Sam Ellis bids farewell and leaves readers with some final thoughts about how to measure the benefits of education re-organisation.

Withstanding G-forces?

This will be my last column for Leader. I am retiring from ASCL and education in general on 31 August to go back to writing non-educational things and playing jazz guitar for more of the time!

Thanks to all of you who have responded to my sometimes scurrilous column. I wish you well and every success. ASCL is the best team I have known. It has been brilliant to be a member but, at a personal level, there are other things I need to do, so, sadly, it is time for me to move on.

What can I leave you with? For a start, there is a detailed, nerd-level article on the ASCL website called ‘The equation of life’ (www.ascl.org.uk/ equation of life ). This summarises my constant finance theme over the last six years and provides a detailed synthesis of all my strategic finance stuff for your use and development, should you wish to take it on. Second, there is a rather more tongue-in-cheek idea that I outline below.

I don’t know if Gaius Petronius Arbiter actually said or wrote this in 67 AD but it does not matter, it is still a great line: “We trained hard … but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be re-organised … I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, fine efficiency and demoralisation.”

As we build up to a general election and change in administration in just under a year’s time I look forward to yet another period of re-organisation. It reminds me of someone in my Friday afternoon maths groups, aka, “the Year 9 Cosa Nostra”.

Incorrigible pain

Wayne was without doubt the most persistent, recidivistic, incorrigible pain in the school. In my whole school behaviour survey he scored 186 points – the gold medal by a long chalk.

As a physicist, I called Wayne’s score 100 and scaled the rest of the school’s scores accordingly: the Normalised Wayne Unit of behaviour was born. I really did not have a great deal of sympathy when one of my staff threw a wobble about teaching David W in Year 8. After all, the survey showed he was less than 10 per cent of a Wayne.

It seems to me that Gaius Petronius Arbiter points the way to a Normalised G Unit. A political figure who creates the greatest illusion of progress while simultaneously producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation would rate at 100G. Similarly, those who vanish without trace should probably score zero.

I don’t think we should restrict eligibility to secretaries of state. Any politician who stirs the education pot should count. I leave it to you to consider broadening the membership rules to including Ofsted, Ofqual and even your local LA.

History will be the judge of where Mr Gove sits on the G scale. As Zhou Enlai is alleged to have said when asked about the impact of the French Revolution almost 200 years after it had taken place, “It is too soon to tell.”

I think we will be able to judge the full impact of Mr Gove’s tenure sooner than 2210 but, for now, where he will finally sit on the G scale is anyone’s bet.

If my inbox of the last few months is anything to judge by I suspect his G score may be quite high. A significant number of members are seriously troubled by several aspects of school funding, not least of which are the impending increase in on-cost and the lack of progress on a fairer national distribution.

Some members have realised that many problems have arisen because the academies programme was rolled out at a pace with which the Department for Education and Education Funding Agency administration could not keep up. Going too fast and not knowing how you will pay for it both earn double G points in their own right.

Hard on the heels of those concerns, the inbox has been filled to bursting by members discovering that the reality of a minimum funding guarantee is that it can actually produce a drop greater than 1.5 per cent in some circumstances.

The third set of emails rupturing the inbox concerns special needs funding or the lack of it in places where any of us would think it was required.

Ferrari sales

Again, although we are “all in it together” as evidenced by the increase in Ferrari sales and “there is no more money”, one must remember that large elements of the budget have been spent on additional provision where areas already have capacity.

Is the Secretary of State for Education shopping o the top shelf in Waitrose when he can barely afford the basket at Aldi? Again, in management terms there are high G points to be had here.

Whatever has been good or bad about the last four years, and it is too easy to look at the difficulties, the best thing members can do is to work together as ASCL in the spirit of a quote from my colleague, Sue Kirkham: “A student’s curriculum and qualifications are for life not just for the period of office of a Secretary of State.”

I think that is true no matter what G score the politicians achieve.

Is the Secretary of State for Education shopping off the top shelf in Waitrose when he can barely afford the basket at Aldi?

Sam Ellis is ASCL Funding Specialist.

Designed with IMPACT

© 2024 Association of School and College Leaders | Valid XHTML | Contact us