ASCL Influence
ASCL Director of Policy Julie McCulloch on the challenges of engaging with an increasingly erratic government. Expand
Working on your behalf to influence government policy
ASCL Director of Policy Julie McCulloch on the challenges of engaging with an increasingly erratic government.
The last few weeks have been the most unedifying period in education policy I have ever had the misfortune to witness. We’ve seen the government threatening to take schools and local authorities to court for seeking to keep their communities safe. We’ve seen schools and colleges ‘invited’ to set up from scratch mass Covid testing programmes then, when they pointed out how challenging this was, simply told that it was now an ‘expectation’ and that they ‘will’ do it.
We watched the Prime Minister on the Sunday Politics show assure the public that schools were safe and would remain open, only to announce the following evening that they would close, with immediate effect, to all but a small group of children. Two days later, we listened open-mouthed as the Education Secretary used a speech to Parliament not to offer more support to schools and colleges with the huge challenges they were facing, but instead to incite parents to report them to Ofsted if they didn’t think they were doing a good enough job of remote learning.
Those of us not on the front line of dealing with all of this can only watch in awe those of you who are, and offer what support we can. The role of the ASCL Policy Team through this period – as always – has been to represent members’ views to government, and to work with them as constructively as we can. In the last edition of Leader, I set out our seven current policy priorities. Here’s what we’ve achieved so far in each of those areas.
1 Provide better public health support for leaders dealing with Covid cases
Thank you to all of you who’ve shared with us your experiences of the support – or otherwise – that you’ve been receiving on public health issues. We’ve fed all of these back – on the DfE helpline, on the constantly changing guidance, on the mass testing programme, and on concerns about the number of children and young people still eligible for places during the current lockdown – particularly in specialist and early years settings.
2 Don’t publish performance tables in 2021
We’ve been arguing for months that publishing performance tables in 2021 would be meaningless and counterproductive. We’re pleased that the government has finally agreed that performance tables in their usual form won’t be published this year. We are, however, concerned about how performance metrics may still be used by Ofsted and the DfE – particularly now we are in a second lockdown. We are in ongoing discussions about what metrics will be produced, and what caveats will be wrapped around them, to recognise the differing impact of Covid on schools and colleges.
3 Make the assessment of GCSE, A level and vocational qualifications as fair as possible
As part of the DfE’s stakeholder advisory group on 2021 exams, we have been able to share members’ views directly with the Schools Minister and Interim Chief Regulator. Back in October, we put forward a range of proposals to ensure that all students could sit exams and that they were as fair as possible. These included the introduction of greater optionality, the development of a robust back-up centre-assessment process, and generosity in the grades students were awarded.
The situation has, of course, shifted significantly since then. The new lockdown led to a last-minute, buck-passing decision to allow individual schools and colleges to decide whether or not to hold vocational and technical exams in January, and the announcement that GCSEs and A levels would be cancelled.
We are now working extremely closely with the DfE, Ofqual and the exam boards to consider how all students, whatever qualification they are taking and however much their education has been disrupted, can be awarded a fair grade, which will enable them to progress to their next stage of education, training or employment.
4 Cancel SATs in 2021
We have been making it clear for some time that we believe that SATs should be cancelled in 2021. Schools have experienced such different degrees of disruption that any attempt to use these assessments to compare schools would be meaningless and misleading.
We are pleased that the government has finally come to the same conclusion, and announced that SATs will not go ahead this year. At the time of writing, we are in detailed discussions with the DfE about whether any national alternative to SATs will be proposed, and what this means for other primary assessments.
5 Be realistic about the remote learning that schools and colleges can provide
We continue to argue that schools and colleges can be trusted to provide high- quality remote learning to pupils not on-site, and that the government’s decision to enforce this through legislation and increasingly detailed guidance is heavy-handed and unnecessary.
6 Postpone the resumption of full Ofsted inspections until at least September 2021
Back in the autumn term, we were pleased with Ofsted’s decision not to resume full inspections from January. We had argued that there should, though, be a mechanism for schools previously judged inadequate or requires improvement to demonstrate that they were on an improving trajectory. Our view was that the proposed monitoring inspections would have provided such a mechanism.
Like so many other things, this has shifted again since the announcement of the current lockdown. We are now deeply concerned about the idea of monitoring visits continuing to take place this term, with a focus on remote education, and that parents with concerns over their child’s remote learning provision have been told that they should report these concerns directly to Ofsted. We are currently in discussion with Ofsted about this.
7 Reimburse schools and colleges for additional Covid-related costs Finally, we have been continuing to ensure that both the DfE and the Treasury are aware of the huge amounts of money schools and colleges have had to spend on Covid-related costs.
The introduction of the Covid workforce fund is a step in the right direction, but is limited. We will continue to fight for schools and colleges to be properly reimbursed for the costs associated with Covid.
Julie McCulloch
ASCL Director of Policy