Free schools are just a new tier of subtly different schools grafted on to the existing hierarchy, says Fiona Millar. Eventually local authorities will be reinvented to restore order
Some years ago, I was invited by Channel 4 to make a film about parent choice. Travelling around the country was an eye-opener. The public debate may have been about monolithic, bog-standard uniformity, but on the ground the diverse, hierarchical nature of English education was plain to see.
One day remains lodged in my mind. After a morning filming at the country's top fee-paying school, Westminster, we moved barely a mile across the Thames to visit Lilian Baylis school. It had recently been subject to a very public naming and shaming after Oliver Letwin, then a prominent opposition spokesman, announced he would rather "beg" in the streets than send his children there.
The difference between the two schools was stark. In the first, the capital's privileged youth were educated in exclusive splendour. At Lilian Baylis the bleak physical environment was as challenging as the intake. Over 70% of pupils were eligible for free school meals, the number of pupils from refugee families and on the child protection register were way above average and the GCSE results were way below. But inside the gloomy building, something exciting was happening. A feisty and inspiring young head was resolutely tackling the school's problems to give his pupils a better chance.
Over the years, I have been back to Lilian Baylis several times. The school is now in a light, airy new building, courtesy of the Labour government's now derided building programme. The intake remains similar, but its reputation has been re-built thanks to steadily improving results and a good Ofsted report, which judged the head's, Gary Phillips, leadership as "exemplary". The school is a touchstone for what has been achieved over the last 10 years.
But now a new "free" school is being proposed on Lilian Baylis's doorstep. It has a slick website oozing all the usual buzzwords – tradition, character, high aspirations, excellent teaching.
There is no way of knowing whether these new schools will actually deliver on their grandiose claims since most haven't appointed teachers, let alone admitted their first pupils. In countries where this experiment has been tried, there have been as many failures as successes.
London teacher Laura McInerney, in an excellent little pamphlet, Six Predictable Failures of Free Schools and How to Avoid Them, has probed why that is. She discovered that most were set up too quickly, not in collaboration with other local schools, and borne out of a misguided belief that they would somehow be better and different. In the real world of parents, teachers and pupils, rather than the virtual world of spin and promises, they found they had to cope with the same problems as everyone else.
It is possible, indeed likely, that some of these starry-eyed idealists will find themselves at the end of a very long bargepole wielded by a future Tory politician in years to come, or scrabbling around for resources when the next group of local parents pops up wanting something more special and different and a future secretary of state judges that they too should be given "more choice".
But the overall system won't be any better. What we are seeing is simply a new tier of subtly differentiated schools being grafted on to the existing hierarchy, at the bottom of which Lilian Baylis found itself in 2003. Only, now, there is the added complication that many will be answerable only to the secretary of state, or the shadowy chains that run them, with local authority power correspondingly diminished
Shortly after making the Channel 4 film, I was at a dinner with one of the early academy headteachers. After 10 minutes of arguing the merits, or otherwise, of "independent" state schools, he joked: "In the end, we will probably have to reinvent local authorities."
I suspect that point will come sooner rather than later, as the real effect of setting schools (and parents) against each other in this way starts to emerge – and, remember, a key Cameron ally, Nick Boles, admitted early on that creating "chaos" might be a good thing.
The smart politician (and Labour's Andy Burnham shows signs of understanding this) will be the one who starts developing ideas about how to hold the ring on issues like place planning, admissions, SEN, exclusions and fair access, once local systems have well and truly broken down. It is regrettable, not least for the children involved, that things may need to get worse before they get better, but order will not arise out of chaos without a helping hand.
www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk
Free schools are just a new tier of subtly different schools grafted on to the existing hierarchy, says Fiona Millar. Eventually local authorities will be reinvented to restore order
Some years ago, I was invited by Channel 4 to make a film about parent choice. Travelling around the country was an eye-opener. The public debate may have been about monolithic, bog-standard uniformity, but on the ground the diverse, hierarchical nature of English education was plain to see.
One day remains lodged in my mind. After a morning filming at the country's top fee-paying school, Westminster, we moved barely a mile across the Thames to visit Lilian Baylis school. It had recently been subject to a very public naming and shaming after Oliver Letwin, then a prominent opposition spokesman, announced he would rather "beg" in the streets than send his children there.
The difference between the two schools was stark. In the first, the capital's privileged youth were educated in exclusive splendour. At Lilian Baylis the bleak physical environment was as challenging as the intake. Over 70% of pupils were eligible for free school meals, the number of pupils from refugee families and on the child protection register were way above average and the GCSE results were way below. But inside the gloomy building, something exciting was happening. A feisty and inspiring young head was resolutely tackling the school's problems to give his pupils a better chance.
Over the years, I have been back to Lilian Baylis several times. The school is now in a light, airy new building, courtesy of the Labour government's now derided building programme. The intake remains similar, but its reputation has been re-built thanks to steadily improving results and a good Ofsted report, which judged the head's, Gary Phillips, leadership as "exemplary". The school is a touchstone for what has been achieved over the last 10 years.
But now a new "free" school is being proposed on Lilian Baylis's doorstep. It has a slick website oozing all the usual buzzwords – tradition, character, high aspirations, excellent teaching.
There is no way of knowing whether these new schools will actually deliver on their grandiose claims since most haven't appointed teachers, let alone admitted their first pupils. In countries where this experiment has been tried, there have been as many failures as successes.
London teacher Laura McInerney, in an excellent little pamphlet, Six Predictable Failures of Free Schools and How to Avoid Them, has probed why that is. She discovered that most were set up too quickly, not in collaboration with other local schools, and borne out of a misguided belief that they would somehow be better and different. In the real world of parents, teachers and pupils, rather than the virtual world of spin and promises, they found they had to cope with the same problems as everyone else.
It is possible, indeed likely, that some of these starry-eyed idealists will find themselves at the end of a very long bargepole wielded by a future Tory politician in years to come, or scrabbling around for resources when the next group of local parents pops up wanting something more special and different and a future secretary of state judges that they too should be given "more choice".
But the overall system won't be any better. What we are seeing is simply a new tier of subtly differentiated schools being grafted on to the existing hierarchy, at the bottom of which Lilian Baylis found itself in 2003. Only, now, there is the added complication that many will be answerable only to the secretary of state, or the shadowy chains that run them, with local authority power correspondingly diminished
Shortly after making the Channel 4 film, I was at a dinner with one of the early academy headteachers. After 10 minutes of arguing the merits, or otherwise, of "independent" state schools, he joked: "In the end, we will probably have to reinvent local authorities."
I suspect that point will come sooner rather than later, as the real effect of setting schools (and parents) against each other in this way starts to emerge – and, remember, a key Cameron ally, Nick Boles, admitted early on that creating "chaos" might be a good thing.
The smart politician (and Labour's Andy Burnham shows signs of understanding this) will be the one who starts developing ideas about how to hold the ring on issues like place planning, admissions, SEN, exclusions and fair access, once local systems have well and truly broken down. It is regrettable, not least for the children involved, that things may need to get worse before they get better, but order will not arise out of chaos without a helping hand.
www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk
Cuts to funding will hit disadvantaged young people the hardest, as colleges may be the only place they can learn and develop important life skills, says Sue Rimmer
With the long summer break looming, students are looking forward to the escape. For many, however, it is a dreadful prospect – the return to run-down estates with nothing to do, and where they don't even feel safe.
At South Thames College, we have seen the tensions grow in recent years among the disadvantaged and disaffected – and we have offered an alternative culture, a safe haven. This is no soft option, but a rigorous offering of incentives, enrichment activities, healthy and safe-living programmes, sports competitions, volunteering and young leadership schemes that middle-class kids take for granted – activities we recently extended into the summer months.
Like universities, colleges are not just exam factories. Middle-class teenagers get two years in the sixth form and three years at university, and we accept that they need that space. For our young people, college is the only space they get.
We provide a safe environment where young people learn, gain employment skills and make the transition to adulthood. It is where our youth workers watch for signs of trouble, and where all our staff go the extra mile over and above anything explicitly in the curriculum. From this has grown an awards scheme – gold, silver and bronze – points for voluntary work, for being a course rep etc, so they can see the connections between achievement and reward.
We were expecting cuts; we weren't expecting them to do what they did to education maintenance allowances or to tutorial entitlements – down from 114 to 30 funded hours a year. Funds such as EMAs were not just given away, they were dependent on attending classes, on time – a huge incentive to achieve.
We are looking to see what we can fund, co-operating with other services. The problem is that youth clubs and other outlets are closing, support from outside is beginning to crumble, leaving young people more isolated than ever. As they cut services outside college, there is nowhere else for them to go.
It raises serious questions about what we mean when we talk about educational entitlements. There was an outcry over the cuts, but we have only seen the first bit of money taken. What happens when it is all taken away over three years? I am using the work we do to build evidence in support of this funding and identify what sources we can tap into. Meeting the needs of young people at risk of social exclusion must be a major platform of Learning and Skills Improvement Service support.
It is not just that young people are bored on estates; they are genuinely frightened. Gang rape is an issue coming up more in conversations with police, and we are aware of girls getting involved in gang activities. There is an increase in the number of mental-health issues, drugs, homelessness and sofa surfing. There are problems with girls' self-image and levels of violence from boys that seem to be seen as acceptable.
In some ways, we are the last safety net. If we don't catch them as they go into adulthood, they are lost. They deserve that opportunity and support. Without it, they would not carry on coming to college. I see young people arrive with barely a level 1 qualification and progress to a degree because of the extra support. It is a cheap investment, because of the payback to society. They are bright, talented young people and we should not be wasting their lives.
• Sue Rimmer is principal of South Thames College and a council member of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service
Cuts to funding will hit disadvantaged young people the hardest, as colleges may be the only place they can learn and develop important life skills, says Sue Rimmer
With the long summer break looming, students are looking forward to the escape. For many, however, it is a dreadful prospect – the return to run-down estates with nothing to do, and where they don't even feel safe.
At South Thames College, we have seen the tensions grow in recent years among the disadvantaged and disaffected – and we have offered an alternative culture, a safe haven. This is no soft option, but a rigorous offering of incentives, enrichment activities, healthy and safe-living programmes, sports competitions, volunteering and young leadership schemes that middle-class kids take for granted – activities we recently extended into the summer months.
Like universities, colleges are not just exam factories. Middle-class teenagers get two years in the sixth form and three years at university, and we accept that they need that space. For our young people, college is the only space they get.
We provide a safe environment where young people learn, gain employment skills and make the transition to adulthood. It is where our youth workers watch for signs of trouble, and where all our staff go the extra mile over and above anything explicitly in the curriculum. From this has grown an awards scheme – gold, silver and bronze – points for voluntary work, for being a course rep etc, so they can see the connections between achievement and reward.
We were expecting cuts; we weren't expecting them to do what they did to education maintenance allowances or to tutorial entitlements – down from 114 to 30 funded hours a year. Funds such as EMAs were not just given away, they were dependent on attending classes, on time – a huge incentive to achieve.
We are looking to see what we can fund, co-operating with other services. The problem is that youth clubs and other outlets are closing, support from outside is beginning to crumble, leaving young people more isolated than ever. As they cut services outside college, there is nowhere else for them to go.
It raises serious questions about what we mean when we talk about educational entitlements. There was an outcry over the cuts, but we have only seen the first bit of money taken. What happens when it is all taken away over three years? I am using the work we do to build evidence in support of this funding and identify what sources we can tap into. Meeting the needs of young people at risk of social exclusion must be a major platform of Learning and Skills Improvement Service support.
It is not just that young people are bored on estates; they are genuinely frightened. Gang rape is an issue coming up more in conversations with police, and we are aware of girls getting involved in gang activities. There is an increase in the number of mental-health issues, drugs, homelessness and sofa surfing. There are problems with girls' self-image and levels of violence from boys that seem to be seen as acceptable.
In some ways, we are the last safety net. If we don't catch them as they go into adulthood, they are lost. They deserve that opportunity and support. Without it, they would not carry on coming to college. I see young people arrive with barely a level 1 qualification and progress to a degree because of the extra support. It is a cheap investment, because of the payback to society. They are bright, talented young people and we should not be wasting their lives.
• Sue Rimmer is principal of South Thames College and a council member of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service
Headteachers fear their targets may be missed thanks to what some say is 'appalling' Sats marking
News last week that a government report had recommended scrapping writing tests for 11-year-olds should have been music to the ears of teachers, some of whom have long campaigned against exams for primary children. But before they could savour the moment, many found themselves embroiled in problems over the marking of this year's national curriculum tests, known as Sats. Headteachers and their staff are spending a busy week preparing to lodge appeals with Edexcel, the exam board, by the deadline on Friday.
After receiving an unprecedented number of calls from headteachers, the National Association of Head Teachers carried out a poll of its members. Within 24 hours, 720 of the 954 respondents said they were experiencing problems. Over 30% said the difficulties were "moderate," 28% "severe" and 13% "outrageous"; 93% reported problems with the writing part of the test. The test, taken by year 6 pupils every May, doesn't just test accuracy; children must show they can write in a range of genres and for different audiences.
But heads say that this year's markers have put too much emphasis on handwriting and spelling and not enough on the composition, sentence structure and use of punctuation.
Tony Draper, headteacher of Water Hall primary in Milton Keynes (and NAHT national executive member), says the marking is "absolutely appalling".
Nine of his pupils predicted to achieve level 4 (a standard expected from the majority of pupils leaving primary school) were graded at level 3. Two pupils, deemed by teachers to have produced work of level 5 standard, were graded level 4.
One paper (seen on this page), which Draper describes as showing "real flair and imagination for a 10-year-old", was awarded just 13 out of 31 marks (a level 3) by an external assessor, with particularly low scores for handwriting and "text structure and organisation". Draper believes it should have been awarded 20, an opinion verified by a local authority assessment consultant, which would mean an overall grading of level 4. "It's ridiculous, particularly the judgment on handwriting, because it is perfectly legible and sitting on the lines," he says. "I can't help thinking the examiner didn't like the fact there were crossings-out, but we teach our children to edit their work as they go along, and surely that is good practice."
And that is not the only thing Draper isn't impressed by. In five cases, the number of marks had been added up incorrectly by the marker – in one case resulting in a difference of five points out of a possible 30.
Draper is sending 11 out of the 31 papers back to be reviewed. This isn't cheap; schools have to pay £9 for each script re-marked and only get their money back if their appeal is successful.
Maggie Parker, headteacher at Tameside school near Manchester, calls the marking "disastrous". Over 90% of her pupils were predicted to get level 4 grades, and as the current marks stand, just 63% achieved this. She is planning to send back around 10 of the 52 papers taken. "It seems as if they (the marker) have just given the papers a cursory glance," she complains.
Paul Gabriel, headteacher at Lancaster Road primary in Morecambe, agrees. "It's as if the person marking it was watching the telly at the same time." He is planning to send back 14 of 60 scripts.
Over at Tickford Park primary, in Milton Keynes, Ann Tobia is also bemused. She is planning to send back 15 out of 41 scripts, after just 23 out of 51 students achieved level 4 grades (the school had predicted 43). She says: "My teachers are experienced, accurate markers, so in previous years their predictions have been spot on. This year's scripts look as if they have been marked by a child, with load of crossings-out and parts where she has obviously changed her mind several times."
Some, like Draper, say the examiners seem to be making judgments based on the first few paragraphs. "We had one with a brilliant opening paragraph that turned out not to be very good overall, which got a great mark. Another that didn't start too well, but improved a lot, got a poor mark."
And it's not just pupils who are affected. Under government targets for primary schools, 60% of 11-year-olds are expected to score level 4 in their Sats exams. If these marks are withheld, some schools could find themselves struggling to meet their targets. "Headteachers could find themselves wondering if they will have a job next year," says Draper. Some have already been asked to explain themselves.
"Some heads and chairs of governors are summoned to their local authority in advance of the re-marking to be reprimanded for their 'results' and they could be subject to intervention in their school as a result. This is magnified this year with Michael Gove's threat of academy intervention for 'underperforming schools'. I'd hate to be in that position."
Linda Harvey, headteacher at Beaumont primary in Purley, Surrey, says the impact could be felt particularly hard in small schools. She only has 19 pupils in year 6, and each one's performance represents around 5% of the school's overall results, which means just a few low marks can have a significant impact. She is sending 10 papers to Edexcel, but would "love to send the whole lot" back, she says.
The last time Sats marking caused embarrassment was in 2008 when the exams watchdog QCDA (now closing down) had to sack ETS, the contractor it was using, after problems left some results delayed by months. Edexcel was hastily awarded the contract, but this year's problems will put a question mark over the quality of its work.
A spokesperson at the Department for Education said that markers, who are practising or retired teachers, receive thorough training and undergo quality checks. "Ofqual regulates key stage 2 tests and has said it will continue to monitor and safeguard the quality of marking."
Tobia says she is not willing to give "any credibility" to these marks and will tell parents to disregard them in favour of teachers' assessment of how children are performing. "If Ofsted come and try to judge me over it, I am ready to do battle with them."
Headteachers fear their targets may be missed thanks to what some say is 'appalling' Sats marking
News last week that a government report had recommended scrapping writing tests for 11-year-olds should have been music to the ears of teachers, some of whom have long campaigned against exams for primary children. But before they could savour the moment, many found themselves embroiled in problems over the marking of this year's national curriculum tests, known as Sats. Headteachers and their staff are spending a busy week preparing to lodge appeals with Edexcel, the exam board, by the deadline on Friday.
After receiving an unprecedented number of calls from headteachers, the National Association of Head Teachers carried out a poll of its members. Within 24 hours, 720 of the 954 respondents said they were experiencing problems. Over 30% said the difficulties were "moderate," 28% "severe" and 13% "outrageous"; 93% reported problems with the writing part of the test. The test, taken by year 6 pupils every May, doesn't just test accuracy; children must show they can write in a range of genres and for different audiences.
But heads say that this year's markers have put too much emphasis on handwriting and spelling and not enough on the composition, sentence structure and use of punctuation.
Tony Draper, headteacher of Water Hall primary in Milton Keynes (and NAHT national executive member), says the marking is "absolutely appalling".
Nine of his pupils predicted to achieve level 4 (a standard expected from the majority of pupils leaving primary school) were graded at level 3. Two pupils, deemed by teachers to have produced work of level 5 standard, were graded level 4.
One paper (seen on this page), which Draper describes as showing "real flair and imagination for a 10-year-old", was awarded just 13 out of 31 marks (a level 3) by an external assessor, with particularly low scores for handwriting and "text structure and organisation". Draper believes it should have been awarded 20, an opinion verified by a local authority assessment consultant, which would mean an overall grading of level 4. "It's ridiculous, particularly the judgment on handwriting, because it is perfectly legible and sitting on the lines," he says. "I can't help thinking the examiner didn't like the fact there were crossings-out, but we teach our children to edit their work as they go along, and surely that is good practice."
And that is not the only thing Draper isn't impressed by. In five cases, the number of marks had been added up incorrectly by the marker – in one case resulting in a difference of five points out of a possible 30.
Draper is sending 11 out of the 31 papers back to be reviewed. This isn't cheap; schools have to pay £9 for each script re-marked and only get their money back if their appeal is successful.
Maggie Parker, headteacher at Tameside school near Manchester, calls the marking "disastrous". Over 90% of her pupils were predicted to get level 4 grades, and as the current marks stand, just 63% achieved this. She is planning to send back around 10 of the 52 papers taken. "It seems as if they (the marker) have just given the papers a cursory glance," she complains.
Paul Gabriel, headteacher at Lancaster Road primary in Morecambe, agrees. "It's as if the person marking it was watching the telly at the same time." He is planning to send back 14 of 60 scripts.
Over at Tickford Park primary, in Milton Keynes, Ann Tobia is also bemused. She is planning to send back 15 out of 41 scripts, after just 23 out of 51 students achieved level 4 grades (the school had predicted 43). She says: "My teachers are experienced, accurate markers, so in previous years their predictions have been spot on. This year's scripts look as if they have been marked by a child, with load of crossings-out and parts where she has obviously changed her mind several times."
Some, like Draper, say the examiners seem to be making judgments based on the first few paragraphs. "We had one with a brilliant opening paragraph that turned out not to be very good overall, which got a great mark. Another that didn't start too well, but improved a lot, got a poor mark."
And it's not just pupils who are affected. Under government targets for primary schools, 60% of 11-year-olds are expected to score level 4 in their Sats exams. If these marks are withheld, some schools could find themselves struggling to meet their targets. "Headteachers could find themselves wondering if they will have a job next year," says Draper. Some have already been asked to explain themselves.
"Some heads and chairs of governors are summoned to their local authority in advance of the re-marking to be reprimanded for their 'results' and they could be subject to intervention in their school as a result. This is magnified this year with Michael Gove's threat of academy intervention for 'underperforming schools'. I'd hate to be in that position."
Linda Harvey, headteacher at Beaumont primary in Purley, Surrey, says the impact could be felt particularly hard in small schools. She only has 19 pupils in year 6, and each one's performance represents around 5% of the school's overall results, which means just a few low marks can have a significant impact. She is sending 10 papers to Edexcel, but would "love to send the whole lot" back, she says.
The last time Sats marking caused embarrassment was in 2008 when the exams watchdog QCDA (now closing down) had to sack ETS, the contractor it was using, after problems left some results delayed by months. Edexcel was hastily awarded the contract, but this year's problems will put a question mark over the quality of its work.
A spokesperson at the Department for Education said that markers, who are practising or retired teachers, receive thorough training and undergo quality checks. "Ofqual regulates key stage 2 tests and has said it will continue to monitor and safeguard the quality of marking."
Tobia says she is not willing to give "any credibility" to these marks and will tell parents to disregard them in favour of teachers' assessment of how children are performing. "If Ofsted come and try to judge me over it, I am ready to do battle with them."
A former bank robber is working to set up a series of academies to help ex-prisoners start afresh
"Education liberated me from a life of crime," says Bobby Cummines, now a life fellow of the RSA, soon to receive an honorary master's from the Open University, and, last month, awarded the OBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace for his services to reformed offenders. It's not bad for a former armed robber who spent a total of 13 years in high security prisons before deciding he needed to change for the better.
As founder member and chief executive of Unlock, the national association of reformed offenders, Cummines has spent the last 12 years campaigning against the social exclusion and discrimination that stymies the efforts of many reformed offenders to "go straight."
He leads a team of four staff operating from a tiny office above a dentist in Snodland, Kent. Unlock receives no government funding and relies on charity donations for its existence. But the organisation thinks big and boasts some significant successes in its fight for the right of offenders who have served their sentences and have a desire to live crime-free, productive lives to be treated by fairly by the rest of society.
A notable success was persuading sections of the insurance and banking industries of the merits of welcoming prisoners and ex-prisoners as customers. Unlock has established a specialist insurance broker service and now has a list of 17 insurers on its Insurance and Convictions Consumer Guidance leaflet. Working with Halifax and Barclays, Cummines has developed a guide to enable prison staff to assist people in prison or on the verge of release to open bank accounts. "The emphasis of our work is to reduce the likelihood of re-offending by people who have served their sentences," he says. "Without bank accounts people cannot access the financial services the rest of us take for granted."
It is hard to imagine that Cummines was ever part of a criminal culture. But like many who end up in prison, he started young. "I was a bright kid, but I never played by the rules. I was from a big Irish family of eight children. We lived in King's Cross in London when it was at its worst with drugs, gangs, prostitutes, you name it. To get out of the slums you became a bricklayer, joined the army or became a villain. Thieving was quite acceptable, so long as you didn't rob your own people."
He left school at 15 with no qualifications, but got a job in a shipping office. He puts the wrong turn his life took down to his first encounter with the police. "I was in a park with my mates when somebody let off a starting pistol. The police were called and began bullying us. I stood up to them." He says the police returned later and produced a cut-throat razor they said was his. "It was a fit-up," he says. "My dad said the police don't tell lies, plead guilty, you'll get a fine and it'll be forgotten about in a few years."
He got the fine, but his bosses at the shipping office saw his guilty plea and sacked him. "I was gutted," he says. "I thought, if you want me to be bad I'll show you how bad I can be." Within a year he was sentenced to six months in a detention centre for the possession of a sawn off shotgun. "It was supposed to be a short sharp shock, but it was just violence practised against vulnerable kids. I came out of there tougher and angrier than ever."
Over the next two decades Cummines established himself as a hard-core professional criminal. "If I had carried on, I would either have been shot dead by the police or innocent members of the public could have been shot."
The change came while he was serving a 12-year sentence and he credits a prison education officer, a prison probation officer and a former south London gang boss. "I started studying social science and psychology with the Open University. I began reading about deviant behaviour and thought, 'I'm reading about me!' The more I read, the more I realised I didn't have to be the way I was. The high I used to get from crime was replaced by a bigger high from learning."
Cummines left prison for the last time almost 25 years ago. He struggled to get work and fit into the "straight" world, but eventually succeeded, getting a degree at Greenwich University and going on to hold senior positions with various employers. "Getting work was hard because I had to make up my employment history," he says. "To live an honest life, I had to be dishonest about my past. That was one of my motivations for joining Unlock and one of the things we are campaigning to resolve," he says. As chief executive he has been a member of the home affairs select committee inquiry into the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, an expert witness on to the home affairs select committee on prisoner education and a specialist adviser in the 2004 public inquiry into murder of Zahid Mubarek in Feltham Young Offenders Institution.
"Prison doesn't work, education works," Cummines concludes. His one big dream is for a series of super academies, which he has christened the Diamond Project. The aim would be to provide training, education, advice and guidance for low tariff offenders and those at risk of breaking the law. Cummines and his colleagues have spent years working on the proposals. They held talks with the last Labour government and have met the coalition government. During his last meeting with Lord McNally, minister of state for justice, the peer promised to arrange meetings between Unlock and other senior officials.
The recent government review of prisoner education pledged to put education and training at the heart of Ken Clarke's promised "rehabilitation revolution" in our jails. Cummines, who has already secured the promise of several hundred million pounds' worth of private finance for the project, is hopeful. "I told Lord McNally, 'People usually come here to ask you for money, but I want to give you money,'" he says, smiling.
With an average cost of £37,000 a year to keep someone in prison and the cost of re-offending estimated by the home office at between £9bn and £13bn a year perhaps he has a point.
"They would be investing in good behaviour. You can educate people out of crime. Or you can educate people into crime, by giving them no education and banging them up with experienced criminals."
A former bank robber is working to set up a series of academies to help ex-prisoners start afresh
"Education liberated me from a life of crime," says Bobby Cummines, now a life fellow of the RSA, soon to receive an honorary master's from the Open University, and, last month, awarded the OBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace for his services to reformed offenders. It's not bad for a former armed robber who spent a total of 13 years in high security prisons before deciding he needed to change for the better.
As founder member and chief executive of Unlock, the national association of reformed offenders, Cummines has spent the last 12 years campaigning against the social exclusion and discrimination that stymies the efforts of many reformed offenders to "go straight."
He leads a team of four staff operating from a tiny office above a dentist in Snodland, Kent. Unlock receives no government funding and relies on charity donations for its existence. But the organisation thinks big and boasts some significant successes in its fight for the right of offenders who have served their sentences and have a desire to live crime-free, productive lives to be treated by fairly by the rest of society.
A notable success was persuading sections of the insurance and banking industries of the merits of welcoming prisoners and ex-prisoners as customers. Unlock has established a specialist insurance broker service and now has a list of 17 insurers on its Insurance and Convictions Consumer Guidance leaflet. Working with Halifax and Barclays, Cummines has developed a guide to enable prison staff to assist people in prison or on the verge of release to open bank accounts. "The emphasis of our work is to reduce the likelihood of re-offending by people who have served their sentences," he says. "Without bank accounts people cannot access the financial services the rest of us take for granted."
It is hard to imagine that Cummines was ever part of a criminal culture. But like many who end up in prison, he started young. "I was a bright kid, but I never played by the rules. I was from a big Irish family of eight children. We lived in King's Cross in London when it was at its worst with drugs, gangs, prostitutes, you name it. To get out of the slums you became a bricklayer, joined the army or became a villain. Thieving was quite acceptable, so long as you didn't rob your own people."
He left school at 15 with no qualifications, but got a job in a shipping office. He puts the wrong turn his life took down to his first encounter with the police. "I was in a park with my mates when somebody let off a starting pistol. The police were called and began bullying us. I stood up to them." He says the police returned later and produced a cut-throat razor they said was his. "It was a fit-up," he says. "My dad said the police don't tell lies, plead guilty, you'll get a fine and it'll be forgotten about in a few years."
He got the fine, but his bosses at the shipping office saw his guilty plea and sacked him. "I was gutted," he says. "I thought, if you want me to be bad I'll show you how bad I can be." Within a year he was sentenced to six months in a detention centre for the possession of a sawn off shotgun. "It was supposed to be a short sharp shock, but it was just violence practised against vulnerable kids. I came out of there tougher and angrier than ever."
Over the next two decades Cummines established himself as a hard-core professional criminal. "If I had carried on, I would either have been shot dead by the police or innocent members of the public could have been shot."
The change came while he was serving a 12-year sentence and he credits a prison education officer, a prison probation officer and a former south London gang boss. "I started studying social science and psychology with the Open University. I began reading about deviant behaviour and thought, 'I'm reading about me!' The more I read, the more I realised I didn't have to be the way I was. The high I used to get from crime was replaced by a bigger high from learning."
Cummines left prison for the last time almost 25 years ago. He struggled to get work and fit into the "straight" world, but eventually succeeded, getting a degree at Greenwich University and going on to hold senior positions with various employers. "Getting work was hard because I had to make up my employment history," he says. "To live an honest life, I had to be dishonest about my past. That was one of my motivations for joining Unlock and one of the things we are campaigning to resolve," he says. As chief executive he has been a member of the home affairs select committee inquiry into the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, an expert witness on to the home affairs select committee on prisoner education and a specialist adviser in the 2004 public inquiry into murder of Zahid Mubarek in Feltham Young Offenders Institution.
"Prison doesn't work, education works," Cummines concludes. His one big dream is for a series of super academies, which he has christened the Diamond Project. The aim would be to provide training, education, advice and guidance for low tariff offenders and those at risk of breaking the law. Cummines and his colleagues have spent years working on the proposals. They held talks with the last Labour government and have met the coalition government. During his last meeting with Lord McNally, minister of state for justice, the peer promised to arrange meetings between Unlock and other senior officials.
The recent government review of prisoner education pledged to put education and training at the heart of Ken Clarke's promised "rehabilitation revolution" in our jails. Cummines, who has already secured the promise of several hundred million pounds' worth of private finance for the project, is hopeful. "I told Lord McNally, 'People usually come here to ask you for money, but I want to give you money,'" he says, smiling.
With an average cost of £37,000 a year to keep someone in prison and the cost of re-offending estimated by the home office at between £9bn and £13bn a year perhaps he has a point.
"They would be investing in good behaviour. You can educate people out of crime. Or you can educate people into crime, by giving them no education and banging them up with experienced criminals."
Psychologists are finding new ways to improve the quality of discussion by trial juries
The jury in the iconic film 12 Angry Men would have reached a very different verdict if not for the Henry Fonda character, "juror 8". His lone dissenting voice prompts a fierce debate in which prejudices are exposed, and a previously reticent young juror finds the confidence to share a knowledge of knives gleaned from his tough upbringing to convince the others that the accused could not have inflicted the fatal wound.
But in real life, not every jury has a juror 8. Research in the US has found that it is common for a third of jury members to contribute little to discussion, while a significant minority remain completely silent. It's difficult to conduct similar research in the UK, where there are strict laws preventing jurors talking about what has gone on in the jury room, but it seems likely the results would be similar. A jury of 12 is supposed to represent a cross-section of society and bring a wide range of experience to the deliberation process, but that's not going to happen if some members can't get word in.
Psychologists at the University of Portsmouth have been looking at how to improve the quality of jury debate and have come up with a simple solution: rearrange the chairs so they begin their deliberation in groups of four. "Four is the magic number, because it's the maximum number of people you can interact with effectively at any one time," says the lead researcher, Dr Bridget Waller.
In simulations, the researchers found that the arrangement increased the involvement levels of all jury members and there was less of a tendency for some people to dominate. They also noted that the group discussion evolved naturally into a whole-jury consensus, and jurors felt they contributed more to the verdict.
Why is the number four so important? "Observations of social settings suggest that four is a cut-off point in spontaneously forming groups," says Waller. "If you look at a restaurant table of eight people, there will be two conversations going on."
In group conversations, there's a lot to keep track of, she explains. For example, you need to remember who has said what, read each person's body language and keep track of conversational processes such as turn-taking. It's very difficult to manage this with more than four people.
Waller also points to other research that suggests there are evolutionary as well as practical reasons for our tendency to gather in groups of four. The evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar has put forward the idea that language has evolved partly as a form of social "grooming", which functions in a similar way to the physical grooming practised by other primates to maintain bonds.
There is a relationship between the amount of time a species spends grooming each other and the size of their social group – chimpanzees live in groups of around 50, so spend a lot of time grooming. While animal grooming takes place on an individual basis, language allows us to "groom" more than one person at a time. Because the average person is connected socially to around 150 others, we need to be three times as efficient at grooming as chimps. Group talk is a way of achieving this, although it gets difficult once you get beyond the group of four.
In the Portsmouth research, 120 participants watched a video of a mock trial and were then divided into "juries", some in the traditional way, with all 12 members seated around one table, and others arranged into groups of four. The only instruction given was not to move the chairs. "We thought they might be confused as to whether they were in a group of four or 12," says Waller. "What surprised us was how quickly people intuitively understood what they were supposed to do. They began discussions very quickly in their group of four, but also had a very fluid exchange of ideas between the sub-groups and the main configuration. In the groups of 12 we didn't have that – it was a lot quieter and there was a lot more hesitation at the start. What came up in our feedback at the end of the simulations was that personality types seemed to be exposed more in the group of 12 than in our sub-divided groups, and some individuals dominated the discussion." Leaders still emerged in the group setting, she adds, but their influence was diluted.
"What you tend to get in large groups is the "groupthink" phenomenon, which means you can easily get swayed towards the majority consensus. You're less likely to have that in smaller groups, so if you do have an alternative position, you're more likely to vocalise that."
Some members of the team are also looking at other ways of improving the jury experience. In a related study, Dr Lorraine Hope developed a specially structured notebook with trial-relevant headings that jury members can use to take notes. Her research found that those using it reported significantly more accurate information in a post-trial recall task.
As yet it's unclear what effect, if any, jury groupings will have on verdicts. Almost all the juries in the simulation found the defendant not guilty. The team now plans to conduct further studies using more divisive cases, and to look in detail at how non-verbal behaviour helps participants to understand the motivation and intention of others. "What might be happening in groups bigger than four is that you get the linguistic sentiment – the actual words they're saying – but not the emotional value or emphasis they're putting on it or how confident they feel about it. Looking at someone's face and gestures and listening to the sound of their voice helps you interpret what they're saying. I think what we might find is that in our small groups of four there's a much better emotionally communicative process than in the large groups."
Psychologists are finding new ways to improve the quality of discussion by trial juries
The jury in the iconic film 12 Angry Men would have reached a very different verdict if not for the Henry Fonda character, "juror 8". His lone dissenting voice prompts a fierce debate in which prejudices are exposed, and a previously reticent young juror finds the confidence to share a knowledge of knives gleaned from his tough upbringing to convince the others that the accused could not have inflicted the fatal wound.
But in real life, not every jury has a juror 8. Research in the US has found that it is common for a third of jury members to contribute little to discussion, while a significant minority remain completely silent. It's difficult to conduct similar research in the UK, where there are strict laws preventing jurors talking about what has gone on in the jury room, but it seems likely the results would be similar. A jury of 12 is supposed to represent a cross-section of society and bring a wide range of experience to the deliberation process, but that's not going to happen if some members can't get word in.
Psychologists at the University of Portsmouth have been looking at how to improve the quality of jury debate and have come up with a simple solution: rearrange the chairs so they begin their deliberation in groups of four. "Four is the magic number, because it's the maximum number of people you can interact with effectively at any one time," says the lead researcher, Dr Bridget Waller.
In simulations, the researchers found that the arrangement increased the involvement levels of all jury members and there was less of a tendency for some people to dominate. They also noted that the group discussion evolved naturally into a whole-jury consensus, and jurors felt they contributed more to the verdict.
Why is the number four so important? "Observations of social settings suggest that four is a cut-off point in spontaneously forming groups," says Waller. "If you look at a restaurant table of eight people, there will be two conversations going on."
In group conversations, there's a lot to keep track of, she explains. For example, you need to remember who has said what, read each person's body language and keep track of conversational processes such as turn-taking. It's very difficult to manage this with more than four people.
Waller also points to other research that suggests there are evolutionary as well as practical reasons for our tendency to gather in groups of four. The evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar has put forward the idea that language has evolved partly as a form of social "grooming", which functions in a similar way to the physical grooming practised by other primates to maintain bonds.
There is a relationship between the amount of time a species spends grooming each other and the size of their social group – chimpanzees live in groups of around 50, so spend a lot of time grooming. While animal grooming takes place on an individual basis, language allows us to "groom" more than one person at a time. Because the average person is connected socially to around 150 others, we need to be three times as efficient at grooming as chimps. Group talk is a way of achieving this, although it gets difficult once you get beyond the group of four.
In the Portsmouth research, 120 participants watched a video of a mock trial and were then divided into "juries", some in the traditional way, with all 12 members seated around one table, and others arranged into groups of four. The only instruction given was not to move the chairs. "We thought they might be confused as to whether they were in a group of four or 12," says Waller. "What surprised us was how quickly people intuitively understood what they were supposed to do. They began discussions very quickly in their group of four, but also had a very fluid exchange of ideas between the sub-groups and the main configuration. In the groups of 12 we didn't have that – it was a lot quieter and there was a lot more hesitation at the start. What came up in our feedback at the end of the simulations was that personality types seemed to be exposed more in the group of 12 than in our sub-divided groups, and some individuals dominated the discussion." Leaders still emerged in the group setting, she adds, but their influence was diluted.
"What you tend to get in large groups is the "groupthink" phenomenon, which means you can easily get swayed towards the majority consensus. You're less likely to have that in smaller groups, so if you do have an alternative position, you're more likely to vocalise that."
Some members of the team are also looking at other ways of improving the jury experience. In a related study, Dr Lorraine Hope developed a specially structured notebook with trial-relevant headings that jury members can use to take notes. Her research found that those using it reported significantly more accurate information in a post-trial recall task.
As yet it's unclear what effect, if any, jury groupings will have on verdicts. Almost all the juries in the simulation found the defendant not guilty. The team now plans to conduct further studies using more divisive cases, and to look in detail at how non-verbal behaviour helps participants to understand the motivation and intention of others. "What might be happening in groups bigger than four is that you get the linguistic sentiment – the actual words they're saying – but not the emotional value or emphasis they're putting on it or how confident they feel about it. Looking at someone's face and gestures and listening to the sound of their voice helps you interpret what they're saying. I think what we might find is that in our small groups of four there's a much better emotionally communicative process than in the large groups."
Chimpanzees in Budongo Forest in Uganda regularly employ leaves as 'napkins' to wipe their penis after sex, researchers discovered
The authors of a study called High Frequency of Postcoital Penis Cleaning in Budongo Chimpanzees do not beat about the bush. "We report on postcoital penis cleaning in chimpanzees," they write. "In penis cleaning, leaves are employed as 'napkins' to wipe clean the penis after sex. Alternatively, the same cleaning motion can be done without leaves, simply using the fingers. Not all chimpanzee communities studied across Africa clean their penes and, where documented, the behaviour is rare. By contrast, we identify postcoital penis cleaning in Budongo Forest, Uganda, as customary."
Sean O'Hara, a Durham University anthropologist (who has since moved to the University of Salford), and Phyllis Lee, a psychology professor at the University of Stirling, published their monograph in the journal Folia Primatologica, in 2006.
They list the few instances in which humans had documented the practice. Jane Goodall "mentions it in the Gombe chimpanzees, Tanzania, and leaf napkin use in Kibale forest, Uganda, is known ... and in 25 years of observation at Taï Forest, Côte d'Ivoire, 'leaf-wipe' has been recorded just once".
O'Hara and a field assistant named Monday Gideon did the Budongo detecting "between January and September 2003 and were able to verify 'cleaning' or 'not cleaning' for 116 copulations. Penis cleaning occurred in 34.5% of copulations (9.5% with leaf napkins and 25% without use of a tool)".
The team expresses wonder that this particular form of tool use varies so starkly in popularity. "For penis wiping to be common in some locations while rare or absent elsewhere presents a puzzle," they say.
They point out that many kinds of animals use one or another type of tool. They cite reports about New Caledonian crows, bottlenose dolphins, parasitoid wasps, capuchin monkeys, and other species. O'Hara and Lee explain that most of these tool-using practices are "cultural behaviours" – that is, learned from fellow dolphins, wasps, monkeys, or whatever.
What's especially notable here, they say, is that "few material cultural behaviours are conducted in asocial contexts ... Postcoital penis cleaning is one such activity. Although the copulatory act is, by definition, a social event encompassing more than one individual, the penis wiping that follows is solitary and self-directed".
They note the existence of hypotheses that the cleaning serves some important, particular function. The males do it to check for signs of sexually transmitted disease [STD], perhaps, or maybe to monitor some reproductive aspect of the females with whom they consort.
But O'Hara and Lee keep a disciplined focus on the main question: culture.
"Whatever the motivation or function", they write, "Budongo males appear more fastidious in penis hygiene than elsewhere. We found no proclivity for the use of specific leaf types; leaves appeared to be plucked non-systematically ... While the functional or STD context remains unclear, we suggest that using leaf napkins is a cultural trait in chimpanzees."
Thanks to Torbjörn Karfunkel for bringing this to my attention.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Chimpanzees in Budongo Forest in Uganda regularly employ leaves as 'napkins' to wipe their penis after sex, researchers discovered
The authors of a study called High Frequency of Postcoital Penis Cleaning in Budongo Chimpanzees do not beat about the bush. "We report on postcoital penis cleaning in chimpanzees," they write. "In penis cleaning, leaves are employed as 'napkins' to wipe clean the penis after sex. Alternatively, the same cleaning motion can be done without leaves, simply using the fingers. Not all chimpanzee communities studied across Africa clean their penes and, where documented, the behaviour is rare. By contrast, we identify postcoital penis cleaning in Budongo Forest, Uganda, as customary."
Sean O'Hara, a Durham University anthropologist (who has since moved to the University of Salford), and Phyllis Lee, a psychology professor at the University of Stirling, published their monograph in the journal Folia Primatologica, in 2006.
They list the few instances in which humans had documented the practice. Jane Goodall "mentions it in the Gombe chimpanzees, Tanzania, and leaf napkin use in Kibale forest, Uganda, is known ... and in 25 years of observation at Taï Forest, Côte d'Ivoire, 'leaf-wipe' has been recorded just once".
O'Hara and a field assistant named Monday Gideon did the Budongo detecting "between January and September 2003 and were able to verify 'cleaning' or 'not cleaning' for 116 copulations. Penis cleaning occurred in 34.5% of copulations (9.5% with leaf napkins and 25% without use of a tool)".
The team expresses wonder that this particular form of tool use varies so starkly in popularity. "For penis wiping to be common in some locations while rare or absent elsewhere presents a puzzle," they say.
They point out that many kinds of animals use one or another type of tool. They cite reports about New Caledonian crows, bottlenose dolphins, parasitoid wasps, capuchin monkeys, and other species. O'Hara and Lee explain that most of these tool-using practices are "cultural behaviours" – that is, learned from fellow dolphins, wasps, monkeys, or whatever.
What's especially notable here, they say, is that "few material cultural behaviours are conducted in asocial contexts ... Postcoital penis cleaning is one such activity. Although the copulatory act is, by definition, a social event encompassing more than one individual, the penis wiping that follows is solitary and self-directed".
They note the existence of hypotheses that the cleaning serves some important, particular function. The males do it to check for signs of sexually transmitted disease [STD], perhaps, or maybe to monitor some reproductive aspect of the females with whom they consort.
But O'Hara and Lee keep a disciplined focus on the main question: culture.
"Whatever the motivation or function", they write, "Budongo males appear more fastidious in penis hygiene than elsewhere. We found no proclivity for the use of specific leaf types; leaves appeared to be plucked non-systematically ... While the functional or STD context remains unclear, we suggest that using leaf napkins is a cultural trait in chimpanzees."
Thanks to Torbjörn Karfunkel for bringing this to my attention.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
Unlocking the descriptive information or metadata about digital content, articles, books and research is the key to making it more useful, according to the JISC-funded resource discovery taskforce as it embarks on a new programme of work.
If all UK metadata was made openly accessible, the taskforce says, then the resources themselves would be more visible and it would be easier to build innovative new ways for researchers, teachers and students to explore the resources.
Twelve national organisations have signed up to a new set of open metadata principles and now JISC is inviting all publicly funded organisations including universities, colleges, libraries, museums and archives to make the same commitment.
Signing up means that organisations are committed to supporting the principles and looking for opportunities to carry them out in whatever they do – whether this is building new ways to present unique collections or in contributing to national shared services for managing collections.
Rachel Bruce, innovation director of the digital infrastructure at JISC, said: “JISC advocates wide and easy access to resources for use in education and research. The new work programme called Discovery along with the open metadata principles underpin an approach that will help drive an innovative infrastructure and make sure that the UK’s future researchers and students can more effectively access and use content resources.”
She said: “We are already supporting the implementation of this open metadata approach within JISC services.”
The organisations that have already signed up are: British Library, BUFVC, Collections Trust, Digital Curation Centre, Edina, JISC, Mimas, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, Owen Stephens Consultancy, RIN, RLUK, Royal Holloway University of London, SCONUL, The National Archives, UKOLN, University College London, and University of Southampton.
David Prosser, executive director of RLUK, said:“Signing-up to the open metadata principles was an easy decision for RLUK. Resource discovery is a key element of our members' activities and we are hugely excited by the possibilities of wider access and the new, innovative discovery tools that will be built on open metadata.”
For more information or to sign up to the principles, contact Andy McGregor
via Jisc news
The archive includes rare shots of the nationalist leader of China Chiang Kai-Shek among photographs taken by the Chinese ambassador to the USSR during World War Two, Fu Bingchang.
Funded by JISC, the project is a collaboration between the Web Futures team at the University of Bristol’s Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) and the Historical Photographs of China (HPC) team within the Department of Historical Studies.
Paola Marchionni, programme manager at JISC, said: “Chinese studies is a growing area of research as the UK and others seek to establish stronger links with Asia. Visualising China is particularly innovative in allowing users to explore content drawn from different sources in a serendipitous way and leveraging crowdsourcing to enrich that content. Sophisticated resources like Visualising China will create opportunities for people across the world to carry out new research and contribute to our understanding of China’s past.”
The site offers researchers free open access to major online collections such as Historical Photographs of China (University of Bristol), the Sir Robert Hart Collection (Queen’s University, Belfast) and Joseph Needham’s Photographs of Wartime China (Needham Research Institute, Cambridge), as well as to previously unseen and private collections and a selected Google Books library of China-related publications.
Researchers may submit comments or annotations to the image entries, organise images on to their own workbenches, download low-resolution images, and explore the collections by word searches, date ranges, photographer, people depicted, maps and classification terms.
Robert Bickers, professor of history and director of HPC, said: "The resource brings Chinese history since the 1850s to life and informs our understanding of modern China. Likely users of the site include family history researchers and historians around the world, not least in China, where photographic documentation is not always easily available."
The Visualising China project grew out of five years of digitisation work undertaken by HPC in the Department of Historical Studies, culminating in one of the largest online collections of historical photographs of China, which is still growing.
Images come from a variety of sources – archival (e.g. School of Oriental and African Studies archive; the National Archives; British Steel Collection), commercial (e.g. John Swire and Sons Ltd), as well as privately-held collections, including family albums, prints and negatives, often somewhat neglected in attics and cupboards. The web site was built by ILRT, with additional support from the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Worldwide University Network and the University of Bristol.
Image copyright Peter Hibbard
via Jisc news
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The Policy Team faciltates the development of professional policy and related advocacy activities within CILIP. In so doing they work closely with members, especially the Special Interest Groups and Branches, drawing on their expertise and knowledge to develop CILIP policy and promote its implementation.
Specialist Task & Finish Groups are the main vehicle for developing policy, recent examples include:
The Policy Team manages the work of the Policy Forum and regularly reports into Council. The Unit produces an annual Advocacy Framework, setting out policy and advocacy priorities for the year, and co-ordinates advocacy across Ridgmount Street staff and the broader membership.
Advocacy is a priority area within the Council’s current Corporate Plan and there is an emphasis on the need to achieve a greater visibility for CILIP in this area and demonstrate the impact of its policy and advocacy activities. The Unit also supports and facilitates CILIP’s work on professional ethics and equalities, and produces the member only LIS in Politics blog.
Most areas of professional policy and advocacy work fall within the devolved functions of the UK Nations. Therefore CILIP in Scotland, CILIP Cymru/Wales and CILIP in Ireland undertake their own policy and advocacy activities within the individual contexts of those nations. Exceptions to this include areas such as intellectual property or data protection which are UK wide and therefore dealt with mainly through the Policy & Advocacy Unit.
The department is also the focus for CILIP’s international activity.
To discuss any aspects of CILIP’s policy and advocacy work please contact Guy Daines, Head of Policy.
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The Continuing Professional Development Team works with CILIP activists to provide one of the most supportive qualifications frameworks of all the professions. We work with and through networks of academics, assessors, trainers, advisers and mentors to ensure CILIP Members get the most out of their professional development and improve personal and service performance.
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Good schools, academies and rocket science
Last week Janet Murray spent a day at Marlowe Academy, now bottom of the GCSE league table
The government's new GCSE targets, when added to Ofsted's regime of being "tougher" on schools' raw results, regardless of pupil background, is scandalous (A day in the life of the 'worst' school, 28 June). Empirical research has demonstrated that league tables tell us everything about schools' social class composition and next to nothing about educational quality. The current "surveillance" regime is becoming even worse than under the darkest years of the previous government.
Dr Richard House
University of Roehampton
• If you assume that 50% of a standard cohort will achieve the "average" for that cohort (half above average, half below is a decent assumption), and the average child's average achievement is five decent GCSEs, that's fairly OK ... provided you have a standard cohort. If you cream off the top 30%, as in Kent, you are left with trying to get the remaining 20% of above-average children plus 15% of the below-average children to attain the results of the average to above-average child (50% of 70% is 35% of children overall – a year 8 maths problem). Even on a standard bell-curve distribution of children, none of whom are special needs, recent immigrants, or not-really-looked-after, that's a tough assignment. If Kent can get every school achieving Gove's 50% target, it will have produced a whole heap of children who are of below-average ability but get average to above-average results. That would be astonishing.
Jentho via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• I am starting as a teacher at the Marlowe academy in September and looking forward to it. Currently, I work at an outstanding school; I hold undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Russell group universities and I have been rated outstanding. I am a former research scientist (real job). I visited the Marlowe for the first time at Easter. I was impressed by the head, his team and students. The ethos seemed positive, a nice, calm, friendly school that cares about more than grades on paper. Teachers knew their students and took the time to interact with them. Many people believe intelligence is set at birth; that you either have it or you don't. This is nonsense; it is the positive values and challenge that the students receive at the Marlowe that will drive the school forward.
Virologist via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Your article about Holland Park comprehensive, ('We are not living in the 1970s any more', 28 June) is a miserly assessment of the path the school has been walking. In my role as head of The Key, a service that engages with more than 8,000 school leaders, I visit many schools. Holland Park has been one of the most impressive. Becoming an academy is a natural step for a school that had to grasp its own future when it had lost its way more than a decade ago.
Fergal Roche, London W1
Did the graduate who took the trouble to calculate the mass of rocket fuel needed to shift the Earth away from the Sun into a cooler orbit also consider the planet's current orbital speed around its star? Further out, the Earth would need to travel at a slower speed to stay in orbit; if its current speed were left unchanged, it would begin to spiral even further out. When the oxygen in our atmosphere begins to freeze out as blue snow, we would definitely have solved global warming, once and for all time.
Dr Hillary Shaw
Harper Adams University College
Newport, Shropshire
Good schools, academies and rocket science
Last week Janet Murray spent a day at Marlowe Academy, now bottom of the GCSE league table
The government's new GCSE targets, when added to Ofsted's regime of being "tougher" on schools' raw results, regardless of pupil background, is scandalous (A day in the life of the 'worst' school, 28 June). Empirical research has demonstrated that league tables tell us everything about schools' social class composition and next to nothing about educational quality. The current "surveillance" regime is becoming even worse than under the darkest years of the previous government.
Dr Richard House
University of Roehampton
• If you assume that 50% of a standard cohort will achieve the "average" for that cohort (half above average, half below is a decent assumption), and the average child's average achievement is five decent GCSEs, that's fairly OK ... provided you have a standard cohort. If you cream off the top 30%, as in Kent, you are left with trying to get the remaining 20% of above-average children plus 15% of the below-average children to attain the results of the average to above-average child (50% of 70% is 35% of children overall – a year 8 maths problem). Even on a standard bell-curve distribution of children, none of whom are special needs, recent immigrants, or not-really-looked-after, that's a tough assignment. If Kent can get every school achieving Gove's 50% target, it will have produced a whole heap of children who are of below-average ability but get average to above-average results. That would be astonishing.
Jentho via EducationGuardian.co.uk
• I am starting as a teacher at the Marlowe academy in September and looking forward to it. Currently, I work at an outstanding school; I hold undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Russell group universities and I have been rated outstanding. I am a former research scientist (real job). I visited the Marlowe for the first time at Easter. I was impressed by the head, his team and students. The ethos seemed positive, a nice, calm, friendly school that cares about more than grades on paper. Teachers knew their students and took the time to interact with them. Many people believe intelligence is set at birth; that you either have it or you don't. This is nonsense; it is the positive values and challenge that the students receive at the Marlowe that will drive the school forward.
Virologist via EducationGuardian.co.uk
Your article about Holland Park comprehensive, ('We are not living in the 1970s any more', 28 June) is a miserly assessment of the path the school has been walking. In my role as head of The Key, a service that engages with more than 8,000 school leaders, I visit many schools. Holland Park has been one of the most impressive. Becoming an academy is a natural step for a school that had to grasp its own future when it had lost its way more than a decade ago.
Fergal Roche, London W1
Did the graduate who took the trouble to calculate the mass of rocket fuel needed to shift the Earth away from the Sun into a cooler orbit also consider the planet's current orbital speed around its star? Further out, the Earth would need to travel at a slower speed to stay in orbit; if its current speed were left unchanged, it would begin to spiral even further out. When the oxygen in our atmosphere begins to freeze out as blue snow, we would definitely have solved global warming, once and for all time.
Dr Hillary Shaw
Harper Adams University College
Newport, Shropshire
This week on the Guardian Teacher Network there are resources based on the stories of men who survived prisoner-of-war camps in the Far East
By secondary school, most pupils will have heard of the concentration camps of the second world war. They will certainly know of the Holocaust, Anne Frank and what happened to children who were evacuated from London.
But what do they know of the British men who went to fight in the Far East and were captured and subjected to years of neglect, near-starvation, disease and slave labour? Probably very little. These men's stories have remained largely unheard – until now.
In a unique project Meg Parkes, a researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), has been recording the memories of 62 Far East prisoners of war (FEPoWs) to put on a website for secondary school pupils.
Of the 50,000 men who became Far East prisoners of war, only 37,500 were finally liberated from the labour camps. Many of those who returned in late 1945 became patients at LSTM.
The numbers of these men are now dwindling and many are in their 90s.
The stories of their imprisonment, forced labour and transportation remained repressed for many years after liberation, because many simply could not revisit such painful memories. But now they want their stories to be heard by future generations.
A selection of the interviews is available on the Guardian Teacher Network, our new resource website, for teachers to download and share with pupils.
They range from the tale of Fergus Anckhorn, who discovered how his magic tricks with a tin of fish or a banana became an essential tool in his battle to survive, to the compelling words of Cyril Jones who, injured and stranded in the jungle, was befriended by a monkey who showed him how to eat bamboo shoots – and stay alive.
Maurice Naylor, 90, was captured in Singapore. He says: "The war in the Far East tends to be overlooked, especially the thousands upon thousands of young men who, as PoWs, suffered and died from overwork, starvation and disease.
"When I was released, I didn't want to know; I pushed it to the back of my mind. I couldn't talk about it. I had nightmares. But I had to get on with my life."
When he retired, Maurice visited Thailand and saw his fellow soldiers' graves. He decided it was time to speak.
"At first it was difficult to talk. It set me back, dredging up old memories. But it is important – I want to do my bit. We all lost our youth there."
With the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, LSTM set up the website www.captivememories.org.uk to catalogue and provide some background to the men's interviews.
At Pensby high school for girls in The Wirral, year 7 girls were prompted to imagine they were animals witnessing the imprisonment of these men, and they came up with pieces of creative writing showing deep understanding of the prisoners' plight. Some of that creative writing has, in turn, become part of a booklet for Ness Botanic Gardens, which has a bamboo-themed garden designed in collaboration with the girls. Ness also has a free educational audio trail, also available on the Guardian Teacher Network. For more details see www.liv.ac.uk/nessgardens.
You can hear the prisoners of war tell their stories.
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This is being added to every day by teachers and specialists; 35,000 teachers have already registered. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are also nearly 2,000 jobs and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs. guardian.co.uk.
This week on the Guardian Teacher Network there are resources based on the stories of men who survived prisoner-of-war camps in the Far East
By secondary school, most pupils will have heard of the concentration camps of the second world war. They will certainly know of the Holocaust, Anne Frank and what happened to children who were evacuated from London.
But what do they know of the British men who went to fight in the Far East and were captured and subjected to years of neglect, near-starvation, disease and slave labour? Probably very little. These men's stories have remained largely unheard – until now.
In a unique project Meg Parkes, a researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), has been recording the memories of 62 Far East prisoners of war (FEPoWs) to put on a website for secondary school pupils.
Of the 50,000 men who became Far East prisoners of war, only 37,500 were finally liberated from the labour camps. Many of those who returned in late 1945 became patients at LSTM.
The numbers of these men are now dwindling and many are in their 90s.
The stories of their imprisonment, forced labour and transportation remained repressed for many years after liberation, because many simply could not revisit such painful memories. But now they want their stories to be heard by future generations.
A selection of the interviews is available on the Guardian Teacher Network, our new resource website, for teachers to download and share with pupils.
They range from the tale of Fergus Anckhorn, who discovered how his magic tricks with a tin of fish or a banana became an essential tool in his battle to survive, to the compelling words of Cyril Jones who, injured and stranded in the jungle, was befriended by a monkey who showed him how to eat bamboo shoots – and stay alive.
Maurice Naylor, 90, was captured in Singapore. He says: "The war in the Far East tends to be overlooked, especially the thousands upon thousands of young men who, as PoWs, suffered and died from overwork, starvation and disease.
"When I was released, I didn't want to know; I pushed it to the back of my mind. I couldn't talk about it. I had nightmares. But I had to get on with my life."
When he retired, Maurice visited Thailand and saw his fellow soldiers' graves. He decided it was time to speak.
"At first it was difficult to talk. It set me back, dredging up old memories. But it is important – I want to do my bit. We all lost our youth there."
With the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, LSTM set up the website www.captivememories.org.uk to catalogue and provide some background to the men's interviews.
At Pensby high school for girls in The Wirral, year 7 girls were prompted to imagine they were animals witnessing the imprisonment of these men, and they came up with pieces of creative writing showing deep understanding of the prisoners' plight. Some of that creative writing has, in turn, become part of a booklet for Ness Botanic Gardens, which has a bamboo-themed garden designed in collaboration with the girls. Ness also has a free educational audio trail, also available on the Guardian Teacher Network. For more details see www.liv.ac.uk/nessgardens.
You can hear the prisoners of war tell their stories.
• The Guardian Teacher Network offers more than 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This is being added to every day by teachers and specialists; 35,000 teachers have already registered. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk. There are also nearly 2,000 jobs and schools can advertise free: schoolsjobs. guardian.co.uk.
A week after the white paper, its implications for students and for universities are sinking in
'Places will be taken away and given to private providers'
Bahram Bekhradnia, director, Higher Education Policy Institute
I had thought that the 20,000 places a year being auctioned would increase only if the government continued to find itself over-budget. But clearly they will increase steadily as a matter of policy. What is going on is that these are the numbers that will be made available to private providers. Unless total student numbers are increased, then places are going to be taken away from public universities and given to private universities. I am in favour of private universities, but not at the expense of public.
Nevertheless, it is good that private universities will have to be subject to the same information and accountability requirements if they are to access public funds.
Students will benefit from the better information that universities are being required to provide.
However, mid-ranking Russell Group and 94 Group universities will come off worse, as will most public universities and some students.
Vulnerable institutions will be those unable to hold on to their A-grade students because of increased competition. There will be an unseemly scrap among Russell and 94 Group universities for these students, with increasingly generous inducements to students. These inducements may be worth much more than what they gain in terms of funding, but it will partly be driven by positioning. There will be losers among what are inaccurately called the "top" universities, some of which are fairly mediocre, but which attract top students because of historic reputations.
But all public universities will lose as they have numbers steadily removed from their core and they are forced either to bid for them cheaply or lose them to private universities.
And students will be losers as they will have to repay fees three times greater than at present.
'It's terribly unfair on the widening participation agenda'
Claire Callender, professor of higher education, Birkbeck and Institute of Education
The winners potentially are FE colleges. But there's a big question over the extent to which they can produce higher-quality undergraduate degrees for students. In the National Student Survey, one enormous difference between students at FE colleges and those at HE institutions is that they are far less content with things such as library facilities. Historically, higher education hasn't been the main business of FE colleges, so they aren't necessarily as well equipped as HE institutions.
Social mobility will be hit though, and students who don't understand that statistics on graduate salaries and employability can be misleading.
We have to remember that the white paper is not offering more student places; it is just re-allocating the existing places to certain types of HE institutions, and in the process it will polarise the HE sector. So some applicants still will not get a place at university, even if they are qualified. And these are most likely to be "non-traditional" students.
The white paper re-iterates the importance of the fair access agenda. But the new policy of reserved places for students with AAB grades at A-level undermines the policies used by universities to meet this agenda. Some universities offer lower A-level entry grades to bright students with potential who come from areas or schools with low higher educ ation participation. How will such students fare under this new regime?
The AAB policy also presupposes that entrants to universities come in with A-levels. In fact, the biggest growth in applications and enrolments recently has been among those with no Ucas points. It's terribly unfair on the widening participation agenda because those with qualifications not recognised for whatever reason by Ucas, or seriously bright people returning to university with professional or other experience, for example, won't get in under the AAB criteria.
It's fantastic that students are being given more information, but it is well recognised that data on employment six months after graduation is very unreliable. It takes time for graduates to get into jobs that will become their long-term careers. For example, the average salaries for graduates after six months are nearly identical at two particular universities in London – one a post-92, the other a pre-92 university. Both have completely different academic reputations, but salaries are similar because the post-92 university has a huge number of part-time students and older students who already have jobs. How is a young person going to interpret the difference in salaries unless they understand what contributes to different levels of pay on graduation? Also, there is tremendous inequality in terms of access to information between students from private and more clued-up schools, and others.
'Those who are complacent will lose out'
Carl Lygo, chief executive, BPP Holdings and principal of BPP University College of Professional Studies
Those who believe in stronger consumer rights are the winners from this white paper. There is nothing in the paper that's new, but the consumer protection angle is stronger than I thought it would be, which is welcome.
I'm pretty sure the "flexible margin" of places at universities charging an average fee of £7,500 or less will go to existing providers. I'm not entirely sure that private providers will be sucking up those numbers, and I'm certainly not planning the future of BPP around competition for these 20,000 places. If Offa is taking account of discounts in the fees that average students are going to pay, there will be a lot of universities charging close to £7,500 and a lot that can compete.
Some universities are going to expand – I don't buy this idea that so-called good universities won't want to increase in size. That's not what I've heard.
But those who are complacent, inflexible and don't see the need to change won't fare well at all.
If there is a contest for 85,000 places each year, there are going to be winners and losers. Some are going to expand and some contract, and it will depend how well they can cope with contraction. If they have an inflexible cost base and if they are complacent, they will lose out.
My overall verdict is that four out of five for a masterful piece of political manoeuvring, because there is nothing we didn't know beforehand and all of the contentious issues have been sent out for further consultation.
"There's going to be more choice for students'
Michele Sutton, principal and chief executive, Bradford College
Students, further education colleges and private providers all stand to gain from the white paper.
The biggest winners are students, because there's going to be more choice, potentially better quality of provision and more student input.
There will be opportunities for us, too, and for private providers.
Losers: institutions charging more than £7,500, but making low grade offers.
I would give the paper four out of five, but the devil is in the detail.
'It makes admissions much more complex'
Matthew Andrews, academic registrar, Oxford Brookes University and chair of Admissions Practitioner Group
Some arts and humanities courses may benefit from the measures in the paper. It potentially allows universities to increase recruitment to arts and humanities subjects on a funded basis. Those areas haven't been funded through previous allocations of additional student numbers, which have focused on science and employer-funded courses. But we aren't talking large numbers.
But clarity will be one of the losers. It makes admissions much more complex, because it will need to be placed in the context of what the different student number controls are going to be. It also looks muddled. Universities are being told they can have as many AAB students as they want, but we know that more of those students are not going to be from poorer backgrounds, so the more we take, the worse we will do on widening participation.
I think an opportunity has been lost, however, to implement real reforms. It is more about continuing previous activities, which might be a response to the reaction over increased tuition fees. That was the big change.
'Those taking widening participation students are screwed'
Roger Brown, co-director for the Centre of Higher Education Research Development at Liverpool Hope University
The Russell Group have got everything they wanted, if you look at their submission to the Browne report. They are the very clear beneficiaries. Nine thousand pounds is about the highest amount anywhere outside America that anyone spends on HE, and they are not being held to the widening participation benchmarks given to them by Hefce [the Higher Education Funding Council for England]. They are going to be very well off, and may even benefit from the crackpot idea that certain institutions will have light-touch inspection based on past track record.
Those institutions that take the most students from non-traditional backgrounds in a bid to widen access will be the losers here.
The government wants to screw down the unit of resource for teaching and that will mean the majority of institutions taking widening participation students are going to find themselves screwed, too. The whole thing is an unconvincing mixture of ideology and pragmatism. These institutions are mostly in London or in conurbations of the north-west or north-east, and those are areas suffering anyway. Now they are going to find themselves very heavily squeezed.
education.letters@guardian.co.uk
A week after the white paper, its implications for students and for universities are sinking in
'Places will be taken away and given to private providers'
Bahram Bekhradnia, director, Higher Education Policy Institute
I had thought that the 20,000 places a year being auctioned would increase only if the government continued to find itself over-budget. But clearly they will increase steadily as a matter of policy. What is going on is that these are the numbers that will be made available to private providers. Unless total student numbers are increased, then places are going to be taken away from public universities and given to private universities. I am in favour of private universities, but not at the expense of public.
Nevertheless, it is good that private universities will have to be subject to the same information and accountability requirements if they are to access public funds.
Students will benefit from the better information that universities are being required to provide.
However, mid-ranking Russell Group and 94 Group universities will come off worse, as will most public universities and some students.
Vulnerable institutions will be those unable to hold on to their A-grade students because of increased competition. There will be an unseemly scrap among Russell and 94 Group universities for these students, with increasingly generous inducements to students. These inducements may be worth much more than what they gain in terms of funding, but it will partly be driven by positioning. There will be losers among what are inaccurately called the "top" universities, some of which are fairly mediocre, but which attract top students because of historic reputations.
But all public universities will lose as they have numbers steadily removed from their core and they are forced either to bid for them cheaply or lose them to private universities.
And students will be losers as they will have to repay fees three times greater than at present.
'It's terribly unfair on the widening participation agenda'
Claire Callender, professor of higher education, Birkbeck and Institute of Education
The winners potentially are FE colleges. But there's a big question over the extent to which they can produce higher-quality undergraduate degrees for students. In the National Student Survey, one enormous difference between students at FE colleges and those at HE institutions is that they are far less content with things such as library facilities. Historically, higher education hasn't been the main business of FE colleges, so they aren't necessarily as well equipped as HE institutions.
Social mobility will be hit though, and students who don't understand that statistics on graduate salaries and employability can be misleading.
We have to remember that the white paper is not offering more student places; it is just re-allocating the existing places to certain types of HE institutions, and in the process it will polarise the HE sector. So some applicants still will not get a place at university, even if they are qualified. And these are most likely to be "non-traditional" students.
The white paper re-iterates the importance of the fair access agenda. But the new policy of reserved places for students with AAB grades at A-level undermines the policies used by universities to meet this agenda. Some universities offer lower A-level entry grades to bright students with potential who come from areas or schools with low higher educ ation participation. How will such students fare under this new regime?
The AAB policy also presupposes that entrants to universities come in with A-levels. In fact, the biggest growth in applications and enrolments recently has been among those with no Ucas points. It's terribly unfair on the widening participation agenda because those with qualifications not recognised for whatever reason by Ucas, or seriously bright people returning to university with professional or other experience, for example, won't get in under the AAB criteria.
It's fantastic that students are being given more information, but it is well recognised that data on employment six months after graduation is very unreliable. It takes time for graduates to get into jobs that will become their long-term careers. For example, the average salaries for graduates after six months are nearly identical at two particular universities in London – one a post-92, the other a pre-92 university. Both have completely different academic reputations, but salaries are similar because the post-92 university has a huge number of part-time students and older students who already have jobs. How is a young person going to interpret the difference in salaries unless they understand what contributes to different levels of pay on graduation? Also, there is tremendous inequality in terms of access to information between students from private and more clued-up schools, and others.
'Those who are complacent will lose out'
Carl Lygo, chief executive, BPP Holdings and principal of BPP University College of Professional Studies
Those who believe in stronger consumer rights are the winners from this white paper. There is nothing in the paper that's new, but the consumer protection angle is stronger than I thought it would be, which is welcome.
I'm pretty sure the "flexible margin" of places at universities charging an average fee of £7,500 or less will go to existing providers. I'm not entirely sure that private providers will be sucking up those numbers, and I'm certainly not planning the future of BPP around competition for these 20,000 places. If Offa is taking account of discounts in the fees that average students are going to pay, there will be a lot of universities charging close to £7,500 and a lot that can compete.
Some universities are going to expand – I don't buy this idea that so-called good universities won't want to increase in size. That's not what I've heard.
But those who are complacent, inflexible and don't see the need to change won't fare well at all.
If there is a contest for 85,000 places each year, there are going to be winners and losers. Some are going to expand and some contract, and it will depend how well they can cope with contraction. If they have an inflexible cost base and if they are complacent, they will lose out.
My overall verdict is that four out of five for a masterful piece of political manoeuvring, because there is nothing we didn't know beforehand and all of the contentious issues have been sent out for further consultation.
"There's going to be more choice for students'
Michele Sutton, principal and chief executive, Bradford College
Students, further education colleges and private providers all stand to gain from the white paper.
The biggest winners are students, because there's going to be more choice, potentially better quality of provision and more student input.
There will be opportunities for us, too, and for private providers.
Losers: institutions charging more than £7,500, but making low grade offers.
I would give the paper four out of five, but the devil is in the detail.
'It makes admissions much more complex'
Matthew Andrews, academic registrar, Oxford Brookes University and chair of Admissions Practitioner Group
Some arts and humanities courses may benefit from the measures in the paper. It potentially allows universities to increase recruitment to arts and humanities subjects on a funded basis. Those areas haven't been funded through previous allocations of additional student numbers, which have focused on science and employer-funded courses. But we aren't talking large numbers.
But clarity will be one of the losers. It makes admissions much more complex, because it will need to be placed in the context of what the different student number controls are going to be. It also looks muddled. Universities are being told they can have as many AAB students as they want, but we know that more of those students are not going to be from poorer backgrounds, so the more we take, the worse we will do on widening participation.
I think an opportunity has been lost, however, to implement real reforms. It is more about continuing previous activities, which might be a response to the reaction over increased tuition fees. That was the big change.
'Those taking widening participation students are screwed'
Roger Brown, co-director for the Centre of Higher Education Research Development at Liverpool Hope University
The Russell Group have got everything they wanted, if you look at their submission to the Browne report. They are the very clear beneficiaries. Nine thousand pounds is about the highest amount anywhere outside America that anyone spends on HE, and they are not being held to the widening participation benchmarks given to them by Hefce [the Higher Education Funding Council for England]. They are going to be very well off, and may even benefit from the crackpot idea that certain institutions will have light-touch inspection based on past track record.
Those institutions that take the most students from non-traditional backgrounds in a bid to widen access will be the losers here.
The government wants to screw down the unit of resource for teaching and that will mean the majority of institutions taking widening participation students are going to find themselves screwed, too. The whole thing is an unconvincing mixture of ideology and pragmatism. These institutions are mostly in London or in conurbations of the north-west or north-east, and those are areas suffering anyway. Now they are going to find themselves very heavily squeezed.
education.letters@guardian.co.uk
A vocational version of the International Baccalaureate is being trialled, but there are fears for its prospects
The International Baccalaureate has traditionally been seen as an elite qualification taken by brainy students at independent or selective sixth forms. But a new "vocational bacc" could be about to change that.
The IB Career-Related Certificate (IBCC) currently being trialled in a number of UK schools combines the academic rigour of the IB with vocational study.
Over a two-year period, IB students take six subjects (including a language), a philosophy-based course and 60 hours of community service. Students doing the new "pick and mix" IBCC qualification take a minimum of two IB subjects, a vocational qualification (such as a BTec or Applied A-level – a more practical, work-based qualification) and a number of "core" programmes that include community service and critical thinking skills. IBCC students also have to study a language, although this could be basic conversation skills or GCSE standard.
The idea behind the new qualification is to increase access to the IB, which is generally seen as more demanding than A-levels. "There are many students who are academically able, but for a variety of reasons – for example, confidence or organisational skills – are not able to manage six full IB courses," says Theresa Forbes, IB head of regional development for Africa, Europe and the Middle East. "It's still a very challenging course, but this makes it far more accessible."
She also points out that the IBCC is a good fit with the recent Wolf review of vocational education, which placed a strong emphasis on the value of maintaining academic rigour in post-16 study.
It is a bold step for the International Baccalaureate Organisation, the not-for-profit education foundation behind both the IB and the new IBCC, which has never included non-IB qualifications such as BTecs or Applied A-levels in any of its programmes.
The Anglo-European school in Ingatestone, Essex was the first state school to offer the IB back in 1977 and the first to offer the IBCC. "We felt it was a great opportunity to open up the programme to a wider range of students," says the headteacher, David Barrs. "The idea of this traditional, august body offering this kind of qualification is quite exciting." The school has 10 students about to complete their first year of the programme and hopes to double this number for the second cohort, due to start in September.
Before schools can offer the IB, they have to be authorised as an "IB world school". This means being vetted by the IBO, a process that can take up to three years. After that, they are inspected on a regular basis.
But three of the Kent schools piloting the new qualification – King Ethelbert school in Broadstairs, Hartsdown Technology school in Margate and Northfleet school for girls near Gravesend – are high schools in an area where the highest-achieving students are "creamed off" to go to grammar schools at 11, meaning they are unlikely ever to offer the IB. So by offering this to those that are not IB world schools, the IBO is really breaking new ground.
But it has been a contentious issue for some, says Paul Luxmoore, headteacher of Dane Court Grammar school in Broadstairs, which is also involved in the pilot. "There have been fears – which have largely been overcome – that the new qualification could dilute the IB brand," he says.
The requirement to study a language – which underpins the IB's mission to develop socially skilled young people who see themselves as global citizens – is another thorny issue. Expecting IBCC students to take an IB-level course in a language could, potentially, alienate students, says Luxmoore. "Some students arrive in the sixth form having been at a school where there isn't a requirement to take a language at GCSE at all, so if you made an IB language a requirement, I think the IBCC would quickly be dead in the water."
Michael Going has just finished his first year of the IBCC at the Anglo-European school. He is combining IB courses in history and Spanish with an A-level in sociology and an Applied A-level in travel and tourism. While the IB suits high flyers, until now there has not been an attractive alternative for students who are "good, but not brilliantly academically," he says.
Before starting the IBCC course, Going didn't really see himself as academic, but the "core" components of the course – approaches to learning, community service and a reflective project – have helped to develop his critical thinking skills. He is now hoping to apply for a degree course in economics and global development.
But is there a danger that this qualification could be seen as a second-rate IB? Absolutely not, says Forbes. "It's still a very challenging course, but we see it as an alternative pathway, which retains the breadth and rigour of the IB and prepares students – in the broader sense – for university."
Forbes says that universities have been largely positive about the new qualification. Because most of the different components of the IBCC (for example IB diplomas or BTecs) already have a Ucas tariff attached to them, students should have no problem securing a place at university. But as Amanda Lee, head of 14-19 education at Hartsdown Technology College, points out, because the students are generally taking a combination of subjects that attract fewer Ucas points, "they are less likely to be accepted by Russell Group universities".
But cuts to sixth-form funding could threaten the new IBCC before it even gets going, warns Luxmoore. Funding for the IB has been capped at the equivalent of four and a half A-levels per student, but schools say the IB is equivalent to more than six A-levels in terms of staffing and resources. To make matters worse, the government has also slashed entitlement funding (which covers the cost of pastoral care, tutorials and extracurricular activities for 16- to 19-year-olds) from 114 to 30 hours per student. Sixth forms offering the IB have typically relied on this cash to fund the community service strand of the qualification.
In the UK, 139 state schools offer the IB, but with many wondering how they will make up the funding shortfall, heads are concerned that it could once again become the preserve of independent schools. If that happens, the future for the IBCC could be gloomy, too, says Luxmoore. "The majority of schools offering it are those already offering the IB, so with that under threat, there's a real danger it will never get off the ground."
A vocational version of the International Baccalaureate is being trialled, but there are fears for its prospects
The International Baccalaureate has traditionally been seen as an elite qualification taken by brainy students at independent or selective sixth forms. But a new "vocational bacc" could be about to change that.
The IB Career-Related Certificate (IBCC) currently being trialled in a number of UK schools combines the academic rigour of the IB with vocational study.
Over a two-year period, IB students take six subjects (including a language), a philosophy-based course and 60 hours of community service. Students doing the new "pick and mix" IBCC qualification take a minimum of two IB subjects, a vocational qualification (such as a BTec or Applied A-level – a more practical, work-based qualification) and a number of "core" programmes that include community service and critical thinking skills. IBCC students also have to study a language, although this could be basic conversation skills or GCSE standard.
The idea behind the new qualification is to increase access to the IB, which is generally seen as more demanding than A-levels. "There are many students who are academically able, but for a variety of reasons – for example, confidence or organisational skills – are not able to manage six full IB courses," says Theresa Forbes, IB head of regional development for Africa, Europe and the Middle East. "It's still a very challenging course, but this makes it far more accessible."
She also points out that the IBCC is a good fit with the recent Wolf review of vocational education, which placed a strong emphasis on the value of maintaining academic rigour in post-16 study.
It is a bold step for the International Baccalaureate Organisation, the not-for-profit education foundation behind both the IB and the new IBCC, which has never included non-IB qualifications such as BTecs or Applied A-levels in any of its programmes.
The Anglo-European school in Ingatestone, Essex was the first state school to offer the IB back in 1977 and the first to offer the IBCC. "We felt it was a great opportunity to open up the programme to a wider range of students," says the headteacher, David Barrs. "The idea of this traditional, august body offering this kind of qualification is quite exciting." The school has 10 students about to complete their first year of the programme and hopes to double this number for the second cohort, due to start in September.
Before schools can offer the IB, they have to be authorised as an "IB world school". This means being vetted by the IBO, a process that can take up to three years. After that, they are inspected on a regular basis.
But three of the Kent schools piloting the new qualification – King Ethelbert school in Broadstairs, Hartsdown Technology school in Margate and Northfleet school for girls near Gravesend – are high schools in an area where the highest-achieving students are "creamed off" to go to grammar schools at 11, meaning they are unlikely ever to offer the IB. So by offering this to those that are not IB world schools, the IBO is really breaking new ground.
But it has been a contentious issue for some, says Paul Luxmoore, headteacher of Dane Court Grammar school in Broadstairs, which is also involved in the pilot. "There have been fears – which have largely been overcome – that the new qualification could dilute the IB brand," he says.
The requirement to study a language – which underpins the IB's mission to develop socially skilled young people who see themselves as global citizens – is another thorny issue. Expecting IBCC students to take an IB-level course in a language could, potentially, alienate students, says Luxmoore. "Some students arrive in the sixth form having been at a school where there isn't a requirement to take a language at GCSE at all, so if you made an IB language a requirement, I think the IBCC would quickly be dead in the water."
Michael Going has just finished his first year of the IBCC at the Anglo-European school. He is combining IB courses in history and Spanish with an A-level in sociology and an Applied A-level in travel and tourism. While the IB suits high flyers, until now there has not been an attractive alternative for students who are "good, but not brilliantly academically," he says.
Before starting the IBCC course, Going didn't really see himself as academic, but the "core" components of the course – approaches to learning, community service and a reflective project – have helped to develop his critical thinking skills. He is now hoping to apply for a degree course in economics and global development.
But is there a danger that this qualification could be seen as a second-rate IB? Absolutely not, says Forbes. "It's still a very challenging course, but we see it as an alternative pathway, which retains the breadth and rigour of the IB and prepares students – in the broader sense – for university."
Forbes says that universities have been largely positive about the new qualification. Because most of the different components of the IBCC (for example IB diplomas or BTecs) already have a Ucas tariff attached to them, students should have no problem securing a place at university. But as Amanda Lee, head of 14-19 education at Hartsdown Technology College, points out, because the students are generally taking a combination of subjects that attract fewer Ucas points, "they are less likely to be accepted by Russell Group universities".
But cuts to sixth-form funding could threaten the new IBCC before it even gets going, warns Luxmoore. Funding for the IB has been capped at the equivalent of four and a half A-levels per student, but schools say the IB is equivalent to more than six A-levels in terms of staffing and resources. To make matters worse, the government has also slashed entitlement funding (which covers the cost of pastoral care, tutorials and extracurricular activities for 16- to 19-year-olds) from 114 to 30 hours per student. Sixth forms offering the IB have typically relied on this cash to fund the community service strand of the qualification.
In the UK, 139 state schools offer the IB, but with many wondering how they will make up the funding shortfall, heads are concerned that it could once again become the preserve of independent schools. If that happens, the future for the IBCC could be gloomy, too, says Luxmoore. "The majority of schools offering it are those already offering the IB, so with that under threat, there's a real danger it will never get off the ground."