News

Education is receiving a makeover of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen proportions. Never mind simply giving the woodchip a new lick of paint - the government is getting rid of primary and secondary schools as we know them. Moving in are extended, specialist, and foundation schools and a new range of "academies".

The five-year education strategy, published in July,¹ is certainly ambitious (see box). But when you strip off a few layers some startling conclusions start to emerge.

The first, and most glaringly obvious, is that the government's approach to schools is heading off on a different tangent from the rest of the children's agenda. Ever since Victoria Climbie, all agencies involved with children - including health, social services and education - have been told to co-operate better and share information.


Yet, while the education strategy rightly points out that "children's services and education have been too compartmentalisedÉ services have not been joined up", the five-year strategy seems to do little to remedy the situation. Observers argue that the plans for education risk undermining the progress already made in reforming other children's services.

The Children Bill places a duty on a wide range of agencies - including social services, health, prisons, and youth offending teams - to co-operate to promote children's well-being. Yet bizarrely, schools are excluded - and the strategy does nothing to address this. The rationale is that this area is covered under section 175 of the Education Act 2002. But although the act contains a duty to promote children's well-being, it imposes no duty to co-operate with other agencies in doing so.

Lisa Watch, project officer at the Local Government Association (LGA), says the government's lack of consistency is "quite stunning". She says that even before the strategy came out, the LGA was "already concerned about the Children Bill and the lack of requirements placed on schools". She argues that schools - where most children spend most of their time - are crucial and that not explicitly including them is a huge mistake. "As far as we are concerned it's a really important gap. You can't guarantee that children's services will be any better integrated if schools are left out."

She says that the government expects schools to co-operate but it suggests that it's not appropriate to put a legal duty on them. "Government believes that local education authorities should issue tailored guidance. But you can't ensure that schools follow that guidance, particularly in light of a strategy which gives schools greater autonomy and independence from the local education authority. The expectation that the LEA has any levers is just out of the window," she adds.

One of the key planks of the strategy is to give individual schools more independence. Indeed it says schools will have "an unprecedented amount of control and certainty". While this will, of course, be greeted with enthusiasm by the schools themselves, it is not going down so well with other children's services.

The LGA says that the new three-year budgets for schools would, by removing LEAs responsibility for admissions policies and weakening the connection between schools and other local services, threaten the development of seamless children's services and dilute local democracy.

Alison King, chair of the children and young people's board at the LGA, says, "A major opportunity to create truly integrated services for children across all boundaries is in danger of being lost if things go ahead as planned. It is not easy to see how integrated children's services can proceed without the sort of encouragement that local authorities can certainly bring to bear in schools."

King cannot see how the suggestions for children's centres, extended schools, and foundation schools - all integral parts of the Children Bill - can be achieved if schools are allowed greater freedom. "It's as though two different people have been working on two projects [integrated children's services and the education strategy], creating parallel universes."

Joined-up working, so exalted by the government, is a reasonable request, she adds, "but it's difficult to do when coping with a government which seems to be such a stranger to it."


However, Paul Roberts, strategic adviser for education and children's services at the Improvement and Development Agency, believes that as well as potential tensions between the strategy and the Children Bill, there is also some congruence. "The strategy portrays a local authority role about advocacy for children, carers and communities. That's also an important role in the context of the Children Bill."

But there's a potential tension between the Children Bill and the strategy unless the council has sufficient leverage on some specific areas, Roberts says. "To ensure there's equity within the system it's vital that schools with increasing autonomy vigorously apply admissions and exclusion arrangements that are fair for all." With the proposal to allow successful schools to expand, planning and provision of places must be transparent, he adds.

According to the strategy, extended schools, both primary and secondary, "will increasingly act as hubs for community services, including children's services". But many are sceptical. Watch says: "There is nothing in the strategy which would encourage schools to want to look at the broader role it could play in the community, on the lines of extended schools. This goes against everything in Every Child Matters and the thrust of the Children Bill, so doesn't really fit in with the government's plans for children's services."

Pam Hibbert, principal policy officer at children's charity Barnardo's, agrees. On the one hand there is the extended-school philosophy that focuses on community-based services, working together with more than just education, while on the other the education strategy gives schools wider powers to select and exclude pupils, she says.

Why would a school choose "extended" status if it could have foundation status instead, allowing it to own the building and land, employ staff directly, forge partnerships with charities and others, and administer its own admission policies?

"With foundation schools, again we are into increasing separation between good schools that are able to be selective, and those that have no option and end up becoming extended schools. That seems to us quite wrong," says Hibbert.

"Clearly, the schools that will become more independent and chose to opt out will be in catchment areas of relative affluence. It's almost like education is moving into a market economy rather than being a universal right," she adds.

However, Barnardo's has some reservations about extended schools too, in terms of why the policy should apply only to some schools. "All schools should be able to respond in a holistic way to children's needs, and not just be about academic achievement, says Hibbert.

"The driving force behind education policy, despite the holistic approach of extended schools, continues to be academic achievement. If all schools are measured only on academic attainment and extended schools are doing good holistic work but not getting those academic results, they will be seen as failing unless we look at how else we measure school achievement," she adds

All in all, just like a room designed by Llewelyn-Bowen, the education strategy's clash of conflicting ideas and themes somehow doesn't quite work.

¹ Department for Education and Skills, Five year Strategy for Children and Learners, DfES, 2004