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ITEM CA12

CABINET – 7 MARCH 2006

Report by Director for Children, Young People & Families

Introduction

1. The Schools White Paper "Higher Standards, Better Schools for All - more choice for parents and pupils" was published by the DfES on the 25 October 2005. As a White Paper it is not a consultative document although this does not preclude views on the contents being sent to the Secretary of State. Its publication precedes the drawing up of a Bill, the timing of which is at present uncertain.
2. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the contents of the White Paper and then to focus on those proposals which indicate a change in the role of local authorities. Those proposals are primarily associated with the provision of school places in response to parental wishes; the establishment of Trust Schools; and admissions arrangements. An indication is given as to how these proposals may impact in Oxfordshire.
3. The report also provides a basis for the Cabinet to consider how to respond to the three motions relating to the White Paper (reproduced in Annex 1) which the Council on 10 January referred to the Cabinet, via the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee, to advise the Council at its 4 April meeting. A draft of this report is to be considered by the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee on 28 February and their comments will be reported to the Cabinet.
   
   (CA12 - Schools White Paper - Council motions and Bill Summary)
   

Overview

4. The White Paper sets out a description of recent educational changes with proposals for the future. Its ambitions are to be welcomed and include raising standards for all – especially amongst the least advantaged; helping parents engage with the education of their children; dealing with schools which are "coasting"; overcoming the negative effects of poor behaviour; and breaking the link between poverty and low aspiration. To this end schools should have the freedom to tailor the way they manage themselves, and the teaching and support they offer, to the needs and talents of individual pupils and their parents. A system designed around the needs of children requires the implementation of integrated services for children, families and young people.
5. To realise the ambitions of the White Paper the extensive proposals are to:

• Enable every school to become a self-governing Trust school, with the benefit of new freedoms;
• Continue to promote Academies, with at least 200 established or planned by 2010;
• Create a new Office of the Schools Commissioner to promote the development of Trust schools;
• Enable parents to demand new schools and new provision, backed by a dedicated stream of capital funding;
• Encourage existing schools to expand and form federations, establish sixth forms and make it easier for independent schools to enter the state system;
• Give the weakest schools a year to improve or face closure, with a stronger role for the local authority in tackling failure and underperformance;
• Boost the autonomy and performance of all schools with less bureaucracy, and lighter touch inspection for highly successful schools;
• Provide more personalised learning for those pupils who have fallen behind, have special talents, or who are at risk of underachievement;
• Give clear and unambiguous legal rights for headteachers and teachers to discipline pupils backed by the expectation that every school will have a clear set of rules and sanctions. Parents will be responsible for excluded pupils for the first five days and local authorities will provide full time education from the sixth. By 2007 all secondary schools will form partnerships to improve the management of behaviour and have admissions protocols for ‘hard to place’ pupils;
• Enhance the role of governing bodies. A new statutory duty will be placed on governing bodies to have regard to the views of parents. Parent Councils will be encouraged;
• Reform teachers’ professional standards which will set out what can be expected of teachers throughout their careers and make performance management "more effective";
• Place on a statutory footing the requirement that schools have regard to the local authority’s Children and Young People’s Plan. By 2008 half of primary schools and a third of secondary schools are expected to provide access to extended services, with all schools doing so by 2010. Schools are reminded that they have a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, including playing their part in multi-agency work to protect them. By 2010 all partnerships of schools will have a full time school nurse appointed by Primary Care Trusts;
• Require schools to give information on pupils’ progress to parents at least three times a year. Materials will be provided for parents to support their children’s learning at home and home school agreements will be updated and re-launched.

6. A central theme of the White Paper is that there is a determination to transform the school system into one that responds better to the needs and aspirations of parents.

"Our goal is no less than to transform our schools’ system by turning it from one focussed on the success of institutions into one which is shaped and driven by the success, needs and aspirations of parents and pupils…and the nation needs to ensure that areas of underperformance which undermine our efforts to improve social mobility are tackled vigorously".

7. The role for local authorities will be that of strategic leaders of their communities to help those communities articulate their needs and ensure that the pattern of local services matches up to their vision and aspirations. They will act as the commissioners of services and the champion of users. Local authorities will support new schools and new provision where there is a real demand or where existing provision is poor. This is a very different role from acting as direct provider of school places and the White Paper recognises that in many ways it is more challenging.
8. Local authorities will be placed under a new statutory duty to promote choice, diversity and fair access, to underpin this role as commissioner and champion of pupils and parents. Local authorities will need to plan how many schools their area needs, where and how big they need to be, what kind of schools will serve the area best, and who the schools should serve. Local authorities will draw on analysis of parental demand and their consultation with local partners to draw up a strategic plan for the pattern of schools in their area, as part of their Children and Young People’s Plan.
9. The present duty to hold a competition for providers where a new secondary school is required will be extended to cover primary schools as well. If no suitable promoter can be found, authorities may publish their own proposals for a Foundation school. School Organisation Committees are to be abolished; their powers to decide whether proposals for new schools and for major changes are accepted will be transferred to the local authority. In future all new or replacement schools will be Foundation, Trust, Voluntary Aided or where appropriate Academies. So there would be no new community schools.
10. All existing primary and secondary schools will be encouraged to become self governing and acquire a Trust, i.e. not-for-profit charitable organisations able, if they wish, to appoint a majority of governors. The governing body of an existing school will be able to create its own Trust.
11. Trust schools, like Foundation schools, will employ their own staff, control their own assets and set their own admission arrangements (subject to the Admissions Code of Practice). Trusts will be able to apply to the Secretary of State for flexibilities including curriculum flexibilities and freedoms over pay and conditions of staff. Trusts would be charities regulated by the Charity Commission, and would be under a duty to promote community cohesion and good race relations. Trust schools will be funded as other local schools, subject to the Code of Practice on admissions and to all the accountability mechanisms that apply to other state schools.
12. A new Office of the Schools Commissioner will act as a national champion for the development of Trust schools by linking authorities to Trusts and challenging authorities that fail to exercise their new duties adequately. The Commissioner will also monitor key local indicators of parental satisfaction and rising school standards, and publish an Annual Report.
13. Parents will be able to ask for a new primary or secondary school to improve standards, to meet a lack of faith provision, to tackle entrenched inequalities or to promote innovative teaching methods. Local authorities will be under a duty to be responsive to parents’ interests, deciding whether a proposal to establish a new school should be taken forward or whether the demands can be met in better ways. Parents will have the right of appeal to the Schools’ Adjudicator if their proposals are rejected. Capital funding will normally be provided through existing programmes but a dedicated capital fund will be established to support strong and innovative proposals from parents.
14. Oversubscribed schools will be encouraged to expand or enter into joint ventures or mergers. Local authorities will be expected to move quickly to close any schools that are failing to attract sufficient pupils in the event of surplus capacity arising from the creation of new schools or expansion of popular schools. Local authority powers to tackle school failure will be strengthened (including immediate closure).
15. Oxfordshire is likely to develop new secondary provision in Didcot, Bicester, Wantage/Grove and new primary schools in Banbury, Upper Heyford and Didcot. Depending on the proposals these developments may be subject to a competition. At the same time the Learning & Skills Council will have a greater role in providing new 16-19 provision and funding. Together with the White Paper this would suggest the need to work together to develop a clear strategic plan which is agreed following widespread consultation with parents in the local authority’s role as commissioner of services. This would be the measure by which all proposals, whether from local authority, school or parent, would be judged. In that sense schools cannot just do as they please. However this will not stop proposals coming forward, from popular schools or other proposals which have parental support, which contradict local authority plans. It may be difficult for such proposals to be resisted leaving the local authority to deal with additional surplus places created elsewhere. Similarly, parent or religious groups might bring a proposal forward which if successful could cause another school to close. Thus there is a requirement to have a robust planning process scrutinised by the Schools Commissioner to promote choice and diversity, but which at the same time will make school planning more difficult, particularly in urban areas.

The role of the local authority – choice and access for all

16. Local authorities will be expected to improve the information they provide parents on how to compare secondary schools. By 2008 funding will be provided to enable every local authority to have a network of choice advisers in place.
17. Authorities will be expected to consider all home-to-school and other transport as part of this new duty to support choice, diversity and fair access. Legislation will be introduced (although not costed in the White Paper) to entitle those eligible to free school meals or in receipt of the maximum level of Working Tax Credit to have free transport to any of the three suitable secondary schools closest to their home, where these schools are between two and six miles from their home. Because of geography of Oxfordshire, the full extent of these options will not be available to all parents and children. There is a risk that some of the most disadvantaged children will have less access and choice.
18. The new system will be underpinned by fair admissions in order to extend choice and open access for more parents. There will be a new Admissions Code of Practice. Foundation, Voluntary Aided and Trust schools will be free to use the approach to fair admissions that they think will best suit their local circumstances, as long as it is compatible with the Admissions Code. It will be easier to introduce banding arrangements, where appropriate, based on the local or national ability range to achieve an all-ability intake. All proposals for new schools will need to include proposed admissions arrangements, showing how these will promote community and social integration and choice.
19. Local authorities will be able to specify the community to be served by a new school and will have the power to modify proposed admissions arrangements to bring them in line with the Code of Practice. All popular and successful schools which expand will have to prove to the local authority that their admissions arrangements are in line with the Code – including that arrangements work to the benefit of all local children and families.
20. In Oxfordshire there is significant cooperation between the various admissions authorities. In 2005, 94.83% of children were offered their first preference secondary school and 97.24% for primary schools. The creation of a larger number of admissions authorities making different autonomous decisions will be confusing for parents and may work against the disadvantaged. Proposals for local authorities to monitor fair practice in the admission and appeal arrangements are welcomed.

Conclusion

21. In January, at a series of meetings with the Director for Children, Young People & Families, headteachers and governors questioned the evidence base for the proposals and many saw them as based upon an "urban model". In addition they saw a contradiction in the proposals in that, while schools were promoted as being at the heart of their communities, children were being encouraged to travel beyond their communities. Some of the central opportunities described in the White Paper are already available, but have attracted little interest; indeed given that the subsequent legislation will be largely permissive rather than prescriptive, it is quite possible that not a lot will change.
22. On 6 February the Secretary of State wrote to the chairman of the parliamentary education select committee. It is reported that the letter indicated that key parts of the school admissions code were to be made mandatory; a ban on schools interviewing prospective parents; that local authorities will be able to set up community schools; and that the assets of a Trust school will revert to the local authority in the event of a school closing.

RECOMMENDATIONS

23. The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

1. note the report; and
2. consider, in the light of the comments of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee, what advice to offer the Council on the three motions.

KEITH BARTLEY
Director for Children, Young People & Families

Background Papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Geoff Jones Tel: 01865 492062

February 2006

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