Labour needs to set out its wider vision for schools in a white paper, sector leaders have said, amid concerns that recent “bitty announcements” reveal a “confusing approach to reform”.
The comments echo wider concern within the sector that the new government does not have a unifying strategy for schools.
Speaking at the Schools and Academies Show in Birmingham this week, Lord Jim Knight, a former Labour schools minister, said: “It would be so helpful to the whole system to have a white paper published that just set out the vision around how schools should be, how ministers want them to be over the next five years.”
Policy expert Sam Freedman, a former government adviser, added: “You have got to have a single vision. You have got to have a white paper where you are setting out what you are trying to achieve. Otherwise you are going to end up with this bitty, confusing approach to reform.”
He pointed to the example of new Ofsted report cards. “I think they jumped into that announcement without connecting it to any of the wider policy issues, without thinking about accountability, or what they are trying to achieve over the next five years.”
Another policy cited was the new RISE improvement teams.
‘Lacking overall strategy’
Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said that, while the government has leant into its mission focus, it is “lacking that overall strategy for how they [policies] link together – and how we align the levers of state and the system actors around solving these problems together.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it – we call it regulatory strategy, it could be an accountability strategy – but that maps all of the roles and responsibilities of both state actors and the system actors” including trusts, LAs, inspection and regulation.
“How do these things fit together? At the moment that lacks clarity, and we urgently need some clarity on those things. But that’s not a criticism of this government, we’ve urgently needed this for quite some time.”
But Freedman said “part of the problem is they [Labour] don’t know what they want to change. They haven’t got a clear sense of ‘what do we want to look different in five years’ time? What are the metrics that need to be different in five years?’
“Is it that we need improvement in exam results? Is it that we want to see attendance improved? Or behaviour improved? What is it that we are trying to achieve as a system?”
He said the lack of vision has led to a “very bitty and confusing set of proposals that are done on an individual basis, and often politically thought through rather than as part of the general system.”
‘Not practical’ to be agnostic on structures
Labour has said it is “agnostic” about the type of school, and will reform the school system to level the playing field between academy and local authority maintained schools.
But Freedman said that was “not a practical position. You can’t be agnostic about the structures that exist in the system because they are your main leavers for changing the system.”
He compared Labour’s stance to “saying we’re agnostic about who owns our football club – we’re only going to worry about the players. But they’re connected, right?”
He also said Tony Blair’s New Labour government in 1997 said it was “all about standards and structures, but within a few years, Blair was saying ‘that was a stupid thing to say, why did you say that?’
“It feels like we are relearning the lesson that structures and standards are part of the same thing. You have to have a theory of change around trusts and around the system. That’s your main lever.”
The panel did pick out some highlights of the new government, including praising its push to rebuild trust in the profession, securing a “better than expected” spending review for schools and launching the child poverty taskforce so quickly.
‘Negative trends’
Freedman also said they had inherited a “hospital pass”, and that while academically schools were doing as well as ever, they are becoming increasingly affected by “negative trends around the lives of children”.
Schools Week asked education secretary Bridget Phillipson what her vision for school improvement was in an interview earlier this month.
She said her approach was “one of collaboration. There is great expertise out there in the trust sector, and I want to work with the sector to make that happen.
“But I’m more focused on the best outcomes for our children, rather than a focus on [structures]… I think there has been a complacency about the way to drive standards being through changing the structure of a school.
“Changing the leadership and the structure of a school can be an incredibly important way in which you deliver better outcomes for children. But it’s not the only way, and there is still big variation between schools, and also within trusts.”
