Schools and Academies Trust.
22 Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, Physics in Schools and Colleges: Teacher Deployment
and Student Outcomes (Buckingham: Carmichael Press, 2005), p. 16.
23 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Learning for Tomorrow’s
World: First Results from PISA 2003 (Paris: OECD, 2004), table 5.19, pp. 436–7.
New Labour, to the dismay of the old guard and its backbenchers, was
also more than accepting of the fee-paying sector. On taking office, the
first Blair government contented itself with meeting its manifesto commitment to phase out the assisted places scheme. By 2000 it was prepared
to go on record as saying that it liked independent schools, and in major
speeches Blair expressed his wish to modernise the comprehensive principle so that maintained neighbourhood schools would come to rival the
independent schools in their ‘first-rate teaching and facilities’.24 At first,
Blair appeared to do little to bridge the independent/state divide other
than making available a small amount of funding for partnerships. But as
his term drew to a close it became clear that he was coming at it from both
directions: seeking to open up independent schools through a new
Charities Act which required them to demonstrate their public benefit;
and creating more free-standing schools in the maintained sector. An
independent school head in London admitted that if the academies were
allowed to select pupils it would be the end of schools like his.25 The
Education and Inspections Act in 2006 paved the way for yet another type
of school, the ‘trust school’: schools remaining within the maintained
sector but supported by an independent foundation. The Act enabled
schools, either individually or collectively, to form trusts with organisations ranging from universities to businesses. Like the sponsors of academies, the trusts would, through the governing bodies, manage the land
and assets, employ staff and set admissions criteria. The Bill was not
uncontroversial with Labour backbenchers, but Adonis was able to get it
through with Conservative support. As Blair left office the first schools to
acquire trust status were being revealed.
The drive towards school independence left the local education
authorities in an even more ambiguous position. Their powers had been
progressively stripped away by the Thatcher and Major governments, but
they were expecting to be given a leading role once more by the incoming
Labour government. Their hopes were raised when the funding of the
grant-maintained schools was channelled back through them. But Blair,
convinced by Adonis who had discussed it at length with Woodhead,
pushed for wholesale reform against a reluctant Blunkett and the DfEE.26
With Blair out of office the LEAs are still there, but even more constrained. The Education and Inspections Act left them with the role of
24 Smithers, ‘Education Policy’, p. 424.
25 Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, School Headship: Present and Future (London:
National Union of Teachers, 2007), p. 70.
26 Pollard, David Blunkett, pp. 233–4.
commissioning rather than providing education. As their functions
were reduced, local authorities increasingly merged their education and
social services departments, often under the latter. But the ambivalence
remained, with local authorities being among the organisations able to
set up academies and form trusts.
Social justice
Having taken upon itself the responsibility of running the education
system, the Blair governments brimmed over with ideas for increasing
‘delivery’ through reform, modernisation and innovation. Not all were
directed towards educational excellence. Blair, heavily influenced by the
report of Labour’s Social Justice Commission, written by Miliband
together with the deputy chair Patricia Hewitt, herself to become a
cabinet minister, saw education as the way to a more inclusive society.
In November 1998 the DfEE issued a mission statement declaring that
its twin goals were ‘an inclusive and fair society’ and ‘a competitive
economy’.27 Inclusion became the watchword and the number of special
schools for those with disabilities declined as more of their pupils entered
mainstream schooling.28 A cross-departmental Social Exclusion Unit
reporting directly to the Prime Minister was launched and it embarked
on a ‘ConneXions’ (sic) initiative to keep more young people in education and training to the age of eighteen. In the face of widespread truanting, the first Blair government introduced a raft of measures involving
learning mentors, learning support units, pupil referral units and the
short-lived ‘Truancy Buster’ awards.
The individual initiatives of the first term took on a coherent shape in
the second. Prompted in part by the horrific death in 2003 of Victoria
Climbié, the government embarked on what it saw as an integrated
approach to the well-being of young people from birth to the age of nineteen. In Every Child Matters (ECM), it set out five goals: every child was to
be provided with support to be healthy; stay safe; enjoy and achieve; make
a positive contribution; and achieve economic well-being. A Children’s
Act in 2004 required all organisations involved in children’s services,
including schools, hospitals, the police and voluntary groups, to work
27 Department for Education and Employment, Learning and Working Together for the
Future: A Strategic Framework to 2002 (London: DfEE, 1998).
28 Department for Education and Skills, Schools and Pupils in England, January 2006 (Final),
National Statistics First Release SFR38/2006 (London: DfES, 2006), table 1, shows that the
number of LEA-maintained special schools declined from 1,153 in 1997 to 1,033 in 2006.
together to achieve these aims. The Act also gave children more say in
their futures, and in 2005 the first Children’s Commissioner for England
was appointed.
As part of its programme to deliver ECM the government promoted
the development of extended schools, providing from 8.00 a.m. to 6.00
p.m. all the year round what it termed ‘wrap-around childcare’. This
included parenting and family support, study support and clubs, swift
and easy referral to specialist services such as speech therapy, and community use of facilities. Schools were also encouraged to open children’s
centres, bringing together early education, childcare, and health and
family support, with a target of 3,500 by 2010. The government’s concern
for pupil welfare also extended to setting up the School Food Trust, which
saw into law recommendations on healthy eating made in the wake of
Jamie Oliver’s television programmes. The more extensive use of, and the
extensions to, school facilities led the government to question who
should be running them. It commissioned a report29 which suggested
that the nature of schooling had changed so much that chief executives
with a broad range of leadership and management skills rather than traditional headteachers were required. But this arou
sed concerns that
learning and teaching would be in the hands of people who did not know
enough about education, and whose priorities were elsewhere.
Teachers and staffing
When Blair came to power headteachers were not the school staffing issue
at the forefront of his mind. There was a severe shortage of classroom
teachers as a result of both under-supply and excessive wastage. Not only
was there the manifesto commitment to reduce class sizes, but all the
schools policies were at risk. Blunkett, who had been a teacher himself,
recognised that the salary scale was not good enough, but he was neither
allowed, nor did he want, to give a hefty pay rise all round. In Teachers:
Meeting the Challenge for Change, launched in 1998 with a foreword by
Blair, Blunkett proposed performance-related pay to reward and motivate good teaching. A bonus, later incorporated as an upper pay scale, was
introduced for teachers who on appraisal could cross a performance
threshold. But in the event nearly all the 197,000 teachers who applied
received the bonus, and the main effect was to create a longer and more
29 Department for Education and Skills, Independent Study into School Leadership by
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (London: DfES, 2007).
generous pay scale. In addition, Blunkett introduced incentive payments
for graduates to train as teachers, with extra payments to those in maths,
science and information technology. But these had not had time to take
effect by the 2001 election and headteachers were complaining loudly
that they did not have enough teachers. Some were threatening to close
their schools for part of the week. Worried that the issue could lose them
votes, the Labour Party put a commitment to recruit an extra 10,000
teachers into the 2001 manifesto.
In parallel with a push to improve teacher recruitment through the
Teacher Training Agency (from 2005, the Training and Development
Agency for Schools) by, among other things, developing ways of training
on the job, the re-elected government also sought to stem the flow out of
the profession. It accepted the recommendations of a review30 that it had
commissioned for reducing teachers’ workload. These centred on transferring a number of tasks from teachers to assistants. It also guaranteed
teachers a minimum of 10% of the school week free of classroom duties,
but unfortunately it did not fund schools to appoint the necessary
extra teachers, so raising the prospect of assistants doing the actual teaching. This was fiercely opposed by the National Union of Teachers who
would not sign up to the ‘Workload Agreement’, and also the National
Association of Headteachers, when they subsequently withdrew.
Nevertheless, the reforms rolled on and in the manifesto for the 2005
election the Labour Party claimed that there were 28,000 more teachers
than in 1997. This involved some careful presentation since there were
only 8,700 extra qualified teachers, but there were 13,000 additional
unqualified and trainee teachers in schools.31 Much to the relief of the
government the electorate accepted the spin and teacher supply did not
loom large in the 2005 election. When Blair left office, in spite of continuing teacher shortages in inner-city schools and subjects like maths and
physics, he was able to claim recruitment had been improved, and staffing
schools was far less of a problem than the one he had inherited.
As well as tackling recruitment and retention directly, the first Blair
government also attempted to underpin teaching as a profession by
establishing a General Teaching Council (GTC) along the lines of the
doctors’ professional governing body. It was pressed for by Barber and
30 PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Teacher Workload Study, www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/
remodelling.
31 Department for Education and Skills, School Workforce in England, January 2005
(Provisional), National Statistics First Release SFR17/2005 (London: DfES, April 2005),
table 1.
accepted by Blunkett, but resisted by the DfES civil servants who did not
want to give away any power. The upshot was that it emerged as a pale
shadow of what it could have been, weakened by poorly drafted legislation and with reserved places for the unions when it ought to have been
independent of them.
At about the same time, a staff college for headteachers, the National
College for School Leadership (NCSL), was established. It too got off
to an uncertain start and a government review in 2004 found that it
needed to achieve ‘greater role clarity, outcome focus, goal clarity and
efficiency’.32 Both the chairman and the chief executive left, and those
who replaced them were galvanised into seeking to satisfy those expectations. It was helped by being given teeth when its main qualification, the
National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH), was made
compulsory for new headteachers of state schools from 2009. NCSL also
energetically promoted itself by raising concerns about the supply of
headteachers and introducing a whole raft of courses for emergent, established, advanced and consultant school leaders, as well as entry to headship. It argued that the impending shortfall was so severe that school
leaders would have to be drawn in from other fields. It was supported by
the GTC and in November 2006 the newly appointed Chief Inspector of
Schools, Christine Gilbert, added her voice.33 These warnings, along with
the claim that the change in the nature of schooling made it necessary,
put the future of headship in the spotlight, but it remained unfinished
business on Blair’s departure.
Curriculum and qualifications
The outgoing Conservative administration in 1997 left on the table the
Dearing review of 16–19 education. The first Blair government put it out
to formal consultation and plumped for one of the options. Under the
grandiose title of Curriculum 2000 it retained A-levels but modularised
them and introduced a half-way house, the Advanced Subsidiary (AS).
Passes and top grades leapt, but schools complained that sixth-form
studies had become a continual exam. There were teething problems in
introducing the new arrangements, which led to a succession of inquiries
chaired by Mike Tomlinson who had taken over briefly from Woodhead
32 Department for Education and Skills, End to End Review of School Leadership Policy, prepared by the Review Team (Nottingham: National College for School Leadership, 2004).
33 Alex Frean and Alex Blair, ‘Business Executives Could Save Badly Run Schools, Says
Ofsted’, The Times, 23 November 2006.
as Chief Inspector of Schools. He successfully defused the row over Alevels and was given the wider remit of 14–19 reform by Charles Clarke,
the then Secretary of State.
The Tomlinson Working Group took a long time, but in doing so won
over most of the educational establishment to its ultimate proposal of
scrapping A-levels and GCSEs in favour of a diploma embracing all qualifications. Miliband had been one of the authors of the original proposal
&nbs
p; for a ‘British Bac’ and both he and Clarke encouraged Tomlinson. But
Tony Blair, as he made clear in his first speech as leader, wanted to retain
A-levels. It is difficult, therefore, to see why he allowed Tomlinson so
much time for his ideas to take root, other than being massively distracted by Iraq and such issues as university tuition fees. He had been
reassured by Miliband and Tomlinson that A-levels were safe, but
perhaps speciously because while the content would be retained the qualification itself would not.
Clarke and Miliband were there to officially receive the Tomlinson
report, but both were soon moved to other posts and it fell to the new
Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly, to break the news on Blair’s behalf that the
government was rejecting the main thrust of the Tomlinson proposals. It
was, however, going to put in place a 14–19 strategy providing personalised learning (another of Miliband’s hobby-horses) and involving
schools, further education and employers working together to provide a
range of opportunities alongside A-levels, including new vocational
diplomas and apprenticeships. But the schools struggled to cooperate
because they had been put into fierce competition by the diversity
agenda. Education 14–19 on Blair’s departure was still work-in-progress.
In a speech to the 2006 Labour Party Conference Brown said he wanted
the school-leaving age to be raised to eighteen, and in January 2007 the
DfES confirmed that by 2015 all young people will have to be engaged in
education or training to that age.34 It was not clear what sanctions would
be employed against those who were not.
The government under Blair was not only keen to restructure education 14–19, but also made changes to nursery education, and the primary
and secondary curriculum. On taking office it honoured its promise to
scrap the Conservative’s nursery voucher scheme, and by 2000 it had
made available a free nursery place for every four-year-old. By 2004 there
was on offer a place for every three-year-old whose parents wanted it.
34 BBC News, ‘School Leaving Age Set to be 18’, 12 January 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
education/6254833.stm.
Tests for five-year-olds were introduced, and the government seemed to
BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007 Page 60