England’s school system has “practice we should be proud of, but we’ve also got pockets that we should be ashamed of”, Labour’s school standards tsar Sir Kevan Collins has said.
The Department for Education non-executive director spoke to Schools Week editor John Dickens about the need for greater academy trust accountability, and whether 90 per cent of schools really are ‘good’ or better.
What are your biggest priorities?
I obsess all the time about implementation. The best start in life, in early years, is so important – it’s the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for disadvantaged children to narrow the gap.
I’m really interested in special educational needs. I’m interested in post 16, particularly for the young people who leave secondary education and haven’t achieved level two qualifications.
The ‘Forgotten Third’ is still one of our great challenges. And the abiding issue of my whole life has been: how do we narrow the gap for kids who face economic disadvantage?
The international league tables suggest England’s school standards are high. Do you agree with that view?
Be really careful with PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) data. Our raw scores haven’t changed that much. We’ve got practice we should be proud of, but we’ve also got pockets that we should be ashamed of.
It’s absolutely unacceptable that, if you’re a boy from a working-class community in the north east or north west, your prospects are so much worse.
It can’t be right that we’ve got so many children who are not attending school, that many of our results have plateaued, that teachers are leaving the profession.
Our system is not broken, there’s so much we can and should be proud of. But we need to be much better than we are. I’m pretty tenacious – it’s got to be about improvement.
We need to facilitate more sharing to raise standards. Standards aren’t yet high enough, particularly for disadvantaged kids. You need to align accountability, capacity building and resources.
The battle is how we build capacity and share the expertise to move it around the system and to learn from the best.
How do you deliver a more collaborative system?
A lot of it is going on. But the problem is some schools are like Billy-no-mates. So we need to incentivise collaboration.
We need to see it as something that you want to do, and you’re rewarded for doing it. Quite a lot of the incentives are: ‘Tuck in, make sure my school’s really successful, and then all will be well with the world.’
That is not good enough. That isn’t going to deliver a system that’s going to be effective. In the end, we all suffer from that.
The trick is not to want your school to be better at the expense of another school. It sounds counterintuitive, but you can have collaboration and competition working together.
I’m hoping that all the work we’re doing around accountability, around the regional infrastructures, will help drive that kind of idea. We learn from each other. That’s where the expertise is. No one here [in Whitehall] is going to write a sort of super solution.
What’s Labour’s vision?
It’s not for me to give Labour’s vision. But I think it’s pretty straightforward: a great school for every child. Every child deserves that, and every family deserves that.
What’s does the end state for that vision look like?
I’m a bit scared of this vision word, that you can describe the world as it’s going to be, and we’re all going to march to the sunny uplands.
I’m more pragmatic and a bit more boring. I’m more interested in identifying the deep issues and working it out together, rather than trying to do some fanciful description of the world.
When can we expect to see details of this plan?
We’ve already seen it in Labour’s programme and mission work. The first investment is early years.
Big investment in teachers. A real attention to the skills agenda. Reform of the curriculum, accountability, revamping of the regional structures. All those should signal the direction of travel.
They’re systemic, deep things that we’re trying to solve here. I like that.
Let’s take SEND. For six years at least, this train has been coming towards us. It’s been neglected. And I like the fact that we’re now seriously engaging with that issue.
Can you tell us more about ‘revamping regional structures’?
The whole regional structure was dedicated to basically securing the maximum conversion of schools to academies… it was a one-trick pony.
But progress rates of children don’t depend on the name on the door, it depends on the quality of the provision. I’m agnostic about the structure stuff. I just want great schools.
So with regional structures: how do we improve the system? All schools, of all types, together.
‘I’m agnostic about the structure stuff. I just want great schools’
I have a very low tolerance for failed schools. It’s unacceptable. We have a responsibility to act. The RISE (Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence) teams are a signal that we will immediately act to support a school.
We can have a conversation later about governance, but that must not drive it. The quality for children and their education must be the first and abiding kind of obligation.
All the evidence is clear that schools left for a long time decline.
You mentioned RISE, but where does the accountability sit in that system when the commissioned support doesn’t work?
The obligation sticks with the responsible body. You’re not allowed to pass that off.
But [choosing support] is a joint action. You don’t want tension there. [RISE advisers] will know how to negotiate and do that in collaboration.
We’re also evolving and putting a policy into place. I don’t mind learning as you go – that’s not the same as making it up as you go. I think it’s quite healthy in some ways.
Is it difficult to navigate the path of not disengaging trusts while also ‘smoothing the difference’ between academies and council schools?
I don’t think I’m out of step: this is where most pragmatic people in the system are.
No one wants to go back to the idea that local authorities are running schools. But the relationship beyond the school has to incorporate more than just the trust.
Unravelling these structures would be a waste of time. But how can every school be successful?
This mixed economy is who we are. We have to make it work again. It’s a bit messy, but that’s true of so much social policy.
What is the role of multi-academy trusts, or MATs, in this system?
It varies. The first responsibility is to operate and run the best schools possible and support children to have great education and support leaders and teachers to deliver on that front.
Increasingly, MATs are stretching beyond that and starting to involve themselves in civic kind of work. That’s great.
The school building is the best asset we have for children. I think it’s about childhood – education sits at the heart of it – but childhood is a defining concept around lives of people.
So how do MATs increasingly lean in to support childhood and go beyond the education function?
People get squeamish at some of the salaries in MATs, including in central teams. Do you think that’s money well spent?
The more you’re paid, the more accountable you are. I have no problem about that.
But we always need to keep reminding ourselves that the most important people are teachers. So how do we keep our rewards there and not lose sight of that?
‘We need remember the most important people are teachers’
We have seen a growth in the gap between teachers and others in the system. That’s something we need to be mindful of.
It is strange to me that, of all the structures that aren’t yet accountable in the system, it is the MAT structure.
It’s a good thing we’re thinking about moving to that – accountability is not something you’re frightened of. It’s a responsibility when distributing and spending public money. Accountability makes you better. We should welcome and want it.
What sort of accountability do you mean?
Let’s take attendance. When you take the attendance and compare MATs in similar families – you’ll see different levels of attendance.
It’s perfectly legitimate for a regional director to say to a MAT: ‘Hang on, lots of these things are the same, but your attendance is a lot worse. Can you explain that? What are you doing about it?’
It’s intelligent accountability – what we learned in the London Challenge.
A concern in the sector is that Ofsted is going too quick on its scorecard reforms. Do you agree?
Although the format might change, the idea of what is ‘good’ and what looks like effective practice shouldn’t actually be radically different.
The most important thing about the reform is that we find a way of making sure Ofsted reflects this idea of achieving and thriving.
Ninety per cent of schools are good or outstanding. We can celebrate that, but we could also look each other in the eye and say: ‘Is that true? Is it good enough?’
We’ve got to make sure the framework delivers high outcomes, but using Bridget Phillipson’s phrase: without ‘miserable achievement’.
Also [Ofsted reform] shouldn’t be adversarial. We need to learn to do this together, better. I want to put every ounce of energy to help it get it right. Everyone else should too, rather than just waiting on the sidelines and hoping.
What do you hope Labour will be able to tell voters about what they’ve achieved in schools at the next election?
The delivery of guaranteed, early learning. Thirty hours is genuinely a transformational opportunity. And also that we’ve delivered quality. That is a massive step in our country over the last 25 years.
Also transforming skills post 16 and the whole link between the economy of this country and the untapped potential we have in our young people, particularly those not going to university.
But the critical thing is that more families believe, trust and have confidence in the fact that their children are attending a great school – attending, thriving and achieving.
