The Schools Blog

The allegation that some schools are not obeying the admissions rules leads to the question: how did this happen?

It seems to me there are three possible reasons as to how such a situation could have arisen.

First, it is possible that someone at the very top of the school deliberately took the decision to bend the rules, perhaps on the basis that “they don’t apply to us” or perhaps because there was the belief that everyone else was doing it, or simply that no one would notice.

But there is also the possibilty that the breaking of the rules happened by accident - perhaps because everyone thought that someone else was checking what the rules actually said.  Or maybe because the person delegated with the task of being the compliance officer didn’t get a good enough briefing, and worked on a set of assumptions.

Finally there is the possibility that someone lower down the school just went off on his/her own, changing a note to parents without even thinking that there might be a government rule stating that this should not be done.

My interest for many years has been in the way in which organisations of all types work - and the way in which they ensure that overall they comply with the regulations (from admissions to VAT).   The problem that we have seen with the regulations over admission can equally be replicated with a failure to obey health and safety regulations, environmental regulations, and a dozen other regulations that the school is subject to.

The best solution that I see is one in which those who work in the school’s administration become involved in compliance.  Of course this can raise the administrators’ status quite considerably, taking them away from simply sorting out specific issues, to having a wider perspective - and that can be quite a cultural shock for those who are used to seeing admin staff as being merely there to check the registers, collect the dinner money, and welcome visitors.

But if the compliance tasks are not given to administrators, they are given to teachers - and that means that people who are already overloaded become even more overloaded.  And in those circumstnaces compliance simply doesn’t work not least because the act of preparing and teaching lessons is so different from the act of being a compliance officer.

My interest in this topic has led to an invovlement in the School of Educational Administration, which runs courses that are designed to explore the ways in which administrators can make a greater contribution to the overall work of the school - and if you have any interest in the way your school ensures that it is compliant with the regulations, you might like to consider how the SEA works with administrators.  

The next course they are running is the “Work Management and
Administration Course” - a two month programme that has an intake which closes on 31 March.  The one year distance learning “Certificate in Educational Admininsration” course closes its next intake on May 6. 

There are details of the courses on www.admin.org.uk and a prospectus can be obtrained by emailing prospectus@admin.org.uk

Tony Attwood

 The Secretary of State for Education has announced a new Masters qualification: the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL), and further steps to strengthen Diplomas and raise school standards.

Now I’ve no problem with that - except that the group of people who really deserve the option to take further courses and qualifications are school administrators.   At the moment, while teachers have a whole raft of qualifications available to them, there is but one major programme for admin staff - the National Certificate in Educational Administration.  

Plans are afoot to launch a diploma course which follows on from the Cert Ed Admin, but it is some way from completion.

While administrators have just their one course, the secretary of state has recently launched.

• new Extended Diplomas to enrich options for young people and make the new qualifications even stronger;

• an extension of the National Leaders of Education scheme, where strong Heads help other schools, from 120 today to 500 in the next five years;

• a new Transition to Teaching programme backed by top businesses which could recruit hundreds of extra teachers a year with valuable science, technology and engineering experience gained from industry.

• A new Masters qualification specially designed for teachers – the Masters in Teaching and Learning which will roll out the programme mainly to teachers in the first five years of their careers to build on their initial teacher training and induction.

• More experienced teachers will be trained and act as in-school coaches to teachers on the programme.

What is even more of a slap in the face is the fact that the administrators QCA recognised programme is not automatically funded by the TDA, whereas the new courses will be.

The Cert Ed Admin course, which is validated by the Institute of Administrative Management and recognised by the Council for Administration, focusses to a large degree on efficiency in schools, and is indeed the only course that brings the notion of efficiency into education.   There’s details on www.admin.org.uk

The SEA which runs the course for administrators is planning to protest to the government about the way administrators are ignored each time such announcements are made.

Children behave better and are more independent if they live in areas with Sure Start Children’s Centres, according to an evaluation report.

Other findings show that parents have more positive parenting skills and provide a better home learning environment for their children, helping prepare children to do well at school and make the most of their talents.

Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) were set up between 1999 and 2003 in the most disadvantaged areas of the country. From 2003 onwards the Government began to introduce a universal programme of Sure Start Children’s Centres, and by 2006 all SSLPs became children’s centres.

There are now nearly 2,500 centres open, with almost two million families now benefiting from the range of services on offer. The core offer includes early learning and childcare, parenting advice, health services and help finding work or training. The Government is committed to having 3,500 children’s centres by 2010, one for every community, so that every child and family can benefit from the services on offer through Sure Start Children’s Centres.

The National Evaluation of Sure Start is based at the Institute for the Study of Children, Families & Social Issues, Birkbeck, University of London.

The evaluation shows that the positive impacts of Sure Start extended across all population sub groups including workless households, lone parent and teenage parent families. This is a significant improvement on the previous 2005 interim NESS report which found evidence of varied experiences for different groups.

The positive results are encouraging, given that other research shows that young children whose social development is enhanced, and whose family life is more nurturing and stimulating, perform better socially and academically as they grow up.

The new initiatives announced are: the BME guidance, a national network for centre leaders, a brochure of children’s centre services and a communications toolkit for children’s centres.

Funding for the additional two outreach workers at each centre in the 1500 most disadvantaged areas was announced last year as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement. The review of practice on outreach work and funding to allow 5,000 practitioners to take up new training opportunities were included in the Children’s Plan, launched in December 2007.

NESS Impact Study followed up over 9,000 three year olds and their families in 150 SSLP areas who were initially studied when the children were nine months old in the first stage of the Study. This fieldwork was undertaken between April 2005 and July 2007. The data collected from these children and families have been compared with data from the three year olds who participated in the Millennium Cohort Study (between September 2003 and April 2005) who resided in similar areas not receiving SSLPs in order to evaluate the effects of SSLPs on child and family functioning.

The research found there were positive benefits associated with living in areas served by SSLPs for three year old and their families.

Children in SSLP areas:

• Exhibited more positive social behaviour
• Exhibited greater independence / self-regulation
• They were also more likely to have received the recommended immunisations and less likely to have had an accidental injury in the year preceding assessment but these two outcomes may be due to factors other than Sure Start.

Parents residing in SSLP areas:

• Provided their children with a better home learning environment
• Exhibited less negative parenting
• Reported greater use of support services

The SSLP effects for positive social behaviour appeared to be a consequence of the SSLP benefits upon parenting.

The report discusses the evaluation methodology and in particular methodological differences between this NESS report and the earlier, 2005 interim report. The evaluation cannot entirely rule out that variations in methodology may explain some of the differences seen between the latest results and the earlier findings. The authors point out, however, that the 3 year olds participating in the latest study have been exposed to more mature and better developed local programmes throughout their early lives and that this is reflected in the positive findings. In particular, the government acted on previous evidence and placed a much clearer focus on providing high quality services, focused on improving outcomes for children.

It can be downloaded at: http://www.surestart.gov.uk/events/newsevents/whatsnew/index.cfm?news=322
and http://www.surestart.gov.uk/research/evaluations/ness/nesspublications/

There is a manifesto commitment that by 2010 there will be 3,500 Sure Start Children’s Centres, one for every community, so every child and every family can benefit from the services on offer through centres.

Lists of Sure Start Programmes are available from Hamilton House Mailings (01536 399 000)

Surveys from supermarkets are not normally the stuff of educational research, but a piece by Tesco’s under its Tesco’s Computers for Schools brand seems to raise a few interesting points - and it did record results from over 1000 pupils and students aged between 7 and 16.It says that girls are now better at some areas of computing than boys.  They suggest that girls are more likely to know how to create a word document, put a profile on a social network site or a video on YouTube.  While only 10% of boys said they were not confident with computers, the figure for the girls was 6%.  Not a huge difference - but remarkable considering where we have come from.  But as we move on we find 35% of boys can create a social networking page while 44% of girls could.   Girls are also better at handling downloads, handling photos (although 71% of all the pupils questioned could download a photo) and using google.