signs that teaching is being hollowed out as a decent profession. De-professionalisation, logically, represents the next phase of the liberal free-trade/market forces development. Just as blue-collar, skilled industrial and technical jobs disappeared under the de-industrialisation of a generation ago, so middle-class professions are being eroded under relentless corporate pressure. The longitudinal Work Skills in Britain study found that job discretion (a key component in job satisfaction) had reduced more in education than in any other sector. The obvious causes of reduced autonomy are a centralised curriculum, microtargets, political scrutiny, performance-related pay, high-stakes inspection, league tables and data-driven managerialism. The best-performing education systems endorse a supportive model of accountability, which builds teacher confidence and commitment. This is in stark contrast to the current fear-driven ‘deficit’ model, which encourages undesirable practice to achieve compliance and avoid retribution. We have a choice between the ‘high road’ and the ‘low road’. The low is characterised by systems of micro-accountability, excessive testing, bureaucratic assessment and data-driven evaluation, with teaching debased as a low-discretion craft. The high road, on the other hand, encourages reflective, high-skill, autonomous professionalism, with practitioners recognised for their knowledge, expertise and judgement. When leaders in schools and colleges contact AMiE with concerns about excessive workload, tiredness and a lack of work-life balance, the causes they cite leave no room for doubt as to the road we are on. Is this how it seems to you?

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COMMENT: WALES

Surviving the new normal FOR FURTHER EDUCATION IN WALES, CHANGE IS THE NEW NORMAL

urther education in Wales continues to be a concern to all involved in the sector. After four years of change, with mergers, structural reform and even changes to colleges’ names, the sector remains in a state of flux. There have been severe funding cuts for the past two years, with more reductions still to come. Funding for adult and community learning has been hit, as has funding for part-time study, which has been reduced by 50% for 2015, with all other part-time and full-time provision cut by 2.6 per cent. And although full-time funding for 16- to 19-year-olds has been protected, the amount per head has, in real terms, shrunk. The forthcoming £26m cut in the FE budget means that in 2015-16 every college in Wales will face a further funding cut of between half a million pounds and £3m, which amounts to between 2.5 per cent and 8.5 per cent of their recurrent funding. All the merged organisations have had to rationalise provision and staffing in the past few months and nearly every college has been through either a voluntary and/or compulsory redundancy process at all levels. At the same time, the impact of the Welsh government’s Review of Qualifications is being felt as strongly in the FE sector as it is in the secondary sector (http://gov.wales/topics/educationandskills/ qualificationsinwales/revofqualen/?lang=en). It is intended that Qualifications Wales, the body recommended in the review (www.qualifications wales.org), will be fully in place by the start of the new academic year, but, even before that, other recommendations from the review are to be implemented from September 2015. The revamped Welsh baccalaureate qualification (WBQ) will begin, as will the new essential skills suite of qualifications, and new GCSEs in maths (numeracy) and English, to name just a few changes. With all of these changes in curriculum, introduced just one year into a new funding methodology for the post-16 sector, and with the pressure of funding cuts on top of this, it is not surprising that the stress levels of teachers and managers is at an all-time high. It is accepted within education that the curriculum will change to meet the changing needs of the economy. Surely, though, the extent of the current changes, alongside low staff morale caused by funding cuts and the ongoing threat of

COLUMNIST LESLEY TIPPING AMiE PRESIDENT

redundancy, highlight the need to ensure staff have the professional development they need to keep up with the changes. The volume of staff development required is extensive and obviously has costs (both direct and hidden) attached to it. Given all of this, it is clear that innovative practices will be required to meet staff needs. The changes to curriculum are not minor: the WBQ now includes the requirement to gain specific levels of GCSE as well as primary qualifications. It also includes four ‘challenges’ that have seven ‘skills’ embedded in them (www.wjec.co.uk/ qualifications/welsh-baccalaureate/welsh-baccfrom-2015). The new essential skills have changed in format and content, and, instead of a portfolio, now include the requirement of a ‘task and test’. This means that completely different teaching and assessment requirements are needed as well as staff development requirements (www.qualifications wales.org/essential-skills-wales). Working in the FE sector in Wales at the moment is tough for all concerned. Many people who have worked in the sector for years have left, taking their years of experience with them. Those who remain are facing a challenging future, having to do more with less while still expected to maintain the rigour and quality that the Welsh economy has come to expect from the sector. After 18 months of being relatively free of Estyn, the new inspection framework for further education also begins in the new academic year. The reaction of Estyn to the new funding scene and its impact, along with the impact of the qualifications review on learners, will be followed with interest by all in the FE sector. JULY 2015 | ELM 9

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F E AT U R E

Never mind turning ‘coasting’ schools into academies, the crisis in funding and teacher recruitment should be at the top of the education secretary’s in-tray WORDS PAUL STANISTREET ILLUSTRATION PHIL COUZENS

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THERE MAY BE

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F E AT U R E

he secretary of state for education Nicky Morgan used her first public pronouncements following the General Election to declare that “failing or coasting” schools would have their headteachers removed and be forced to join an academy chain – a move described by the Daily Telegraph as “a new front in [the Conservatives’] war against teachers’ unions”. Interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show, the education secretary confirmed that she believed academies are a better type of school than those under local authority control, adding that children in academies “do better” at the end of key stage 2 and GCSEs. The Queen’s Speech reaffirmed the government’s faith in academies, placing them at the centre of a reform plan that has little to do with the real challenges facing schools and their leaders. The failure to engage with the underlying issues responsible for so-called ‘failing’ or ‘coasting’ schools – or indeed any of the other issues that preoccupy teachers and school leaders day in, day out – is troubling, as is the education secretary’s failure to say anything that would indicate her enthusiasm to support or work closely with teachers, or their unions. As ATL general secretary Mary Bousted has argued, Morgan’s plans do not even pass the test of common sense. No one would argue that schools that fail their pupils should not be improved, and quickly, but there is no evidence that academisation – or the threat of it – is a good way of doing this. As the cross-party Education Select Committee acknowledged: “Current

TROUBLE AHEAD

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evidence does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether academies in themselves are a positive force for change.” Nor, it concluded, is there “convincing evidence” of the positive impact of academy status on attainment in primary schools. Overall, there is simply no evidence out there to justify the claim that academies ‘do better’ than other types of school.

Confrontational talk Evidence matters and so do priorities. The problem with the government’s confrontational talk, its denigration of the teaching profession and its relentless promotion of academies at the expense of local authority schools, is that it ignores the factors that are really responsible for school underperformance and, in some respects, risks making a bad situation worse. It’s true that school leadership is important. We need better leaders and we need more of them. But it is far from clear that putting senior leaders under further pressure of punitive intervention, including job loss, while offering no support in developing the sort of imaginative, collaborative and evidence-based approach that is necessary in leading a school in times of rising costs and frozen budgets, is the right way of going about this. It seems more likely that rather than helping schools recruit and retain good leaders and teachers, the government’s approach will push more and more talented people away from the profession, contributing still further to what many in the sector are openly describing as a crisis in teacher recruitment – a crisis that will affect academy schools and their pupils every bit as much as it will affect local authority maintained schools and their pupils.

As Mary Bousted said in a letter to Morgan shortly after her reappointment: “Teachers are leaving the profession in droves at a time when more children are entering the school system.” In the last year alone, one member in charge of a grammar school, told me that his school has lost three teachers to other professions – “a first in 20 years”, he said. In a parallel trend, further education colleges, wracked by year after year of cuts, are also losing teaching staff – usually dual professionals with both technical and teaching skills – to their original technical professions. More pressure on funding is inevitable with George Osborne’s announcement of £900m of additional cuts, split between further education and the Department for Education (DfE) non-school budget, as part of a raft of in-year savings amounting to £3bn across most government departments. The story is repeated across the country, as experienced school and college teachers and leaders opt to leave a profession characterised by excessive workload, overbearing accountability pressure (itself the main driver of excessive workload) and the threat of sudden job loss. A survey of school leaders, conducted for national information service The Key for School Leaders, found that 87% of 1,180 school leaders polled thought leading a school had become a lessattractive option over the past five years. Less than three per cent thought matters had improved. The majority (85%) also thought teacher morale had worsened since 2010. More than 90% felt their own work-life balance could be improved, while almost two-thirds felt their role was negatively affecting their mental health.

Sharp decline At the same time, there has been a sharp decline in people joining the profession. As the TES reported at the end of May, the number of people from England applying for teacher training has fallen by 4,500 ( 12%) in the last year alone, to 35,000. The slump applies to both university and school-led training, including the School Direct programme. This follows some years of steady decline. Last year, Ofsted warned that the number of new teachers had fallen by 16% in five years. A sector survey published in April reported that two-thirds of school leaders found recruitment harder than in previous years. The reality is stark, as one member who is a deputy head of a primary school, makes clear. “Those applying for teacher training routes have no assurances in relation to quality and the variable routes have made becoming a teacher something of a lottery, particularly through School Direct and Teach First. Figures on teacher retention must be a worry for any government. High drop-out rates due to impossible workloads, unrealistic targets, open-ended contracts, poor CPD, invisible career progression and pay paths makes the job impossible. A newly qualified teacher told me last week: ‘The holidays are just a safety valve to allow me to catch up with my work. A day off would be fantastic, but I never stop thinking about school, even if I try!’ The true extent of this problem will only become public when schools are unable to put a teacher in front of a class.”

Pupil numbers While the supply of teachers declines, pupil numbers are rising, heading for a 50-year peak in 2023. The Local

“HIGH DROP OUT RATES DUE TO IMPOSSIBLE WORKLOADS, UNREALISTIC TARGETS, OPEN ENDED CONTRACTS, POOR CPD, INVISIBLE CAREER PROGRESSION AND PAY PATHS MAKES THE JOB IMPOSSIBLE.”

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F E AT U R E

NEW

EDUCATION BILL

The Queen’s Speech set out the government’s plans for a new Education and Adoption Bill in England. Legislation, it said, “will be brought forward to improve schools and give every child the best start in life, with new powers to take over failing and coasting schools and create more academies”. The government states that, for schools, the bill’s purpose is to: • Give all children the best start in life. • Strengthen intervention powers in failing maintained schools. It will make clear that the solution for inadequate schools is to become a sponsored academy. It will also give the government powers to intervene in coasting schools and to require action from those schools in which pupils are not making sufficient progress. The main benefit of the bill would be: • Speeding up intervention in failing schools and making it clear that inadequate schools will become sponsored academies. • Creating new power to academise coasting schools.

The main elements of the bill are: • To give regional schools commissioners powers to bring in leadership support from other excellent schools and outstanding heads, and would speed up the process of turning schools into academies. • An inadequate Ofsted judgement would usually lead to a school being converted into an academy. Barriers would be removed to enable swift progress towards conversion. • It would make schools that meet a new coasting definition, having shown a prolonged period of ‘mediocre performance’ and insufficient pupil progress, eligible for academisation. The government intends to set out a definition of coasting “in due course according to a number of factors”.

Government Association warned in April that two in five council areas will have more primary-age pupils ready to start school than places for them by September 2016. This increases to more than half in 2017-18 and three in five in 2018-19. The LGA reported that more than 300,000 primary school places had been created by councils since 2010, with many going to “extraordinary lengths” to ensure there is a place for every child, including “increasing class sizes, diverting money from vital school repair programmes and converting non-classroom space, such as music rooms”. However, schools and councils were now running out of space and money for extra places, it said. The pressure on schools is intense and likely to get worse, as school leaders contend with a budget freeze and rising pension and National Insurance costs, on top of rising pupil numbers. The Association of Colleges estimates that the DfE will face a large and growing budget shortfall after 2015 – from £600m in 2015-16 to £4.6bn by 2018-19 – largely as a result of the rising school-age population. This is a toxic combination of factors, certain to add to the stresses of workload and accountability that are among the main reasons for teachers and school leaders leaving the sector. Morgan could usefully look again at the findings of her Workload Challenge and take decisive action to address the main causes of excessive workload and so make teaching a more attractive proposition for potential new entrants. Chief among the causes is the increasingly punitive inspection regime, which, over a number of years, has helped create this culture of compliance and enforcement in schools, with leaders often more concerned with looking good than doing the right thing. Fundamental change to Ofsted is long overdue. As ATL has consistently argued, a new, peer-led, supportive and rigorous system of inspection is needed, one that is tailored to school and college improvement, proportionate in its impact and that works with, not against, the teaching profession.

Top of the in-tray The challenges in the school sector are complex but clear. “Top of the in-tray must be funding,” says the grammar school leader. “Second, the planned

supply of well-trained, qualified subject-specialist teachers. Third, the retention of experienced teachers. Fourth, attracting suitable candidates into school leadership with an offer that is sufficiently secure to allow them to do their job and risk their career. The threat of being removed if Ofsted rate a school as grade three or four is now becoming a very strong disincentive to work in such environments. Equally, few candidates apply to schools with a grade one, where the prospect of not sustaining it becomes a real fear. The fifth priority must be reforming the accountability structures so they monitor and promote quality, rather than assessing and damning school futures.” Despite all of this, the education measures outlined in the Queen’s Speech had nothing to say about either school funding or recruitment. Nor was there recognition of the funding crisis in further education or the emerging crisis in FE teacher recruitment and retention. This has to change. The evidence shows that it is not institutional structure that transforms educational outcomes, but the quality of teaching. Colleges need a stable funding settlement that can allow for long-term planning, and that must mean the protection of the FE budget. Schools need the tools to do the job they were set up to do and that means a steady supply of highquality teachers, good in-school training and development, and the resources to ensure a quality education for all children. A good place to start would be with an evaluation of the School Direct programme, which has failed to recruit trainee teachers and failed to provide high-quality training in too many instances. The decline in universitybased teacher training courses, which are markedly more successful in meeting their recruitment targets, also needs to be halted. And the government must urgently reconsider the current inspection and accountability regime. Above all, to quote Mary Bousted’s letter to Nicky Morgan: “Teachers want the autonomy to be able to determine their own work and the safe environment to try out innovative approaches to teaching.” To offer less does a disservice to our children and young people, who need good, wellqualified and experienced teachers, wherever they happen to learn. JULY 2015 | ELM 13

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PROFILE

‘WE AIM TO BE A CRITICAL FRIEND’ SINCE BECOMING AMiE BRANCH CHAIR AT COLEG CAMBRIA IN 2013, CLWYD JONES HAS GROWN THE BRANCH’S MEMBERSHIP BY 25%, MAKING IT THE LARGEST IN WALES. GIVING MEMBERS A VOICE IN UNION MATTERS AND THE DAY-TO-DAY RUNNING OF THE COLLEGE HAS MADE A CRUCIAL DIFFERENCE, HE SAYS WORDS PAUL STANISTREET

lwyd Jones understands very well the positive role a union can play in supporting its members through difficult times. In 2008, going through the break-up of his marriage and struggling with bullying at work, Clwyd sought the help of his union. “I was going through a bad period,” he says. “I lost four stone in three months. I needed the support of my union and they gave me that support. It’s at times like these that you realise you need a friend in the workplace.” The experience not only reinforced his commitment to union activism – forged over many years of engagement in the workplace, as well as politically and in his local community – it also shaped his approach to chairing his local AMiE branch. Clwyd joined AMiE in 2011, shortly after Llysfasi College, where he had worked since 1992, merged with Deeside College. He moved to Deeside and was soon active in his union. But more change was on its way and, in 2013, Deeside merged with Yale College to form Coleg Cambria, now one of the largest colleges in the UK. Clwyd became quality manager of the new college, with responsibility for developing and maintaining quality management and improvement systems across all provision and services at the college. The merger, however, caused frustration among members at Deeside who didn’t feel adequately represented.

“All of a sudden, our union rep wasn’t about,” Clwyd says. “We weren’t getting feedback and we weren’t being told what was going on. The other college had much better representation and was at the table discussing the merger.” Once the merger was over, Clwyd began asking questions about the level of representation members were getting. He found out that both branch managers were leaving and decided to take the initiative, organising a branch meeting to establish a committee of reps across the six newly merged Coleg Cambria sites. He was invited to stand as chair and was unanimously voted in.

Open dialogue Over the next two years, Clwyd, with the support of other branch members, including two vice-chairs and the branch secretary, introduced regular branch meetings – one site had not had a meeting in 16 months – and used Google technology to share information and gather membership views in an open and secure way. “There was a membership, but people tended to use it only when there was a problem,” he says. “Some people weren’t prepared to stand up and say, ‘I think this policy is wrong’ or ‘you need to rethink what you are trying to achieve here’. That’s important, not

just to hold people to account, but to give them a different idea, a different view. I wanted to bring more to the table than an argumentative tack.” Clwyd developed an open dialogue with the college’s principal and cultivated a collaborative, nonconfrontational approach to working with senior management. “I was trying to be supportive, to understand where management were going, the pressures of funding and so on, but at the same time to bring a bit of reason to it, to say, ‘Hold on, do you think you’re treating people fairly here?’ or to highlight another way of doing things. We aim to be a sort of critical friend. We don’t say, ‘If you don’t deal with this in 15 minutes, we’re going to be in dispute with you.’” The branch tries to anticipate issues early and tackle them before the ink on new policy documents is dry. Clwyd often instigates informal meetings with HR to prevent issues escalating unnecessarily, and has developed channels of communication with senior managers to address problems in new policies before they are formally adopted. “If we know there will be issues concerning a new policy we try to address them early on in the process. Even if we haven’t seen a policy we will ask them to take on board our concerns and suggestions rather than wait for

“MEMBERS FEEL THEY HAVE A VOICE AND IF THERE IS A CONCERN WE DO SOMETHING SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.”

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PROFILE

AMIE REP OF THE YEAR: CLWYD JONES AGE 53 LIVES IN Llangollen WORKS AS Quality manager, Coleg Cambria, in Wrexham AN AMIE MEMBER SINCE 2011 AN AMIE REP SINCE 2013 PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT Growing the Coleg

Cambria branch of AMiE into the largest in Wales

a policy to come out and be asked what we think of it. We try to be engaging but challenging, supportive but a critical friend.” Membership under Clwyd’s chairmanship has grown by 25%. Sixty-one per cent of college management are now members, making it the largest AMiE branch in Wales (the target now is 70%). Clwyd aims to ensure everyone is engaged, and goes beyond simply supporting members in disputes – important though that is – encouraging them also to help shape both the institution they work in and the policy of their union. Information is now much more actively shared within the branch, with member feedback sought, collated and forwarded to senior managers. “Growing the membership is our biggest achievement,” Clwyd says.

“And I think that’s partly to do with how we engage. Members feel they have a voice, and if they have a concern we will try to do something about it sooner rather than later, before it is too late.” The culture of inclusivity and engagement Clwyd has developed owes much to his own previous experience of difficulty in the workplace. “When I came back to work, all I wanted, from my work and in my private life, was clarity. Do you like the work I do or not? Don’t say one thing to me and something different to somebody else. Just be honest. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it. That’s the way I conduct myself as a manager and that’s how all managers should conduct themselves.” The work, Clwyd says, has been “exciting and rewarding”. He gets as much satisfaction from helping

individuals as he has gained from growing the branch membership. “I have met lots of new people who are working towards the same goal. Having been through a merger before I was able to use my experience to support colleagues in a positive way. I make sure I talk about past successes as a development tool for building an even stronger college.” It’s “humbling” to have this work recognised by colleagues in the form of AMiE’s Rep of the Year award, Clwyd says. By rights, he adds, it should be shared with his branch colleagues, particularly branch secretary Donna Pritchard, who nominated Clywd, and the two branch vice-chairs, Lucy Melegari and Patrick Cox. “We are one another’s sounding board in terms of what we should do and how we support people,” Clwyd says. “Donna takes my vision and my views, my way of trying to communicate with people, and translates it into action. She set up the Google drive so we can share documents and feedback. “You wouldn’t think the four of us would be a social group but the union has brought us together. We work well together and we rely on each other. I hope things will continue and over the next couple of years we can continue to build the membership up. There are a lot more challenges ahead.” 3 MORE INFO For more about the awards, as well as being a rep, go to the rep zone: www.atl.org.uk/rep-zone/be-our-rep/ welcome.asp.

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A Lesson in Leadership Notley High School’s Home-Learning Revelation

Notley High School & Braintree Sixth Form is a successful and heavily over-subscribed school in Braintree, Essex, who gained academy status in 2011. 2013 marked the establishment of the North Essex Multi-Academy Trust (NEMAT), which also consists of The Ramsey Academy Halstead. Both schools are successfully using Show My Homework to support student learning and raise achievement. Before Show My Homework (SMHW) what were 3 points of homework frustration you faced school-wide?

• It was near impossible for subject leaders to monitor the consistency of homework set across departments.

• Parents and carers found themselves contacting the school directly just to be certain that home-learning had been set.

• Year leaders struggled to find a way to monitor the

completion of home-learning by students in their year groups.

Show My Homework’s monitoring tools are simple to understand, quick to use and are extremely effective for middle & senior leaders to quickly establish whether teachers are setting home-learning, and whether they are appropriate learning activities for students in their classes. As a Senior Leader, what are your three favourite SMHW features?

• The ability to see at a glance if homework is being set and if it’s in line with our home-learning policy.

‘As a busy parent with a varying work schedule I find this facility invaluable.’

• Using reports to immediately establish the quantity of homelearning that is being set by different departments as well as the ability to sample tasks so we are able to evaluate the quality of different home-learning being set.

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in and see exactly what home-learning has been set by their teachers; the ability to attach resources is also a huge help especially when students lose their original copies!

All features encompassed in Show My Homework are helpful monitoring tools not just for staff, but for parents and carers as well, and they all help to further support the quality of teaching and assessment. What is the single biggest reason why you love SMHW? SMHW is so easy to use for all involved! The data is always up-todate thanks to the regular auto SIMS sync. The website is easy to navigate and the app is a fantastic product in its own right. Responses from staff have been overwhelmingly positive and it’s helping to reduce the number of home-learning deadlines missed by students, what’s not to love?! Robin Newman Senior Deputy Headteacher Notley High School & Braintree Sixth Form

www.showmyhomework.co.uk 016_ATL_ELM_July_15.indd 16

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Phone: 020 7197 9550 24/06/2015 15:57

R E S OUR CE S/C ON TA C T S

AMiE LEADERSHIP SEMINAR: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;LEADING WITH LESSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Annual leadership seminars â&#x20AC;&#x201C; UK venues

oin us for your free annual AMiE seminar. This year, we will be exploring the practical measures that can help you to lead and manage effectively given the reality of shrinking funds and the impact this is having on schools and colleges. Renowned educator Peter Rushton will be among those leading workshops, which include: â&#x20AC;˘ Getting the best from staff through talent management; â&#x20AC;˘ Leading effective teaching & learning; â&#x20AC;˘ Ethical leadership & influence.

Members attending previous seminars have told us how useful these events are. Please book, attend and benefit from an opportunity to share ideas with peers who are wrestling with similar issues. In response to member feedback, we are now running the seminars in three locations, Manchester, London and Birmingham. Register now at www.amie.atl.org.uk or call 01858 461110 to book your place: â&#x20AC;˘ Manchester â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2 October â&#x20AC;˘ London â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 20 November â&#x20AC;˘ Birmingham â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 27 November

ENTER BOOK PRIZE DRAW

National helpline Tel: 01858 464171 Email: helpline@amie.atl.org.uk

INFO AMIE.ATL.ORG.UK LEADERSHIP COURSES FOR MEMBERS AMiE has a UK-wide network of elected representatives and members of staff who can help you with your queries. For more information on your regional contact and their contact details, please see amie.atl.org.uk/aboutamie/your-union/contact-us.asp. Here is a selection of course names and dates.

Online 7 October 2015

London 10 October 2015 Nottingham 21 November 2015

WHO CAN JOIN? 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 HE.

AMiE 35 The Point, Market Harborough Leicestershire. LE16 7QU Tel: 01858 461110 Fax: 01858 461366 amie.atl.org.uk

FIRST COME FIRST SERVED.

PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT

We are the only union to represent managers and leaders across the entire education sector, providing: â&#x20AC;˘ 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; â&#x20AC;˘ excellent personal and professional development: accredited training and development opportunities for you in your role as a manager or leader; â&#x20AC;˘ a voice in the education debate: an opportunity to influence policy and get involved in issues that affect you; â&#x20AC;˘ publications and resources: a range of free publications focused on contemporary leadership issues; â&#x20AC;˘ 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 yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s membership*, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never been a better time to join AMiE. Join online at amie.atl.org.uk/join or call 0845 057 7000 (local call). Let AMiE take you further.

CONTACTING AMiE

Thanks to the Further Education Trust for Leadership, we have 10 copies of the new publication Remembered Thinking by Kim Krantz to give away to members. To request your copy, please email:

MANAGING EXTREME BEHAVIOUR

ABOUT AMiE

PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR DYSLEXIA AND DYSCALCULIA: PRIMARY

LEADERSHIP: CREATING A HIGHPERFORMANCE TEAM Newcastle 18 November 2015

Sheffield 4 November 2015

For more information on these courses and to book, please see amie.atl.org.uk/join-in/cpd/overview.asp

David Green Assistant director of AMiE (employment services) Tel: 01858 411540 Mobile: 07711 929043 Email: dgreen@amie.atl.org.uk Mark Wright Assistant director of AMiE (leadership and management) Tel: 020 7782 1530 Mobile: 07436 805330 Email: mwright@amie.atl.org.uk For membership queries, please contact the membership department on 020 7782 1602 or email: membership@atl.org.uk. *TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY, VISIT AMIE.ATL.ORG.UK FOR FULL SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS, MEMBERSHIP ELIGIBILITY AND FURTHER INFORMATION.

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MASTERCLASS

THE HUMAN FACTOR

WHEN IT COMES TO ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING, IT’S NOT SO MUCH WHAT YOU DO BUT HOW YOU DO IT THAT GETS RESULTS WORDS PAUL STANISTREET ILLUSTRATION IKON IMAGES

hichever part of the education system you work in, change is a constant. Managing that change in the right way is one of the toughest challenges school and college leaders face. The challenge is tougher still when the change in question is being driven not by growth but by a climate of funding cuts and budgetary constraint. This is the environment in which education leaders must operate for the foreseeable future. Funding cuts have left further education reeling, with many colleges forced to cut courses and reduce staffing, and college leaders openly debating what will be left of a scarcely recognisable sector come 2020. Colleges worked hard to improve efficiency over the course of the last parliament but many principals are now reporting that efficiency has been exhausted and that reductions in staffing are the only course open to them. Most have already been through bruising restructuring processes a number of times over the past few years. Schools too, having been ‘protected’ during the coalition administration, are facing real-terms cuts to their budgets at a time when costs are increasing significantly. Without a plan to more fairly distribute the available resources or to support schools in coping with the gathering funding crisis, there is a real prospect that we will begin to see some schools struggling and even failing financially. Little wonder that many teachers and education leaders are opting to leave the profession. Unsurprisingly, it is funding pressure that is the main driver of organisational change, and of restructuring, in particular. How these changes are managed can be, to borrow a phrase from the Prime Minister, career-

defining. It can also have a huge impact, for better or worse, on learners and those who teach them. By taking a thoughtful, human-centred approach to change, leaders can win hearts and minds in navigating the journey ahead and cultivate a cooperative workplace in which staff react with resilience and creativity to the challenges they face, whether they complete the journey or end up looking elsewhere for work. What does good restructuring look like? Changes to institutional structure, roles, reporting lines, responsibilities, locations and so on, are the most obvious outcomes of organisational change and, undoubtedly, it is important that leaders adapt the physical make-up of their organisations quickly and intelligently to new conditions in order to continue offering learners what they need. However, successful management of organisational change is not just about clear priorities, revised structures and redesigned job roles. The kind of communication that drives these changes and the level of sensitivity brought to them can be just as important, if not more so. This is not to underplay the importance of intelligent and timely structural change. But it is

The experience of restructuring in schools and colleges has not always been a good one. Casework reveals that poor practice is common. Examples include announcing a new structure without prior warning of the need to do so, inaccessibility of senior managers and a failure to assess the impact on certain groups compared to others. In some cases, all of the responsibility for restructuring is passed down to the HR department. In others, the process is used as an excuse to get rid of staff perceived to be performing poorly, rather than using a robust performance management and support system. These are all approaches indicative of poor emotional intelligence, certain to cause further problems, and perhaps more restructuring, down the line. A human-centred approach to restructuring involves: • senior leadership explaining the strategic position at an early stage, intimating clearly if there are likely to be implications for jobs; • senior leaders and middle managers going out of their way to be available to those who are losing their jobs and also those who remain; • sharing of genuine concern for well-being.

“THE PROBLEM WITH MANY FAILED RESTRUCTURES IS THAT THE NEW STRUCTURE IS DEVELOPED TOO SOON.” obvious that the best-designed structure can be undermined by problems caused by the way leaders and managers approach this sort of change, creating organisational inertia that can last for years. Restructuring is a costly and time-consuming business and it is increasingly important that leaders get it right first time. The fact is they often don’t.

Such an approach builds trust and lays the foundation for support and innovation within the new structure. It also tempers staff turnover rates, makes claims for wrongful dismissal less likely and supports staff in migrating to the new structure more quickly. Leaders cultivate a sense of fairness by approaching a restructure in an inclusive fashion. Staff tend to judge this by the

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MASTERCLASS

extent to which they are involved in decision-making, the even-handedness of decisions (i.e. does everyone have the same chance or are there ‘favourites’ who benefit disproportionately?) and the behaviour of managers during the process (do they explain and listen actively? Is their concern genuine?). Achieving this is a challenge. It takes time, energy and commitment. But the cost of failing to behave inclusively is much higher. Steps to good restructuring Restructuring is a disruptive, stressful, untidy process, and a common source of resentment and discontent within an organisation. It can add hugely to the considerable workload pressures already faced by staff. It helps to have a model in mind and to take the process in manageable stages. It should begin with a focus on real values. An organisation’s values can carry staff through challenging times, provided they are real

and reflected in the personal behaviour of leaders. The key to a successful change process is for those that lead it to remain open, sensitive to others and to display the best aspects of common humanity. Getting the culture right at the start goes a long way to ensuring a soft landing on the other side of change. Values should inform your vision. Planning from the outset is a good reality check, supports scrutiny and helps make the restructuring process as robust as possible. Leaders should identify what jobs are required to make the plannedfor processes work, and reflect on what ‘good’ looks like for each role. This should go beyond simply naming and defining job roles. Developing the best organisational structure requires specific information about the kinds of jobs needed and detailed knowledge of the jobs. As this process develops, front-line staff and managers need to be involved in how jobs are defined and have an opportunity to feed back. Time

should be spent assessing the weight of the work and determining how many people will be required in each job position. Once this has been done it is possible to begin defining the organisational structure. The problem with many failed restructures is that the new structure is developed too soon, with subsequent work fitted around it, come what may. Waiting until the work is defined and jobs have been modelled creates an opportunity to learn more about the work and develop a structure that actually makes sense. Once the structure has revealed itself, a plan for roll-out can be developed, dates set and responsibilities assigned. Getting the communication right is critical. It’s important that staff trust and buy into the process. The focus should be on the ongoing performance viability of the organisation and not just the change process itself. Staff should be offered an appropriate level of aftercare, whether they remain or leave, and everyone should be clear about the new roles and what they mean in the context of the restructured organisation. Leaders and senior managers should be accessible and open to ideas from staff throughout the process. Taking a staged approach helps but the key thing is not to see the process simply as a series of boxes to tick. Strong, compassionate and inclusive leadership remains the critical factor in creating an organisation sustainably able to face the demands made of it. Restructuring is a fact of life, but it can be done well, provided we keep the human factor to the fore. 3 MORE INFORMATION This article is based on a forthcoming publication on restructuring, produced jointly by ATL/AMiE and the 157 Group.

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ADVICE

The legal hurdles to a claim of constructive dismissal are set so high that tribunal claims rarely succeed. Members considering such a course should think very hard before tendering their resignation WORDS DAVID GREEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF AMiE (EMPLOYMENT SERVICES)

I work in a large further education college. I have been told that, due to a restructure, some courses will be dropped and others merged. As a result, my department will vanish and, although I will still have the same terms and conditions, I will be given different responsibilities and a new line manager. It’s a ‘take it or leave it’ situation; I think I am being set up to fail. Am I being constructively dismissed? I am sorry to hear what has happened, but it is very unlikely this will amount to constructive dismissal. Constructive dismissal occurs when someone terminates his/her contract because of the employer’s conduct. But, significantly, the employer’s conduct must be more than just unreasonable. It must be so bad that it amounts to a fundamental breach of contract. Indeed, the legal hurdles for constructive dismissal are set so high that tribunal claims rarely succeed. As well as needing two years of continuous service with your employer before being eligible to make a claim, you would need to establish that: • there was a breach of contract on the part of the employer;

• the breach of contract was so serious as to be ‘fundamental’; • the employer’s breach caused you to resign; • you did not delay too long before resigning, thus losing the right to claim constructive dismissal; • your constructive dismissal was unfair. I would advise very strongly against resigning unless you are confident that all these hurdles could be jumped. Let’s look a little closer at them. A breach of contract is not, by itself, an adequate basis to argue constructive dismissal. The breach must itself be ‘fundamental’ to the extent that your employer is showing, by its actions, that it will no longer be bound by, and refuses to perform to, its side of your contract of employment. In this particular case, it is line management and responsibilities that are set to change, but terms and conditions are unaffected. So does this amount to a breach of contract, and is it fundamental? Most contracts refer to job role or provide a brief description of the work, but it would be unusual for the contract to also include a detailed list of responsibilities. Your job description may be mentioned, but this will only cover your main duties and responsibilities, giving employers the scope to change tasks and ask you to carry out reasonable instructions. However, it might be possible to show a breach of contract if the changes to your responsibilities are themselves unreasonable. So we must ask first, are the new responsibilities unreasonable, and second, do they amount to

a fundamental breach? If the changes are consistent with your continued job role and status then I doubt there will have been a breach. However, if the changes are fairly extreme, then there may be something in it. Next, you would need to show that your resignation was in response to the breach of contract. Any ulterior reason, such that you would have resigned anyway, will not result in a constructive dismissal. So you need to say it was in response to your employer’s conduct; and you would also need to resign in a timely fashion, as waiting too long can be taken as having agreed to the breach. Finally, you would also need to show that your constructive dismissal was unfair. Colleges should be aware that any potential change of contract can lead to conflict. It is likely, therefore, that before any change there will be some form of consultation. If you are given the opportunity to ask questions, seek clarification or put counter proposals, or are given time to consider the changes, then it will be more difficult to argue that the employer’s behaviour was unreasonable, making a successful claim much less likely. To conclude, it is unlikely the college’s actions will amount to constructive dismissal. However, if there was some merit to the case we would send the details to our legal team. You are, however, being made the subject of change and, for that reason, you should contact our helpline for further advice. 3 MORE INFO For more information on constructive dismissal please download our employment relations leaflet ER9, available from the resource bank on the AMiE website.

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U N I O N M AT T E R S

FUNDING CUTS TAKE THEIR TOLL The impact of further education cuts is being felt in AMiE’s casework, with members facing management restructure at almost 50 colleges in England and every college in Wales WORDS DAVID GREEN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF AMiE (EMPLOYMENT SERVICES)

he funding problems in further education continue to have a big impact on college staffing structures. At the time of writing, we are dealing with management restructures at 47 colleges in England, and at every college in Wales. Not surprisingly, this has meant us helping a large number of individual members. Even so, we are seeing some colleges moving towards compulsory redundancies while others seek to re-employ staff on lower grades with just a short period of salary protection. Of course, such restructures are nothing new, especially at this time of year. But the sheer scale and numbers of staff affected suggests that funding cuts in particular are taking their toll. We are also seeing a range of approaches taken by colleges, some good and some bad, as AMiE regional officer Pauline Rodmell explains: “On the one hand, there are those colleges that consult meaningfully and, while it may take some time, they do try to mitigate the number of job losses. “But then we have those who take a more anti-union approach, seeking to push through change as quickly as possible. Apart from running the risk of ending up with a new structure that is not fit for purpose, they demoralise their own staff and sour future employment relations.” Clearly, we want colleges to consult with us properly before taking such action. Most do at least go through some form of process, but the reality is they

have no legal duty to do so if they are expecting to make fewer than 20 employees redundant in a 90-day period. Sadly, we have seen some colleges spread out redundancies over a number of months to avoid collective consultation with recognised trades unions altogether. Where consultation is taking place, the presence of a local AMiE representative can really help. Members who are affected by a restructure are in a good position to question any new proposals. So electing an AMiE representative enables members to more easily raise their collective concerns, ask questions and make counter proposals. For individual members, the choice is between a role in the new structure, or redundancy. At present, around a third of all our individual casework is dealing with those taking a redundancy package or those fighting to keep a job, often at a reduced level of pay. Rodmell says: “The climate doesn’t get any easier. We are seeing a downward pressure on redundancy terms, with more colleges providing only the statutory minimum. We then have to get creative in order to

try and help members who may have many years of experience in the sector.” Understanding your rights if you might be made redundant is important. Members are advised to download our employment relations leaflet ER7, Restructuring and Redundancy, available from the AMiE website, as well as to contact the AMiE helpline. No let up We saw record numbers of AMiE members seeking help from the union in the last academic year, and it looks as if the current year will set another record. Indeed, at the time of writing, the amount of AMiE casework dealt with since Easter has increased 36% on the same period last year. After restructuring, the big issues are disciplinary problems, capability issues, grievances and contractual problems. The union has also dealt with a large number of ill-health cases as members struggle to cope with the impact of long hours and heavy workloads. These figures are not surprising. The current climate is leading to more restructuring, not just in further education but also in academies. At the same time, the continued pressure of targets and inspections is being reflected in a range of other problems, often related to stress and workload. Employment relations A number of AMiE employment relations publications have been updated to take account of recent legal changes. Copies can be downloaded from the resource bank on the AMiE website. FEBRUARY JULY 2015 | ELM 21

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FINAL WORD

three academy chains would get into the top 50 for educational performance. ATL has done some number crunching on academies and has uncovered some (for the government) inconvenient truths. Forty-nine per cent of failing secondary schools are academies. How is the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s academisation policy going to help them? If academisation was a fail-safe, infallible solution, then these schools could not be in category four. As Nansi Ellis, ATLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assistant general secretary for policy and a former primary school teacher, has noted, only 17% of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;outstandingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; primary The education bill currently making its way through parliament is, quite possibly, the most authoritarian, illiberal piece of education legislation, ever. Nicky Morganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mantra â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that no child should stay in a failing school for one day longer than is absolutely necessary â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is a good one. She is right about that. What she is wrong about is her solution to school failure: forced academisation and school leader sacking by regional schoolsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; commissioners, some of whom are signally failing to cover themselves in glory â&#x20AC;&#x201C; or even competence. (By the way, who appraises regional schoolsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; commissionersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; performance?) And since when did parents become the problem? Recently, certainly under Michael Goveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tenure as secretary of state for education, they were the solution â&#x20AC;&#x201C; parent-led academies were all the rage. But not for Nicky; for her, these pesky parents get in the way. They ask awkward questions and initiate legal processes that challenge academy conversion â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;consultationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. So now parental objections must be swept aside, their rights to have a say on their childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education legislated away. But parents are wise to question the wisdom of forcing their childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s school to become part of an academy chain, because chains vary greatly in their performance. The Department for Educationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own analysis has shown that if the performance of academies in chains was compared to schools in local authorities, the local authority schools are far more successful â&#x20AC;&#x201C; only

THIS IS RAMPANT IDEOLOGY AND IT WILL NOT WORK M A RY B O U ST E D, AT L G E N E R A L S E C R E TA RY

schools are academies, which means 83% are still local authority schools â&#x20AC;&#x201C; obviously able to do all the things they need to do to be outstanding. So, local authority primary schools contain the majority of the expertise and experience to support failing primary schools â&#x20AC;&#x201C; whether academy or local authority â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but will they be allowed to do so? It does not take long to uncover the absurdities of this policy, dreamed up as a bone to throw to the Tory right-wingers when the Conservatives hoped, at best, to be the largest party in a coalition with the Lib Dems and to have the wings on the wackier elements of their manifesto clipped. But the Tories have a problem with forced academisation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the facts do not fit the propaganda. After detailed analysis of the evidence, Chain Effects, a research report on the impact of academy chains on low-income students published by the Sutton Trust, concludes: â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is very significant variation in outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, both between and within chains; and chains differ significantly in attainment against different measures... there are some chains which are highly ineffective across a range of measures, and which are failing to improve the prospects of their disadvantaged pupils.â&#x20AC;? The Sutton Trustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concerns over the uneven performance of academy chains is shared by the cross-party House of Commons Education Select Committee in a report that notes: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The department does not yet know why some academy sponsors are more successful than others,â&#x20AC;? and that the inability of Ofsted to inspect academy sponsors or multi-academy trusts means â&#x20AC;&#x153;there is no independent source of information about the quality of their workâ&#x20AC;?. These are remarkable conclusions. In effect, the government is prescribing the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of forced academy conversion on to the education system without reasonable evidence that this policy is going to have any chance of working. This is not evidenced-based policy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this is rampant ideology and it will not work.

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