Tag: school governors

Like it or not, schools are being converted into academies – that’s anti-democratic

Jacqueline Baxter, The Open University

As children head back to class this week, another school will be opening its doors for the autumn term as an academy – in spite of opposition from parents and the community. From early September the Hewett School, a secondary school in Norwich, will form part of The Inspiration Trust, a not-for-profit charity which runs a chain of academies. In yet another blow for democratic governance the school is the latest in a long line to be converted against the wishes of many of its parents and the governing body, raising renewed questions about the democratic governance of the English education system.

As in the case of a number of other schools graded inadequate and subsequently turned into academies, it is only a short time ago that the Hewett School was judged to be “good” by schools inspectorate Ofsted. In May 2013 it received a “good” report in all areas – an improvement on its previous grade of satisfactory – with teaching graded as good and sometimes outstanding. But in November 2014 the school was placed in special measures after a follow up Ofsted inspection.

A monitoring visit paid to the school in February 2015 showed that although there were still outstanding issues, progress was being made. A follow up visit in May 2015 confirmed that the school was making reasonable progress towards the removal of special measures. But in March 2015 the Department of Education (DfE) had already informed the school that it was to constitute the governing body as an Interim Executive Board (IEB) and that it was possible that the school would become an academy. The final decision, that the school would be academised and taken over by The Inspiration Trust, was made in August 2015.

Of the parents that participated in the consultation, 4:1 were against it. In some cases respondents to the questionnaire accepted conversion to academy but questioned the process, the lack of choice of sponsor and a failure to communicate effectively why such a decision had been made.

A pervasive sense of dissatisfaction with the choice of sponsor was a key reason why many were so against it being turned into an academy. The reasons given for this in the consultation were: “perception of the ethos of schools in the trust, political links of the trustees, the governance arrangements of the trust and lack of accountability.”

The Inspiration Trust has been linked to controversy. The trust, headed by Dame Rachel de Souza, ran one of three schools that were the subject of an investigation by Ofsted following allegations in 2014 that they had received prior notification of inspection dates due to De Souza’s position as both a “superhead” of the three schools and as a part-time school inspector. This raised questions about the detrimental effects of employing practising headteachers as inspectors. In January 2015, the schools were cleared of wrongdoing by an independent review of Ofsted’s original investigation.

Convert or close

The government’s academisation project took another leap forward earlier this year when the education secretary, Nicky Morgan, announced her intention to address the problem of “coasting schools”. The government plans to convert these schools – who fail to ensure that 60% of pupils gain five A* to C grades and don’t have a “credible” improvement plan – to academy status. This is in spite of the fact that to date there is no convincing evidence that the current system of academies improve performance.

Morgan and Cameron continue the academy drive.
Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

As the education and adoption bill – the legislation seeking to implement Morgan’s proposals – makes its way through parliament after the summer recess, the outlook for coasting schools that resist conversion looks decidedly bleak.

Resistance against “forced” conversion is not a new phenomenon. The Anti Academies Alliance contains a catalogue of conversions of local authority-run schools into academies that were bitterly opposed by governors and parents. Many within education and outside of it are opposed to the highly politicised nature of conversions and the lack of evidence that these conversions are in the best interests of the students.

Holding school commissioners to account

Tensions surrounding the whole area of forced academisation are also reflected in the new system of local accountability, set up by the government in response to the public and political outcry surrounding the so-called “Trojan Horse” affair in 2014, and fears over an Islamic extremism agenda in Birmingham schools. The affair exposed the dearth of local accountability that prevails in many regions of England, caused by an erosion in funding and consisted media attacks undermining public trust in local education authorities.

Under the new system, eight regional school commissioners (RSCs), appointed by the DfE are advised by a headteachers board made up of four elected academy heads and “experienced professional leaders” to provide sector expertise and “local knowledge”.

The scheme immediately provoked questions following the announcement that one of the key performance measures for RSCs was the number of academy conversions they had each achieved within a given period. Although this may yet be reversed, the whole area of school commissioners, how they are held to account and how they manage the vast areas that fall within their remit, is still not clear.

The relationship between regional commissioners and headteacher boards is also fairly vague and is contained in a single line on the DfE website which states that:

Each RSC gets support from a headteachers board (HTB). HTBs are made up of experienced academy headteachers who advise and challenge RSCs on the decisions they make.

What is not clear is what power headteacher boards have to veto any decisions made by a regional commissioner.

The whole system of accountability in education is worrying to say the least. It is far from clear how the current arrangements are fit to ensure that those in leadership positions are abiding by the seven principles of public life: that they are acting in the public interest with integrity, objectivity, openness and that in their leadership roles they are acting in accordance with these principles.

Parliament’s education select committee is now starting a inquiry into how RSCs will be held to account, and will also explore their relationship to Ofsted, individual schools and local communities. It is hoped that MPs’ findings will do something to provide clarity in the increasingly muddy and obfuscating system of educational accountability in England today.

The Conversation

Jacqueline Baxter is Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at The Open University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Power to Govern? Pressures, powers and regulation of English school governing bodies in a changing educational landscape

The Power to Govern? Pressures, powers and regulation of English school governing bodies in a changing educational landscape

One of the papers that I shall be presenting at the forthcoming ECER Conference in Istanbul in two weeks time, is about school governors and the ways in which they are regulated : The Power to Govern? Pressures, powers and regulation of English school governing bodies in a changing educational landscape. The paper, to be given as part of a symposium  contribution ID: “755”, “Governing By Inspection: School Inspecting As Brokering and Mediating Work”, focuses on the confusion surrounding the role of school governing bodies, and how this is articulated in terms of their regulation. There’s a great deal of research that reflects on the ways in which the role of these volunteers has changed and evolved; moving from the very earliest forms of educational governance as stewardship, to a more democratic function, provoked largely by John Major’s Citizen’s Charter and the need to involve more parents in education. The move towards a skill based ideal of school governors was largely prompted by The 1988 Education Reform Act; an act which provoked the consumerisation of education (Chitty, 2004) and a far greater emphasis on inter school competition, guided by the principles of market forces and a focus on the parent as consumer.

But since then the role of the school governor has really gained pace: an increase in the number of academies; rising from just 202 in 2010 to 3049 in 2013 according to The Guardian Datablog; combined with a reduction in education support functions of the Local Education Authorities, has placed inordinate pressures on governing bodies. These are compounded by a ‘far tougher’ regulatory regime: The 2012 Ofsted Inspection Framework, which for the first time, integrates governor performance into a single judgement on leadership and management.

But, as our research has shown , there is a great deal of confusion not only around what constitutes good school governance, but also the way in which this important volunteer body is to be regulated in the new education landscape in England.  The recent enquiry into the role of school governing bodies (Parliament, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c), produced no less than three volumes of evidence debating the issues; and left little doubt that educational governance has not only reached a watershed, but as Prof James and colleagues described ;may well be reaching its ‘perfect storm’ (James, Brammer, Connolly, Spicer, James, & Jones, 2013).  Even the term ‘school governor’ appears to be causing tensions, with some governors referring to themselves as ‘executive board members’, and others ‘parent reps’, reflecting what they feel is a democratic representative role which lacks decision making or financial powers (Baxter & Wise, 2013).

Perception has been shown to be powerful in regulatory terms, reflecting themes which emerge from organisational  literature. But if perceptions of governor roles are outdated, particularly if they hearken back to a governor who as HMCI recently put it spends”Too much time spent looking at the quality of school lunches and not enough on maths and English,”(Wilshaw, 2013); however stringent the regulatory framework, it will struggle to function as an effective tool by which to govern education. But while both governors and regulators struggle with a role which has morphed with the times and now often represents the only interface between schools and government, it is not enough to purely analyse the system in regulatory terms. As one witness during the enquiry articulated:

Does that work, when you have a governor who is unpaid and a head in London on £190,000 standing beside you, so there you are, working every hour God gives to support the school, and the person beside you is on £190,000 a year. (Parliament, 2013b:Q35)

Studies into third sector governance have recognised that in order to evaluate efficiency of boards and ensure that volunteers are retained in their governing capacity;  it is important to focus on skills and capacities which fall outside of the skill based approach which seems currently to be dominating discussions on school governing in England (Balduck, Van Rossem, & Buelens, 2010) .These capacities, such as the ability to think strategically, to innovate and to ask questions that provoke action and not stultifying compliance, may well be possessed by those from a business or professional background: on the other hand, possibly not. More to the point; it is a very tall order to ask inspectors to measure and assess these  capabilities over the course of a two day inspection. It may be argued that the proof lies in the success or failure of the school. But this implies that schools must be failing before action is taken and negates any developmental possibilities that inspection may engender.

http://open.academia.edu/jacquelineBaxer: The power to govern? Pressures, powers and regulation of English School governing bodies in a changing education landscape.

Balduck, A.-L., Van Rossem, A., & Buelens, M. (2010). Identifying competencies of volunteer board members of community sports clubs. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 39(2), 213-235.

Baxter, J., & Wise, C. (2013). Federation governing: translation or transformation ? Management in Education: special issue Governing and Governance 27(3), 106-111.

Chitty, C. (2004). Education Policy in Britain. . London: Palgrave Macmillan. .

James, C., Brammer, S., Connolly, M., Spicer, D. E., James, J., & Jones, J. (2013). The challenges facing school governing bodies in England A ‘perfect storm’? Management in Education, 27(3), 84-90.

Parliament. (2013a). The Role of School Governing Bodies: Second Report of Session 2013-14 Volume 111 ` (Vol. III). London: HMSO.

Parliament. (2013b). The Role of School Governing Bodies: Second Report of Session 2013 -14 Volume II (Vol. II). London: The House of Commons.

Parliament. (2013c). The role of school governing bodies:Second Report of Session 2013-14 Volume 1 (Vol. Volume 1). London: The House of Commons Education Committee.

Wilshaw, M. (2013). The School Data Dashboard London: Ofsted

%d bloggers like this: