What issues do you believe the new Secretary of State for Education should make a priority? Here ASCL members have their say…

Ministerial priorities

Mental health 

Sort out the mental health crisis. It is extremely difficult for schools dealing with the ever-increasing serious nature of mental health issues surrounding young people. Today, my colleague sat down in my office to say that a 14 year-old, who had taken an overdose over the summer and been referred to children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), had in fact been referred back to the school. Mum said they would be in touch (which they haven’t been) and that CAMHS had said the school would provide ongoing counselling. Our counsellor is in hospital with Covid, so we have no counsellor, which CAMHs failed to check before referring back a seriously unwell adolescent to the school. 

While we can provide training to deal with pastoral issues, they continue to be of a much more serious nature that, as educationalists, we are not equipped or trained to deal with. We are not trained psychiatrists or mental health experts, the level of which is needed to deal with the complications we are seeing. Amid all of this, we are trying to focus on giving students the best education we can while still dealing with the pandemic. 

The situation is dire, and we will end up with teachers leaving the profession as they simply cannot take on the high-level support that so many students need now.
(Name and details supplied) 

No pressure 

My priority for the new SoS is not to prioritise the pressure for local authority schools or standalone academies to join a MAT. The time is not right, and the track record at a regional level is patchy at best, and certainly insufficiently compelling to suggest that this is the way forward. The best leaders are those who understand that doing nothing is sometimes the best option.
(Name and details supplied)

Do the right thing 

You have the opportunity to reverse the divisive and deeply destructive policy legacies of previous Secretaries of State. The good news is it won’t cost you a penny. 

1. Reverse the scorched earth policy of defunding reformed, robust, and popular Applied General qualifications/BTECs. This will show you care about student choice and social mobility. 
2. Unshackle schools from English Baccalaureate (EBacc) targets, allowing students to pursue a broader and more balanced curriculum that reflects a wider range of subjects and a more diverse set of futures. Doing the right thing for a student should never contribute to the failure of a government target. 
3. By the stroke of a pen, consign the concept of a “pass and strong pass” to the scrapheap of history. Remove the label of failure from all those students who worked hard to achieve a grade 1, 2 or 3 in their GCSE subjects. #ForgottenThird 

Richard Atterton
Chair of ASCL LGBT+ Leaders’ Network and ASCL DASH (Deputy and Assistant Head) Representative 

Kitchen sink 

Please, please, please, reinstate the guidance on Covid restrictions to allow us to reduce cases and keep children in school. Things have been a bit crazy out here on the frontline and we can’t do our job if there are no children to teach. While you’re about it, could you throw the kitchen sink at the vaccination programme for teenagers because it’s going to be a very long winter for schools otherwise. 

In your spare time, we’re relying on you to make the case for education funding to the treasury because we believed Mr Johnson when he said we needed a high wage economy, even though we’ve had a pay cut. I am sure there must have been some mistake. The early pandemic bulge in teacher training applications is great but we can’t make them school leaders instantly and there’s rather a lot of the oldies who are hanging up their mortar boards.
(Name and details supplied)

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