News and guidance

‘Parenting academies’

ASCL General Secretary Brian Lightman was interviewed by several different media outlets, including the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and BBC television news, about a government proposal to offer parents money to attend a parenting academy to learn how to support their children’s schoolwork. Brian said, “We need to look at different ways of helping parents engage in their children’s learning but I have reservations about simply paying them.” But he added that the cash could be a genuinely positive thing if it were used, for example, to enable parents to take time off work to attend the courses.

Criminalising professionals

In response to the proposal to introduce legislation that would criminalise professionals, including heads and others in schools, who fail to report suspected child abuse, Brian Lightman and Deputy General Secretary Malcolm Trobe carried out a number of interviews including for BBC Radio 5 live, BBC television news and the TES. Commenting on the proposals, Brian said, “The answer is not to criminalise well-meaning professionals who have to make very difficult decisions on a daily basis. Current regulations mean that they are already required to act on the slightest allegations, which are then investigated.”

GCSE reform

Responding to Ofqual’s announcement confirming reforms to GCSE exams, Malcolm Trobe gave a number of interviews to the media, including BBC television news, The Sunday Times, ITV television news and many regional radio stations. Malcolm said, “As the new exams will be very different, the move to a numerical grading scale will help to avoid confusion. It is good to see that the new grading system will only be introduced when a subject syllabus is changed.

“Although the approach is measured, the timescale for implementation is tight. This is a significant amount of change for schools and students. We need awarding bodies to produce syllabuses in sufficient time for teachers and students to be fully prepared. And we hope they will now draw a line under further change while the new GCSEs have time to become established and recognised.”

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Anger is mounting over the government’s peremptory approach to consultation with the profession, says Brian Lightman.

As I was reflecting on what has felt like a very long and challenging eight-week first half of the autumn term two things happened that felt deeply symbolic of the climate we are working in.

The first was an email containing the first aerial photos of the replacement for the aged buildings of St Cyres School in Penarth, due to open in 2014. Having campaigned for 11 years to reach this point, as head this was an exciting moment. It is so much more than a new building – it’s a compelling, forward-thinking statement of a new vision for education in that town; it is a seven-days-a-week learning community with a special school located next to the mainstream school, adult education facilities, community learning and superb sports facilities.

The second was my attendance at a London event launching a new organisation owned by and for a group of inspiring and creative school leaders called Schools of Tomorrow. (www.schoolsoftomorrow.org) A key proposition of this group of practitioners is that we need to redefine the concept of ‘outstanding’ way beyond the very narrow metrics that currently designate pupil achievement and school success. These school leaders are working together to develop and share leading-edge practice in four areas that they view as fundamentals of equal importance in becoming a ‘school of tomorrow’ of the highest quality: the highest levels of achievement (defined as progress in relation to their own starting points towards agreed national standards); the highest levels of well-being; highly effective preparation for adult working life; and highly effective family and community engagement.

In a thought-provoking and highly challenging presentation, Professor John West Burnham asked us to think about whether doing more of the same, even if we do it better, is really an option or whether we need to ‘re-conceptualise’ schools. While fully acknowledging the boundaries within which we operate, he posed difficult questions about whether our current models of schooling, which have been in place for so long, continue to be appropriate in the 21st century. You can read more about this on the Great Education Debate (GED) website at www.greateducationdebate.org.uk

‘Angry, helpless, demoralised’

The first half of this term has been incredibly challenging for school and college leaders. Meeting members around the country I am constantly hearing words like ‘angry’, ‘helpless’, ‘demoralised’, ‘exasperated’ and ‘frustrated’. The announcement changing the rules about early entry, which mean that only a student’s first entry to a GCSE exam will count in their school’s performance tables, really was the last straw for many members. That was not so much because of the issue of early entry itself but because of the way that that announcement was made: the timing, the medium used to announce it and, above all, the emotive language used that presented headteachers as dishonest.

The vast number of calls and emails we received and the passionate discussions at ASCL Council certainly cannot be dismissed as mere reaction to an unpopular decision. They reflected far more. Many people who have been working tirelessly to implement government policies and to set their sights on even higher standards – people who wholly agree with government that we need to do this – were saying ‘enough is enough’. That is why Council passed such a strongly worded resolution (see www.ascl.org.uk/gcse-early-entry). What are the implications of that? As always, school and college leaders think of students first and they are deeply worried about ensuring that they do the very best for them, however challenging the political context is. So the overwhelming reaction has been to turn away from the politics and focus on what matters. Although many have been forced against their better judgement to change their entry patterns for wholly understandable reasons, many others, supported by their governing bodies, parents and local authorities (LAs), are sticking to their guns while we campaign for common sense to prevail and the students’ final outcomes to be published (alongside first entry results if ministers really want to publish them and do not trust their own regulator to evaluate the effectiveness of entry policies as clearly defined in the Ofsted handbook).

But this whole discussion has led to a much broader debate at the same time as we have been facilitating a discussion of the purpose of education via the Great Education Debate. And I am hearing more and more people asking fundamental questions about that topic.

Seize the agenda

When I see all of the different groups that are springing up and the growing numbers of school leaders who are putting their foot down and asserting their professional judgement about what is best for their students, I wonder whether we have reached a turning point. And if that is the case, it would be worth reflecting on what that may mean in practice. Three things come to mind.

Somebody recently asked me whether I thought we had lost our confidence as a profession. I sincerely hope not, but if that is the case my first point is that we need to rediscover it quickly. In order to do that we must recognise that school leaders got to the positions that they hold because of their experience, knowledge, skills and successful track record.

My second point is that we must trust that experience and assert it strongly, especially when it is dismissed and ignored on the basis of flimsy evidence.

The third point is that we must build on that confidence and experience to assert our vision for the future of education in our schools. On that basis we can then ask the really difficult questions that we need to face if we are going to take up that challenge of creating the ‘schools of tomorrow’.

Recent announcements, the atmosphere at the party conferences and the strong media focus on differences within the coalition reflect the climate we can expect to see during the 16 months between now and the next General Election. Undoubtedly, all of the political parties will be trying to assert the uniqueness of their own approaches within the context of directions of travel that do not differ greatly in terms of headline policies.

I wonder whether any of them will have the courage to recognise the fact that doing more of the same and measuring the same things will no longer be an option.

The photo of St Cyres that dropped into my inbox is of a vision developed by the entire community turning into a reality. If we have witnessed a crisis of confidence in recent weeks, has this given rise to a turning point, one where school and college leaders will insist on their professional right to seize the agenda and turn the vision they know is right into a reality?

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• Brian Lightman is ASCL general secretary

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The future of education impacts on everyone. Have your say – and find out what others are saying at: www.greateducationdebate.org.uk

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The president of ASCL and senior ASCL officers have met with several ministers, government officials and special advisers in recent months.

In addition to ASCL’s very successful fringe meetings at both the Labour and Conservative Party conferences, President Ian Bauckham and General Secretary Brian Lightman met with Minister of State for Schools David Laws on the issue of the new accountability measures and the Labour Party’s new Shadow Education Secretary, Tristram Hunt.

• Secretary of State Michael Gove and David Laws accepted Ian’s invitation to attend an ASCL presidential dinner at the end of November with ASCL officers and members to discuss qualifications, accountability and autonomy.
• Ian gave oral evidence at the joint parliamentary committee on the Deregulation Bill. Specifically, Ian robustly outlined the importance of governing bodies retaining responsibility for agreeing schools’ behaviour policies. Ian, Brian, Deputy General Secretary Malcolm Trobe and Policy Director Leora Cruddas have met with Andrew McCully, DfE’s Director General Infrastructure and Funding to discuss the free school and academies programme. Malcolm and Leora have also met with Shona Dunn, the new Director General for Education Standards.
• On the subject of inspection, Ian and Brian met with Mike Cladingbowl, National Director for Schools at Ofsted, to outline the issues related to school and college inspection.

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If you have an employment issue or a specific query to do with your work, the ASCL members’ hotline is your one-stop shop. Every ASCL member is entitled to expert support and all receive the same high level of dedicated, professional support. ASCL’s success in fighting on members’ behalf speaks for itself.

For urgent matters, our hotline team is there every single day of the year, ready to pick up the phone and listen to you before outlining some possible courses of action.

In addition, ASCL’s regional and field officers confidentially act on members’ behalf with employers, support them in employment processes, negotiate settlement agreements… and do much more! The hotline can also direct you to a team of experts on hand for those technical or specialist enquiries. We have experts in:

• business management
• pensions
• inspections
• curriculum and assessment
• independent schools
• funding
• pay and conditions
• legal
• apprenticeships
• colleges

All our member support staff have many years of experience as senior leaders in education and are trained to listen without judging and to suggest, coach and guide.

To access our expert team of staff, contact the members’ hotline by phone on 0116 299 1122 or email hotline@ascl.org.uk

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Here are some interesting statistics of how our hotline team has helped many ASCL members in 2013:

• The ASCL hotline dealt with almost 6,500 calls and more than 3,500 emails from members requiring help.
• The most popular topics for calls were about:
  • Management of staff (1,268)
  • Members’ own conditions of service or employment (906)
  • Issues with unions (571)
• The topics that seem to be on the rise are about allegations, Ofsted, members’ disciplinary/ cap, and legal advice.
• Of the calls that were received by the hotline, approximately 1,400 were referred to either ASCL’s field officers who are able to provide individual employment support for members, or to ASCL’s dedicated team of specialists for a more thorough and targeted response.

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Five things you need for effective e-safety policies

E-safety consistently tops the charts of ICT concerns among school leaders. With a steady stream of bad news stories about cyberbullying and the dangers of social media, combined with the fact that Ofsted now includes e-safety as part of its inspection, it is little wonder that it is such a high priority.

Most schools now have an e-safety policy that sets out their commitment to ensuring that their community is safe online as well as an acceptable use policy that articulates what students can and can’t do while using the Internet. But a policy is no use if it’s signed at the beginning of the year – box ticked, job done – and then put back in the drawer until review time. So, how do you ensure that your e-safety policy drives sustained action?

Here are five things that will help ensure that your policy is the active heart of e-safety at your school:

1 Involve students in its development. This creates a sense of ownership, and asking them to think about e-safety provides the first step in educating them about safe and acceptable use of the Internet.

2 Involve parents. They need to read and sign the policy and have the opportunity to share feedback. By creating a policy that both students and parents sign you kick-start the conversation at home about e-safety.

3 Embed it. Policies are no use if they are merely a tick-box exercise; they need to be part of daily life. You could implement a regular reward system that recognises students who have flagged an issue or shown leadership in this area, or appoint e-safety monitors whose job it is to keep e-safety front of mind.

4 Own it. All members of staff need to be trained and have collective responsibility for e-safety but if one member of staff has deep expertise coupled with overall, daily responsibility for e-safety it’s far more likely to retain its place on the agenda.

5 Review it. Agree a date each year when you seek feedback and review the contents of the policy. Life online changes at breakneck speed and what may have been watertight a year ago may no longer be adequate today. 

For more information on e-safety, including lesson plans, blogs from e-safety experts and a free guide to e-safety in schools, visit www.rm.com/esafety

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Following the recent cancellation of the Seizing Success conference – hosted by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) – an alliance of education leaders has announced a new event.

Inspiring Leadership will run from 11 to 13 June 2014 at the ICC in Birmingham, filling the gap previously occupied by Seizing Success. The conference is being organised by CfBT Education Trust, led by Chief Executive Steve Munby, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

Seizing Success attracted more than 1,800 leaders to share best practice from across the country and the world. Inspiring Leadership will build on and refresh this foundation. At the Seizing Success conference, there will be a large and vibrant exhibition spanning the entire primary, secondary and special education landscape.

Commenting on the new conference, Brian Lightman, General Secretary of ASCL said, “At a time of significant change in the education system, it is vital that we bring leaders together to learn new ideas, share what works and lift horizons. We are delighted that the event can continue in a new guise and that we can take the chance to refresh and renew it to tackle the challenges of the future.”

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Inspring Leadership

11-13 June, Birmingham

More details and registration at www.leadership2014.blackberryproductions

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Several position statements were approved by ASCL Council at the meeting in October. Listed below is ASCL’s position on some key education issues: 

Qualification reform

An essential part of qualification reform must be a clear statement on the standards which are required to achieve particular grades at GCSE and A levels. These grades must be criterion referenced so that all those involved (students, parents, teachers, governors, colleges, universities, employers) have a clear understanding of what is required. This will also allow the education system to demonstrate whether standards are improving or not. Once the grades and standards for the new GCSEs and A levels have been fixed, they should be kept for a set period of time.

Funding

As an association, ASCL is committed to a funding system which distributes funding equitably, according to need, and which allows equality of opportunity to students in all types of institution.

We recognise the need to build on this principle to address aspects of reasonableness, effectiveness, sustainability, necessity and sound financial stewardship. We also recognise the need to develop a mechanism for assessing the fairness of funding distribution.

Inspection

ASCL agrees that inspection should be rigorous and challenging, but believes that it must be rooted in professional judgement. More time should be provided to allow inspectors to share their initial hypothesis with schools that could then either endorse the analysis or produce evidence to disprove it. It is essential that the inspectorate maintain their independence and do not become an instrument of government policy.

Initial Teacher Training

ASCL believes that the future supply of teachers cannot simply be left to the market. We are concerned by evidence of an imminent recruitment crisis. Whilst entry to the profession may be through a variety of routes, long term centralised planning is required to ensure consistent high quality and the targeting of shortage areas of teacher supply.

National College

ASCL believes that a strong National College for Teaching and Learning is essential to ensure the supply of high quality leaders across the system. The College is uniquely well placed to ensure rigour and consistency in the training of the next generation of leaders. In the light of this, we would not be in favour of proposals to close the College or to alter its remit.

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A recent court case gives weight to the view that sometimes accidents do happen.

The Court of Appeal has rejected a case where a school was accused of negligence, under the Occupier’s Liability Act 1984 when a child hurt himself on a water fountain. Two boys were on the school premises accompanying their mother who was running an after-school gardening club. Unfortunately, gardening did not engage them. They found the water fountain and one squirted the other and then ducked under it. His brother threw a punch at him and cut his hand on a sharp edge underneath the fountain. The parent sued. The judge at first instance found for the child. The Appeal Court did not.

The court pointed out that the judge had simply asked whether it was possible for the sharp edge to hurt a child. The question that under the Act had to be addressed was “whether as a matter of objective fact, visitors to the school were reasonably safe in using the premises, including for this purpose, the water fountain, bearing in mind of course that children do not behave like adults, and are inclined to lark around.”

In words that must encourage schools, the court ruled: “The school was not under a duty to safeguard children against harm under all circumstances. Each case is of course fact sensitive, but as a matter of generality, the school was no more obliged as an occupier to take such steps in respect of the water fountain than it would be in respect of any of the other numerous ordinary edges and corners or surfaces against which children might accidentally injure themselves whilst on the premises.”

The judgement ended resoundingly: “The law would part company with common sense if that were the case, and I do not consider that it does so.”

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In a recent decision, the Upper Tribunal has once again made the point that a parent has the right to demand that their child, whatever the complexity of his or her needs, be educated in a mainstream school.

A local authority (LA) is bound to meet this demand and if it does not have a mainstream school in its area or if it is not able to find one outside its area that is adapted to these needs to make whatever adaptations is required. It cannot claim that its resources are inadequate.

The only restraint on this absolute right is compatibility with the efficient education of other children. Whether this is in the child’s best interests is not a consideration. The absolute nature of these rights sometimes comes as a surprise to schools. It should not.

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The story of the Australian teacher who sued his school for giving him difficult classes as a disagreement with his deputy principal until he was a shell of his former self is paralleled by the teacher from Queensland who claimed $400,000 for damage to her larynx because she had to scream at her classes. It makes some claims made in Britain seem quite reasonable.

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There has been a case where a college hired a respectable firm to remove asbestos. The supervisor appears to have completely disregarded his training and the firm’s procedures: something that was only picked up by an unannounced visit by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

It found that the workers had been sent in without protective clothing and with normal work boots, thus making it likely that asbestos fibres would be carried out of the sealed area on the laces. The fact that there was inadequate water supplied for the workers to sponge down and that they were wearing their own clothes just put the final straw on the camel’s back.

The supervisor was fined £790 with costs. The firm seems to have got away scot free as the supervisor had been trained adequately and seems to have completely ignored the rules laid down by the company. It is important to remember, however, that this prosecution does not necessarily preclude claims for damages in the future if either a worker or some user or visitor to the college later develops an asbestos-related illness.

It is important for schools and colleges not only to ensure that a contractor has rules and procedures but that these are complied with. It is obviously difficult to see what is happening in a sealed area, but some questions do need to be asked to protect from future claims.

Sometimes it is a matter of not putting a high enough priority on safety. For example, a company was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £12,638 in costs when a contractor drilled into a wall that concealed asbestos and then simply vacuumed it up with a domestic vacuum cleaner, carried on drilling elsewhere and used the vacuum cleaner again. Even when the firm realised what had happened they were slow to isolate the area. It is all too easy to imagine how this could occur in a school if the asbestos issue is not put up front to the contractors that the school employs.

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The government proposes to introduce a right to request flexible working without victimisation for all employees with 26 weeks’ service in 2014. The statutory process will be abolished and replaced with a duty to be reasonable, underpinned by an Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) Code.

The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) is already suggesting that one use of it may be to introduce phased retirement and this suggests that schools and colleges would be well advised to be thinking about the changes now and considering how they may be introduced. Forward thinking now may save problems later.

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The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) ‘jury’ has found that there is no basis for a ban on using mobile phones on a school site on grounds of health and safety. The HSE makes the point that there may be many good reasons for banning mobile phones in school but health and safety is not one of them. One is reminded of the Information Commissioner’s similar ruling on the use of cameras at school sports days.

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For most academies, new, rescue or converter, the termination clauses in their contract with the Secretary of State may not seem particularly relevant. While the general part of the model contract sets out a notice period of seven years for termination, there is also provision, in clauses 97ff for immediate termination in certain circumstances. In the event of subsequent liquidation, the Secretary of State may transfer ‘a proportion’ of the assets of the trust to a ‘person nominated by the Secretary of State’. It is also interesting that the suggestion has been made that in the event of a government coming to power that is no longer in favour of academies’ autonomy, the contract could be assigned by the Secretary of State to another party, which could be the relevant local authority (LA) or another regional body, thus reinstating the former ‘middle tier’.

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An approach to Employment Tribunal (ET) normally must be made within three months. However, in a recent case, a tribunal decided to waive the time limit on the grounds that the complainant was not fit to bring the case in the specified period. The employment judge had concluded that there was a marked difference in the complainant’s mental state between the period before the complaint was made. This is a warning that where a member of staff’s mental condition is difficult, three months will not necessarily see a school or college out of the wood as far as a tribunal is concerned. Conversely, if someone has been traumatised by the circumstances of their unfair dismissal, they will not necessarily be denied justice by an artificial time constraint.

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Chainsaws are nasty tools. A Scottish local authority (LA) decided that it would extend the duties of janitors to cutting up wood with chainsaws.

They were given basic chainsaw training. When a tree fell down at a primary school, janitors were sent out to cut it up. When one branch remained, one of them climbed up onto the tree to cut it. In the ensuing accident his toe was mangled to the extent that surgeons were unable to save it. The subsequent fine levied by the court and damages award was brought about by the council’s failure.

That may seem harsh, considering that the janitor made the decision himself to climb onto the tree. But an employer needs to be aware that a person sent out to do a job after training will assume that they can cope, particularly if they want to be obliging and will feel stupid if they call off the job.

If the council wanted its janitors to undertake this kind of task they needed to give more training and, in the words of the Health and Safety at Work Act, ‘establish a safe method of working’. This applies to more matters than chainsaws.

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The abolition of the Independent Appeal Panels (IAP) may suggest that any case involving them is irrelevant, but a case involving a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that recently was considered by the Administrative Court is still relevant on a number of counts.

Following a long string of incidents, the head in the case had decided he had to exclude a child permanently. The problem the head faced was that the borough the school was in was not the child’s ‘home’ borough, responsible for assessing him or finding him an alternative placement more suitable to his needs. That borough had a rule that no assessment would be undertaken unless the child was excluded permanently, which was part of the reason that the head took that course. The judge who considered the case congratulated him for having operated with “knowledge and sensitivity”.

After the exclusion and a referral to the IAP, the head, the authority and the parent reached an agreement. The child would be sent to an alternative placement but without the stigma of a permanent exclusion. Unfortunately, the IAP was advised by its clerk that the panel had to make up their own minds. The panel then decided not to overturn the head’s decision. The child, therefore, retained the exclusion on his record, which all parties wished to avoid.

The parent turned to the courts on the grounds that the process was unfair and that the panel had failed to give reasons. The judge agreed. The panel was wrong in law and had acted unfairly.

The case exposes the problems of dealing with children who are not fitted to mainstream schooling without considerable help – and in some cases not even then.

It also emphasises the importance of all review panels having the courage to adjourn and take further advice when legal issues that cannot be determined arise and when there is a danger of unfairness. This applies equally to admissions appeal panels and staff disciplinary hearings, for instance. It also shows how important it is for such bodies to give reasons. Those reasons do not have to be legally drafted but they must show that the panel considered all the issues and why the parties won and lost.

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The government has issued its draft regulations on amendments to Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) that will take effect in January 2014.

The first main change that will affect schools and colleges is that negotiated terms and conditions form part of a contract. If the new employer is not party to negotiations after transfer, what transfers is the bundle of contractual terms and conditions at the point of transfer.

The second is that it will be possible to negotiate a change in terms and conditions with transferred employees after a year provided that the effect, taken overall, is that those terms and conditions are no worse.

Other changes may or may not affect schools and colleges depending on how they play out once legal battle is joined. For example, a change in location of a service provision becomes a valid economic, technical or organisational reason for dismissal in a transfer, but the detail of the regulation and its interpretation may preclude its being used to allow dismissal where a school’s ‘undertaking’ is simply moved to another nearby site as it is absorbed.

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The shocking story of a child injured on a playground swing in Blackpool is a reminder that all staff in school have a duty to bring issues to the attention of management and that when a warning is given, action should be taken.

A Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) engineer first alerted the council that a swing needed ‘urgent attention’ over a year before the incident – as the suspension mechanism was not rotating properly. The council was advised to contact the manufacturer for further advice. There were three more inspection reports to the same effect.

Almost unbelievably, the council did nothing. Blackpool Council was fined £18,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £20,000 after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974 but, of course, that does not prevent a parent bringing a case for negligence as well. It could not happen in a school, could it?

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It is intriguing, in the light of the provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 on biometric data, to note that in the case of Michael Schwarz v Stadt Bochum at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), it was determined that demanding iris recognition and fingerprints on EU passports was found to be a legitimate (for the prevention of fraud) and proportionate interference with the right to private life.

Of course, controlling the borders of the EU is a matter of greater weight than deciding whether someone is entitled to a school dinner, by payment or otherwise. Further guidance on this is available on ASCL’s website at www.ascl.org.uk/biometric

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