In his inaugural Leader column, ASCL president John Fairhurst outlines his vision for the next year.

Thoughtful times

It is a great honour to be elected as your national president for the forthcoming academic year. And what a year! The coalition government was obviously keen to make a quick start with the Academies Act and thereby fulfil aspects of the education pledges it made during the election.

As the dust settles, they will be taking a deeper and longer look at the whole of the education service. It is obviously essential that we, as senior professionals, have both the trust of ministers and a clear line of communication to ensure our voice is heard and taken into account.

At school, I often felt it was better to put good practice into policy rather than the other way round. That is a more bottom up approach than the top down instructions that so characterised the former DCSF.

It follows that I welcome the DfE’s promises of new freedoms and a higher level of trust. If the levers of central control are throttled back, the system can move more readily and effectively as individual institutions respond to local priorities. That has to be a good thing.

But, of course, the politicians have their own agenda, pressures and perception of the public need, which are not necessarily ours. The squeeze on education funding – and already on our pay and pension entitlements – is the most obvious case in point.

For all the talk of freedom, it does worry me that there appears to be an unapologetically traditional view at the head at the DfE, on the nature of a good curriculum and the manner of assessment. This could put at risk the progress we have made in the last few years in promoting more practical skill-related learning and lead us back to an over-emphasis upon the wholly academic.

ASCL has long advocated a general diploma which could tie together various strands of learning however they are accredited. If the government is going to de-restrict further, and thereby allow a plethora of qualifications in the 14-19 sector, the need for coherent, overarching accreditation becomes overwhelming and could be the glue that binds academic and vocational pathways together.

Of course, there are many other issues that will emerge – probably quite quickly after the summer break and the conclusion of the spending review. We need to think out carefully our own positions and priorities. Most importantly we want to be sure our education system is serving all our young people and preparing them for the fast-changing world of the 21st century.

My theme for my ASCL presidential year is Thinking leaders…thinking learners. Thinking leaders (that’s us), because we need to be clear about how will will warrant the trust and freedoms that (hopefully) await us. And then thinking learners (the young people, of course), partly because their interests should always be at the forefront of our minds but mostly because they, too, need to be equipped with the facility to deal with whatever challenges and beguiling temptations await them in their adult lives.

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