Hearing so much hyperbolic commentary, I’m finding it hard to square the level of hysteria about the schools bill with its intent to fix some of the problems of our mixed school structures.
On one side, there’s the rhetoric of the anti-academy lobby caricaturing trusts as evil mini-empires. On the other, some academy leaders are screaming like the sky is falling in. It’s like 2015 all over again, and it make my heart sink.
And for what? The bill mandates that all schools follow a similar core curriculum and national pay scales as a minimum, while protecting their flexibility to offer more in law. I have no problem with that. In fact, I hope for more ambitious reform down the line.
The leader of the opposition scored some points at PMQs – but that’s her job: oppositions oppose. Those of us who work in and with schools should do better.
The reality is that the last truly transformational school reforms came in 1988 and 1992 with the creation of a national curriculum, Ofsted and league tables. Nothing since has challenged the foundational principle that competition is king.
Since then, we’ve had grant-maintained schools, several Ofsted frameworks, five A*- C, contextual value added, Progress 8 and academisation. All of it mere tinkering.
That’s not to say that they have not had positive effects; to argue that would be patently absurd. But it’s just as absurd to pretend our 37-year-old consensus isn’t outdated and doesn’t limit our ambition. Some of the screaming and shouting borders on insanity.
Regardless, with a government majority of 156, the bill will inevitably pass. Our time would be better spent debating what comes next.
We’re reforming inspection, curriculum, and teacher development, and beginning to address the SEND car crash – all by September. With such an ambitious timeline, these reforms can only be a start.
They won’t change the culture in which schools operate because we haven’t challenged the assumptions on which our system is based. But we’re on course to make a broken system a bit better.
Beyond this, though, we need greater ambition. Labour’s opportunity mission makes that ambition clear: “to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child, at every stage and shatter the class ceiling”.
I struggle to imagine any school leader disagreeing with that in principle, so let’s stop yelling at each other and redirect our energies towards achieving it, and then thinking beyond.
We must start thinking bigger, and doing that requires us to ask better questions.
For example, if the market is so effective, why do schools still fail one-third of young people who leave at 16 without the ‘basics’?
Does measuring schools by what young people can do at 16 on a narrow range of measures even make sense anymore?
And are young people best-served by a system which ranks schools in a zero-sum calculation that forces some to fail?
In addressing these questions, we might start to imagine a future where we take a more joined-up approach to data, looking at a community and using broad outcomes for young people at 25 to judge the collective effectiveness of schools, health, care and justice.
Just imagine no longer needing to question why we have the worst attendance since the last war, why SEND is shattered, why exclusions and suspensions are so high and why so many children move into home education.
That’s why delivering the opportunity mission could make this political moment the most consequential for young people in our lifetimes.
Yes, it will require a herculean effort to get the public sector working together for a shared purpose. And yes, it won’t happen as long as we are incentivised to chase “a narrow shadow of excellence” and to push our problems onto others.
But it can’t even begin to happen until we all get past repetitive arguments and hyperbole – outward symptoms of that very system which rewards our self-interest.
So let’s park it. There’s so much potential in our collective imagination and relentless ambition. Let’s use it to work towards a system that serves all of us better.
