LS18

Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure Committee

Evidence of the Association of School and College Leaders

(Saesneg yn unig)

Contact Details:

Gareth Jones
Secretary ASCL Cymru
Trem-y-Cwm
Kilgwrrwg
Chepstow
NP16 6DB
07738803206
gareth.jones@ascl.org.uk

General Comments

1. ASCL Cymru welcomes the opportunity to assist the Committee in its task of scrutinizing the proposed Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure.

2. ASCL Cymru would be willing to give oral evidence to the Committee.

3. We take this opportunity to emphasise two of the general observations made in our response to the consultation on the proposed measure:

• There should be caution in adopting any approach which could be seen as pursuing a 'one size fits all’ strategy and which enabled or encouraged a micro management by WAG or the LEA.
• The curriculum for students of compulsory school age should remain focused on the development of generic skills rather than overly narrow job specific skills.

Amendments to the provisions in the proposed Measure.

4. Head teacher’s or principal’s decision as to entitlement.

The clarification of the criteria for the decision is welcomed. However, consideration should be given to the issue of an appeals procedure in cases where the student and/or the parents disagree with the decision.

In the absence of regulatory guidance, ASCL Cymru has concerns about the possibility of headteachers and schools becoming the target for complex and burdensome legal processes.

A statement to the effect that disagreements would be resolved by the use of the school’s or institution’s complaints procedures as defined by existing legislation would be helpful.

5. Formation of the local curriculum for pupils in key stage 4 and students aged 16-18

The amendments to the original proposals, by enabling the use of cluster arrangements within a LEA, do go some way to meeting our concerns as to the potential lack of flexibility for local circumstances.

6. Pupils’ choices of local curriculum

ASCL Cymru welcomes the effort to clarify, by the use of a points system, what constitutes a course and the maximum entitlement for a student. However, it is difficult to make further comment in the absence of detail about how such a system will work in practice.

7. Delivery of local curriculum entitlements: joint working. (Maximising availability of courses of study included in a local curriculum.)

ASCL Cymru has no objections to the attempt to strengthen the requirement on institutions to co-operate and collaborate to ensure the maximum availability of choice for the students in a local area.

8. Identification of local curriculum for the learner

The greater clarity about the procedure for identifying which is the relevant school or institution for 16-18 year old students is welcomed.

ASCL Cymru has concerns over the potential lack of continuity of planning over the local curriculum where the responsibility for 14-16 and 16-19 students rests with different bodies. However, we do note the comment in Table 8.1.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum that:

However, the Welsh Ministers, if they see fit, will be able to make arrangements under section 83 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 for a relevant authority to exercise their functions under this section.

9. The power to suspend local curriculum

The removal of this provision, which was intended to resolve issues arising from local circumstances, is reasonable given the other amendments to the proposed Measure.

Is there a need for legislation to re-organise 14-19 provision?

10. Members of ASCL Cymru were greatly involved in the creation of the Learning Pathways strategy and have worked hard to implement it. Legislation is expensive, requiring the time of the Assembly and civil servants to create, and of school leaders and local authority officers in response. It should not be entered into unless there is evidence of a strong need. In this case statutory guidance and monitoring by Estyn should be quite sufficient to achieve the desired ends.

11. There is a concern as to whether, in the longer term, the Learning Skills (Wales) Measure will have the consequence of leading some LEAs to go beyond their current role as a commissioner of services and thus undermining the autonomy of the individual institution, which has been a significant factor in driving up standards in the past decade.

Does the proposed Measure achieve the policy objective or could changes be made without legislating?

12. ASCL Cymru does not agree with the conclusion given in Table 8.1 in the Explanatory Memorandum that Option 3, namely legislation, is the only means of achieving the policy objective.

13. There has been considerable progress in many areas of Wales in developing the Learning Pathways and the collaborative arrangements required for their delivery. The proposed Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure will not, in itself, overcome the real barriers to the achievement of the policy objectives.

14. As stated in this association’s response to the consultation on the proposed Measure, two of the barriers to progress are:

i Funding - Learning Pathways will lead to diseconomies of scale and thus increased costs. There are no savings to be had through collaboration - in fact issues such as transport lead to increased costs. One can add to this the annual uncertainty generated by the absence of true 3 year funding arrangements. The bureaucratic nature of the current funding streams also generates costs which diverts funds from service delivery.

Solution? A national funding mechanism, based upon a needs assessment formula, with funding direct to learning provider institutions.

ii. Unintelligent Accountability systems based upon individual institutions and unduly focused on attainment outcomes, together with a league table style of presentation by Estyn in its Annual reports is inhibitive of collaboration between institutions.

Solution? A new Inspection Framework based upon self evaluation and where Estyn’s role is the validation of self evaluation with direct inspection and lesson observation reserved for cases where there is clear evidence from LEA and Associate reports of shortcomings. ASCL Cymru has published a proposal with regard to Inspections post 2010 which we commend to WAG.

What are the views of stakeholders who will have to work with the new arrangements?

15. Comments from ASCL Cymru members include:

i If the experience of Learning Networks is anything to go by, we are in danger of spending more resources on planning and negotiating bids for funds than on delivering the actual education to the individual students.

(Headteacher in Vale of Glamorgan)

ii. When will those who are driving the policy of collaboration actually believe those of us who are leading the delivery of the education services that Learning Pathways is a more expensive curriculum and that there are no savings to be had in collaborative working? Is this to be the sorry story of the miscalculations on the Foundation Stage being repeated for the secondary school and FE sectors?

(Headteacher in Swansea)

iii. The potential for bureaucratic overload and parental litigation arising from the proposed legislation and administrative arrangements involved in rolling out the Learning Pathways is alarming and will do little to encourage applications for the large number of  headships that will be becoming vacant in the next few years.

(Deputy Headteacher in Wrexham)

Iv The proposals seem to be based on a lack of trust in professional education leaders. There is no need to legislate when we all want the best for our students. Legislation, and clusters defined elsewhere will in fact make it more difficult to cross boundaries that will mean nothing to students if that is what would be best for them. The timings envisaged are unrealistic in the context of running a school.

(Headteacher in West Glamorgan)

v. The premise of the document is that we all work in isolation at the moment, which is not the case. In some rural and less densely populated areas of Wales there is no realistic set of partners to meet the aspiration of all pupils locally.

(Headteacher in Glamorgan)

What might be the barriers to delivering the policy agenda and does the proposed Measure take account of them?

16. Paragraph 14 above details two of the significant barriers to achieving the policy agenda. ASCL Cymru commends the recent ASCL publication Achieving more together (Robert Hill, 2007) a copy of which it would be happy to supply.

17. In addition, there a number of practicalities which will have to be resolved as the Learning Pathways curriculum is implemented. In order for a collaborative curriculum to be planned, designed, offered to students and parents in time for them to make decisions, and implemented in a given September, key decisions have to be made in partnership no later than the autumn term preceding. With the Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure as proposed this process will be considerably more complicated and time consuming in that it will involve a cluster approach and a diversity of sources of funding.

18. Challenges which the proposals of the Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure could present are:

i Determine who is to be the 'lead’ or 'home’ institution for every 16-19 student

Frequently, students do not make the final choice of whether to stay at school or to go to FE college until they have the outcome of the exams they have taken, and a good number change their mind after a few weeks in either school or college in September; thus a potential problem will be resolving these changes of mind.

ii Devise the local curriculum plan for the cluster for Key Stages 4 and 5

The idea of clusters as presented here is flawed. Such clusters may work in some areas but will not work in all. In some rural areas of Wales there is no realistic set of partners. In some areas there is a strong need for collaboration across local authority boundaries.

Therefore, it is essential that there is sufficient flexibility to allow local solutions to be found that reflect the needs of the local area and its particular young people.

iii. Prepare and print a prospectus for each year group

Each institution will also have to prepare its own prospectus, describing the core courses that will be delivered and the options which are common to all institutions within the cluster.

iv. Determine each student’s entitlement

In each institution, the outcome of the process of consultation with individual students and their parents as to their course preferences will have to be scrutinised and a decision taken as to the suitability of the entitlement.

Complaints and appeals against the headteacher’s decision will have to be resolved.

The most difficult cases will be where the professional advice is that the student should take a course being offered in another institution but the student is unwilling to heed that advice and prefers to take an unsuitable course in their home institution.

Complications could arise where the headteacher’s judgement is at odds with the advice or encouragement being given to the student by the learning coach.

v. Prepare and publish the entitlement plan for each student

Would this have to be published before a student commences the academic year?

Experience suggests that students change courses during a key stage. Would this require the preparation and publication of a new plan?

The implication of these last two points in particular is an enormous increase in bureaucracy. There is no need for such wasteful processes when there are already excellent procedures in place and when young people have support from Careers Wales that ensures they have made sensible choices.

vi. Distribute results of examination courses and advise students on their options

One assumes that the 'lead’ or 'home’ institution will have the responsibility for the exam entry process even for course being delivered by another institution. If this is not to be the case, there is potential for great problems in collating the results for issue to individual students as well as the preparation of data for the assessment of institutional performance.