Tonight: RSA Edge Lecture – Diversity of Provision
Another Edge sponsored lecture will be held at the RSA this evening, this time asking questions about whether the UK needs different types of school to deliver to different types of children. Expect faith schools, special needs schools, academies and specialist schools to come under the spotlight…
Geoff Mulgan, Director of the Young Foundation is speaking, with Anders Hutin of Kunskapsskolan International as respondent, and the BBC’s Kim Catcheside as chair.
Is RSA wrong about Academies…
Matthew Taylor, our chief executive went head to head on the topic of Academies last week with Fiona Millar in a debate chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby.
It’s out tonight on TeachersTV at 9pm. If you’ve missed it on TV it will be available to view at your convenience from their web site – http://www.teachers.tv/video/25169
Let us know what you think of the discussion,
Ian
Shock admissions
There has been a widespread expression of shock at the grave breaches of admissions rules committed by schools in Manchester, Barnet and Northamptonshire. A ‘large minority’ of schools in these areas have been asking banned questions about parental income and marital status, and some have been charging parents fees to secure places, at times for hundreds of pounds per term.
The outrage expressed at yesterday’s revelations goes beyond that prompted by schools breaking the rules – it is an attack on the covert, or not so covert, selection procedures employed by some schools that threaten to favour the advantaged and accentuate social divides. Never mind that until last February the rules preventing voluntary aided and foundation schools from using such means to select their intake did not exist – there has been a policy shift towards fairness in selection procedures and there seems to have been a shift in expectations to match.
However, this particular admissions controversy comes only two weeks after a similar storm over the number of parents who did not get the first choice of school for their children (see the recent post ‘A festival for journos, an unhelpful distraction for everyone else’, February 26, 2008).
The twin expectations implied by these outcries: that parents should be able to exercise choice over which school their child attends, and that schools and parents must submit to ‘fair’ selection procedures do not sit easily together. Choice inevitably leads to competition for the best schools, and competition tends to mean that someone is going to lose out. The practice of throwing one’s hands up in horror over any given admissions story fails to help parents, students and schools understand this very real dilemma.
If you are interested hearing more about these issues and want to have your say, the RSA will host a lecture in partnership with Edge on 31st March on Diversity of Provision in Education. For more details see http://www.rsa.org.uk/events/detail.asp?eventID=2498
Call me guv’nor…
I’ve been given the opportunity to become a school governor. Volunteering via SGOSS is a slightly odd, relentlessly upbeat process where it’s unclear who is really adopting who. Have I just taken a largish infants school on the edge of a big North London housing estate under my wing (unlikely), or have they agreed to mentor a slightly hapless wonk for a few hours each term in addition to their many pastoral duties in my community (more probable)?
Asides having only escaped the school system a few years ago myself, and being the daughter of two teachers, I’ve no real map to follow. I thought I should ask you all for some advice for when I go and visit the school. What should I be asking? What does the perfect governor look like? What are governing bodies’ most frequent mistakes and how do they need to adapt to a changing education system?
Cheers!
RSA Bookshop
The RSA Bookshop, in partnership with Blackwell's the UK's leading academic bookseller, offers Fellows and friends an opportunity to purchase books and to explore our speakers’ ideas in greater detail. Visit the RSA Bookshop.