‘Free schools’ and the future of education

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter

The announcement of the first twenty ‘free schools’ to proceed to a formal business plan has brought the future of education into focus. Students at various schools are to learn compulsory Latin, play a musical instrument, and be trained in the arts of etiquette and fine dining (notice the none-too-subtle class differentiators?) It read like the scheduling list for a Channel 4 season of one-off specials rather than a new educational movement.

Teaching is one of those professions where you are very highly skilled, very highly trained, and hugely experienced and yet everyone thinks they know better than you. As if the stresses of the classroom were not enough then you have to deal with know-it-all parents, commentators, and, worst of all, politicians. And now in the free schools initiative they have all ganged up together.

So the ‘free schools’ initiative, which could be a fountainhead of innovation and creativity as the charter school movement has been in the US, becomes a plaything for anyone with a passing educational theory to try out. It may disappoint LabourList readers that I am not against free schools in principle. But I do see a number of likely flaws in practice. It be said that much of what is good about ‘free schools’ is already a feature of the academy programme. And the Channel 4 schedule-esque nature of many of the initiatives points to some real issues on the horizon as I’ll come on to.

Diversity and innovation of education provision is a good thing. At the same time there are models that work and they should be able to establish/takeover schools or partner them. Academies are fostering such innovation and – more importantly – improvement.

Conor Ryan reports on the latest successes of the academy programme. GCSE performance in academies is improving at three times the national average. Schools run by the educational charity Ark and the Harris Federation of schools in South London have seen improvements in the number of students getting five A-C at GCSE of more than 11%. What these schools seem to share is a refusal to accept the fate of low performance in some of the most challenging social environments. They combine the educational basics with discipline and a varied, personalised, and interesting learning environment.

They focus on pathways to success – individual success. By no means are academies the only successful schools – far from it – but many of these schools have shown astounding success. A spirit of innovation fostered by expertise works. If you speak to many of the teachers who work at these schools they will talk enthusiastically about their ability to teach and raise standards.

The days of standards not structures have gone. Standards and structures are entwined. The thing that enables these schools to raise standards is the freedom that they have over curriculum, timetabling, the length of the school day and pay and conditions. It has allowed organisations with a strong ethos to combine the managerial know-how of headteachers and other senior staff along with the expertise of teachers in (and out) of the classroom to raise standards and give children a different future. Put simply, the Academy programme gives those who know how freedom and power.

Free schools don’t quite get this right. In principle, they have one advantage over Academies in that they are able to bypass local planning obstacles which makes them more nimble. A purpose built academy for 1000 students or more is a much bigger, more complex and pricey proposition. Amongst the original twenty free schools that will go through to next stage of planning names like Ark and the Sutton Trust pop out which is reassuring. If I were setting up a school, I would be begging such organisations to run it for me. I’d hand them the keys, check in every now and then, and wait for the kids’ exam certificates to hit the mat after a few years (though please don’t think for a moment that is the only objective of a good education).

What free schools seem to get wrong is that they slightly edge the power towards parents and away from the organisations, managers and teachers who actually know about education. Of course, pretty much all the free schools so far announced will succeed – in an academic sense. How could they not?

The issues will emerge as the programme expands. Parents could assume a greater and more intrusive voice. And parents sometimes have a tendency to hark back to a golden age that never existed and see their education as the best form of education though it is unfit for purpose with today’s kids and with the future economic and social challenges we face. Boring education thus cascades down the generations. Besides, education is now better than it has ever been at every level – by a long stretch (with the caveat that many other nations are now improving more rapidly). Don’t fall for the Daily Mail nonsense – our kids are more literate, creative and better educated than they have ever been.

Politicians and commentators will increasingly interfere – and those who are the loudest tend to be either overly traditional or, at the other end of the spectrum, too rigid and inflexible in insisting on formal equality and exactitude. And all the time, education expertise will be increasingly sidelined in favour of ill-informed educational prejudice, political axe-grinding, and romantic faddism. When this starts to happen then many free schools will find it hard to recruit the right teachers – it will be a demoralising environment to have your expertise devalued. Results will underwhelm, Ofsted will hover and parents will start to turn away.

What this comes down to is the failure to recognise the separation of governance and management. Once parents are determining the curriculum rather than simply being consulted on it then that line has been breached. Before you know it, the educational and managerial integrity of the school is undermined and then it is a slippery slope. Parental voice is an absolutely essential component of a well-run school. Parental control is a very different matter. Parental empowerment requires parents to know their limits. The risk with ‘free schools’ is that they will, in too many cases, encourage the opposite.

A balance between parental voice, serving the local community, and professional integrity must be preserved if all children are to thrive in their own way in the education system of the future. ‘Free schools’ risk knocking that out of kilter though they will have significant strengths. The message is simple. Leave educational romantic faddism to Channel 4 documentary makers. At least it will be entertaining.

* A quick note of congratulations to LabourList for being voted best Labour blog in the Total Politics blog awards. And thank you to any LabourList readers who voted for www.anthonypainter.co.uk in the same poll – an honourable 12^th.

Anthony Painter is Vice Chairman of Hackney Community College (he writes here in a personal capacity) and is currently involved with the establishment of a new type of school.