With the appearance of a Curriculum Review and Education Bill already in 2011, ASCL Council had a packed agenda in February. Not surprisingly, pensions, funding and the English Bac were high on the agenda.

The challenges ahead

Education Bill

Public and Parliamentary Committee
The committee heard that ASCL met with the bill team multiple times prior to publication. Several of ASCL’s concerns were addressed, such as powers to search mobile phones and changes to exclusion proposals.

The committee welcomed many aspects of the bill. The clauses on behaviour give the right message about schools’ power to keep order. The provisions on reporting restrictions on allegations are welcome and ASCL will push for them to be extended to colleges and support staff. Removing various statutory duties on schools and the right of parents to complain to the LGO are welcome.

Council agreed that the proposed statutory requirement in the bill on governing body composition should be extended from the headteacher and parent governors to include staff governors.

The committee opposed the abolition of the School Support Staff Negotiation Body (SSSNB) and felt strongly that an entity responsible for the national pay and conditions framework for school support staff is essential.

The committee agreed that the clause on career service should be altered to a simplified, single duty to secure access to independent, impartial careers guidance for all pupils aged 13-18 (rather than to 16). There is concern about the demise of Connexions and the lack of progress and detail in developing the all-ages career service. How it will be funded is also unclear. ASCL is asking for an amendment which would give parity between those holding QTS and QTLS so that teachers can move between schools and colleges.

There is a concern about the volume of powers that are shifting directly to the secretary of state, with the demise of arm’s length bodies and creation of executive agencies.

Pensions

Pay and Conditions Committee
ASCL is involved in a joint campaign with all the teacher unions to safeguard teachers’ pensions. We are also lobbying directly with the Hutton Commission and the Treasury to protect the teachers’ and the local government schemes. Pensions specialist David Binnie attended a one-day consultation meeting with the Hutton Commission.

Council passed the following resolution: “ASCL believes that public sector pensions are an integral part of the overall remuneration package for teachers and school support staff. Pension scheme benefits should reflect the contributions of members.

“ASCL recognises that employees should contribute at a level which is fair but any assessment of ‘fair’ must be based on an actuarial valuation of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and a review of the local government schemes. ASCL believes that it is wholly wrong for the government to use pension funds for other purposes and to increase contributions to generate savings for the Treasury.”

Curriculum Review

Educational Committee
Following discussion on ASCL’s response to the Curriculum Review, the committee agreed the follow position statement: "ASCL believes that young people are best served by a National Curriculum which is broad and balanced and which contains both a core body of knowledge and key employment and life skills."

"The National Curriculum should provide an equal opportunity for all pupils to develop an understanding of our shared culture and to be fully equipped to contribute productively to the economy and society throughout their lives."

"The curriculum content must be concise enough to allow teachers the time, freedom and flexibility to teach the core body of knowledge and skills in a way that is relevant, engaging and meets the needs of individual pupils."

"The aims of the current revised National Curriculum encompass all of these points and therefore ASCL believes there is a strong argument for retaining them. ASCL believes that the current National Curriculum broadly satisfies the needs of schools and society."

These points were reiterated in the plenary debate that followed. The committee wants to retain the same compulsory subjects at Key Stage 3 but at Key Stage 4 only English, maths, science and PE should be compulsory.

Funding formula

Funding Committee
The committee reaffirmed its support for a national funding formula, provided that it is properly modelled and, most importantly, includes appropriate, sufficient transitional arrangements. It should allow for some local discretion and moderation, ideally by groups of schools, rather than local authorities. This could encourage schools to continue to work together.

For 16-18 funding, the committee would prefer to retain the current formula as it is demand-led and allows funding at equal levels across institutions. However, if change is imminent as the government has indicated, a weighted FTE formula could be workable although it will not be as fair. ASCL will continue to work for equity across the system.

Performance indicators

Professional Committee
The committee discussed equivalencies and is in favour of retaining level 2 equivalents within threshold GCSE indicators, while recognising the importance of weighting.

A range of indicators is desirable, with a preference for non-threshold indicators. ASCL is advocating a best of eight average point score.

If the focus is shifting to individual pupil progress, as the secretary of state wants, the committee felt that ASCL should press for measures to include sub-levels of progress.

Teaching schools

Plenary Debate
Council debated the proposals for teaching schools put forward at the presentation by the National College at the previous evening’s forum session. The majority felt that:

• The scheme depends on partnership working. This is right as clustering is the future for CPD.
• Criteria that schools must be ‘outstanding’ is an issue. Outstanding schools may not have best CPD leadership.
• Effective geographical coverage is important.
• The aims are not yet fully defined. There is concern that the scheme is being rushed.
  

Curriculum Review

Plenary Debate
The summary of points made in the debate included:

• National Curriculum is only one part of a total range of strategies needed to improve the system – teacher quality, inspection, assessment etc.
• 2007 secondary curriculum is sufficiently flexible to meet needs.
• There was some support for statutory languages at KS2.
• Strong opposition to the use of performance tables as means of forcing a particular curriculum.
• Performance tables are distorting the importance of science.
• Keep the key stage model rather than defining a ‘year by year’ curriculum.
• International comparisons are useful but ambiguous.
• Needs of SEN students must be taken into account.
• NC should apply to all schools or none.
• Need to refer to Select Committee report on behaviour and impact of curriculum.

Free Schools

Plenary Debate
There was broad support for the proposed position statement: “ASCL represents many leaders in a wide variety of schools and colleges, and is deeply concerned that all pupils can access an equitable share of the educational resources available. We acknowledge the growing diversity of educational provision within the 11-16 and post-16 sectors, and in this context we strongly advocate:

• fairness and equity in terms of the requirements placed upon all types of schools (eg The National Curriculum should apply to all or none)
• fairness and equity in terms of funding arrangements, with equal access to grants and other funding sources, for the benefit of all pupils
• a coordinated strategic overview of the provision of school places, in order to ensure value for money
• fairness and equity in terms of access to capital expenditure”

Other points were as follows:

• There must be fairness and equity in funding arrangements. Free schools should not have financial incentives.
• All schools should meet the same minimum standards.
• Accountability measure must be equal as well.
• The government should honour its original intent of using free schools to raise standards in disadvantaged areas.


• The next Council meeting will be held on 9-10 June in Sheffield.

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Council is ASCL’s policy making body. It meets four times a year, on a Thursday and Friday, at a venue around the country. It is made up of about 70 elected regional and national representatives, plus some co-opted members and representatives from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. ASCL officers and staff also attend. Council includes plenary sessions with debates, and reports from the five main committees, which meet on Thursday afternoon. To find out more visit www.ascl.org.uk/council

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