Labour Party Conference, Manchester

Monday 27th September

The Fabian Society, in partnership with the Institute of Education, held a policy roundtable at the 2010 Labour Party Conference that examined what effect ‘free schools’ and the extension of academy status for well performing schools will have on the wider state led education system.

Our panel of speakers included David Blunkett, MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough and former Secretary of State for Education, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, and Lucy Heller, Managing Director of ARK Schools, which runs city academies. The event was chaired by Geoff Whitty, Director of the Institute of Education.

The focus of the discussion centered on the Coalition Government’s new education proposals, which appear to offer a degree of autonomy that may be considered incompatible with the notion of a state education system. But in order to understand this new direction, it was important to analyse the previous Government’s record. Certain achievements were defended, for instance the Sure Start programme and the decision to include Maths and English GCSEs in the assessment of schools. Other elements of the record were criticised: for instance, there was a string of different Secretaries of State for Education between 2001 and 2007, which led to a lack of consistency and stability, and the introduction of too many policies which failed to reflect the needs of children in education.

A distinction was made between Labour’s academies and the current Government’s proposed new academies: it was noted that a framework which allows the most successful schools to be taken out of the system is not supportive of the notion of a comprehensive, holistic approach to education.

More generally, the role of local authorities, which are excluded from running academies, was a focus point for discussion. Some participants made a spirited defence of the importance of having a local authority responsible for the schools in its area, on the grounds of accountability and local democracy. But others disputed this position, claiming that many local authorities have not been good enough at running schools, and this problem has to be confronted. There was also disagreement over the degree to which local authorities have responsibility for schools, and one contributor suggested that the precise role of local authorities had become confused and needed to be defined more clearly.

The Government’s new proposal for 'free schools' was discussed, particularly with reference to arguments about the role of local authorities. One participant suggested that the benefits of local knowledge and of schools being embedded in the local community do not have to arise from the local authority’s control of the school. In fact, free schools will provide these benefits. Another participant took issue with the fact that similar schemes in Sweden and the United States had demonstrated serious problems, and claimed that the Government should not be pouring money into an untested scheme. It was also pointed out that the presumed diversity of free schools and other localist schemes would make research into the outcomes of these schemes extremely difficult, given the lack of measurable common standards across the board.

There was general agreement that the concept of a state education system had to be re-addressed in light of the fundamental changes that have taken place and that are implied by the new government’s agenda. One contributor called for fine-grained work on governance to establish what works best in what situations. Another suggested that it is teachers, and not governance, that is the most important element of education. 

This event was kindly supported by IOE