25 years of the Schools Network (SSAT)

The Schools Network (formerly the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust) celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. I've contributed this to their anniversary blog. 

When Lord Baker launched City Technology Colleges 25 years ago, he was creating a school brand. It was certainly not uncontroversial, and it developed in unexpected ways. Technology Colleges and their successor specialist schools proved easier to expand. They made a big difference to standards, as they focused schools on what they could do best; and in doing so, they helped thousands of schools to become better all-rounders.

When the Labour government re-ignited the CTC model through academies, its early incarnation was as much through private philanthropy as through branded chains. But as academies have grown, so have the chains. Last year, the improvements from Harris, Ark and ULT were not only in excess of the national average, they were ahead of the academies average too.

Other growing brands have been promoted by pioneering headteachers like David Carter’s Cabot schools in the West, Michael Wilkins’ Outwood model in Yorkshire and David Triggs’ Greensward brand through the Academies Enterprise Trust. With the growth of free schools and the introduction of primary sponsored academies, there is a real demand for successful chains to expand.

There are some who say that we will only really get traction with school brands when profit-making schools, as in Sweden or parts of the States, are unleashed into English education. But while profit-making may help some brands, those who make the case also ignore the entrepreneurial spirit of English heads that has been a remarkable change since the CTC Trust – that is now The Schools Network – was born.

And that spirit of entrepreneurialism, made infectious by Schools Network conferences, is destined to be more important over the next 25 years, as schools need not only to improve to match the best in the world, but also need to realise the full benefits of emerging technologies and to find ways to deliver teaching and learning in a manner more fit for the early 21st century than the late 19th century.

That’s why the ‘by schools, for schools’ model is so important. With 45% of secondary schools likely to enjoy academy status by next year, the traditional local authority model is not only being displaced by the familiar chains, it is being superseded by a host of much smaller trusts, federations and other partnerships between schools across the country.

I’ll be honest: I’d have preferred if ministers had pushed a few more incentives into the system to encourage this process along. But there is no doubt that it is happening. And that spirit of entrepreneurial headship, using the best practice that they have found to work to help others to improve will be as important a part of the new school brands as the undoubtedly excellent achievements of Harris and Ark. And if there are to be real improvements in the primary sector, ministers know that this model is the only one that will deliver 

That’s not to say that these micro-networks won’t draw on wider school brands when they need to do so. But it does offer the prospect of increased insights into curriculum delivery and ICT innovation. After all, if the most successful gaming companies rely on players for their most interesting new ideas, schools and academies should be hubs of innovation in the future of learning.

For that to happen, school leaders and teachers need to take a leaf from the Finnish book, and see post-graduate practical research as an integral part of their job. Those insights – allied to what we know works with the basics – will be a crucial part of the new school brands for the future. They can become brand leaders as well as school leaders.

In its various guises, the Schools Network has been at the vanguard of schools reform over the last 25 years: the next 25 will be the years when ‘by schools, for schools’ really helps to shape our national education system for the better.

The loss of specialist leverage

The news - not entirely unexpected - that the coalition is scrapping specialist school funding and handing the money to local authorities to distribute as they choose illustrates a central failing of the government's education policy. It is unwilling to support the means to achieve its goals. A wise government would have recognised that the levers in specialist schools could be harnessed to achieve many of its goals - a tougher rebidding process could have made schools more businesslike, while the specialist networks could ensure that the academic subjects ministers wish for were actually delivered. Its modest funding could have had significantly more impact than the pupil premium, which in the absence of any accountability will simply become a prop in schools to compensate for the wider cuts. Instead, a programme that has direct links to Kenneth Baker's CTC programme and which - contrary to what Paul Waugh claims - was actually created by the Tories in 1994 - even if Labour greatly expanded them - is to be dropped for the sake of ideological consistency. This is a big mistake and a huge loss of the leverage which was crucial to higher standards over the last 15 years. Michael Gove will come to regret it.

'Reviving' competitive sports

Good luck to the Michael Gove in his 'revival' of competitive sports as he takes forward school olympics plans, particularly if he builds on a huge revival in school sports under Labour. But I hope he doesn't fall for the myth that Labour engaged in some ludicrous 'war' on competitive sports. (Even in the 1980s, where I was schools press officer for the ILEA, I organised the launch of a detailed independent research report on team games in London schools, accompanied by great photos of scores of London school sporting success stories, disproving the idea that the ILEA - and not a few misguided heads - was anti-competitive sort. It won plaudits from the Mail and Telegraph at the time! The Labour political leadership of the ILEA in 1988 was keen to promote it in London schools.)

There were several important elements of Labour's approach in government: the first was to increase overall participation in sports and PE; the second was to protect school playing fields unless they were being replaced by other sports facilities; the third was to revive competitive team sports. The Youth Sports Trust was transformed into the successful organisation it is today. Using an increasing specialist sports school network, local sports co-ordinators were employed to help revive sports which declined under the last Conservative government largely because teachers declined to help with after-school coaching. All playing field sales have had to be approved by a body that includes the strongest campaigners against their sale - but critics ignore that growth in sports facilities that often resulted.

The number of specialist sports colleges was increased from 11 in 1997 to around 500 today, creating as many local networks which are key to the growth in sport. The proportion of young people doing at least two hours a week of sport a week has risen from 23 to 90 per cent. And great strides were made under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in increasing the numbers of pupils involved in competitions. Even between 2007 and 2009, competitive games were on the rise: in 2007, 98% of schools had sports day, 58% other intra school competitions and 35% were involved in inter-school competitions. By 2009, these last two figures had risen to 69% and 41%. I do hope that the Secretary of State builds on those successful structures and doesn't fall for the Daily Mail myth machine.

This post has been picked up by John Rentoul.

Gove places stronger expectations on new academies

The new education secretary Michael Gove moved significantly forward in his recognition of the importance of outstanding schools that become academies working with other schools, in his first major speech as secretary of state this morning. In a well-received and policy-rich speech to heads at the National College conference in Birmingham, he made clear that he expected the new academies to work with at least one other school in a system leadership role, and that programmes like the College's National Leaders of Education would play an important part in delivering that system leadership.

Let me be clear: I would not be going down this road if I thought it would in any way set back the process of school improvement, if would in any way undermine the progress we need to make in our weakest or most challenged schools or if it would in any way fracture the culture of collaboration which has driven school improvement over the last decade. This policy is driven, like all our education policy, by our guiding moral purpose – the need to raise attainment for all children and close the gap between the richest and poorest. I believe this policy will only work if it strengthens the bonds between schools and leads to a step-change in system-led leadership. That is why I will expect of every school that acquires academy freedoms that it partners at least one other school to help drive improvement across the board.

While Gove had previously recognised the importance of such collaborative work, he had not been quite so explicit in his expectations before. His challenge now is to develop an effective but flexible mechanism that enables such system leadership to flourish. I have written here before about the role that High Performing Specialist Schools - many of those targeted for the first wave of new academies - play alongside the NLE programme. But with flexibility to choose an appropriate system leadership role, there should also be some real incentive. One potential mechanism is the academy funding agreement: a straightforward link between a proportion of the additional funding that comes from no longer being attached to a local authority - or a tougher redesignation process for specialist schools - and embracing such a leadership role would help cement Gove's ambition. It would also provide the reassurance that many who support an extension of academies - but worry about the potential loss of the programme's social mission without such levers - have been seeking.

False economies

I have not been especially critical of the initial cuts announced by Michael Gove in his departmental budget. At a time of financial retrenchment - whatever the arguments about the timing of the £6 billion cuts - every department will have to find its savings. The quangos that he has earmarked for abolition - the QCDA, Becta and the GTC - have never really lived up to their potential, although the Secretary of State may underestimate the costs of delivering some of their services through other means. I have also been no fan of the academic diploma, and can see the merit in using underallocated funds in the education budget to reach the £670m target.

However, there is one cut in the list that he published earlier this week that is a false economy: the cut in the High Performing Specialist Schools programme. Amounting to a mere £7 million in savings, the cut sends a negative signal to heads and governors that there is no reward for improving standards and no additional support available for important system leadership roles such as becoming a teacher training school or extending subject work in languages or science.

Indeed, so closely aligned is the work of the HPSS programme to many core objectives of the coalition programme, from good schools helping weaker ones to school-based teacher training and strengthening academic subjects that one would have thought this a programme to be built upon not undermined. Indeed, if Gove is serious about wanting his new outstanding academies to work with weaker schools, a combination of the incentives in the HPSS programme and the National Leaders of Education is precisely what he needs. With limited resources, the Government needs programmes that deliver genuine value. Come the Spending Review, Gove should think again.

These are genuinely good GCSE results

That half of all 15-year old students now get five good GCSEs including English and Maths - a 2.1% point increase on last year - should be a huge boost for the Government's secondary school reform programme.

To put that in some context, it means that 50% more pupils reach this standard - a much tougher one than the 5 GCSEs in any subject that nearly 70% now get - when it includes both English and Maths - than did so in 1997. If you doubt this is a tough target, look at the separate data for each of those basic subjects. It particularly reflects the strength of two key Government reform programmes, Academies and the National Challenge (together with earlier floor targets), but can also be attributed to the school-level targets associated with virtually all secondaries becoming specialist schools.

Traditionalists might reflect that with O levels, barely a quarter of pupils reached this standard and both English and Maths were not required in the measure. And the Conservatives should understand that their independent schools programme will not succeed in achieving a similar uplift unless it is accompanied by a tough accountability regime, where schools set challenging internal targets and the Government has minimum expectations like the National Challenge.

Today's results are a reflection of the genuine transformation for the better that has occurred in secondary schools and their culture. It should be a cause for celebration. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Are specialist science colleges boosting physics?

Professor Alan Smithers has produced an odd piece of research designed to show that specialist schools are useless; and if they are any good, it's only because they get more dosh and posher kids. The basis for this claim is a study of science colleges and other schools and the status of physics within them. According to Prof Smithers, a greater proportion of students who take physics get A grades in language colleges than science colleges, therefore the whole thing is a sham.

Yet in his report, Prof Smithers tells us that science colleges are five times more likely to offer physics at GCSE than other schools. They are even more likely than grammar schools to do so. And he says that the best predictor of whether students do physics at A level is their GCSE results. Separate data shows that the number of physics and chemistry entries at GCSE and A level has been growing nationally, partly as a result of this trend. So science colleges are boosting physics, even if they don't get quite so many A grades.

So, if a larger group of students across science colleges has the chance to take the subject at GCSE, whereas many cannot take it in other schools, is it not possible that the science colleges are making a rather greater contribution to the subject than a long-term opponent of specialist schools is prepared to allow for? I only ask because the researchers apparently didn't think to do so.

Educate the briefers

Whoever is responsible for briefing the story on the front of today's Guardian claiming a retreat on academies clearly needs some education in both education policy and good politics. The Guardian has never needed an excuse to attack academies, and seems desperate to report flaws in the programme, despite the Public Accounts Committee pointing out how much more effective they are than comparable measures to address school failure. Suggestions that the programme is being reviewed because it isn't working play into that agenda, while assisting the Tories in their attempt to suggest a retreat on the academies policy. In fact, a more likely scenario is that academies which have a demonstrable record of delivery in the poorest areas with some of the most disadvantaged pupils - and cost no more to build now than any other secondary schools - are being asked to assist in a wider government strategy to tackle this group of pupils. But that wouldn't have been much of a story, would it? And the Guardian couldn't have been able to give front page attention to claims about the ineffectiveness of specialist schools that fly in the face of both the evidence (pdf) and the experience of schools alongside these claims.

Specialists are a success story

According to a statistical analysis by academics at Staffordshire University, specialist schools only do a bit better than other comprehensives, but any benefit they enjoy is simply a result of the extra £129 per pupil that they receive. In fact, specialist schools have achieved results 12 percentage points ahead of non-specialists, comparing the proportions getting five good GCSEs, and last year's analysis showed an 11 point advantage including English and Maths. I don't know how many specialist schools these boffins have visited, but I have seen many where the gains of applying for and retaining specialist status translate into huge improvements in teaching and learning, better links with other schools, strong business links and better exam results. Even applying for specialist status can change a school's ethos and sense of purpose. What these academics seem to have ignored is the fact that huge differentials in funding between similar counties or boroughs don't translate into radically different results. For a rather sounder analysis of the exam effect of specialist status, it is worth reading Professor David Jesson's reports (pdf) which compare pupils with the same starting point in specialist and non-specialist status and don't start factoring in lots of other excuses for low achievement. They are rather more persuasive.

Specialist success

The news that another 100 schools have acquired specialist status brings England one step closer to having a specialist system. Along the way, the critics have moved from hostilty to enthusiasm. And with good reason. Specialist status has been less about whether a school has extra facilities for sports or languages than the galvinising effect that acquiring and retaining that status has on a school's sense of mission and ambition. But coupled with a stronger link with neighbouring schools and the ability to provide a hub in the school's specialist subject, it is no exaggeration to say that the move to near-universal specialism has transformed England's comprehensives. Congratulations to all those who will become specialist schools this autumn.