The number of Co-op schools has trebled in just over a year. The model offers local accountability as well as independence
Mervyn Wilson is feeling bullish about the snowballing progress of the fastest-growing schools network in England. "It's a quiet revolution," he says. "By next year, we expect there to be well over 200 schools, with the potential of that growing substantially in the next few years."
Those following the development of our rapidly changing education landscape could be forgiven for guessing that Wilson works for one of England's high-profile academy chains, which are often mentioned in ministerial speeches and seem very well connected at the Department for Education.
In fact, Wilson is chief executive of the Co-operative College, a Manchester-based organisation that is helping to support and promote what he says is the ground-up, democratically driven growth of Co-operative trust schools. These are part of the Co-operative movement, with a history dating back to the 19th century.
Almost unnoticed, Co-ops are thought to have increased in number so they now make up the third largest association of schools in England, after those run by the Church of England and by the Roman Catholic church. They easily outstrip more publicised groups such as Ark Schools or the Harris academy chain.
Wilson likens their development to community-run village shops, or to Supporters Direct, which campaigns for football clubs to be run by fans.
Reddish Vale in Stockport was the first school to become a Co-operative trust, less than four years ago, but there are already 151 Co-op schools across the country, with numbers having trebled in just over a year.
In Cornwall alone, Wilson says, 70 to 100 schools will have joined Co-operative trusts by the end of this year, making a total of well over 200 nationwide by early in 2012. Nine primary schools in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, are already part of a joint trust, with another eight about to consult on joining. South Yorkshire, with approximately 50 schools expected by 2012, is another area of strength for the movement.
So what are Co-operative trusts, and why are the numbers growing? The Co-operative movement itself dates to the early 19th century – although some argue it goes further back – and the ideas of the cotton magnate Robert Owen.
The principles were that people would come together to form membership organisations based on common ownership or mutualism. In 1844, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers was established by 28 workers in the Lancashire town, quickly growing and forming the model for the modern Co-op group, which includes businesses from the well-known supermarkets to travel insurance, funeral services and banking.
The Co-operative movement also set up schools in the 19th century, including one established by the Rochdale Pioneers themselves. But Wilson told a conference last month that the idea of Co-operative involvement in schools had gone out of fashion by the 1980s.
This began to change five years ago, following one of the most intensely contested pieces of legislation piloted through parliament by Tony Blair: the 2006 Education and Inspections Act.
This established trust schools, billed as "independent state schools", which were to be set up with weaker links to local authorities than conventional state-funded institutions, and which would be run by a trust that could include businesses, charities, faith groups and universities. Each had to have a parents' council that would have a say in the school's day-to-day affairs.
Of the more than 500 trust schools in England, Co-operative trusts are now believed to be the largest grouping. Distinctively, each school allows pupils, teachers, parents, local people and employers to become "members" of the trust, forming a "community-based mutual" organisation.
The members elect representatives to a "stakeholder forum", which then expresses the views of the wider group to the school leadership, while also electing trustees, who in turn elect some of the members of the school's governing body.
Typically, several Co-operative schools are linked together in a single trust: often a group of local primary schools working with a secondary.
There are also now three Co-operative academies, where formal links with the local authority are even more minimal than in the case of trusts.
All of this seems to fit well with what many within the Co-operative movement view as core educational values: democracy, equity and fairness.
It has also played well with politicians from both major parties, with David Cameron strongly endorsing Co-operative schools as opposition leader in 2007 and Ed Balls, as schools secretary, pledging in 2008 that 100 would open by 2010.
But there appear to be other factors behind the rising numbers. With the role of local authorities growing more uncertain, schools are looking for new ways of sharing expertise. Co-operative trusts, or even Co-operative academies, are seen by some schools as alternatives either to going it alone as a single academy or to joining a large sponsored academy chain, says Wilson. The reasons for taking the Co-operative route sometimes seem practical, and sometimes philosophical.
In Cornwall, schools have been encouraged by their local authority to form collaborative arrangements in order to pool resources.
Although the government hopes that eventually all schools will be academies, a paper, Championing Children, Championing Excellence, produced by Cornwall council in April said that small primary schools in particular would find it difficult to take on the extra responsibilities of academy status, including land, staffing and purchasing decisions while remaining financially viable. "The local authority does not believe that any single small primary school can be effectively sustainable into the future … as an academy", said the paper, because of the extra management overheads autonomous academies would bring.
Although Co-op schools were not mentioned in the paper, they seem a natural alternative, because schools can band together to share expertise and jointly buy in services. Six groups of schools are therefore joining Co-ops in the county.
Most provocatively for Wilson and some heads now running Co-op schools, the movement also rejects what it sees as a developing "semi-privatised" education system, with academy "brands" competing in a market structure underpinned by the values of corporate business.
It contrasts what it sees as the democracy of the Co-operative movement, with schools networking in groups and each institution interacting with its stakeholders, with conventional sponsored academy arrangements, which allow private sponsors to appoint the majority of each school's governing body, and where academies are often closely supervised from head office.
However, academy chains are also growing. Ark Schools was set up in 2004 by the hedge fund manager Arpad Busson, and now has 14 academies either open or in development. The Harris Federation, sponsored by Lord Harris of Peckham, chairman and chief executive of the retailer Carpetright, runs 13 academies in south London, with plans for another 12.
E-ACT, a charity run along business lines by the former Labour government's schools commissioner Sir Bruce Liddington, operates 11 academies and reportedly hopes to run 250 schools within five years.
All of this underscores the need for a Co-op alternative, says Wilson. "The break-up of local authorities and the development of these chains needs to be viewed as the latest phase in the marketisation of the education system," he told a Centre for Successful Schools conference at Keele University last month. "There are many of us who now feel that there is not just space, but a desperate need, for a community-based alternative."
Steve Baker is head of Lipson community college in Plymouth, which is in a Co-operative trust with six primary schools, and which embodies the movement's ethos. It has 200 members, the school runs pupil drama and choral groups on a co-operative basis, and even has children work together "co-operatively" in small groups in lessons.
Baker says: "Philosophically, we could not be further opposed to the top-down academy chain model. Education is very precious. It's much too precious simply to hand over to philanthropist sponsors. We had that model in the 19th century. We've come a long way from that."
Robert Owen was himself a 19th-century philanthropist, so there are ironies here. And academy chains obviously take a different view.
David Wootton, chair of the Independent Academies Association, says: "The academy movement, and sponsored academies in particular, have a strong commitment to social justice and moral purpose. This means a dedication to the communities they serve and a deep desire to improve outcomes and "close the gap" for students in some of the most challenged communities. Many academies have very strong community routes.
"We in the academy movement welcome the support of the Co-operative movement, who are now actively involved supporting academies, and believe there is room for a diversity of providers."
Despite their democratic appeal, trust schools in general are viewed by some campaigners for conventional state education as a form of privatisation, and some might view the Co-operative movement cautiously, as yet another interest group seeking influence in schools.
However, this is a significant movement, and is likely to have a say in the future of English education for a while to come.
Most A-level students face a life of debt if they go to university, says Danny Dorling, to the benefit of the rich
Twenty-five years ago I collected my A-level results. In 1986, only a handful of us traipsed into school to get them. Most children had left by the age of 16. Of those staying on, even of those taking A-levels, only a tiny number would go on to university; a majority of those would be boys. Today, half of all girls now gain a place at university.
When I went to university, there were no fees. This was because people had fought for decades to open up the universities, not because there were so few of us coming from ordinary schools. Angry reports were written in the 1930s on how unfair university access was then. Fifty years later, we had never been as equal, but the tide was turning again.
In 1986, the richest 1% of the population held 18% of all marketable wealth (the kind you can lend). For the rich, it was a low point. In that same year, the poorest half of all Britons held 10% of marketable wealth between them, an all-time high. The latest figures reveal that the richest 1% of Britons now hold 53% of all marketable wealth and the poorest half hold just 6%.
Most successful A-level students today face a life of debt if they choose to attend university. Student loans will ultimately be underwritten by the richest 1% as they hold the majority of what money can be lent, that 53% of marketable wealth. For decades to come, the debt interest that students will have to pay will mostly find its way into the bank balances of this richest 1%. This is not in the interest of 99% of the population.
It gets worse. The same irrational logic that has been employed to privatise universities could be extended to secondary education. Why, politicians may ask, should adults who choose not to have children be taxed to subsidise schooling? Why not instead give all children a loan and, while we're at it, surely not all children are up to learning after age 16? Do all children need to stay on until 17? After all, many new jobs in future will involve working in service for the super-rich. Do you need a GCSE to be a butler, maid, nanny or cleaner?
There is another way. In fact, there are so many alternatives to the stupid night-watchman state we are heading towards that a good A-level student, if set an exam essay on it, would not know where to begin. They would have so much to say and so little time to say it.
Between the years 2000 and 2008, the position of the UK in the OECD ranking fell from third to 15th when measuring the proportion of its young people going to university. At the top of the ranking is Finland, where 80% of girls now attend university. How much must the Finns charge their young people to afford this? Home fees in Finland are non-existent, and 94% of all Finnish higher education funding is from their public sector.
It's not just A-level students who are to be robbed to keep the rich so very rich, but their parents, who will help them if they can, and grandparents, who will worry about them now even if they have "done well". In fact, everyone gets hurt when we tell a generation that we are not willing to allow them what we had. Why shouldn't they grow selfish and resentful? And if they do, who will care for the elderly in 25 years' time?
At some point soon, the 99% of us will, probably in a very quiet British way (public disapproval and private ostracising), seek reparation from the rich for the 25 years of theft that has occurred and which is ongoing through student loan financing and government borrowing in general. After all, it is not as if the "wealth creators" have succeeded in creating a bright new dawn. They had their 25-year shot and they failed.
If you are picking up results this week, good luck with your future. Whatever you are awarded, please remember that it's more important to be about something good and useful than just to try to get rich, or just to survive. Your parents forgot that. They let this happen and now they are worried about your future as well as their own.
• Danny Dorling is professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield. His latest book is Bankrupt Britain: An Atlas of Social Change, written with Bethan Thomas and published by Policy Press
A new website aims to match students with family homes in their university town. But is it a good idea?
Like many parents, Hermione Pask often found herself worrying about the rising costs of putting her children through university. It wasn't just tuition fees – what about accommodation and general living expenses?
Thinking about students' options, Pask, from Brighton, was struck by the thought that while living at home is an increasingly popular choice, it usually means that the student cannot then go to their first choice of institution.
"It was then that I had a thought," she says, "what if a student just swapped their bedroom with another student who lived near where they wanted to study?"
And from there the website, Unihome swap.co.uk, was born. The service, which she runs with a partner, Becci Cary, aims to match students in different parts of the country who are looking to swap their room in their family home. The students will get free accommodation during term time, rather like swapping homes for a holiday. The site is free at the moment, but a registration fee is likely to be introduced once it becomes established.
The student, or family, signs up and place an ad for their available room, including location, room size and any extra features, such as a phone connection. They then search for something similar in the university town of their choice for a swap.
The number of students choosing to live at home instead of going away to university is growing, and is expected to rise further over the next decade. According to a recent survey by home insurer LV, almost half of all students (47%) are expected to live with their parents by 2020. The current figure for those living at home is one in five.
Daisy Waterman is one of the first students to join the site. The 19-year-old from Brighton aims to start a child psychology degree at the University of Chichester next month.
"It's a great way to save money, but there are other benefits too," she says. "I've been feeling quite nervous about going to university. I like my home comforts and routine, so staying with a family could give me a soft landing.
"I suppose it wouldn't work for someone wanting to immerse themselves in student life. I'd probably only do it for my first year as I'm a bit worried about missing out on the social aspect of university."
And how does she feel about someone else planting their clothes in her cupboards at home? "It is a bit weird," she admits. "I'd prefer to swap with a girl than with a guy."
Daisy's family heard about Unihome swap through friends and saw it as an interesting option. "It's partially financial, but we also thought it could be a really nice, supportive environment for Daisy to live in," says her stepfather, Simon Appleton. "Having a student staying in our home will be quite different, but there'll be more energy in the house. There'll have to be some boundaries, though. We wouldn't want a smoker and we'd have to chat about them bringing back boyfriends or girlfriends." Details such as food costs are agreed between families, and if any relationships break down, it's for the lodger and family to sort out their differences.
It seems like an ingenious idea. But some would argue that what the site offers is the worst of both worlds: the student loses out on making friends in halls, parties, late nights, and learning to cook and do their own washing. But they also miss the familiarity and comfort of being with their own family.
Sarah Parkinson, director of specialist market and social research agency ERS (Education, Research and Services), advises students to think carefully about what they want. "In some cases, students may really benefit from the extra support of living in a caring family home," she says.
"However, students who don't live with other students, either in halls or in shared houses, can feel isolated and find it more difficult to socialise at university." Research by ERS has shown that loneliness caused by not "fitting in" with peers is a key factor in dropping out, she says.
And another thing: "University is where a lot of people learn about their own sexual identity – somebody else's family home might not be the best place for this to happen."
Find out what university and college admissions tutors will be looking out for in this year's Clearing phone calls
Buy the Guardian on Thursday to get your free copy of The Fresher which is packed with useful advice for new students
You hardly need reminding, but results day is almost here. Fingers crossed, it'll all go to plan: top results and university welcoming you with open arms. But there's a chance it won't, thrusting you into Clearing. Frustratingly, you'll find the pot of available places there far smaller this year. You'll need to win over the admissions tutors with the phone conversation of your life. But what to say, and how to prepare? Here's the lowdown from the admissions tutors who'll be answering the phones on Thursday.
"Would you go to Glastonbury without your wellies? Be prepared," says Wendy James, assistant registrar at London Met. "Research viable alternatives to your firm and insurance choices, and try to visit the campus." Look at courses, entry criteria, university environment, facilities and the social scene, bursaries and accommodation. "If you're considering changing subjects, think about writing a new personal statement now to explain your interest in the course and your strengths."
Check out what's available now – many universities' Clearing websites are already showing vacancies. "Check the Ucas website regularly, and contact the schools offering courses you're interested in to ask if there are likely to be places available in Clearing," advises Peter Lightbown at the University of Salford. "Make yourself known to the appropriate tutor so that they are aware of your commitment."
Spread your gaze. "Don't overlook partner colleges of universities that also offer university-approved foundation degrees and degrees, but do check how long they have been operating," says Mike Lister, head of Cornwall College, Camborne, a partner of the University of Plymouth. "You may find something on your doorstep that will save you loads of money, because you can study from home. There will still be opportunities to apply for most of our courses through Clearing."
Think laterally. "Could you choose a different course, but still get experience in your area with voluntary work?" asks Nikki Harford, senior assistant registrar at the University of Northampton. "Before Clearing, familiarise yourself with the Ucas website, and any university sites that run the courses you are interested in."
Write a list. "Take a note of each university's Clearing phone numbers and opening hours," says Helen Thurstan, recruitment manager at Staffordshire University. "And remember you're dealing with your future, so make the best decisions for you: don't be swayed by a friend's choice."
You may feel the strain as a student in this tough admissions year. But it's not all bad news. Some universities, such as St George's, University of London, have more places in this year's Clearing than last. "Trained support staff and student helpers will take calls and do the first screening to determine whether the candidate meets the entry requirements. If so, the candidate will be scheduled for an interview," says Martha Holland, head of student recruitment. So clear your diary.
Get up early. "Be prepared to act quickly," says the University of Lincoln's admissions manager, Caroline Connell. "The earlier you can get on the phone to us – we are open from 8am on Thursday – the more chance you will have of getting on the course you have chosen." Check when your desired universities open their hotlines – several are up and running by 7am.
Keep an eye on the Ucas website, Twitter and Facebook: universities use them to flag up spare places. "Our social media sites will be more vital than ever before for giving out advice and helping those going through Clearing," says Harford.
Seek advice from school and teachers. "We have trained staff in schools and colleges to advise students on what to do if they don't get into their chosen course," says Ross Renton, head of recruitment at the University of Hertfordshire.
Do it yourself. "Don't get your mum, dad or a friend to call up," says Peter Keel at the University of West London. "It won't look good."
Be specific. "Clearing tutors will be far more impressed by your application if you express a specific desire to come to their institution and give reasons for it," says Amy Croft, course director at Kingston University. "Explain the specific features of the course that attracted you."
Expect support. "Our Clearing training includes an intensive three-day programme highlighting upset callers, irate, persistent, difficult parents, and discussion of alternative programmes or retaking qualifications," says Bev Woodhams, head of recruitment at the University of Greenwich. "If callers are distressed, clearing staff know to listen and calm them."
Karen Pichlmann, head of admissions at Bournemouth University, says not to settle for something you don't want. "Don't make rash decisions – if you're not happy with the place, course or how long it takes you to go home for a weekend, it's going to have a detrimental effect on how you do." Jo Midgley, director of admissions at the University of the West of England, Bristol, adds: "Ring as many institutions as you want. You do not have to accept the first offer you receive."
What you must do
• Have all of your data to hand, including Clearing number and exam results.
• Be honest about your qualifications and experience.
• Tell tutors about research you've done on the course and institution – it shows commitment.
• Stay calm and polite.
• Say what you'd like to do post-university. Be enthusiastic, motivated, and prepared to travel to the university for interview if required.
What you must not say, according to the UK's most-experienced admissions tutors
• "I'm not sure what I want."
• "I'm desperate to find something ... anything."
• "I am interested in your course because my boyfriend is on it."
• "Will I have lots of free time to surf?"
• "How much do I have to attend lectures?"
• "How cheap is the beer?"
• "I'll do anything … What have you got?"
• "Hello, I'm calling on behalf of my son/daughter/great nephew …"
• "What can I get into with the qualifications I have?"
• "My dog died on the day I had to sit my exam, but I promise I'll work really hard if you let me in."
Don't miss the Fresher, our special guide to Clearing and your first year at university. Free in Thursday's Guardian
New buildings are reaching for the sky, but how do you to take them down?
The engineers who designed and built the very tallest, most skyscraping skyscrapers said very little about whether – let alone how – someone could safely disassemble such a colossus, should the need arise. About the only person who thought about it long and hard was the writer and illustrator David Macauley. Decades ago, Macauley published a children's book called Unbuilding. It explains, in words and highly detailed drawings, how to carefully, lovingly take apart the Empire State Building.
In the race to build ever-taller buildings, a problem lurks. These towers are so costly, and the real estate market unpredictable enough, that some of them could become financial failures. To simply abandon something nearly a quarter of a mile tall (the Empire State Building), then let it rot and crumble, would be unneighbourly on a grand scale.
Indeed, how would one disassemble one of the tallest skyscrapers without risking huge damage to its neighbourhood? And how would this work financially, if the tower needed to be disassembled because the owners ran out of money?
David Macauley tells how, if you have the money, to unbuild in a way that is "practical and safe". You take the building down "floor by floor in the reverse order in which it had been built".
These days, architecturally, things are looking up. The tallest building, currently, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, is more than twice the height of the Empire State Building. An architecture firm has just announced plans to erect something even taller, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Financially ... well, it's a thrilling time for new skyscrapers' owners, and perhaps soon for the neighbours.
The book Unbuilding, published in 1980, is a fantasy about the future. In it, the "Greater Riyadh Institute of Petroleum" needs a new headquarters. A Saudi Arabian prince decides, for symbolic purposes, to purchase the Empire State Building, and move it from New York City to Riyadh. (He chooses, on the basis of cost, to transport only those "portions of the building necessary to recreate its appearance", and build everything else.)
New Yorkers are at first outraged at the thought of losing their most beloved building. But after the Prince Ali offers the city new parks, museums, and other compensation, nearly everyone agrees to let him take the Empire State Building.
The book at this point has a passage that reads very differently, now in the year 2011, than it did in 1980:
"One desperate but clever preservationist suggested that the twin towers of the World Trade Centre be offered instead – both for the price of the Empire State. In declining the offer Ali suggested that he would be willing to consider pulling them down as a goodwill gesture. With this final show of generosity all remaining resistance crumbled."
Marc Abrahams
Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
A skill or trade is now seen as second-best to a degree, but one freelance journalist has taken the radical step of advertising for an apprentice
Over my 10 years as a freelance journalist, I've become adept at juggling the demands of different editors, even when it has meant working into the early hours or getting up ludicrously early to meet a deadline. But in recent months, I've realised I need help. I have a stack of story leads, but no time to do the research and I've been turning work down – something no freelance wants to do.
With A-level results two days away and school leavers making big decisions about their futures, I've decided to recruit an apprentice to assist me with research, transcription, developing story ideas and – once they have enough experience under the belt – possibly even the writing of articles.
They'll work for me four days a week and spend a day a week working towards a business administration apprenticeship at Harlow College. For a strong candidate, there may also be an opportunity to study for a qualification from the National Council for the Training of Journalists. I want to give them as much hands-on experience as possible, so I'll be taking them along when I go out to cover stories and, where appropriate, getting them to do some interviewing.
Like many freelance journalists, I have a portfolio-style career, which includes writing for national newspapers, copywriting, training and university teaching. Sharing my workload should allow me to bring in new business and, ultimately, boost profits.
But my decision to hire an apprentice goes far beyond that. Through my work as an educational journalist, I've spoken to dozens of apprentices over the past few years and, without exception, I've been amazed by their maturity, commitment and willingness to learn. I believe we all have a responsibility to pass on our skills and experience to the next generation. And, in my own small way, I want to challenge the way we educate young people and prepare them for life.
I spent four years teaching English in secondary schools and now lecture in journalism at various universities. What worries me is that education is no longer a route to a career – it has become an end in itself. We keep young people in education for as long as possible, spit them out at the end, and wonder why they are not ready for work at the end of it.
And as a result of the last government's obsession with getting as many people into higher education as possible, having a skill or a trade – something that was once highly valued and respected in society – is now seen as somehow second-best to a degree.
At the same time, we've raised the bar for entry to occupations, such as journalism, that used to be classed as trades. A trainee journalist needs to be an accurate writer, have good research skills and – most importantly – have plenty of initiative and determination (these are certainly the qualities I'll be looking for in my apprentice). Everything else can be learned on the job.
Yet journalism – a trade in which employers used to grow their own staff, using apprenticeships and other kinds of traineeships – has largely become a graduate-entry profession. But a degree – or even an NCTJ qualification – is no guarantee of a job. For many aspiring journalists, the only way to get a foot in the door on most national newspapers or magazines is to do endless low-paid or unpaid internships, which is really only an option for those who can rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad to finance them.
To have a truly balanced press, journalism should be populated by people from all walks of life but – as in many influential professions – it is now largely populated by the most privileged. Research carried out by the Sutton Trust in 2006 showed that more than half the UK's leading news and current affairs journalists had been privately educated. Half of those who had been to university had been educated at Oxbridge.
Today only a handful of publications (mostly local newspapers) offer apprenticeships, and I'm fairly certain I am the first freelance journalist to do it. In fact, though there are hundreds of frameworks (outlining the specific skills needed to achieve the qualification) for apprenticeships, so few employers offer journalism that there is no specific framework. The few employers who do have journalistic apprentices have to be creative, adapting the framework for the advanced apprenticeship in either creative and digital media or – as I will be doing – business administration to suit their needs.
Skillset, the sector skills councils for the creative industries, is interested in the idea of creating a specific apprenticeship framework for journalism, but is still trying to gauge the appetite for this among employers. But journalism is lagging behind other industries, such as engineering, banking and IT, where British Gas, IBM, Deloitte and other companies are tapping into the potential of employing school leavers.
While being apprenticed to a freelance journalist may seem like an unusual way to train, it makes perfect sense in the current climate. These days many publications are realising they need fewer staff with different skills. And, with the economic downturn, no journalist can be complacent about job security. Understanding how to make a living from freelancing can keep journalists solvent when times get tough. If my apprentice does decide to progress into higher education – either at Harlow College or elsewhere – they will have the necessary skills to earn while they learn, which will give them a head start when it comes to getting their first job.
Reaction from friends and colleagues to my decision to recruit an apprentice was a sharp reminder of how little people generally know about vocational education. One friend started to lambast me for being exploitative, until I pointed out that, at £6.08 an hour, I'd be paying well above the national minimum wage for apprentices (£2.50 an hour) out of my own pocket. Another questioned whether an 18-year-old would have the skills to add anything to my business. It's an attitude that does a great disservice to young people.
The post is currently being advertised via the National Apprenticeship Service's online vacancy matching site. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to a two-day assessment workshop at Harlow College – which has an impressive list of journalistic alumni, including Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson and the editor of this paper, Alan Rusbridger – where they will complete a variety of research and writing tasks.
As I start out on this journey, I have no doubt that I have as much to learn from my apprentice as she or he will learn from me. But if I can achieve one thing, in addition to giving a young person an opportunity to learn my trade, it will be to encourage others to follow suit. I'd love some of the big newspapers and publishing houses to be bold enough to grow their own talent through apprenticeships instead of cherry-picking the top graduates, as they do now. They might just be surprised at the results.
Liam Burns, the new president of the NUS, explains why he admires the tactics of UK Uncut
Over the past few months, Liam Burns has watched with admiration – and possibly a little jealousy – the stellar growth of the protest group UK Uncut.
The group, thought up by 10 friends in a north London pub last year, has gained notoriety by staging sit-ins at high street stores, whose owners it accuses of tax avoidance. Babies and pensioners – not to mention students – have taken part in UK Uncut's activities, making it the fastest-growing protest group in the country. Demonstrations by the group have forced several high street bank branches to close temporarily.
But it has also attracted controversy. In March, the Metropolitan Police bailed 138 of its activists – practically its entire leadership – on charges of aggravated trespass after a peaceful occupation of Fortnum and Mason in central London. More than 100 of the charges were later dropped. Most, if not all, of the remaining defendants are expected to plead not guilty.
It is, then, somewhat radical that Burns, the new president of the National Union of Students (NUS), hopes to copy some of UK Uncut's tactics as a way to engage his union's seven million members.
The 26-year-old Scot says he admires the way UK Uncut has "identified legitimate targets for occupation, bringing attention and support to its cause".
"It has done that in a way that is not aggressive, and is only intimidating to its target," he says. "No member of the public has felt threatened by actions that have closed down Top Shop, but I can't imagine Philip Green [Top Shop's owner] enjoys watching the footage."
Burns describes UK Uncut's form of protesting as "civil disobedience" and "non-violent direct action". He argues that this is reasonable in the face of the government's "savage" cuts to education and ministers' "disregard" for young people.
Violence and destruction, on the other hand, are disproportionate reactions, he says. "Disruption to the system is one thing, expecting those who have nothing to do with the decisions being taken to clean up after you is quite another."
He is alluding to demonstrations last November and December that resulted in students – not under the direction of the NUS – smashing windows at the campaign headquarters of the Conservative party in Millbank, central London; violent clashes between students and police and an attack on a car carrying the Prince of Wales and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall.
In contrast, this May, UK Uncut activists occupied high-street banks dressed in scrubs and armed with fake blood and bandages. They set up "operating theatres" to protest against NHS cuts and the public subsidy of banks.
But as creative and visible as this sort of protest is, are there enough students willing to take part – and risk arrest? After all, Burns admits his own active involvement in civil disobedience is limited to a 10-minute sit-in against cuts to Swansea University's modern languages department.
Times are changing, he insists. In the past, it was possible to assume the political leanings of students from the campaign tactics they used. That's no longer the case. "What we've seen since November is a willingness of students who might not traditionally have engaged with direct action and civil disobedience to do so," he says. "What changed during Millbank was that we were shown that you can't just call [those protesting] 'hard left'. They are just students who are really bloody angry."
Burns is a card-carrying member of the Labour party, but says he has lots of friends who see it as "mainstream" to set up a pretend hospital in a bank, and have become involved in UK Uncut.
Burns is calling for a "national manifestation of people's anger", and warns that it won't just be about waving placards or a one-day photo shoot for the media. Over the coming months, he'll be talking to students to see how NUS members "can continue to demonstrate our anger in innovative and exciting ways". "I'll be looking for dialogue with organisations who have been effective in recent months, like UK Uncut and People & Planet [a student network campaigning to end world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment]."
The NUS has been good at lobbying and at influencing, he says. "Are we good at mass mobilisation? Probably not," he admits. He wants to encourage more grassroots activity. It's perhaps another nod to UK Uncut, which has no leader and no signed-up members. Those who want to organise "actions" publicise them on its website.
The established structure of the NUS gives the union "huge wins", but also holds it back from being "organic", he says.
"I think the actions of the coalition, the repeated betrayals and the rushed policy initiatives that are making access to education harder mean that young people feel increasingly angry and frustrated," says Burns. "A lot of the battle is going to take place at the local level to protect courses, ensure bursaries work to help vulnerable students and campaign on local issues like libraries, transport and accommodation."
Burns is passionate, intelligent, relaxed and articulate. You can see why he was offered a place on the Teach First scheme, which takes bright graduates for a crash course in how to be a successful teacher in a challenging school. He turned it down to become NUS president. His dream job, he says, would be as policy and public affairs officer for a charity like Amnesty International, where he could use his strong sense of justice to good effect.
Burns's biggest concern as NUS president is that students will just accept a market-driven higher education system. "We have to reject the notion that the market is the answer to improving education," he says. "If students move towards accepting that if they pay more they get more, our education system will become increasingly elitist with the best education available only to the richest, who have the cultural capital and can afford the risk."
A particular bugbear is the privatisation of halls of residence. "When you look at the private companies brought in to provide accommodation ... you can clearly see the profit-motive driving up prices. It restricts, rather than opens up choice and puts quality at risk," he says. "A situation where institutions determine provision and standards according to the will of shareholders, rather than students and teachers, poses huge risks to the teaching and learning experience."
Burns was born in Fife – his father was a salesman and his mother a nursery nurse. He studied physics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. But he bats down suggestions that he has little experience south of the border. He says studying and campaigning in Scotland have insulated him from the "consumerisation of students" and will give him a "fresh eye, a bit more of a challenging outlook" when it comes to standing up for students in England.
Burns's predecessor, Aaron Porter, angered the more militant wing of the student movement after referring to the occupation of Millbank as "violence by a tiny minority". He was subjected to personal attacks and was heckled at a rally in January this year. He said on stepping down that he had developed a thick skin and that his successor would also require one.
I ask Burns whether he thinks he's tough enough. "I am going to make myself there to be shouted at," he says. You might almost think he would enjoy it.
The OU will still be cheaper than many other universities, but will it price older or casual learners out of the market?
The Open University may long ago have shaken off the image of kipper-tied lecturers presenting physics primers on late-night BBC2, but it has retained a warmly regarded reputation with the public as being the place for later-in-life education – whether it's for a change of career, or correcting the educational omissions of a misspent youth.
But that reputation may be set to change, following the OU's announcement of its new fees structure for students in England from September 2012. The price of a full-time degree (120 credits) will rise from about £1,400 to an average of £5,000 a year, with a part-time degree (60 credits) coming in at £2,500, where previously it had been around £700. Fees for those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are still being discussed.
The £5,000 may be a bargain when compared with the new fees of many other universities, but will it be a step too far for those who want to learn for fun or gently dip a toe back into education? Self-confessed hobby learner Kash Farooq, a software developer, is pursuing a BSc in natural sciences, having started his learning casually with a course on fossils and natural history. Farooq already had a maths degree, but he wanted to broaden his reading and, simply, to learn. "A few years ago, someone at work was doing an Open University degree," he says. "I tried a module and got hooked; that was in 2007. I did an astronomy module and since then I have been concentrating on astronomy."
Farooq, along with other English OU students, will pay fees at the current rate as long as his study is unbroken and he finishes his qualification by 2017. But he believes young undergraduates taking advantage of the low fees, and thus lower student debt, will make up a significant proportion of the intake in the near future.
"I wouldn't have started if these prices were active five years ago," he says. "If another university popped up doing distance learning at distance prices I would look at that."
The average age of the OU's students has been sliding slowly downwards over the years, currently standing at 31 for new undergraduates. That trend looks set to continue as students seek out bargains and their parents fret over living costs. But the OU's vice-chancellor, Martin Bean, is adamant that the new fees structure need not change either the reputation or the balance of the student body.
"We have about 6,000 full-time students with us now, but we will stay true to our aim, which is to remain open to as many people as we can," says Bean. "The vast majority of Open University students will continue to be part-time and working, with the average age being what it is now."
Bean acknowledges that the new fees may put off a few "hobby" learners, but he is confident that those wishing to learn for fun and those not willing to consider a loan will not be left out. He believes the OU's mission to deliver quality university-standard education to all will not be compromised, even after the 84% cut to aggregate teaching grants that he says forced the price hike.
"One of the things we make clear is that at the higher price point we have to be able to justify the value to the students, whether they are part of the loan programme or not," he says. "If those students see it as a higher price point than they are willing to pay, then obviously they will not invest. But we also have a lot of other options for those people to engage with higher education."
Those options include the online OU resources OpenLearn and iTunes U, which offer free course materials, although they lack the affirmation of marking or the chance to gain credit as part of a qualification. The casual learner, initially put off by fees but enthused enough by their studies to continue, will start from scratch when applying for a degree course.
Full-time carer Barbara Yates started her OU degree in 2008, when switching from employment to looking after her mother. Returning from a trip to Indochina, she wanted to learn more about the socioeconomic problems that the area faces.
"I thought I would see how I got on and just got really into it," she says. "I made the decision to do the degree, but the advice was to start with a level-one course, which was Introduction to Social Sciences, and that really whetted my appetite."
The International Studies degree is Yates's first. She is unsure whether she would have undertaken the course had the new fees been in place, even with the chance to get a student loan. "I don't know if I would do it at £15,000; that is a huge amount of money," she says. "I am a full-time carer, so I am using savings as an investment for myself so I have not stopped completely and am still moving on. The sad thing is that in future a lot of people like me will decide not to take a course, I think."
Next year's intake will show whether OU staff are to be overwhelmed by applications from young undergraduates in search of a bargain; disappointed by a fall-off in the 9% of students aged over 50; or simply enjoy business as usual.
Martin Bean will be keeping a keen eye on the numbers. "The entire sector of learning is going through an incredible period of uncertainty," he says. "We have always charged fees and have always marketed ourselves on that basis. So we have very good systems in place and will absolutely be monitoring what happens and making sure we remain a quality institution, so respected in British society."
Research shows students from mixed-ability schools perform better academically and achieve more social mobility, says Melissa Benn
Long ago, when I started at my shiny new comprehensive, our year group was divided into 12 classes, comprising four ability streams. Most of the white, middle-class children were placed in the top bands while the poor, black or transient pupils were largely put in the bottom streams. By our third year in secondary school, streaming had been abolished in favour of a mixed-ability approach. But the damaging labels endured, throughout our school lives and beyond.
Several decades on, and the wheel has apparently turned full circle. Streaming, the wholesale allocation of children to groups on the basis of a fixed, single ability label, is making a big comeback, part of the retro traditionalism sweeping our education system. According to a recent study from the Institute of Education, one in six primary-age children within the UK is now streamed by the age of seven.
In some schools, the practice is so extreme as to amount to a return of the grammar-school principle. Crown Woods school in south London has caused a furore for its decision to house children in "schools within schools", according to ability, each with its own colour-coded uniform. Fighting has already been reported between students located in different blocks.
But there's a twisted logic behind the Crown Woods scenario. Surrounded by selective or partially selective schools, and struggling to stay atop the league tables, the school is merely responding to the market. In today's competitive climate, more and more schools are caught up in local turf wars, trying to win their share of high-achieving pupils.
Educationally speaking, however, this is pure disaster. Researching the recent history of UK schooling, I was fascinated to discover how much of the 1944 Education Act was based on the IQ work of educational psychologist Sir Cyril Burt, whose research was later discredited.
In the words of one sceptical civil servant of the time, Burt believed "that children were divided into three kinds. It was sort of Platonic. There were golden children, silver children and iron children." Each was to be assigned to different institutions – grammar, secondary modern or the technical schools – according to these rigidly, unimaginative descriptors.
We've come a long way since then – or have we? Certainly, all the current international evidence points powerfully in the opposite direction. The highest-performing and fairest school systems in the world delay specialisation and setting – the grouping of children into different classes for different subjects – until much later in adolescence.
Academic Jo Boaler followed two groups of young adolescents in the mid-90s, one separated into rigid ability groups, the other taught in mixed-ability groupings. Not only did the mixed-ability students outperform those who had been put into separate groups in national examinations, but when Boaler tracked down a representative sample from both schools, she found the mixed-ability group had achieved more social mobility, in relation to their parents, than their streamed peers.
Escaping early labelling had clearly expanded their sense of confidence into young adult life while those who had been streamed talked, famously, of "psychological prisons" from which they never escaped.
Wroxham primary school in Hertfordshire has outlawed all ability labelling, including reference to the all-pervasive national curriculum levels. The headteacher, Alison Peacock, has taken the school from special measures to outstanding status in a few years, and produced cohorts of confident, inquiring learners.
Wroxham is part of an exciting project called Learning Without Limits, which promotes a more open-ended and progressive view of human potential. Such work is particularly vital in the current climate, with so many siren voices declaring "mixed-ability teaching" a complete failure.
The irony, as Learning Without Limits understands, is that even to talk of "mixed ability" is to constrain and categorise, in unimaginative fashion, what we believe the child is capable of learning.
Something vital is at stake in all these arguments, not just about the quality of learning in our schools, but the kind of school system, and society, we ultimately want to foster.
For all its rhetoric about improving the education of poorer children, many of the coalition government's reforms risk returning us to rigid, know-your-place, limiting hierarchies. Now, more than ever, we need to keep alive the theory and practice of rich, alternative visions.
• Melissa Benn's latest book, School Wars: the Battle for Britain's Education, will be published by Verso on 5 September
Six new museums and galleries offer plenty of fun for families this summer, and a bit of learning, too
The last few months have seen a flurry of museum openings and new galleries. With the coalition cuts programme now in full swing, we're unlikely to see such a bumper crop again for some time. We've toured the country to find the best educational and family programmes on offer at the new museums and galleries – here's our selection.
The Cardiff Story Until earlier this year, Cardiff was the only capital in Europe not to have a museum dedicated to its history. That changes this summer with the opening of the Cardiff Story museum, which charts the history of the Welsh city from its origins as a small market town in the 14th century to its place today as the seat of the National Assembly for Wales. Its education programme is especially exciting for key stage 2 children – one area of the museum is called City Lab and is designed to show youngsters how to go about making historical einquiries. Children can look at different areas of Cardiff's history – the second world war, shopping and migration – and can search historical documents (census records, photographs and other archive documents) to work out the narrative. They can also listen to eyewitness accounts of history as it happened. Another simple, but fascinating, exhibit is a large-scale model of a house in Cardiff's Cathedral Road, which compares the way it looked at four different periods of its history (the 1890s, 1930s, 1970s and 2010).
Riverside Museum, Glasgow Housed in architect Zaha Hadid's flagship UK building, this newly opened museum of transport and travel is especially strong, unsurprisingly, on the story of shipbuilding – it's even located on the site of a former shipyard. Visitors can learn about how some of the Clyde's most famous boats – the Queen Mary and QE2 among them – fared on the ocean waves. Other exhibits – a colourful Pakistani truck, for example – bring to life how humans have customised their transport over the years. The education programme workshops will be piloted from the autumn and gets properly underway from January, but will feature workshops including one in which KS2 pupils can build their own working steam boats and race them against one another, while at the same time learning about how steam revolutionised transport in the 19th century.
Roman Frontier Gallery, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle: This £1.4m gallery tells the story of the 400-year period of Roman occupation, in what was the northernmost frontier of its empire. Highlights include a Roman writing tablet to help today's youngsters get to grips with how they managed without texts 2,000 years ago; and the schools' programme explores the realities, opportunities and problems for the local community of life under Roman rule. But this gallery isn't stuck in the past: through the experience of the Roman frontier, children are encouraged to think about today's boundaries – the border between Mexico and the US, the Gaza strip, and the India/Pakistan border are among those explored in an exhibit called Living Wall.
Museum of Liverpool Another new museum tracing the history of one city – and this is also the biggest national museum to open in the UK for a century, boasting more than 8,000 sq metres of public space and featuring exhibits including the very stage on which John Lennon and Paul McCartney were introduced in 1957, cycling legend Chris Boardman's Lotus sports bike, and an 18ft (6.3m) Liver Bird. The museum opened last month, and they're still working on the education programme, which will launch properly in January 2012, but expect it to feature events about the way Liverpool's history has been woven into novels and short stories: in one area of the museum they've recreated scenes from Liverpool life, such as a school room and a chip shop, that inspired writers like Helen Forrester.
Turner Contemporary, Margate JMW Turner, Britain's best-known landscape artist, lived in Margate, for a time as a child and, later, returned there to live in a rented house on the very site where the new Turner Contemporary gallery is situated. "What's great about the Turner connection is that he had a huge curiosity, and it extended into all areas of life – among other things he wrote poetry, designed houses and was fascinated by science, as well as painting pictures, of course," says Karen Eslea, head of learning at the gallery. Thinking ahead to next term, she says the gallery has a team of navigators to steer groups on pupil-led explorations of exhibits. September's art show, Nothing In The World But Youth, features more than 200 works examining what it means to be a young person – exhibits will include David Bowie's jacket, and two Andy Warhol artworks.
Hepworth, Wakefield Housed in a £35m David Chipperfield-designed, concrete building, the Hepworth celebrates the work of one of Yorkshire's two most famous 20th-century sculptors (the other is Henry Moore). It's based around a gift from Barbara Hepworth's family that includes 40 prototypes for her famous bronzes, made of plaster, aluminium and wood – and, says head of learning Natalie Walton, that means that a particular strength of the museum for school groups is that pupils can learn about the process an artist follows in order to create a piece of work.
"What these pieces show is how an idea progresses through its various stages to a finished object," she says. "Pupils can learn about the process of creating art, and can make connections between one stage and another." Workshops through the summer include artist-led opportunities for children to create mixed-media collages inspired by the landscapes featured in the collection, and the chance to take inspiration from the current Eva Rothschild exhibition, Hot Touch, to create individual mini-sculptures, or to participate in the creation of a large piece of art.
Researchers tested whether consumers could tell the difference between bottled water and tap water, and guess what? Most people can't
Can people perceive the difference between bottled water and tap water? Two studies suggest that – at least in France and in Northern Ireland – water tastes like water.
A French research team ran a taste test of six different bottled mineral waters and six municipal tap waters. This was a collaboration between two scientific institutes (CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and INRA, the National Institute of Agronomic Research) and Lyonnaise des Eaux, a company that manages many public water supplies.
The tasters were "389 persons from all over France". The bottled waters were "chosen among the French bottled water available". The tap waters were "from various regions of France, supplied by Lyonnaise des Eaux".
The team published their study in the Journal of Sensory Studies in 2010.
The researchers identified what they call the "three main tastes of water" that can be found if one swigs a great variety of bottled and tap waters. These are "the bitterness of poor mineralised water, the neutral taste (associated with coolness) of water with medium mineralisation and the saltiness and astringency of highly mineralised water."
The report concludes that "most consumers cannot distinguish between bottled water and tap water when the latter is chlorine-free". (But most is not all. The report goes on to say: "However, 36% of the subjects were found able to distinguish between tap water and bottled water.")
Five years earlier, in Belfast, Deborah Wells had run a similar test, with slightly more than 1,000 people tasting water from several sources. These included "one of the UK's most popular brands of still bottled mineral water (Evian, Danone Waters), distilled water (supplied by Queen's University Belfast), and tap water (supplied to Belfast by the Water Service from the Silent Valley, Co. Down)".
Wells, a senior lecturer in psychology at Queen's University, then wrote a report called The Identification and Perception of Bottled Water, which appeared in the journal Perception.
"The findings from this study indicate that people cannot correctly identify bottled water on the basis of its flavour," she declares. This "suggests that the currently high consumer demand for this beverage must be based on factors other than taste or olfactory perception".
That thought was not entirely new.
The previous year, we awarded an Ig Nobel prize in chemistry to the Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain. The company has long publicised the existence of a "secret formula" for its signature cola beverage. The key ingredient is water.
But that's not what won them the prize.
They were honoured for using advanced technology (mostly pumps) to convert ordinary tap water (obtained from Thames Water, in Sidcup) into Dasani, a pricey, water-filled bottle. It sold briskly – until news broke that Dasani was just bottled tap water.
But ... it wasn't "just" bottled tap water. As the Guardian reported on 20 March 2004: "The entire UK supply of Dasani was pulled off the shelves because it has been contaminated with bromate, a cancer-causing chemical."
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Principal Vicky Tuck tells Peter Wilby she wants girls to learn to lead
It needed a prolonged courtship to woo the principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College into an interview with Education Guardian. There was an obvious clash, "in public perception at least", Vicky Tuck told me, between what the college and the newspaper stood for. She was worried, not only about my article, but about readers' online comments beneath. It took me two months to convince her I wouldn't do a hatchet job and Guardian readers – of whom, oddly, she is one – were open-minded folk who would never hold base prejudices against someone who happened to teach the (mostly) rich and privileged.
All the same, it's hard to approach the school, which charges nearly £28,000 for boarders and nearly £19,000 for day girls and is sometimes called "the girls' Eton", without a few prejudices. Founded in 1853, it has ivy-clad buildings, a 95-metre marble corridor and more stained-glass windows than most cathedrals. Its best-known principal, Dorothea Beale (1858-1906), was immortalised (along with the first head of North London Collegiate) in the rhyme "Miss Buss and Miss Beale, /Cupid's darts do not feel./ How different from us,/ Miss Beale and Miss Buss." Before Tuck, Cheltenham had never had a married principal.
"It has a reputation for developing English roses," said a male headteacher. "Not exotic ones, just the sort you'd find in country gardens." It hardly ever has a scandal – the biggest was when a group of 12-year-olds got drunk on vodka – and it is reputed, probably wrongly, to have originated "chav" as a snooty term for the less eligible young men of the town ("Cheltenham average"). Its quaint name makes you wonder if pupils practise deportment and learn the correct way to address younger sons of dukes. Why don't they change it? "It's a problem," sighs Tuck. "The girls don't like to say where they're from. But you don't change a good brand-name, do you?"
Tuck has been head here for 15 years and tells me at least a dozen times how happy she has been. Now she's off to run the International School in Geneva, which has nearly 4,000 pupils of both sexes aged three to 19. It is a surprising move for someone who has spent almost her whole career in girls' independent schools and went to one herself, but she is confident she will cope and, if necessary, make changes.
Tuck's public profile is lower than that of many male heads in the fee-charging sector, but she made a few controversial speeches in her year as Girls' School Association (GSA) president, saying, for example, that she found the economic downturn "bracing" and hoped it would "spell the end of ... conspicuous and ultimately unfulfilling materialism". She is probably the most successful girls' school head of her generation, strengthening the college's reputation and keeping up the numbers when neither single-sex education nor boarding is in fashion. The Independent Schools Inspectorate isn't noted for putting the boot in – its teams are mostly heads and deputies of other fee-charging schools – but, even by its standards, a report in 2008 was effusive. Nearly 20% of the higher education applicants get into Oxford or Cambridge.
"In this school," says Tuck, "girls have this great sense that everything is what girls do. We have really strong chemistry, physics, economics and maths. We have girls playing wind and brass instruments. We can't justify our existence if girls aren't learning to be adventurous and intellectual risk-takers. I get annoyed when parents say: I want to send her to a single-sex school because it'll be nice and safe. Of course, it'll be safe in some ways, delaying all the stuff teenagers deal with. But this isn't a pink, frilly school."
She once suggested single-sex education would make a comeback because it was "obvious to us" that "girls learn in a different way to boys". When I ask her to elaborate, she becomes agitated and says: "I was GSA president that year. You have to bang the drum. Some of our mathematicians say it's easier in single-sex schools because girls need reassurance in that subject and they benefit without the boys being vocal and quick. And in English, boys might benefit because girls are better at talking about feelings and deeper things."
Would Tuck describe herself as a feminist? She answers with a long "oooh ..." and becomes agitated again. She ventures, though, that "there's something distinctive" about the way women run schools. "When the majority of the leadership is female, you get a collaborative approach, lots of empathy and consideration. You also get this perfectionism and attention to detail, which can be negative and sometimes needs managing. As women, we still feel we have something to prove, so there's a lack of complacency." But, she adds hastily, "I have some wonderful men working here".
What she's most anxious to tell me is that she has created "a happy environment". "I've talked at reunions to women who attended in previous decades and many had a horrible time here. The boarding houses were quite miserable places, run by women who didn't understand children and didn't really like them. That had changed by the time I got here, but most of the former pupils wouldn't look at us for their own children." Only now, she says, is she seeing ex-pupils who want places for their daughters.
Tuck was not impressed with her own schooling at City of London Girls. "Not much pedagogy, not much understanding of children, not much passion. I don't like being bored, and I was bored." She later read French and Italian at Kent University and did teacher training at the Institute of Education, University of London.
She did teaching practice in a tough area of London where "any kind of motivation to learn French was practically non-existent and I wanted to teach my subject, not be a policewoman". That made her more inclined to look at fee-charging schools but, she insists, "my life could easily have taken a quite different turn". She got her first job at Putney Girls' High, but also applied to a state school, which turned her down.
Later she moved to Bromley Girls' High and, after having two sons, to the Institute of Education as a lecturer, eventually taking charge of its PGCE course. She then became deputy head at her old school before putting her name forward for the Cheltenham headship.
So what about social justice? I suggest that the fee-charging sector hogs too many high-quality teachers, denying the benefit to state schools. "They get the benefits of lots of people I've trained," she retorts. Beyond that, we hardly discuss the case for fee-charging. As she told me before we met, she's weary of making it, I'm weary of hearing it and, anyway, Guardian readers know all the arguments.
If Cheltenham Ladies is supposed to be the girls' Eton, the parallel is false in at least one respect: it has never been a training college for future rulers, because, however privileged the girls, they are in one sense members of an underprivileged group. Alumnae that include two ministers, a deputy governor of the Bank of England and one national newspaper editor (Rosie Boycott) constitutes a good record by girls' school standards, but nothing compared to Eton, Westminster or Winchester. Tuck talked a lot about the importance of girls learning to lead and, if she has inspired more women to aim for the top, good for her. Readers, please be gentle in your comments.
Lincolnshire county council says it cannot afford to run all its schools
Anti-academies campaigners will be closely watching events in Lincolnshire over the summer, as the county council seems poised to advise all its schools to become academies, warning that without this move, many of its small rural primary classrooms face closure.
In what is believed to be the first development of its kind in England, the council says that the government's drive to encourage schools to take on quasi-independent academy governance puts at serious risk the support services and even existence of those schools that remain linked to the local authority.
Conservative-controlled Lincolnshire is likely to propose that all its 360 primary, secondary, nursery and special schools opt out together to join an overarching academy trust, sponsored by the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT), a charity. The proposal was accepted at a meeting last week, and now only needs approval from the council leadership team in September to become policy.
But it is likely to be seized upon by academy critics as raising serious questions about the policy nationally.
The paper, discussed by the council's children and young people scrutiny committee last Tuesday, set out four options. But it argued that schools simply remaining with the authority might not be sustainable. Meanwhile, schools branching out and setting up their own academy arrangements – the government's favoured option – also contained many pitfalls.
The paper suggests that the increasing numbers of schools moving to academy status – some 55% of Lincolnshire secondaries and 11% of its primaries are expected to be academies by January – threaten the viability of services for the remainder.
Academies receive money from the government for a share of the support services the local authority provides to all its schools. The academy can then choose to "buy" services from their local authority, or from elsewhere, or not to provide them at all. If large numbers of academies take the latter two options, councils fear they face declining budgets out of which to fund services for the remaining schools.
Lincolnshire's paper says: "There are potential significant funding implications for the local authority as more schools convert to academy status … If all schools converted, the LA … could see a reduced revenue grant of £28m from the core revenue budget from 2012/13." This might make running those services "unviable".
It is with regard to small primaries, however, that it gives the starkest warning. Such schools "lack the capacity" to take on the entrepreneurial opportunities offered by branching out as academies on their own, and thus would need either to remain with the local authority or to join a sponsored group of academies.
However, these schools would constitute a "business risk" for any sponsor, says the paper, since businesses would need a primary school to have at least 180 pupils to be economical. Two thirds of the county's 276 primaries are smaller than that.
If they remained with the local authority while others left, "[the] local authority could be left with small vulnerable schools, without a support infrastructure or funding to drive improvement, which could lead to serious risk of closure."
It concludes: "The development and implementation of the current academies policy could lead to 184 out of 276 primary schools being at serious risk." It says CfBT would offer support for all schools, including small rural primaries.
Members of a "Save our Schools" group are enraged. Sarah Dodds, its founder – who is now a Labour district councillor – says that while many of the warnings in the paper reflect genuine worries about academies, schools are being unfairly steered towards an alternative with a privately managed organisation, an outcome that would lack democratic accountability.
CfBT has a close relationship with the authority: it has had a contract to run school improvement services there since 2002. The contract runs until 2017, and the council paper says the current proposal would allow Lincolnshire to re-negotiate this arrangement with CfBT.
Although school governing bodies get the final say on academy status, Dodds says: "The risk is that schools are panicked into the trust option." She is also concerned that CfBT was the only potential sponsor put forward in the council paper.
Peter Downes, a former headteacher and Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrat councillor, describes the Lincolnshire situation as an "appalling mess". He says: "The paper as a whole illustrates the ridiculous situation our education system now faces. It is disintegrating. We are replacing a system of local authority oversight with one of hundreds or thousands of individual schools, which will inevitably in the end have to come together, either through commercial organisations or charities, without the democratic accountability of the local authority."
Patricia Bradwell, Lincolnshire's executive councillor for children's services, says school governing bodies must consult the public on any decision to become academies. The current government consultation on school funding, though not yet complete, indicates that the council would "face a serious financial challenge" as the number of academies grows. Doing nothing would leave the council insufficient time to manage a budget reduction.
"We have to be prepared for more and more schools becoming academies, in line with the national agenda," she says. "It is important that we provide clarity to enable schools to identify what is best for them and their communities. Lincolnshire has been rated nationally as an outstanding authority for children's services, including education. We refute the claim that education is in a mess."
With members of the council's Labour party still unhappy about the lack of public consultation, and Save our Schools exploring legal options, controversy over this move will continue.
Sadly, higher education is not immune to the English vice of hypocrisy, says Peter Scott
I have to make a terrible confession, especially writing in the Guardian. I once worked for Rupert Murdoch. And it gets worse – at any rate, as far as the bit of Times Newspapers where I worked goes, he was not such a bad boss.
My memories of Murdoch flooded back because I have been struck by two things in recent weeks. The first, of course, is the tackiness of tabloid journalism, taken to new depths by phone hacking at the ex-News of the World. But the second is the English establishment's famous talent for hypocrisy; as if reporters have not always had over-cosy relations with police and politicians, and their accomplices have never before rummaged in promising dustbins.
Hypocrisy has always been seen as a particularly English vice – the limitless ability to condone behaviour in private but attack it in public. But hypocrisy is not confined to bad behaviour; it can also run like a rotten vein through public policy. Sadly, higher education is not an exception.
For the past generation, a university education has been seen more and more in instrumental terms. In the eyes of most members of the establishment – politicians of all parties, mandarins and quangocrats, and (the more boss-like) vice-chancellors – higher education's success seems to stand or fall on its capacity to turn out flexible entrepreneurs, professional workers and technical experts.
Enlightenment, civilisation, emancipation, critical inquiry – such words seem to have dropped out of the dictionary of higher education policy making. If the words of the establishment are to be believed, modern higher education is not much more than the human resources, training and organisational development arm of UK plc.
Much the same has happened to research. In the forthcoming research excellence framework, a key criterion is to be "impact", code for research that most directly leads to wealth generation or social wellbeing. Research councils have crafted lists of priorities that uncannily echo political agendas. Again, if the establishment's words are to be believed, research's role is as the R&D arm of the same soulless corporate nation.
But should we believe their words? After all, relatively few members of the establishment are graduates of the "instrumental" subjects. They are historians, economists, political scientists and a few (sadly too few) are natural scientists. And, by and large, they do not expect their own family members to make different choices.
If they are indeed hypocrites, their hypocrisy appears to operate on two levels. The first, and forgivable, is tactical hypocrisy. Of course, they do not believe higher education is just "training" or research only about "impact". But this is the kind of language that must be used to impress the Treasury or fight HE's corner against competitors for public funding.
The second, and unforgivable, is double standards. Of course, people like "us", the elite and the establishment, should not be constrained by a narrowly instrumental view of a university education. If Oxbridge disappoints, there is always art history at St Andrews – or, coming soon, Anthony Grayling's New College of the Humanities. We can cope with wisdom.
But for the mass, for the people, for "them", it is different. They cannot cope with wisdom – or, if they could, they might begin to ask unanswerable questions about the unequal constitution of society. Instead, they are destined to become the well-trained helots of the knowledge economy, wielders of vast technical expertise, but with their access to symbolic power and cultural capital strictly rationed.
Of course, I am being unfair myself. Most members of the establishment are accidental hypocrites; these are unspoken thoughts and silent beliefs. It is also perfectly possible to combine a high-level professional training with a critical university, even liberal, education; indeed, it is essential for both. And there is nothing wrong with taking into account the "impact" of research; in a democracy, higher education has a profound social purpose (and we all need to live and prosper).
But I do not think I am being entirely untrue. There is evidence of double standards in the recent white paper. The "elect", with good A-levels, who are largely the privileged, will be unconstrained. The most utilitarian of HE providers, especially the for-profit sector, will also be encouraged to expand. No direct public support is to be provided for the humanities and most social sciences, leaving them supported entirely by fees.
Little effort is required to decode these signals. Perhaps we should even be grateful. Prejudices that have slithered under the surface for 20 years or more have finally been exposed to view – and, therefore, to resistance.
• Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education and a former editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement
Is going to university better than doing a vocational qualification or an apprenticeship? We asked four people their views
For years we have been sold the complete load of bollocks and told that if you want to get on in life and be successful then you have to go to university, and manual work is only for those who aren't clever enough to make it to university. And where did that get us? Thousands of useless courses and hundreds of thousands of students with huge debts and no jobs, that's where. After ranting about this for years, it seems I'm not alone here any more.
In her report on vocational education, Professor Alison Wolf concluded that jobs like plumbing, carpentry, electrics – you know, the useful ones in society – have been downgraded in social status over the years, a situation she said must be amended if we are going to solve the huge youth unemployment problem.
One step forward might be to stop using terms like vocational. We should be talking about "getting a trade", something many parents used to aspire to for their kids as recently as the 1970s. The fact that, just to get the subject out there for public discussion, you have to come up with a word that plumbers like me don't even use says it all really.
The government is investing heavily in creating new apprenticeships. At the same time, it has introduced the Ebacc, which focuses solely on academic qualifications. What is missing is an alternative, a technical baccalaureate, which offers valuable learning and real skills, and leads to real jobs for young people.
Critics might say that encouraging children down one pathway at 14 is questionable. Our experience shows that getting children on the right programme for their learning needs is what leads to success.
Vocational qualifications serve a need for particular kinds of students, but let's not pretend they are the same as academic qualifications.
In 2004, 15,000 vocationally related qualifications were taken in schools. By 2010, this had risen to around 575,000, with many schools using them to boost their success in the league tables. You'd get schools doing well in the tables where some children couldn't read and write properly. The new Ebacc gives an honest indicator of how well schools are really doing. Children need the ability to sit in a controlled environment and be tested on their knowledge.
Vocational qualifications definitely seem more attractive now that big companies such as BAE Systems are offering apprenticeships, but I think I'd only really consider that route if I didn't get the grades I needed for university. Given the choice, I'd definitely go for A-levels, as I think they are far more respected by employers and universities.
Cutting and slicing provide a meaty topic for researchers to get their teeth into
Through the clever use of cheese in 2004, researchers at the University of Reading claimed to have solved one of life's great little mysteries. "Why is it relatively difficult, even with a sharp knife, to cut when simply 'pressing down', but much easier to cut as soon as some sideways sawing or slicing action is introduced?"
The scientists, AG ("Tony") Atkins, George Jeronimidis, and X Xu, published a monograph called Cutting, by "Pressing and Slicing", of Thin Floppy Slices of Materials Illustrated by Experiments on Cheddar Cheese and Salami. It was the highlight of that April's issue of the Journal of Materials Science.
The team experimented on a piece of cheese that they identified only as "commercial Cheddar cheese".
They were equally cagey about the nature of the meat. The report employs the phrase "a commercial pepper salami". Now salami experts understand that those four words, when huddled together, cover a multitude of possibilities: delicious or not; cheering or horrifying; mushy, stiff or adamantine. We learn nothing about this particular salami, save that thin slices of it become "floppy". But that's all right, because floppiness is the key thing here.
Atkins, Jeronimidis and Xu write in fairly stiff, technical language. But they loosen up a bit when talking about floppiness. Then they use language suitable to the casual reader who might, say, peruse an issue of the Journal of Materials Science while lounging in a dentist's waiting room:
"Further examples of the sort of globally-elastic cutting considered in this paper," say the scientists, "are to be found in the slicing of meat by the butcher ... lawnmowing, hair cutting, the cutting of fabrics by the dressmaker, surgery and so on. These cases are characterised by the offcuts [the individual slices] being elastically very floppy (ie, have negligible bending resistance and are not permanently deformed)."
Cutting into non-floppy material can be a different game. Atkins, Jeronimidis and Xu explicitly leave that for others to investigate.
They chose cheese, they say, because "the cutting of cheese is notoriously affected by friction (hence the use of wire to cut cheese)". They do not explain why they selected salami.
The team did their cutting not with a wire, but with a delicatessen-style "bacon" slicer. Its whirling blade can, depending on the substance and on the angle of the cut, fall prey to varying amounts of friction. To keep things from getting too, too floppy, they chilled the cheese before slicing it, and ditto the salami.
They quantified, in unprecedentedly technical detail, what good butchers, lawnmowers, hair cutters, dressmakers and surgeons have always intuited. The faster the whirl of the blade (or the horizontal drawing of the knife), the less force is needed to drive the blade down, down, down into the material. But, because of friction – the rubbing of blade against substance – there's a limit to how easy that downward slicing can get.
Cutting-edge stuff.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
A secondary school has divided its students by ability, complete with different uniforms. Innovative way to lure the middle classes, or worrying segregation?
Students with purple ties are gifted and talented. All the children at Crown Woods college in Greenwich, south London, know that. They are taught in separate colour-coordinated buildings, play in fenced-off areas and eat lunch at separate times. At 11 years old, all pupils at the college are streamed according to ability in what the headteacher argues is the only way to survive in the brave new world of market-driven education.
Crown Woods re-opened in May this year after a £50m rebuild under the Building Schools for the Future programme. Based on a small-schools model in the US, the pupils are ranked as they leave primary school and put into one of three "mini-schools" on site. The gifted and talented go to Delamere. They have purple badges on their smart blazers. The rest go to Ashwood, which wears blue, or Sherwood, which wears red. These two schools are more mixed ability, but they are still streamed into three tiers. Each school has 450 students and functions independently. There are no shared subject departments.
The light, bright white corridors in the nine new buildings make the site feel more like an art gallery than a state comprehensive. The state-of-the-art competitive gym with capacity for 450 people feels like a professional facility. There is a sensory garden and design centre named after William Morris. The use of prefects, the school's stately crown logo and the formal use of the tie in the uniform add to the traditional posh-school image, but this school's facilities are available to all students, and it offers vocational subjects.
The headteacher, Michael Murphy, glows with pride at the new set-up. The son of Irish immigrants who was rejected by a secondary modern before being educated at a mixed comprehensive in Brixton, he is keen to point out all the ways in which standards have been driven up. When he took over the school, it was in special measures, and was "losing out" to grammar schools in Bexley and the selective comprehensive schools in Bromley. Now Murphy says the school is over subscribed for the first time, and is enjoying a more balanced intake of social classes and abilities. The reason, he says, is the streaming.
"I felt if we made explicit the provision for high-ability children, we would be able to attract those children and their parents who would rather not put them in to take the Bexley 11-plus, but would feel comfortable with the type of provision we'd make for them – and that's entirely what's happened."
But he believes the model is better for all students, not just the gifted and talented. "Combining setting with the small-schools model is a powerful combination that allows highly personalised learning. Mixed-ability teaching in state schools has patently been shown to have failed – our model allows all students to work at their own level and get the support they need."
Although GCSE results here remain below local grammar schools, they have been improving; 45% of students gained five A*-Cs including English and maths this year, up 14 percentage points from three years ago. Five per cent of students achieved the government's new Ebacc measure. Ofsted ranked the school as good during its last inspection in 2009.
But Murphy says that without setting, the school wouldn't have survived. He says that he has heard of other schools using different colour uniforms to mark different "houses", but the idea of using different colours for different streams came from his "own head".
"I think it was Mrs Thatcher who said you can't ignore the market, you have to respond to it. If we had a system that really recognised value added, it would be different. But we have a system that increasingly focuses on results. If you have a really hard-nosed view and want your school to succeed, this is what you have to do. We wouldn't have attracted the students otherwise."
The school's students are all positive about the new building and take pride in their smart uniforms. Some tell me they like the small-school model, because it makes them feel safer than being left in a playground full of thousands of students they cannot name. Some of them, however, are not so keen on the overt streaming model.
One girl aged 15 who attends Sherwood school says that students in the top school "look down" on students in the other ability schools like hers. She says arguments and fighting have broken out between different schools, which she says started when the students were told which block they'd be going into.
"If you were friends with someone in Delamere, you are kind of enemies now, because you don't want to talk to them. If you talk to them you kind of feel like you're betraying (your school)."
"There was an argument in the school the other day and the girls were arguing between the fences ... it just feels like we've been cut off from them."
"They say if you're gifted and talented you'll be in Delamere, but there are other people in Sherwood and Ashdown that are gifted as well."
Another girl, also 15, worries the system could hold her back. The student, from Sherwood, wants to do triple science to become a neuro-psychologist, but can't. There is only space for her to do additional science in her timetable, something that she says "doesn't seem fair at all". The college says it will be making space for more triple-science provision next year.
Other students, though, say that they still feel united. They point out that many activities – including sports and music events – still allow opportunities for mixing across the college. Eylul Arif, 12, who has been put in Delamere, says: "Although we're split up, we're all friends. They look up to us, we look up to them. We're different visually, but we all go to the same school."
Streaming existed on the old school site, but differences in uniform corresponded to different ages rather than abilities. Students at different levels weren't taught in separate buildings and it was more common to move between sets. Under the new system, it is still possible to move, but the emphasis on the small-school community means that there is a reluctance to allow too much mobility. There is no systematic review of students' school allocation, and none has yet moved in the two months since the school opened.
Students are allocated a school in the college when they first arrive. They are allocated schools on the basis of their year 5 banding score, a teacher assessment and a cognitive ability test. Although there are around 1,800 students at the school including the sixth form, only two parents have questioned the stream given to their child.
Justine Kirkham is a new teacher who has been working at the school for 18 months. She asked to be put in Sherwood or Ashdown so she could "earn her stripes", and says she has seen a huge improvement in behaviour.
"Some students in the past had real behavioural problems and there is now far less trouble," she says. "There is the ability to personalise learning, and people who are struggling can actually get the help they need. Instead of being one of the less intelligent kids in the class, they are now able to do as well as everyone else. If they had been mixed and mainstream, I can't imagine them doing better. I just had a student get 4Bs rather than 3Bs. In our grade that's the target, but if it was across everyone he wouldn't have felt the same."
But this sort of approach is controversial. Kevin Courtney, deputy secretary at the National Union of Teachers, condemns the school's practices. "It's really upsetting. The idea of taking a large school and turning it into three mini schools is likely to be good for relationships, but streaming them is a step backwards. All the evidence shows that mixed-ability in places like Finland does better, although people find it hard to believe. The academisation of the school system will lead to more backwards steps like this. It leads to competition for children rather than improvement in teaching."
Courtney cites famous research conducted by American teacher Jane Elliott in the 60s, in which blue-eyed children did better and began bullying brown-eyed children after being told that they were superior. "There are very established studies showing that kids take the message that they are given from schools and teachers and internalise them," he says. "We moved away from secondary modern partly for that reason and it is depressing to see the system return."
A secondary school has divided its students by ability, complete with different uniforms. Innovative way to lure the middle classes, or worrying segregation?
Students with purple ties are gifted and talented. All the children at Crown Woods college in Greenwich, south London, know that. They are taught in separate colour-coordinated buildings, play in fenced-off areas and eat lunch at separate times. At 11 years old, all pupils at the college are streamed according to ability in what the headteacher argues is the only way to survive in the brave new world of market-driven education.
Crown Woods re-opened in May this year after a £50m rebuild under the Building Schools for the Future programme. Based on a small-schools model in the US, the pupils are ranked as they leave primary school and put into one of three "mini-schools" on site. The gifted and talented go to Delamere. They have purple badges on their smart blazers. The rest go to Ashwood, which wears blue, or Sherwood, which wears red. These two schools are more mixed ability, but they are still streamed into three tiers. Each school has 450 students and functions independently. There are no shared subject departments.
Continue reading...A secondary school has divided its students by ability, complete with different uniforms. Innovative way to lure the middle classes, or worrying segregation?
Students with purple ties are gifted and talented. All the children at Crown Woods college in Greenwich, south London, know that. They are taught in separate colour-coordinated buildings, play in fenced-off areas and eat lunch at separate times. At 11 years old, all pupils at the college are streamed according to ability in what the headteacher argues is the only way to survive in the brave new world of market-driven education.
Crown Woods re-opened in May this year after a £50m rebuild under the Building Schools for the Future programme. Based on a small-schools model in the US, the pupils are ranked as they leave primary school and put into one of three "mini-schools" on site. The gifted and talented go to Delamere. They have purple badges on their smart blazers. The rest go to Ashwood, which wears blue, or Sherwood, which wears red. These two schools are more mixed ability, but they are still streamed into three tiers. Each school has 450 students and functions independently. There are no shared subject departments.
Continue reading...Fee-paying schools bid farewell to a second chief in three years, after a row among elite headteachers
Rear Admiral Chris Parry disabled an Argentinian submarine in the Falklands and handled challenging, complex operations. But when it came to dealing with some of the most powerful independent headteachers in the country, his bravery in the field counted for little.
Just seven weeks into the job as the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, the body that speaks for private education, Parry made critical remarks about state schools that left independent heads running for cover. Parry promptly departed, and now heads a strategic forecasting and change consultancy.
Now his successor, David Lyscom – a former Foreign Office diplomat who was once "our man in Bratislava" – has retired from the field, leaving this month with a severance package and confidentiality clause.
Not only has the council, set up nearly 40 years ago to represent eight associations of heads, bursars and governors, lost two chief executives in three years, it has also seen the departure of its chairman, Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, the New Zealand lawyer who oversaw both appointments.
Leaderless and without strategic direction and a viable media team, the council is now fighting for its existence as one of its most powerful masters threatens to walk out and withdraw critical funding.
In a secret ballot, the heads of the big independent senior boys and co-educational schools have voted by more than 80% to pull out next month unless they see very substantial changes in the way the council conducts itself.
Eight associations for heads, bursars and governors fund the organisation in central London, but the loss of subscriptions from heads who belong to the powerful Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) would make a large dent in its income. Subscriptions from HMC – the heads of schools such as Eton, Harrow and Westminster – provide 40% of its £1.4m annual membership revenue.
The fragmentation of the independent sector, just when the coalition government is looking to it for leadership in curriculum innovation and the setting up of academies, would be a serious threat to its influence. But the council has angered many heads, who say it appears to be working to its own agenda. One told Education Guardian that the ISC was not so much an umbrella organisation, but more a poisonous "Bulgarian" umbrella, "poking and prodding us in the back of the leg".
The ISC did not wish to comment.
Quite how a body set up to represent 1,200 schools could become so vilified is hard to understand. But the HMC says fundamental change is essential. This week, the associations are interviewing for a new chairman and looking closer to home, interviewing retiring heads they hope will be more in tune with their aspirations.
There will be redundancies, and a new, "flatter" structure at the council's headquarters in London. The post of chief executive is to be abolished and the job given to the new, part-time chairman. The restructuring has staved off the immediate threat. Ian Power, HMC's membership secretary, says the disquiet had been long lived. Headteachers had felt for several years that the council was not sufficiently representing their views to the government and the media and appeared to be making up its own policies. There were concerns about the growth in staff numbers as it expanded its empire, the cost of which was ultimately borne by schools and parents.
"The new chairman will be a part-time position and I expect it will be someone from an educational background," he says. "The last government was very focused on regulation and the present one is focused on education and promoting excellence, which is where we want to be."
Sheila Cooper, the executive director of the Girls' Schools Association (GSA), welcomes the moves: "The changes are designed to bring members closer together and to help us create a more streamlined organisation, better placed to represent the needs and views of our diverse sector," she says.
But according to Tim Hands, the headmaster of Magdalen College school, Oxford, and co-chairman of the HMC and GSA universities committee, both Parry and Lyscom were only following orders.
"The real problem was in the high command that first asked for warfare and then decided it wanted diplomacy," he says. "Both are men of considerable qualities and high ability."
Certainly Parry had lost no time in carrying out the job description. Just days into the job, he said that some state pupils were "unteachable" and had "ignorant" parents, though he has said that his words were taken out of context and that he was criticising government policies.
He went on to tell the Commons education select committee that standards in some state schools were "offensive" to parents such as he, who had no choice but to pay for private education. And he blamed some state school teachers ideologically opposed to private schooling for promoting a "cold war" between the two sectors.
Parry says that when he stepped down, he received more than 300 letters and emails of support from people within independent education.
The crisis comes at a difficult time, when schools are awaiting the verdict of their appeal to the Charity Tribunal over the way the Charity Commission assesses whether they provide sufficient public benefits to retain their charitable status. The council argues that the commission's guidelines put too much emphasis on bursaries for poor students that could push up fees and hurt lower-income parents.
There is also a wide range of views among heads and governors over the extent to which the independent sector should get involved in running academies. Already 28 independent schools are helping to run the flagship schools, but last month Nick Gibb, the schools minister, said there should be an expectation that all successful private schools should support an academy to spread their unique ethos, culture and thinking.
And that could prove more costly than providing more bursaries to satisfy the Charity Commission.
Fee-paying schools bid farewell to a second chief in three years, after a row among elite headteachers
Rear Admiral Chris Parry disabled an Argentinian submarine in the Falklands and handled challenging, complex operations. But when it came to dealing with some of the most powerful independent headteachers in the country, his bravery in the field counted for little.
Just seven weeks into the job as the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, the body that speaks for private education, Parry made critical remarks about state schools that left independent heads running for cover. Parry promptly departed, and now heads a strategic forecasting and change consultancy.
Continue reading...Fee-paying schools bid farewell to a second chief in three years, after a row among elite headteachers
Rear Admiral Chris Parry disabled an Argentinian submarine in the Falklands and handled challenging, complex operations. But when it came to dealing with some of the most powerful independent headteachers in the country, his bravery in the field counted for little.
Just seven weeks into the job as the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, the body that speaks for private education, Parry made critical remarks about state schools that left independent heads running for cover. Parry promptly departed, and now heads a strategic forecasting and change consultancy.
Continue reading...The higher education white paper proposes that universities should train students for their future jobs. But not all academics are keen
Kim Hughes studies a bar of chocolate in the way that most of us would examine a diamond necklace. She has no thought of eating it, but admires its design and the effort that has gone into its construction. Having completed Nestlé's graduate training programme last year, she is now a "focused improvement specialist" charged with reviewing confectionery production systems.
Hughes competed against hundreds of other hopefuls in a gruelling recruitment process to gain her place at Nestlé, but acknowledges she was lucky to have graduated before her chances of finding work receded dramatically.
Latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that among the graduate class of 2010, only 62% were in work six months after leaving university, with a further 7% combining work and further study. This is an improvement on the previous year, but is still well below pre-credit crunch levels.
The universities minister, David Willetts, seized on the figures to justify proposals, outlined in the higher education white paper, to make universities work with employers to develop and "kitemark" courses, and boost enterprise skills training for students. He also pointed to the wide discrepancy between individual universities, ranging from a 100% employment record at the University of Buckingham to 78% at the University of East London, as evidence that poorly performing courses should be named and shamed, so that students could make informed choices about what and where to study.
However, many academics are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of training students for work. Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the elite Russell Group, says its member institutions aim to provide students with fundamental skills, such as problem-solving, analytical techniques, creative thinking and innovation, so that they are adaptable to new work environments. "Developing these high-level skills and qualities, rather than training for a specific job, is one of the vital roles universities should play," she says.
Professor John Brennan, director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information at the Open University, has studied graduate employability for the past 20 years and sees real danger in "training for work" displacing "education for life" in the student experience.
"Employability of graduates is a shared responsibility between employers and universities, but you really have to consider whether you are in the business of preparing students for their first job or for lifelong careers," he says. "I would say that in the UK, there is very often a four- or five-year transition period between a graduate leaving higher education and becoming established in his or her career."
In one research project, Brennan compared UK and German HE systems, concluding that graduates in each country might be at "about the same point" by their late 20s, the German having spent a long period in vocational higher education, while the Briton gained experience of employment after a much shorter degree course.
"There are real advantages to the UK system of having a short study period at university," says Brennan, "but you have to ask, what can reasonably be taught during a three-year degree and what is best left until graduates begin their career?"
Brennan is the first to admit that providing relevant work experience, such as placements and internships, can be of great benefit. The real concern, apparently shared by graduates, is the government's intention to allow businesses to influence the core content of degree courses.
Before joining Nestlé, Hughes completed a five-year course in biomolecular and medicinal chemistry at Strathclyde University, which included a year in industry. "Experience of the workplace definitely helped me to get on to the Nestlé training scheme," she says. "Even the part-time job I had as a student taught me more work skills than my course, but I don't see employability as something that should be taught in academic situations."
A report by Edge, the education charity, published shortly before the white paper, recommends that universities should consult employers on the design of degree courses and put employability at the centre of strategic planning.
According to the report, employers expect graduates to have attributes including team-working, communication, leadership, critical thinking, problem-solving and even managerial abilities, in addition to a knowledge of their degree subject.
"There is a tendency for employers to want their graduates 'oven-ready' and it is not fair that some are let down by their universities and are at a disadvantage to other graduates when applying for jobs," says David Harbourne, director of research at Edge, which commissioned Glasgow University to conduct the study.
"Some academics regard employability as a function of the university careers office and will not sully their hands with it. There is a balance to be struck, but you cannot argue that a student of English literature is not going to think about the job they are going to do when they graduate."
Some universities have embraced the principle of employability skills in their mission statements and websites. For example the University of Hertfordshire proclaims that "employability is at the heart of everything we do"
A different approach is being taken by AC Grayling's proposed New College for the Humanities in London, which plans to charge fees of £18,000. Its graduates will come away with a degree and a separate diploma for an additional course that includes practical professional skills such as financial literacy, teamwork, presentation and strategy.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, says many employers have only vague, or unrealistic, ideas of what they expect universities to teach. "For example, how do you teach teamwork?" he asks.
There are risks in allowing employers to influence course design, he says. "Sandwich courses were set up by universities working with industry, but many of them were popular with neither students nor employers. Students were put off their subject because, for example in engineering, they spent a year filing bits of metal in a factory, and it turned out most employers recruited engineering graduates from more academic universities anyway."
Professor Roger Brown, co-director of the Centre for Higher Education Research Development at Liverpool Hope University, says: "Universities should aim to provide a good rounded education that equips students for the rest of their lives ... The employability proposals in the white paper are dangerous nonsense because they are based on extraordinarily unreliable and poor-quality information."
But universities needn't worry too much, he says. "These sorts of ideas have been a theme of government policy since the 1980s and have never really been implemented successfully."
The higher education white paper proposes that universities should train students for their future jobs. But not all academics are keen
Kim Hughes studies a bar of chocolate in the way that most of us would examine a diamond necklace. She has no thought of eating it, but admires its design and the effort that has gone into its construction. Having completed Nestlé's graduate training programme last year, she is now a "focused improvement specialist" charged with reviewing confectionery production systems.
Hughes competed against hundreds of other hopefuls in a gruelling recruitment process to gain her place at Nestlé, but acknowledges she was lucky to have graduated before her chances of finding work receded dramatically.
Continue reading...The higher education white paper proposes that universities should train students for their future jobs. But not all academics are keen
Kim Hughes studies a bar of chocolate in the way that most of us would examine a diamond necklace. She has no thought of eating it, but admires its design and the effort that has gone into its construction. Having completed Nestlé's graduate training programme last year, she is now a "focused improvement specialist" charged with reviewing confectionery production systems.
Hughes competed against hundreds of other hopefuls in a gruelling recruitment process to gain her place at Nestlé, but acknowledges she was lucky to have graduated before her chances of finding work receded dramatically.
Continue reading...