Parent Power for all

In my latest Sutton Trust blog, I look at the new Parent Power? report published today.

A spate of reports in recent weeks has told differing stories about England’s education system. PISA’s international survey showed a school system that is standing still, with no improvement in our test scores or in our middling position in the ranks of the OECD.

However, the chief inspector’s annual report and the primary league tables last week suggested a more nuanced picture: inner London boroughs improving rapidly and narrowing the attainment gap, leaving many shires and coastal authorities languishing behind.

But while Sir Michael Wilshaw’s view of the ‘unlucky child’ being a victim of geography is backed by the recent improvements in the capital, there is undoubtedly also a case that ‘unlucky’ children lose out on access to many of the most successful schools because they are born into low or middle income households.

That is something confirmed by today’s remarkable new Sutton Trust report, Parent Power?,  by Professor Becky Francis, of King’s College London and Professor Merryn Hutchings, of London Metropolitan University. Drawing on YouGov interviews with 1,173 parents of school-age children, the report shows the extent to which parents’ ability to pick a good school is dependent on ability to pay.

Some of the report’s findings on the prevalence of private tuition or parents’ willingness to pay for private education if they can afford it echo earlier polling for the Sutton Trust and other organisations, including the Independent Schools Council.

The report puts figures on a phenomenon we all know happens, but which has not been properly documented previously, one which contributes to the social segregation and inequality of our education system: the extent to which parents have moved house or used even more unorthodox methods, such as faking piety or accessing an accommodating address in a desirable catchment temporarily in order to cheat the system.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it is the middle classes who have the money and drive to make the move: almost a third of professional parents in social groups A and B has moved to an area which they thought had good schools, and 18% have moved to live in the catchment area of a specific school. A minority of parents with children at state schools also admitted to cheating the system:
·         2% of parents admitted to buying a second home and using that address so that their children could gain access to a specific school, including 5% of the upper middle classes
·         3% admitted using a relative’s address for that purpose, including 6% of the upper middle classes
·         6% admitted attending church services when they didn’t previously so their child could go to a church school, including 10% in the upper middle classes.

However, buying advantage is about more than getting into a desirable home. It is also about extending that advantage through enrichment activities while the child is still at school. And while some enrichment is free to all – open access to museums, galleries or parks, for example – other activities cost money and are disproportionately available to those who can pay for them.

Our report todays shows  that professional parents were also more likely to pay for weekly music, drama or sporting lessons and activities outside school, with more than two-thirds (68%) of professionals doing so compared with 47% of working class parents and 31% of the lowest income parents. The gap was narrower for free cultural activities such as a visit to a museum or gallery than for paid cultural activities like attending a play or a concert.

Addressing such inequalities of access requires action. Of course, councils should do more to tackle outright fraud, but more radical change is needed. The Sutton Trust has long argued that school admissions in urban schools should use ballots (or random allocation) or banding to achieve a fairer intake. Of course, no politician wants to see a revolt by parents who can’t get their children into the school next door, so a pragmatic approach would be to mix places allocated by proximity with those allocated by ballots or banding, as Haberdashers Askes Academies in South London have done.

But opening up such schools is not enough on its own. That’s why, when I worked for Tony Blair, I helped introduce a new right of access – clauses 95 and 96 of the guidance – for pupils eligible for free school meals to free travel to a choice of three schools rather than the one designated by the local authority. These rights are very poorly publicised at the moment. It is also crucial that schools reach out to less advantaged parents, ensuring they are well informed about their options, particularly if they embrace more comprehensive admissions policies.

The enrichment shortfall demands action too. Successive governments have given schools extra money for their poorer pupils, and this Government has codified it and increased the sums available through the pupil premium, worth £900 a pupil this year and £1300 in primaries next year.

The enrichment shortfall demands action too. Successive governments have given schools extra money for their poorer pupils, and this Government has codified it and increased the sums available through the pupil premium, worth £900 a pupil this year and £1300 in primaries next year.

One sometimes forgotten aspect of the London Challenge – the programme that was key to the differential improvement  in London schools – was the London Student Pledge where pupils at the capital’s schools not only benefited from improved teaching and leadership, but they were also promised the chance to go to an artistic or sporting event at a major London venue and the chance to take part in a play and in a public event, all by age 16. Enrichment was part of the package and should be part of the pupil premium deal too.

Parent power has supposedly been around since league tables and Ofsted reports gave parents the right to pick a preferred school. But it has benefited some more than others. True parent power must be about providing fair access to good schools and to the enrichment activities that help to create successful adults.

This post also appears on the Public Finance website.

Why shouldn't parents rate schools?

What does Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, do when she wants to book a hotel? Presumably given her comments today on Ofsted's new Parent View website, Ms Blower completely ignores Trip Advisor and the ratings on other booking websites posted by those who have stayed there. Her reason: they are too 'subjective'.

Ofsted's site will give parents the chance to rate their children's schools on issues such as standards of teaching and behaviour, but also on happiness and the levels of communication with parents. Now, I may be mistaken here, but isn't such a rounded view precisely what the NUT has been demanding for ages? Indeed, one might have more sympathy with their objections to the site if they were staunch advocates of objective measurement of schools. But they have opposed testing and league tables since their inception, and I can't remember them ever being enthusiastic fans of independent inspections either.

The new Parent View site may take a little time to gain the level of parental input to make its judgements valuable. There may be the occasional problem if a school faces a determined campaign against it. But, as outstanding schools are no longer to be inspected, the site could alert inspectors to potential problems: if they investigate and find otherwise, it is better than not knowing of a problem until it is too late for many pupils. And in a world where people do want to see the views of other service users, the site also has the potential to offer an additional valuable perspective for parents interested in the quality of local schools.

Power to the parents and pupils?

I'm enjoying the French sunshine this week, so readers will have been spared listening to me on Today or WATO (and for the benefit of BBC researchers, I'm still on holiday). But I thought I would share a few reflections on today's schools white paper.

And the next instalment of Gordon Brown's 'power to the people' package of reforms, looks like it will have some good things going for it. The idea of chains of schools forming with common curricula and shared resources is a good thing, that has been developing in Academies. (It is definitely less effective as with most such programmes if good schools are forced into them). The report cards may provide useful additional information, particularly where they include parental satisfaction surveys, provided they are not seen as more important than either Ofsted reports or published test scores. Plans to take the parents of unruly pupils to court are an extension of existing powers on truancy, which rightly set the primary responsibility for poor discipline where it belongs. But with responsibilities come rights: so the entitlements on one-to-one tuition are good; hopefully there will be more in the paper on extending parent powers when it comes to demanding a new school.

But there is a worry about the general direction of travel on accountability (which David Aaronovitch ably reflects in today's Times) - which is as important in raising standards as parental pressure or choice - which was heightened with the abandonment of the literacy and numeracy strategies last week. Don't get me wrong: the strategies were largely abandoned by Charles Clarke when he merged them into the all-singing, all-dancing Primary Strategy, and that's what was really scrapped. The point of the literacy and numeracy lessons was that there would be dedicated, distinctive lessons in the 3Rs each day in primary schools, because until then, they were often merged into other subjects. There is nothing wrong with reinforcing the teaching of English and Maths across the curriculum; quite the contrary. But the scrapping of the strategies must be reinforced by a clear expectation from Ofsted and the national curriculum that schools teach pupils to read phonetically, learn maths tables and gain the intuitive knowledge that will save them when their computer or calculator throws up some odd spellings or calculations. If that happens, kitemarked alternatives to Capita may even be a better bet.

Similarly, the main reason why specialist schools have been a success in lifting secondary school achievement is because schools have to set targets (not ministers) and are judged against them every few years in a national bidding process with national goals. Up to £150k a year rides on the results. There is a balance to be struck here, and some national pressure and acountability initiatives, including floor targets (which Ed Balls has extended sensibly) have made a real difference. With the government and the Tories battling to appease the teaching unions over testing - from scrapping Key Stage 3 to Tory plans to abandon national primary tests -there have been worrying signs that the balance is tilting too far from the interests of parents and pupils.

Today's package is good in that it shows some sense of purpose on public sector reform that had clearly been lost in recent months, and in that it has a strong focus on information and rights for parents. But it is also important that it starts to reverse the trend against accountability, which includes national standards. And that means avoiding sending the sort of signals given to teachers in last Friday's Guardian headline, which I understand went rather further than intended by the government. Those in government believe their reforms will provide parents with real power in a system of strong accountability: I hope for the sake of the next generation of pupils they are right.

Gordon brings some coherence to the Government's schools policy

Today's education speech by the Prime Minister was talked up as part of the fightback against his Bank Holiday critics. The Liberal Democrats predictably sneered at it in advance (bizarrely imagining that their own feeble education policy offers a credible alternative). But whatever its genesis, that was a good speech on education by Gordon Brown that offered a sense of where the government is going on the issue that has been sadly lacking in too much of what has emerged from the 'children's, schools and families' department in recent months.

It was particularly good because it was about education and schools in particular. And once it moved from the obligatory global justifications, it got down to brass tacks in a credible way. By dividing itself into themes related to leadership, teaching and the role of parents, it provide a valuable vehicle for a good number of worthwhile announcements (and justifiable reannouncements). It was, as a result, far chunkier than the advance billing.

There is to be much stronger action on failing primary schools (though the Prime Minister needlessly stops at federations for their governance). Chains of schools - already developing through academies - are to be given greater encouragement. Online reporting by schools to parents of children's progress will become the norm from 2010 in secondaries and 2012 in primaries. The importance of external primary tests was reaffirmed, along with plans for a new Report Card. Local authorities will be expected to become more the commissioners envisaged by Tony Blair in his 2005 White Paper than the managers of schools and to be responsive to parents both where they want to set up new schools and where they want new provision.

There is a much greater coherence in this menu than has been evident not only in government speeches on education of late but than there is in the Opposition's still very sketchy proposals for free schools. But there are still areas where the Government could and should go further when it finally publishes its White Paper on schools next month.

First, the academies programme and academy freedoms should be available to federations of primary schools including weaker ones (this is not actually what the Tories are proposing, and would provide a constructive contrast to their plans).

Second, although most parents may not want to set up their own schools, the Government should make sure the powers in the 2006 legislation can be used by those who do and significant parent promoters not only get local authority support to develop their plans, but they are linked to others who might be willing to take up their ideas. The extra costs need only arise with the capital proposals that are the Achilles heel of the Tory plans.

Third, if local authorities are to be expected to act in parents' interests, there must be someone with the statutory authority to force them to do so. This should be an explicit responsibility of the School Adjudicator, who already has a number of similar roles.

In the current climate, it may be that Brown's measures are treated as trivial or repetitive. And the Prime Minister could have done a little more to remind people how much has already been achieved, not least with academies. But by giving coherence to an approach to education that has recently felt haphazard, the PM has made a valiant attempt to recover the Labour initiative in this subject.

I've also written on the speech for the Progress website.

Parents back tests - ministers need to do so more clearly too

One of the arguments made by the two teaching unions threatening to boycott national tests next year is that they have the backing of parents.

Well, they may have on the sort of self-selecting surveys that teaching unions seem to specialise in. David Aaronovitch did a good job exposing the latest ATL survey proclaiming the death of school discipline to the sort of basic scrutiny that seems to have eluded most newspapers.

And when the DCSF conducted a proper opinion poll - using Ipsos MORI and based on a scientific sample - it found a rather different picture when it comes to what parents think of tests.

• 75% of parents think information on the performance of primary schools should be available to the general public;
• 70% of parents place value on the tests in providing information about how their child’s school is performing;
• 78% of parents with children who have done the tests think they are an accurate reflection of how their child is doing;
• 69% of parents think test results are useful for teachers when their child progresses to secondary school

Even when given the chance to say whether the tests should stay as they were or be replaced, 44% of parents said tests should stay as they are, with 36% of parents wanting them replaced, with most of the latter group wanting testing to stay. As the DCSF press notice pointed out, this means that 55% of parents expressing a preference think tests should stay at they are.

Despite last year's fiasco, tests still retain majority parental support. So Ed Balls should be wary of sending mixed messages to the teaching unions at their annual whingefests. The main headline on the DCSF press release showing A MAJORITY OF PARENTS BACK TESTS was not that; instead it was KEY STAGE 2 TESTS NOT SET IN STONE, ED BALLS TELLS TEACHERS' UNION CONFERENCE with the survey results given second billing.

The truth is that the Government is looking at a more complex alternative to the current tests, which would see most pupils taking more than one test in each subject in their last two years of primary school, and wants to publish the results on a new report card. Which is fine if they can find a straightforward way to present the results, whilst getting the marking right, crediting high achievers and avoiding the low expectations which CVA value added tables have fostered.

Balls was right yesterday to make clear that some form of national testing would remain and to condemn the threatened boycott. But we need to hear much stronger and clearer support for national testing and published results from ministers, more often. The parents they polled have shown them the way.

Parent power in action

All credit to the parents in the Bolnore School Group in West Sussex who have become the first parents to be given the chance to set up their own school under the competition rules introduced by the Labour government. (South London parents won their own school through a more tortuous process in the past). With the last two education acts, parents have far more such power than they ever did in the past. Councils have to invite competitive proposals for new schools. It's good to see these powers being used. The first of many, I hope.

Parent power

The debate about parent power in schools is all too often limited to the questions of admissions and school choice. And though those are clearly important - the government should do more to enable parent promoters to get heard, for example - there is another important way in which parents can be powerful - in helping to ensure that their child achieves their potential. Contrary to the ill-tempered outburst by Chris Parry yesterday, there are a growing number of good state schools. And one common feature is the way they use individual pupil data to set challenging goals. A part of that process increasingly involves regular engagement with parents; as new research today showed, that is better done through informal one-to-one meetings and information on the internet rather than traditional parent evenings. With so much data, teachers can provide regular objective updates on progress and potential. This was an important part of the 2006 education act - where a minimum of termly information was required of schools - and it is good that Ed Balls is so actively promoting it.